Erin and Jon Corwin - Part 1

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage, some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill, Hey Tina, Hey Rich, Hey listeners, how are you? I'm good? How are you good? How's everybody doing out there? You can't answer me? Trying to involve our listeners in the experience. But you know, I heard a couple, did you. So it's a little stormy out there today. Yeah, it's been kind of gloomy here. It has, but literally there's a thunderstorm on its way. I might hear a rumble of thunder in the background. It's a little hot and sticky too.

0:52 And I know you've probably never noticed this before, but every time we podcast, I pretty much wear the same thing. I didn't know, you know, I have like I'm not very observed, you know, like it's game day. I have lucky pants, and my lucky pants are not really my lucky pants, but my comfortable pants are my viewory joggers. So yeah, but I'm not wearing them today because I'm really hot. So I'm wearing shorts. If anyone has been on the fence about buying the Vory Joggers my favorite. They're pricy, They're really pricey. We're not going to go We're not going to tell you how much they are, Okay, but I don't know. They are my favorite pants, although I found a pair of on Amazon that are like, Amazon does a lot of I don't want to say ripoffs, but they have a lot of knockoffs, I guess of other famous brands.

1:40 So if you go to Amazon and you put in like your favorite Lulu Lemon leggings or Theory jog joggers, a lot of times they'll have a knockoff. And the knockoffs were pretty nice too. That's a good tip. Yes, you're welcome. I'm wearing purple today. Did you notice that? I mean I have eyes? So, yes I did. It's not purple, it's lavenders. So it's the closest I had to purple. My other purple shirt is in the in the laundry. So but I'm wearing, well, that is fusha. The other shirt that you got some stains on, very cute. You're like, probably from what can we do about this? Probably from eating barbecue or something. But I'm wearing purple because it actually pertains to the case today. Oh it's about Barney. No, tinky winky. Purple became the color that symbolized are the victim that we're going to talk about today?

2:27 She have lupus. No, okay, well, lupus purple is the couple the color for lupas awareness. I did not know that. Yeah, okay, Well, I've got a snack other than this cup of tea I have not eaten yet today. And it's what two thirty, No, it's it's not even two okay. Oh man, Well here I've prepared this delicacy. I'm excited for you. Holy moly, what is that charcoutery? Though? What the heck? Oh, it's three different things. So, so the case today it involves the Marines, and I like to try to spy if I can. I like to make the snack relevant to the case.

3:12 And I was trying to think, well, what do marines, what do they eat? And when they're out on duty and they're out in the field, they have to have, you know, food that can can be preserved. So I bought two energy bars. One they're both the brand is r X bar. One has peanut butter and chocolate, and one is just peanut butter. So protein bars okay, and then beef jerky. Apparently Marines really like their beef jerky because again you can carry it out in the field in the desert or whatever. So I bought and everyone like brief jerky. Yeah, Deerborn Brand Classic Hunters Sausage. Deerborn Brand is a Michigan based brand. I bought it. And what about these apples? Well, my case also involves horses, and I know horses like apples, so I'm just like a horse. You like, we all like apples. Everybody loves apples. So your episode that you're about to present, it's probably going to be two parts it probably so should I ration this? No, you should probably rash in that. Okay, this I know. Dearborn Brand is a Michigan It's kind of smells, it's kind of gross's kind it's kind of slimy. Yeah, but I can't wait to dig in. Yeah, let's take a quick break and try our snacks. We'll be right back. What do you think of that smorgash board of snacks? Well, first, I would like to compliment you on your presentation because it's put a little toothpicks in it. It's it's very it's very fancy. I'm not the biggest bar person. I don't.

4:46 I don't really eat even granola bars. I but energy bars. I'm not a huge fan of our protein bars. Well they weren't horrible, because I really I really like cliff bars a lot, and I used to like power bars a lot. But these they only have like three ingredients dates, peanuts, and egg whites. Yeah, so they're healthy, but they're grainy. I think that's what I didn't like. Yeah, I didn't love the texture that the apple was good, and I actually really despite the smell, I thought the sausage was really it was tasty flavor, slightly slimy, but pretty sliminess. But I didn't touch it. I just popped it in my mouth. Well, thank you for the snacks. You're welcome. It will be working on getting the protein bar out of my teeth while you present this episode, all right. Today's episode is about Aaron Corwyn, who was just two weeks shy of her twentieth birthday and four weeks pregnant when she vanished on June twenty eight, twenty fourteen. She lived with her husband Marine Corporal John Corwyn in twenty nine Palms, California. Twenty nine Palms is a small city about twenty five thousand people, one hundred and fifty miles east of Los Angeles.

5:51 Twenty nine Palms is known for two things. It's the home of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, which is the largest US Marine Corps base, and it's also the gateway to Joshua Tree National Park. Joshua Tree is part of the Mojave Desert, which is a massive area covering thirty one thousand miles. The young couple had been having some problems, which we'll get into. Aaron had told John that she needed some quote me time. Aaron's mom was planning to visit soon from Tennessee, and so Aaron said she was going to take the day on the twenty eighth, which was a Saturday, to drive out to Joshua Tree and scout out some locations where she might want to take her mom. Have a question, how old is John? I think he's like twenty one or two, so they're both very young, very young.

6:38 Aaron woke up at dawn on the twenty eighth and got ready to go. She made a quick call to her best friend Jesse, back in Tennessee, and then she gave John, who was still in bed, a kiss goodbye. She said, I'm heading out for the day, John, I love you. She said she'd be back by four that afternoon. John said love you too. When she still wasn't home by sunset, John was worried. By midnight, he was freaking out. The next morning, he called the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department to report her missing, setting off a massive search and rescue effort and investigation. But before we get deeper into all that, let's talk about Aaron's background. Aaron was born on July fifteenth, nineteen ninety four, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. At two weeks old, her birth mother decided that she wasn't able to care for the newborn baby, and she made the difficult decision to put her up for adoption. She ended up in foster care with Lore and Bill Hevelyn. At two weeks old, she was in foster care. Yeah, and Lore. It's spelled l l O r E.

7:42 I thought it was Laurie, but apparently it's Lore. She and Bill Heavilyn. They lived in Oakridge, Tennessee, which is a city not far from Knoxville. In nineteen seventy eight, Lare gave birth to a daughter, Christy, and then two years later to a son, Keith. When Christy was in second grade and Keith in kindergarten, Laura and Bill believed that God spoke to them and said that they should become foster parents. Laura's own parents had fostered several children when she was growing up, and it had a big impact on her. They fostered several children, mostly newborns, for various periods of time until the birth parents either decided to keep them or to give them up for permanent adoption. In nineteen eighty nine, they fostered a three year old boy named Alex who had fetal alcohol syndrome and decided to adopt him permanently.

8:31 At the same time, they adopted Alex's older brother, John, who was nine at the time living in a group home and he had ADHD and other behavioral problems. A couple of years later, they took in a fifteen year old girl named Taylor with the intent of adopting her as well, and then in nineteen ninety four they took in Erin as a foster child initially, but they knew right away that she was meant to be a permanent addition to their family, and so they ended up adopting her as well. So at this point they had six kids, two sixteen year old girls, two fourteen year old boys, one with special needs, an eight year old boy with special needs, and then baby Aaron. When Aaron was five, they adopted a twenty month twenty one month old girl named Tricia, who had been born with multiple birth defects, including spina bifida. She had a lot of medical issues and she was in and out of the hospital, and sadly, she died when she was three due to an infection that had spread to her bloodstream.

9:26 So this family sounds like they're good people with good hearts. Yeah, definitely, very busy, yes, for sure. With Trisha's death, you know, Aaron had been so happy to be a big sister that it was especially hard on her. While Laura and Bill temporarily fostered more newborn babies after that, they didn't adopt any more children. When Alex was in fourth grade and Aaron was in kindergarten, Laura and Bill decided to homeschool because of Alex's learning disability. He struggled in school, and I think the couple thought it would be better at homeschool him and figured if they were going to homeschool, they might as well homeschool Aaron as well. While Aaron was good at math, science, and history, her real passion was animals. Over the years, the family had dogs, cats, skinny pigs, rabbits, and fish, and Aaron was like the animal whisperer. She had this really calm and patient presence and she was nurturing and caring, and so she was able to train the animals where others couldn't. At ten, Aaron joined the local four h club and she developed a passion for horses. As she got involved in the four ah equestrian program, she became a regular at a local horse farm, volunteering to help out with the horses however she could. At ten or eleven, Aaron met her future husband, John Corwyn at the horse farm.

10:46 John was a year older than Aaron. Aaron didn't hang out with him until much later, but she became good friends with John's sister. At twelve, a family friend gave her a rescue horse, and she was like super responsible. She would feed it, exercise, it bathed the horace Dalely, she got really into barrel racing, which is a rodeo event. She later had another horse that had a mean streak and everyone thought was untrainable, but Aaron worked with the horse patiently and persevered until over time it became really friendly and well behaved. And that type of story, it's you hear it over and over about Aaron, like she took on like horses that were really difficult and she was able to train them when no one else really could. So she sounds like a very kind shatters more in person for sure. At fourteen, she got a part time job helping out a veterinarian. She loved being with the animals, but she also realized that she could never be a vet because having to euthanize animals was just too heartbreaking for her. At sixteen, Aaron got a job at the local tractor supply company. There she met Jesse Trentham, who would become Aaron's best friend and confidante. Aaron was a good kid, rarely got into trouble. She had thoughts of girlfriends that she would hang out with. People said she was shy, but once you got to know her, she would talk and talk. When she was fifteen, Laura and Bill let Aaron have a Facebook account. Soon after that, John Corwin, who she had met a few years earlier, friended her and the two started

12:18 messaging each other. John had been born and raised in Oak Ridge. He was a quiet kid who liked going four wheeling and he liked shooting guns. From a young age, his dream was to become a marine. Aaron's parents didn't allow dating without a chaperone until age sixteen, so mostly Aaron and John talked online and they saw each other sometimes at the horse farm. On her sixteenth birthday, John asked Laura for permission to ask Aaron out on a date. Laura and Bill thought that John was polite and he came from a good family, and so they agreed, and a few days later the two went on their first date to see Despicable Me at the theater. Within five or six weeks they were actually a couple, and within six or nine months they started getting serious, even talking about marriage. So very very young John, yeah, exactly. When John finished high school, he signed up for the Marines as planned, and he left for the thirteen week boot camp in June.

13:16 The night before he left, he gave Aaron a promise ring they couldn't talk much while he was away at boot camp, and so they wrote a lot of letters back and forth, and after finishing boot camp in September, John was sent to a base in Oklahoma to complete his training over the next three months, and then after that he got stationed in twenty nine Palms out in California. While Laura and Bill liked John, they were hoping that him being away would slow things down a bit. But Aaron was smitten, and during her senior year of homeschooling, she started making plans to join John in twenty nine Palms. No college, no career. She was basically making a choice to become a military wife. Laura and Bill tried to get Aaron to realize how hard this would be. First of all, Aaron wasn't well traveled.

14:03 She had always lived with her family in Oak Ridge, and being a military wife could be lonely, especially with the possibility of John being deployed on a moment's notice for months at a time. During Aaron's senior year, John asked Laura and Bill for their permission to propose to Aaron. They wanted to ask John to wait a couple of years, but I think they realized that it was feudal, and so they gave their permission reluctantly. John came home that summer and proposed to Aaron on July fourth, eleven days before her eighteenth birthday. Aaron was over the moon. She started planning a wedding, but with John's service, it was hard to know when he would be on leave. So instead, in November of twenty twelve, eighteen year old Aaron flew to Las Vegas to attend the Marine Corps ball with John, and after the ball was over, they drove down to the Strip and they got married at the world famous Chapel of the Bells. So they're both eighteen. He was probably nineteen at that point. There are pictures of them from that day I'll share with you. Aaron was wearing a pretty purple dress and John was in his uniform. Honestly, they looked like two kids at their senior prom.

15:13 H they were just so young. For the first ten months of their marriage, John and Aaron lived pretty much separate lives. John was deployed to Japan. He did well in the Marines. He quickly advanced from private to corporal. He was well respected by his fellow Marines. He received several commendations, and he became skilled at firing a sniper rifle. Aaron stayed in oak Ridge, working at the tractor supply company and saving as much money as she could. Finally, on September twenty fifth of twenty thirteen, a couple of months after her nineteenth birthday, Aaron flew out to her new life in twenty nine Palms. John was still on deployment in Japan for a few more days, and so Aaron moved her stuff into the apartment that John had already been living in when he wasn't deployed. It was a small apartment complex on the base.

16:06 It was meant for married soldiers, a two story building with six units. Each apartment had two bedrooms, one bathroom, a small kitchen, and a living room. John and Aaron's unit was on the second floor. John got back from Japan and the newlyweds settled into their new life. Aaron used some of her savings to buy a Toyota Corolla, while John bought a used pickup truck. They adopted two rescue dogs and later a cat. Aaron was definitely a little homesick and lonely, especially at first as John was busy with his duties. Aaron talked to her best friend Jesse back in Tennessee regularly. With most of the people at the marine base being far from home and many of the wives staying at the apartment complex, some of them raising young children, strong bonds can form between couples and families, almost like becoming an extended family unit, and for John and Aaron, there were two other couples that became really important in their lives, the Milwaukee's and the Lee's. Connor and Ashling Milwaukee lived in one of the downstairs units. When Aaron first moved in, Ashling was pregnant with her first child and was having a difficult pregnancy.

17:15 Aaron, with her caring, nurturing personality, immediately jumped into help however she could, and then when Ashling's son, Brian, was born in November of twenty thirteen, Aaron, Ashling, and the baby would hang out together in one of their apartments, talking and watching movies together. The other couple that made up this surrogate family was Chris and Nicole Lee, who lived upstairs in the unit next to John and Aaron. Chris and Nicole were originally from Anchorage, Alaska. They were a few years older than John and Aaron. Chris had already served two tours in Afghanistan, and the couple had a six year old daughter named Liberty. The three guys all became good friends, hanging out having beers together. Sometimes the guys would go off to Joshua Tree together to do some off roading or shoot their guns, or maybe do some hiking.

18:03 While they were on duty. The three wives would stop by each other's places to hang out in chit chat, and on weekends or evenings when everyone was around, the three couples would barbecue together outside the complex or watch movies and TV shows together. The couples all got along well, more or less, although there were some complaints about Chris and Nicole. Neither of them was very domestic and their place was always a disaster area, toys all over the place, dishes piled up in the sink. Nicole could be blunt and rude, and she would impose on others to babysit Liberty without offering to pay. One time, Chris and Nicole dropped Liberty off with Ashling, supposedly just for the night. But then the two went off to Las Vegas for the weekend and they ignored Ashling's calls and so she was stuck with Liberty for the whole weekend.

18:51 Also, Nicole was obsessed with football on Sundays during football season. She would tell everyone not to call her, not to text her, don't bother her at all. She was just going to be on the couch watching football all day. Ashley would have to take care of Nicole's daughter every Sunday in the fall because Nicole would be too busy with her game. Yeah. I don't see a problem with that, But you know, some people might sounds kind of like you, But I don't think you ever ever neglected our children. People would say that Chris seemed kind of off. Also, he seemed to have anger issues, and he also had a large weapon collection, including several guns and knives, a blowgun, a machette, and a potato gun.

19:33 What's a blowgun? A blowgun is like a dart gun, like where you blow through a tube like a little dart. Yeah, he was preoccupied with weapons that he liked to blow things up. At least once he got reprimanded by his commanding officer for playing around with rifles and rocket launchers. When he got back from his second tour in Afghanistan, he seemed depressed. He hadn't seen any combat while he was there, but starting in April of twenty thirteen, when he returned, people said that he just didn't seem to care about anything. He was drinking more than before, he wasn't doing as well in his job as before, and his temper was worse. He and Nicole would fight frequently. One time he told her he'd rather be deployed again to a war zone than to be with her. I'm beginning to wonder why you're talking so much about Chris and Nicole. M Yeah, might be onto something there. While Chris was away in Afghanistan the last time, Nicole started going to a place called the White Rock Ranch, which is a horse rescue located about a half hour from twenty nine Palms. It's a nonprofit organization run by a woman named Isabelle Megley. She takes in horses that have been abandoned or abused. She takes care of them and then tries to find permanent homes for them. If she can't find a permanent home for the horse, they'll live out their days at the ranch. Nicole liked to go there, and when Chris was depressed after getting back from Afghanistan, she started taking him there as well, and it seemed to help him. He liked the horses, but he would also fix things around the ranch. Of course, Aaron loved horses

21:04 too, and so she and Nicole bonded over this, and Aaron started going with Nicole and Chris to the ranch. John wasn't super interested in horses, so he would generally stay behind. All in all, everything seemed good for the three young families on the surface, at least, but as twenty fourteen rolled around, Chris and Nicole were continuing to fight, mostly because of Chris's drinking and his hair trigger temper, and John and Aaron started having money troubles. John's salary at that point was around eighteen hundred dollars a month or twenty one thousand dollars a year. Wow, that's not much. Yeah, he did get free housing, but that's still not a lot to live on.

21:45 By January of twenty fourteen, John and Aaron had blown through the savings that Aaron had and they were racking up credit card debt. John and Aaron would fight and they would blame each other. Was Aaron still working. She was not working at this time. But John would, you know, accuse her of spending too much on groceries and clothing while she saw him wasting money on toys like the sand rail that he bought. Do you know what a sand rail isn't It's sort of like a dune buggy, like a little vehicle for off roading, like in the desert or whatever. Inexpensive. No, I know that sounds fun though, Yeah it does. Aaron. She did take a job at the local tractor supply company for a while, but it was a forty five minute commute each way, which she hated, and she only stayed for a few weeks. And after that she tried to make some extra money babysitting for different families on the base. So it was twenty nine palms kind of in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, pretty much. It's like out in the desert. In January of twenty fourteen, Aaron found out that she was pregnant. It wasn't something that she and John had planned, but it was definitely something Aaron wanted. As we've seen, she was really nurturing and being a mom was something she had always dreamed of, so she was ecstatic. She shared the news with friends and family, but sadly, just a few weeks after finding out, she had severe cramps and went to the er, where she found out that she had miscarried. This added more stress to the marriage, as John was very reserved and he internalized his sadness,

23:18 which made Aaron feel like he didn't care. Shopping was a coping mechanism for her, which worsened the couple's debt. John took away her credit cards, which made Aaron feel trapped and it caused resentment. Aaron would tell all this to her friend Jesse, with whom she would share everything on their regular phone calls and through texting. So to sum up, you've got Aaron and John, who are both really young, relative newlyweds, having financial troubles, having a lot of stress in their marriage, especially with the miscarriage. You've got Chris and Nicole having troubles, so you can probably guess where this is going. By early February, people were noticing that Aaron and Chris seemed a bit overly friendly around each other. One time, Ashling noticed Aaron was giggling at anything Chris said, and they were standing closer to each other than seemed normal.

24:14 Ashling asked Aaron about it, and she admitted that she found Chris attractive, but it was just a bit of harmless flirting. Isabelle, who owned the horse ranch, noticed it too. She even pulled Nicole aside and mentioned it to her, but Nicole said it was no big deal. Aaron and Chris were just friends. Nicole had had a miscarriage a few years ago herself, and so she was sympathetic toward Aaron, and she was actually happy that Chris could be there for her. Their growing friendship seemed to lift Chris's mood as well, and so Nicole was okay with it, and she didn't think anything else was going on. On Sunday evenings, the three couples would usually get together in one of their apartments to watch The Walking Dead. Aaron didn't like the graphic violence in the show, so she would actually go off and do her own thing on those nights. One night in February, they got together to watch the show, minus Connor and Ashley, who weren't available, but with the addition of another couple from the base oh. Aaron went off to her room to hang out, and Chris said he had missed a couple of episodes, so he would go hang out with Aaron and play Halo on Xbox in her bedroom. Yeah, I know, I see a lot of these The things in this story are like, I would be really uncomfortable if I was John or if I was one of the spouses, because it just seems like but eighteen exactly, she's nineteen at this point, right. Yeah.

25:32 And also these families are I think they're so close that they're almost like, you know, another family to each other. And so for these two are flirtatious. Yeah, exactly. You said Chris was older. Do you know how much older? I think he was maybe five years older, give or take. Okay, So Chris goes in to play Halo with Aaron on the Xbox in the bedroom while everybody else is watching The Walking Dead. At one point, while they were playing, they looked at each other and they kissed. It only apparently, well everyone else is in the other room, Yeah, watching TV. How do you know this? Hap? Never mind, it only lasted a few seconds and at the end of the night the couples all went their separate ways. But later Chris sent Aaron a text and they exchanged messages and I think they were talking about the kiss, like wow, that was weird, huh, Like gosh crazy. So up to that point there hadn't been Up to that point, it had just been kind of flirtation and that type of thing. I can see how playing Halo would be a very romantic activity, I guess. So. A few nights later, Aaron and John had a fight and Aaron couldn't sleep, and so she texted Chris. She seemed disillusioned with their marriage, saying, quote, I can't believe this is happening. This isn't what it was supposed to be like unquote.

26:52 Chris asked her to meet him outside and talk about it. He told Nicole that Aaron was having a hard time and he was going to go talk to her. Nicole was like, fine, just don't belong. They met at the playground behind the apartment complex and they sat and talked and kissed four hours until two am. Nicole was not happy when Chris came back in, but he lied and said he was just talking to her. Did you think that Nicole would have been like, oh, I'll go talk to her. Yeah. Again, A lot of these situations I just find like I think about like me and you. I'm like, if you said, yeah, I'm gonna go talk to the guy who lives next door because he's having some problems, I would be very uncomfortable with that. Yeah, but you know, again, they were in this situation I think where they were just like a tight little family unit. The next morning, after John left for work, Chris went over to their apartment and they made out some more. After that, the two of them started texting back and forth constantly. After a few weeks, he texted Aaron and said that he loved her. Aaron and Chris weren't able to see each other because he and John worked a similar schedule.

28:03 In the mornings, John would get up and go for a workout at six am. Chris would get up and tell Nicole that he was going to work out, but instead he would go see Aaron for a while at their apartment. Which is really weird. Again, you think about it, like they lived right next door to each other. Yeah, so Aaron is like in her apartment and Chris is next door. Well, I can't help but think that Chris is taking advantage of her too, because she's so young, not that five years, But the difference between nineteen and twenty four or twenty five is pretty big. Yeah, for sure. Aaron would tell Chris about her marital problems with John. She said she wanted to go back home to Tennessee and admitted that her parents had been right that maybe getting married so young wasn't the best idea. So as Aaron still hit talking to her family back home or are they coming to visit her? They have a good relationship.

28:52 Yeah, she has a great relationship with her parents. I don't think she confided in them, like the marital problems and things like that at this point. That's hard because she probably thought that she had to present this all We're doing great. Yeah, so glad that I got married at eighteen. Yeah, especially when her parents were, you know, trying to warn her of how hard it would be. The one her friend Jesse back home. She'll come into the story more as we go on, but she she talked to Jesse about everything. That's how we know a lot of these things that happened early on. Chris also opened up to Aaron about the depression that he had been suffering from since returning from Afghanistan. He told her that he had done dangerous things like driving recklessly to see you know how close he could cut it to getting into an accident. And he also said that he played Russian Roulette a few times. So let's just talk for a second about soldiers returning home and not getting the support that they need and the mental health support, because that's such an important thing, and I think it's a huge crisis. It's a horrible thing. Yeah, that you know, these soldiers go, they're serving their country, they're doing you know, they're putting themselves in arms way to keep us safe, and then they come back home and they don't get the support. Well, and you said he's making eight they're making like eighteen thousand dollars a year. Yeah, I mean even with free housing. That's right. That's really sad. Now, the one thing I will say about Chris is that he didn't see any combat when he was in Afghanistan. He didn't fire his weapon once, he didn't see anything. And in some ways that was actually kind of like he was disappointed that he didn't see combat or

30:26 you know, get to kill anyone, or survivor's guilt. I don't know if it was survivor's guilt or that he just he really wanted to, like, he wanted to fire his weapon. He thought it would be cool to like be in combat, and he never got to do that, and so he was sad about that. Or maybe he just he felt like he could have done more to Maybe maybe the impression I get is that he is kind of a little off and you know, would kind of get off on I guess I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that it's not that he wanted to shoot his weapon. It's just that he wanted to protect his country and his fellow soldiers. Maybe let's see what else we learned about Chris that might make you change your mind. On Valentine's Day, the three couples got together at Connor and Ashling's apartment to hang out and watch some movies.

31:11 Nothing says Valentine's Day like hanging out with two other couples watching movies. By midnight, everyone had gone their separate ways. Connor and Ashling had gone off to bed, and John and Nicole apparently got tired and went back to their respective apartments, leaving Aaron and Chris alone together in Connor and Ashling's living room. Again. The situation that would be very uncomfortable. Yeah, they were watching Mulan Rouge and they started making out on Connor and Ashling's couch. Ashling got up to get her baby a bottle, and she saw them. She acted like she didn't see them, though, and she just started making noise in the kitchen. And at that point, Chris can feel, we can, can't you? I can feel how awkward that must have felt. So when they heard her in the kitchen, Chris got up and he left really quick. And then Aaron pretended like she had been asleep and had just woke up. Ashling was like, what are you doing, Aaron? And Aaron said that she and John had had a fight and so she thought she would sleep on Ashling's sofa. Ashling was like, that's fine, you know whatever, and then she went back in her room. Ashling did and she texted Chris saying, what were you and Aaron doing on the couch. He lied at first, but then he admitted that they had been making out, and he begged Ashley not to tell anyone. Ashling reluctantly agreed to keep things to herself, which again puts her in a very awkward position. She did talk separately to Chris and Aaron, and she urged them both to break things off, and they both said that they were going to Ashling didn't tell John or Nicole, but she did tell her husband, Connor, who then confronted Chris.

32:44 Chris claimed to Connor that he wasn't serious about Aaron and that he was going to break it off soon. Chris's active duty military service was actually ending in July, and he was planning to return to Anchorage with Nicole and their daughter, Liberty, but the relationship continued, and Aaron and Chris started talking about divorcing John and Nicole. Aaron confided in her friend Jesse about the affair, and she told her she was thinking about divorcing John and moving to Alaska with Chris after his service was over. Nicole, in the meantime, noticed that Chris was texting constantly. She started thinking that Chris was having an affair, but strangely enough, I don't think she suspected that it was Aaron.

33:25 One night, after Chris had been out drinking and he was sound asleep, Nicole took his phone off the nightstand. She couldn't unlock it, but Nicole was pretty smart. She was able to take the SIM card out of the phone and plug it into her laptop, which allowed her to see all the text messages between Chris and Aaron. So of course she blew up at Chris, who swore that they hadn't had sex, which I actually believe was true at this point, just because of Again, Aaron talked to Jesse. Yeah, we know everything because of Jesse. He said that they had only kissed about four times, which was definitely a lie. They had kissed much more than that. He blamed the affair on his depression, and he begged Nicole for a second chance. He said he'd go to a marriage counselor or something that he had rejected before. At this point, you have to wonder, he has the option to leave Nicole, why not just get divorced, because well, I think it's mainly because of his daughter. He had a five year old daughter, and he felt like if he divorced Nicole he would probably not get to see her very often, if ever again. So Nicole also didn't want to end things, so she actually agreed to try and work things out with Chris, but she said that he would have to earn her trust back. Chris told Nicole about Ashling having seen him and Aaron on the couch, which of course made Nicole furious at Ashling because Ashling had basically told Chris she would keep it confidential. Yea, So Nicole texted Ashling saying, quote,

34:55 I am so hurt and I'm so disgusted that you, as my friend tell my husband, didn't tell me my husband was having an affair with Aaron. I can't believe you didn't tell me. You said nothing, and you hit it from me. I don't blame her one bit. No, I don't either. Ashling replied and said, quote, they are adults. I said my two cents. I thought they ended it, and apparently they didn't. Nicole took Chris's phone and she deleted Aaron's number from it. She seemed to blame Aaron for seducing her husband, but she also started keeping close tabs on Chris one time, and I had to laugh at this. Nicole had to go somewhere and she called Ashling and said, can you watch Chris for me? Because he needs to be watched. Can you just keep track of him and see if he's texting Ashley again? Ashley is in the middle all the time here, She was like, you know, she's girl, this is not going to work if you want your husband babies yet. But she said okay. Ashley was like fine, So it's like she went to there.

35:52 A few minutes later, Chris shows up and he plops himself down on Ashling's couch so that she could keep an eye on him while Nicole went out and ran her errands. Well, how does Nicole trust ashleying like you could start up with her next? I know, I know, Ashley to her crest she was when Chris got there, she was like, you know, I'm not going to babysit you. I'm going to my room and you do what do what you want. At this point, the only person among the three couples that didn't know about the affair was poor John. Yeah, and things were really awkward among the couples and they didn't really get together much for a month or so until April when they planned to cook out together. Was John like, what the heck is going on? I wonder? You know, I didn't I didn't read much about you know what he was thinking at this time, but you had to think he would be like things are strange, well, and how is everyone towards Aaron. Well, yeah, again, I don't really know. I think that Nicole was very she was very cold toward Aaron, like I think she didn't talk to her at all, but I think everyone else was like. Their apartments are right next door to each other. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they had planned this cookout in April with the three cups. John had bought some meat to cook and he brought it downstairs to Connor and Ashling's apartment to start prepping it. Aaron was still upstairs and Chris was out on some assignment. I'm not sure where Connor was, so it was only Nicole, Ashling, and John in the apartment, and Nicole decided to tell John about the affair at that point.

37:20 Yeah, she told him everything, and he was kind of like and he was kind of in shock. John is very reserved, as I've seen some interviews with him, and he's just very like soft spoken, and I think after Nicole told him, he was just like okay, and then he asked Ashling to go again. Ashley put in the middle of all this. He asked Ashling to go upstairs and ask Aaron to come down, which she did, And why wouldn't he just go up to their apartment and be like, we need to talk. That was the next sentence in my script. I'm not sure why John chose to confront Aaron in front of Ashley and Nicole, but that's what he did. John started talking to her, but then Nicole started yelling at Aaron, and Aaron turned to leave, telling John she would be upstairs if he wanted to talk, and Nicole got in her face as she was trying to leave, and she said, if you ever have anything else to do with my husband, I'll kill you myself. Oh is that foreshadowing, Well, we'll see, yeah, don't tell us. John then asked Ashling if she would go upstairs with him to act as an intermediary as he talked to Aaron, because he thought Aaron would be less likely to lie to him with her there. But again, yeah, Ashley, she obviously allowed herself to be put in this position, but I also feel some sympathy.

38:42 Again, Ashley agreed. The two of them went upstairs. Aaron confessed to John that she and Chris had kissed a few times, but she said that Chris had initiated it. John said that he wanted to work on their marriage and fix things, and Aaron agreed. So now these three couples that had grown so close to each other were in this really awkward situation, all living in the same complex. John never confronted Chris directly. They pretty much just avoided each other, so did Aaron and Nicole. Ashling and Connor, as usual, were in the middle. They were still talking to both couples. Connor tried to stay out of it as much as he could. I think Chris went to counseling with Nicole, trying to repair their marriage. He also started making plans for his life after the Marines. His contract was up on July fourteen, and so he and Nicole started planning their return to Alaska.

39:37 Chris had decided to use the money from his GI bill to go to college in Alaska and study chemical engineering so that he could get a good paying job on an oil refinery, while Nicole would stay at home and they would have another baby together. John and Aaron also talked about him leaving the Marines once his contract was complete in another year or so, even though he had always planned to make it a career. But I think with all their financial problems and with their marital problems, he maybe felt a little bit disillusioned. He thought about going back to school to become an auto mechanic. Aaron and John's problems weren't over, though. John's truck broke down and they couldn't afford to fix it, and so John started driving Aaron's car to work, leaving her stranded at home. She had to stop sponsoring her horse at the horse rescue also because they couldn't afford it, which I'm sure was tough for her because she loved horses so much and that was a real outlet for her.

40:31 And while John said he wanted to work on their marriage, he acted cold and distant, at least according to what Aaron told her friend Jesse. Eventually, strangely enough, the three couples started hanging out again, but things weren't the same as before. Aaron and Nicole, especially Nicole was very very cold toward Aaron, and I think Aaron didn't want to talk to Nicole either, so the affair really stopped as far as we know. The look on your face tells me differently, yes. So that brings us to the summer of twenty fourteen. On Sunday, June twenty second, Chris went out to Joshua Tree with his friend Joseph Hollifield. They drove around doing some off roading, doing a little hunting. Chris shot and killed a rattlesnake, and they happened upon some abandoned mine shafts that Chris thought were really cool. Oh god, yeah, we just too many cases. I know that you're mentioning the mine shaft for a reason. I know I was trying not to do too much foreshadowing, but it's really hard not to. And so this is the twenty second of June that he and his friend were out there. Remember it was the twenty eighth of June when Aaron went missing, so just six days before that same day, Aaron woke up feeling really queasy. It got so bad that she asked John to take her to the er, where the doctors told them that Aaron was about three weeks pregnant. That's so early. I know, it really be tactable. That surprised me as well. I wondered if that was maybe wrong, but that was what it said in the popular hospital

42:07 tested maybe yeah. I can hear people yelling at me right now. It's been a while since I've been pregnant. So John was surprised because they hadn't had sex very often since the big blow up, but he was happy, thinking that this might help them fix their marriage. Aaron did not seem overjoyed like she had the first time that she found out that she was pregnant. So Liberty is going to have a little sister. Well maybe. On Thursday, June twenty sixth, Aaron called her mom and they talked about all the things they would do when her mom came to visit in another couple of weeks. Aaron was excited for the visit. She had decided not to tell her mom about the pregnancy until she saw her in person, though. On Friday, June twenty seventh, Chris, Nicole, and Liberty spent the day at the horse rescue. On the way out, Chris noticed a white propane tank in a shed and he asked Isabel if he could borrow it. She said sure and asked if he was planning a barbecue. Chris smiled and said no, I'm going to use it to play games. Isabel didn't know what he meant by that, and she didn't ask that night. Yeah, well, Chris liked to blow things up. I don't know I think I said that earlier, but he just he liked to go out in the desert and blow things up. So but to borrow someone's and then blow it up, Yeah, it's a little bit odd, isn't it cheap? That night, Chris texted his buddy Skyler and asked if he wanted to go out hunting with him in the desert the next morning. Skyler had had shoulder surgery recently, and

43:39 so he said probably not. Chris also saw Connor that night at the apartment complex and asked Connor if he wanted to go hunting in the morning. Connor said he probably could, but he would text him in the morning to let him know for sure. So that brings us to Saturday, June twenty eighth, the day that Aaron went missing. As I mentioned at the beginning, Air had told John that she needed some me time and that she was planning to spend the day in Joshua Tree National Park scouting out some locations that she would take her mom during her upcoming visit. She left that morning in her Blue Corolla, probably around seven thirty am. Before she left, she made a short call to her best friend Jesse back in Tennessee, John was still in bed when she left, but he said that he saw her through the bedroom window get into her car and pull away. Once he got up, John said he stayed in the apartment and played video games for most of the morning. So don't you think John would be like me time at seven thirty in the morning when you've just had an affair. These people get up early, though, Like, as I was reading this story, like there's a lot of different instances of people getting up at six am or seven am and getting out and doing something. And also one thing that was pointed out a number of times is that it gets so hot in the desert that a lot of times, if people were going to go out in the desert, they would try to get up early to avoid the worst part of the day.

45:00 But that's true. If I got up, dressed and ready and out the door at seven thirty am and said I was going to go have me time, you would be suspicious. Oh, yes, for sure. So Chris also left early that morning for his hunting excursion in the desert. He left, wasn't Colin, No Connor? Connor wouldn't Connor is supposed to join him? Well? Good, good question. So Chris left on his own, but at eight sixteen am, he got a text from Connor saying that he could actually meet up with him and join him. Chris replied, telling Connor where they could meet, and then he said, quote tell Nicole, I put my phone in airplane mode unquote, and then he turned his phone off.

45:43 Well, I would think in the desert you wouldn't have great exactly. True. You always you always know what I'm going to say before you say. We've been married a long time. So yeah, yes, you're not gonna have good reception in the desert anyway. And I guess turning your phone off might be a normal thing to save your battery. Nicole slept late that Sorry, I'm just no, I'm not a tech person. You are more than just putting your phone in airplane mode really saved that battery? Yeah, yeah, totally, especially if you don't if you're not in range of a signal, because then your phone's always trying to find a signal and that actually does eat up your battery pretty quick. Okay, all right, always taken, taken. There's too many names. Are we taking Chris's side, aren't you? No, I'm definitely not taking Chris's side, so Nicole slept late that morning. She and Liberty had been planning to go to the horse ranch that day, but she texted Isabelle at the ranch and said that she wasn't feeling well and that they would stay home. Connor went to where Chris said that they should meet, but he couldn't find him, and Chris didn't respond to his calls or texts because his phone was in airplane mode. So Connor drove out there where he and Chris were supposed to meet. So he put his he's supposed to meet a friend in the desert, which it's not easy to find someone in the desert. That's why all the buried bodies are buried in the desert. And he put his phone in airplane mode. Yeah.

47:06 Also very very strange, right, And so Connor couldn't find him. Of course, Chris didn't respond to his calls or texts because where was he supposed to meet him? I don't know the exact location. I'm sure he picked some second cactus on the right, Yeah, something, you know, because you would think you would have to drop a pin in order to find someone in the desert unless there was there's different milestones. Yeah, you know, but I don't. I don't know exactly where he told him to meet him. But Connor hung out there for almost three hours, like he drove around looking for Chris. He hung out where they were supposed to be, and finally after three hours he gave up and went back home. Do you remember one time we were on a vacation and it was it was a long I think we took two weeks and we went from like Las Vegas to Sedona to a getting it right to the Grand Canyon and we drove a lot of dessert and it was really scary because there was no nowhere to stop for gas.

47:58 Yeah. I think they're even signs that were like okay, last gas for two hundred miles. Yeah, because we drove from like the Grand Canyon all the way over to California, like to La Area, and Yeah, that whole drive, it's like it's so it's eye opening, Like you don't where we live now, It's like you don't really think about it, but there's like hundreds of miles of nothing. Yeah, and her first it was so cool. We're like, oh my gosh, the deserts so beautiful. And then by the end, I was like all give me the fuck up desert. It was a lot of a lot of desert that was a great chip. There was one of the shows that I watched, I can't remember which one it was. For this episode there was a woman that was a local there that was talking and she said something like, yeah, the desert, like it's a great place to find yourself, and then once you find yourself, you just want to get out of here. Does it take to find yourself? I don't know. It could take some people years. Maybe it's it is beautiful though, it is. Yeah, it's very beautiful. All right. So back to the story. Chris got back to the apartment around four pm. He had messages from both Connor and Nicole. Connor, as you might expect, was annoyed at him. Chris called him back and apologized.

49:07 He said, oh, I'm sorry. I must have gotten confused about where we were supposed to meet, and then I got lost and I didn't have cell phone reception. He also told Connor a strange story that he was out in the desert and he saw a stranger off in the distance who fired a gun in his direction and he freaked out and so he left. At that point, Aaron had told John that she would be home by four. He hadn't heard from her during the day, but he wasn't too worried because again he knew that cell phone reception was pretty bad in the National Park between four o'clock and sundown. He tried calling her dozens of times with no luck. He thought maybe she had decided to stop by a friend's house, but it wasn't like Aaron not to call. By midnight, he was panicking, but he didn't call the police to report her missing until the next morning.

49:54 So why did he wait till the next morning? That's a good question. It's very I'll tell you. I think so many people think that you have to wait the twenty four to forty eight hours. That was exactly his explanation. So when police actually questioned him, like why did you wait that long, and that's exactly what he said is you know, I watched so many shows and I just thought it was twenty four hours before you would do anything. I think it is dependent on your location and different police departments have different criteria. Yeah, depending on this. You know, like if I went missing for twenty four hours, you would know if something was up because I wouldn't I literally would not do that to you. And in this situation too, nineteen year old pregnant girl in the desert where it gets up to you know, one hundred and ten degrees or whatever, time is really of the essence, So you would not want to wait any longer than you'd need to.

50:43 Yeah, And if someone is missing, call the worst they can say is call us back in twenty four hours. Yeah, So I think that is probably a good point to break. I know, we're leaving it on a cliffhanger here. I always do that, don't I you do. That's not what nice people do. I know, I know, But I have to say we've been working, we've both been working so hard, and two part episodes do give us still a little bitterly way they do, they do. And actually this, you know, this story probably could have been told in one part, But I really do think like all the backstory with the couples and all the relationships and all that stuff, I think it's actually really interesting and really important for the case as well, just to kind of understand the dynamics that were going on between all the people involved. So I'm gonna take your word for it. Yeah, And then I'm gonna I'm really hungry, so I'm gonna get the rest of these. It's so funny that you bought thought those protein bars that's what the does are. I went out to the grocery store this morning, first thing in the morning, and I bought Oh you didn't order them from Military Meals dot Com. Well, okay, I'll tell you. I actually did go online and looked for MRS because you can order you know, military meal is. It's called MRI, which I think means meal replacement. I thought, I'm the meal is ready to eat.

52:04 Oh, I think you're right, But it turns out like if you want to buy an MRI at home, like from Amazon or whatever, they're actually really expensive. Like it's really hard. Yeah, it's hard to I don't know something like for a meal. Okay, so we took a quick break to google this because we were both curious because I couldn't remember. Well, I'm kind of a I like to be prepared, and we don't have like a year's worth of food in our house or anything like that. But I've always kind of been intrigued by that notion of survivalist. Yeah idea, So that's why I'm kind of interested in. Well, I did find one.

52:44 This is actually not that expensive. This is from my Patriot supply and it's a four week food supply for like one hundred and ninety seven dollars. Four weeks of food for one person. Two thousand calories a Day's a lot of calories. Two thousand a day. Well, I mean if you're in a survival mode, that's a lot of calories. True. True, But if you only wanted, it would last twice as long. But that's actually pretty pretty cheap, really less than ten dollars a day. Uh. Someone that I knew a long time ago, some ex boyfriends parents. They had like a bunker in their house. Oh really, and it was filled with food really. Yeah. And so if there's ever like a nuclear war, I think you're going to go to your ex boyfriends. I mean they really liked me back in the day. I think it's been a long, long, long time. Yeah, that wouldn't be awkward at all, hanging out in a bunker with ex boyfriend. I mean, I love his parents.

53:39 It was when we broke up. It was sadder to lose his family than him. Yeah, but they would probably let him in the bunker also, So that's what I'm saying, I think of the head. Well, yeah, I guess it's been a long time. Back in the day, I think maybe they would have chosen me over him. Well, I found a three pack of Meals Ready to Eat on Amazon, which is thirty eight dollars. That's that's pretty crazy. Yeah, it doesn't even say it doesn't even say what's include. Can't be it can't be good either, right, I mean I know that's why. Yeah, my curiosity is like, it's funny because this it shows what's included, and there's a moist tablet, non dairy creamer, all sorts of good stuff. So yeah, I would be curious to try it e meals Ready to I'm sure I wouldn't like it. But well, I'm sorry. I just went with the basic what I could get at the grocery store. But maybe next time, maybe maybe next time, Maybe next time I do a military related episode, maybe we could seek one out because I really am curious. All right, so we're wrapping it up.

54:37 That's it. I think that's it for part one. All right, Well, thank you for listening. We say this every time, but we are so grateful for so grateful, so grateful, follow us on Instagram or Facebook at Love Mary Kill or on Twitter at LMK pod. We love to hear from you, so send us feedback, case suggestions, snack snacks. Send us snack suggestions. We've been working on getting a PO box because we've had a lot of people wanting to send us snacks. We have one of these days we will, We're gonna, We're gonna do that. We're going to do that. Email us at Love Mary Kill at gmail dot com or use the feedback form on our link tree, and if you'd like what you hear, then please give us a rating, a review, subscribe. We really appreciate any time you could take to boost us on the social media channels, and it really does matter, it really does help. I think I said this last time too, but a hearty thank you to anyone who has taken the time to leave us a rating, a review for means a lot to us. Thanks again for listening, and until next time, don't kill your wife, don't kill your husband. Be the