Lynlee and Ben Renick - Part 2

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich, 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, how are you doing. I'm a little sleepy, which I know you want to sacs the face for saying that, But you're a sleepy I know. So this is part two? Yes, and sorry, I'm gonna drop the French. You don't have to.

0:43 I won't understand it. I'm more of a Spanish girl myself. But yeah, we're just doing part two of the band Renick case and we're just rolling on the scene. Yeah, we just roll from one episode to the next. So Riches, I haven't even watched the Lions game yet. He doesn't watch the Lions game. He hasn't slept, and I'm not sure how you're still awake either, But well done. Just just a short reminder that our friend Francie is still running her ten percent discount off on her amazing, cool beautiful jewelry at Peach Mountain Designs Peach Mountain Designs on Etsy or you what did you tell me that you see dot com, slash shop slash Peach Mountain designs yea and Peach Mountain. It's where we live kind of ye like, and it's not really a mountain at all, but there's yeh. She does cool work though. Yeah. Check it out. Yeah, she's a cool lady. So fall is kind of creeping in, starting to feel like it isn't it. Yeah, it's in Michigan. I know, it's like this a lot of places this time of year. Like you start the day cold, and you put on a sweatshirt or a hoodie like I did, or a sweater, and then by noon you're hot and you need to change, and then early evening you have to change again. I really I love this time of year. Act I don't. I don't love the fact that it's going to be cold all the time soon, But I really like the way it is right now. It's really nice. It's yeah, it's beautiful.

2:07 It's a good feeling in the air. Yeah, just a little bit of crispness. And it's when we just eat so differently in the fall and winter compared to the summer summer. It's just we just kind of grab something in the winter. It's more soups and stews and things like that. It just makes you feel cozy. Yeah, and when you were gone, I actually I got out the little early, but I got with the fall decoration. I noticed that that's very cool. Yeah it looks I think it's it's pretty cute, looks festive around the house. Yeah, and then we go we kind of go like from ball and I already put Halloween up, which I probably shouldn't have, and then into put a few things up for Thanksgiving, but then we tend to go right into Christmas. So decorated for months, sacked out for quite a while. Now, I was thinking on Patreon, maybe I'll put a few pictures, not that anyone cares, but oh it was funny too, like decorating with the cats, like they already tore some of the things down, and oh they love it. Yeah, they were very excited about the leaves. I posted a picture on Instagram. But yeah, Cosmo, they like, I have these garlands of like leaves and I just put them in a big pile and Cosmo really just liked to jump in them. And yeah, yeah, how do they feel about the black cats?

3:19 We have these two, these two like black cats, Like I don't know what they're made of, but they're tinsel. YEA. Our daughter found these really cool black cats last year and some sort of antique outlet, and she brought them home and they're just the coolest things. And I put them on the stairs, and they're kind of the size of our cats. Every time I walk around the corner of the stairs, just I see them out of the corner of my eye and I think our cats are there, and then I realized, no, it's just those two decorations. But yeah, they're pretty cute. Yeah, the cats aren't there. They weren't freaked out by them. No, I think they I think they liked them. I don't think cats recognize you know, oh that looks like a cat shape. I came home after being away for a whole week and you and our daughter were gone, and I got home and the cats were like whatever. Like I thought they would be at least sort of interested, like, oh, look he's back. He hasn't been here for a week, but they just didn't. Set't really care less. I mean, you know, are kind of a little self absorbed. I shouldn't take it personally. You should not take it personally. Well, do you wanna we have a recap to do, but we also have a snack. Should we have our snack? We should very exciting. Our lovely listener Cat sent us this box from Hungry Greetings.

4:33 We haven't opened it yet, and it's been sitting around for like a month, and we decided that we were just going to open it on the next episode where we didn't have a snack planned, and we've had like some planned snacks, so I've been dying to know it's in here. It's a cool bo It's in a little box and it said it actually says on the box like a printed label. It says Tina and Rich thank you so much. It's a really cute box. It's a really cute label. And I always like to have gift idea for people. And you know, like our son is away at college. Obviously he loves when we send him snacks. So yeah, let's open it up and see. I'll let you open it because it's your episode. Okay, Well, thank thank you so much. Kat. It's very nice of you. All right, Oh my, there's all sorts of stuff in here, is it. Yeah, it's like a whole package of all kinds of Well, there's some Welch's fruit snacks. First of all, there's some Oh you're gonna like this pirate's booty aged white cheddar.

5:27 I do, I do, love ya looks good. Oh, I know you like pop chips too. Pop chips are here. I'm gonna keep the eminem's cooking. The cooking. There's like twenty things in here. Oh so it's like a whole Yeah. Oh my gosh. There's like cheese, it's there's planters, peanuts, there's rice, crispy trees, love it. There's air heads, there's chewy granola bars. Holy moly, Cat, thank you. So oh that's awesome. Thank you Kat. That's so sweet. And I love that idea. So I'm going to send one of those over to you to our baby boy. Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah, he would enjoy that too. Well's there's no way we're going to try all of this right now, but let's take it. Let's just we'll both pick one snack, okay, and we will come back and we'll let you know what we picked. All right. Well, I think that was my lunch. You did kind of dive right in there. I'm pretty hungry.

6:24 That's a great idea. For people like me who will eat a whole backup chips kind of sitting so I can just eat, you know, the little bag. But I chose some peanuts. Yeah, classic planters. You're delicious. Yeah. I had a chewy grin all the bar Quaker who was really good too. I thought you were gonna have you were gonna have a cookie. No, I had some more cheeseburger potato chairs. I ran downstairs to get something to drink, and I grabbed one of those French cookies. Oh yeah, they're really good. Like the butter there just seems different, Yeah, buttery or something. Yeah, but thank you so much, Kat. That was a great, great treat. Appreciate it. We'll be working on that all week. All right, Well, you know what time it is?

7:10 Oh no, yes, A favorite time of Part two episodes. I just always feel like this is like a a pop quiz. I know pop quiz because I know I know it's coming. That's here, your your recap. Okay, I think I've got the major points, but you're gonna have to help me fill in. So we have Ben Rennick, who was a snake a snake breeder, right, and uh he lived in the Saint Louis area, but not really kind of out in the country, but yeah, Saint Louis and Columbia were the two biggest cities nearby. I grew up on a farm, like his family farm, and it was about fifty acres and he and his brother Sam grew up on the farm and they both had houses on the farm and the after the property. Yeah, after they became adults, they both his mom died of cans right, and his dad sadly committed suicide in order to he was he was indicted and yeah, he was going to go to jail, and he was probably going to end up losing the farm, right, and he ended up, you know, he sacrificed his own life so his sons could keep the property. So there was a big barn or out some sort of outbuilding on the property where Ben kept the snakes.

8:24 Yeah, it kind of look like a warehouse, sort of like a and he specialized in ball pythons, which are about six feet long and the average like three to five pounds something like that. Yeah, but they also had a huge anaconda in the basement of the facility and it was two hundred pounds and do you know how long it was I don't very long, very very long. This is funny. One time when I was in I think it was in first or second grade, I had to write a report on snakes and it had to be a page long, and I was really lazy, and so my report was snakes are very very very very and I wrote the word very across the entire page and at the end I wrote long.

9:05 I did not get a good grade on that report. I do not. I'm a bit ashamed of to this day. Yes, yeah, well you should, because you're a really smart guy, and yeah, pretty lazy. I also was a very lazy student and not a dummy either, but yeah, late lazy, lazy student, which was hard when you have kids and you're always trying to encourage them to do their best. And that report's not good enough and I know that. Do as I say. Yeah. So Ben met a woman named Lindley who was a massage therapist who had a young son named Matthew, and they fell in love and moved in together, got married after three or four years. And three or four well, they moved into really quickly, like three months after they met they married out. Okay, yeah, they didn't get married for about three or four years, but they had a child, and their child's name was Amelia and she went by Emma and she was born in twenty twelve, and twenty twelve was also the year that their dad committed suicide. Their dad had a pet food business, yes, and I think that's where Sam worked for the pet food Sam and Ben both I think worked for the pet food business when their dad killed himself.

10:22 Yeah, okay, but then Ben went into the snake breating and that was pretty much his full time job. Yeah, it had been a hobby up until that point. But how many snakes did he have? They had like a hit a lot. He had like between twenty five hundred and three thousand snakes when he died. Inconceivable, Like, isn't it. Yeah, it's just I don't even keep track of all that. I don't know, but I guess that's why he kept them in like these little drawers or not little drawers, but drawers. So we had like three thousand drawers. Yeah, this facility was like you just you know, wall to wall row after row of the snakes. Eight. I always thinking like a snakes eating mice, But I don't like I think I think I read somewhere about them, like set shipments of like mice or something. I was wondering about the anaconda like that, how do you what do you feed a two hundred pound anaconda?

11:05 And I didn't. I didn't find anything about that, but I should. I don't know, how do you how do you do that? I don't know because I didn't do a report on snakes, but it wasn't first grade I did. But so Linley helped grow the business. She did a lot of the social media work and I think the maybe a YouTube channel and a videography, but she also did her massage therapy business, and she'd had a dream to open up her own spa. Yeah, well, she quit the massage therapy for a while because the snake business got to be like very time consuming. And then she asked Ben if he would help her open the spa, and he agreed to it, kind of sounding like he wasn't quite on board. He wasn't sure if she could really handle him. She was pretty young. It sounds like she was probably still in her mid twenties and she wasn't quite a businesswoman. And the business strug after it was built, and it was losing like a thousand, a thousand dollars a week, right, it's a lot of money to lose. And Ben specialized in snakes called morphs, like he kind of genetically engineered like a different not breed, but different colors of snakes. Yeah, they were all ball pythons, was the breed. But yeah, he created different morphs of ball pythons. That's amazing.

12:24 So Ben had this crazy NHL goalie that was going to buy his complete supply of snakes or over a million dollars, right, Yeah, that was that deal was going to fall through, but not before Ben died. Yeah, he had made a down payment, but he hadn't been making the other payments on it, so it was kind of falling apart at the time of Ben's death. I don't have the date here, but what was the date of Ben getting shot. It was in June of twenty seventeen. So there was like a flurry of text messages between Linley and Ben like are you can you pick up the kids? Oh? I can't pick up the kids, and then the messages stopped. Yeah. He should probably say before that though, that they were having marital problems because of the stress of the money and everything. But also Linley started having affairs, yeah, and then which Ben didn't know, and she was also on Ashley Madison. She had she was seeing someone. And then she also went on Ashley Madison with the encouragement of a woman in her office or who also came to Ashley. I think that's about all I had. Well, I mean he was Ben was shot and his brother Sam found him. Well, Linley found him, but she called Sam right away, who came over and saw that he was dead. And then and then the paramedics came shortly after that, and there was one of the paramedics was someone that had a history with the Runneck family, and she kind of she pointed her finger at Sam with no evidence. She just and

13:58 yeah, yeah, and Sam was kind enough to talk to you, right, And Linley also pointed the finger at Sam too. When she talked to the police, she you know, basically said that, oh it's probably Sam, probably did it. Ben was shot eight times and Sam passed the polygraph test, but Linley did not correct. And when we left off, I think it had been two and a half years and there had been no arrest. Correct. Okay, good job. Yeah, Well, let's get back into it. So the guy that Linley had met on Ashley Madison. His name was Brandon Blackwell, and she continued seeing him. Yeah, it does. After Ben died, you know, Lindley's behavior was pretty questionable. She sold the farm right away. I forgot to say that. Yeah, she continued seeing and she basically gave Sam thirty days to vacate the farm that he had lived on his whole life and grown up on. Terrible. So is your impression is she not not a nice person? That is my impression?

15:00 All right. So Brandon Blackwell was the guy that she had met on Ashley Madison. Again, they kept dating after Ben was killed. About a year after Ben's death, Lindley announced that she was pregnant with Brandon Blackwell's baby, and Jackson Blackwell was born in January of twenty nineteen. Brandon and Lindley's relationship was very tumultuous, though, and it was getting worse over time. At one point, Lindley ran off to her dad's house because she said that Brandon had threatened her and she was scared. Another time, she called the police and said that Brandon had put his hands on her, and he was arrested for assault. Although Brandon denied that the assault happened. At one point, Lindley got an order of protection against Brandon, but he violated the order and got arrested for that several times. During some of these run ins with the police, investigators tried to get Brandon to share anything he might know about Lindley's involvement in Ben's murder. They suspected that she maybe had confided in him or at least let something slip, but he said no, he didn't know anything.

16:04 In early twenty twenty, Linley said that Brandon was terrorizing her, texting her hundreds of times a day and stalking her. Brandon was again arrested, and while sitting in jail after being denied bond, he decided that it was time to share with investigators what Linley had told him two years earlier. He told investigators that he had started getting a feeling that Lindley knew more about Ben's death than she had been letting on, and he said, you know, if our relationship is going anywhere, I need you to be honest with me. She finally agreed to talk while they were in a rented cabin on vacation. She made Brandon put his cell phone in the other room during their talk. I guess because she wanted to be sure that he wasn't recording their conversation or that no one was listening in. She told Brandon, and again this is according to Brandon, that Ben had been getting ready to leave her and that she was afraid that he would get custody of the kids, and so she came up with a plan to kill him. She said that she called her old boyfriend, Michael Humphrey. I don't know if you remember, but Michael Humphrey was a guy that she had dated before she met Ben, or before she and Ben got involved. He was the one that he had gotten her hooked on painkillers. He was, you know, he'd been involved in drugs and had been selling drugs. So she told Brandon that she called Michael Humphrey even though she hadn't spoken with him in years, but apparently she thought he was kind of involved in drugs and shady dealings, so maybe he would be willing to help her kill Ben. And besides, she felt like he

17:36 owed her for getting her hooked on painkillers years earlier. On the day of Ben's murder, Brandon said that Michael picked Linley up at the Spa and the two of them drove out to the farm together. Michael brought a gun, but when they got to the farm, Linley grabbed the gun, went into the snake facility and shot Ben herself several times before coming back out to the car and speeding away to the Spa with Michael. Brandon said that Lindley didn't show any emotion or remorse while telling him this story. So remember this is all Brandon's account of what Lindley told him happened. But could we believe his story? After all, he was in jail without bond and he was six months away from going to trial. There were recordings of calls he had made from the jail where he said things like, quote, She's going to be fucking sitting in prison, and that fucking baby's going to be mine. That's what's going to fucking happen, and it's about time to burn that bitch.

18:33 That's about all I know to do. So he was angry with Lindley for getting him in trouble, and maybe he wanted revenge. And another thing to consider, she supposedly told him that she murdered her husband in cold blood, and yet he stayed with her for two more years after that. What do you think of Brandon's story. I think that Brandon's looking for a sweet plea deal. Yeah, I think there's definitely something to that. He had motivation to tell give police what they wanted, right, which clearly they wanted to get something on Lindley. But I do think that she probably shot him. Investigators they must have believed Brandon's story because and maybe they had corroborating evidence as well. Did he take a light detector test that I do not know, but they two days later after he told them this story, they arrested both Lindley and Michael Humphrey. In fact, they did have more than just Brandon Blackwell's story. They also had a transaction on Lindley's debit card for gas at a gas station which was on the way from her spa in Columbia heading toward the farm the day of Ben's murder, and that debit card transaction was at three oh three pm. Debit card trails exactly she was supposedly at the spa that time. They had questioned Ashley Shaw, who was the manager at Lindley's spa, previously, and she had claimed that Lindley had been at the SPA for that entire day. Were like good friends, right, I think they

20:07 were pretty good friends. Yeah, they were definitely close. But armed with the new information that they had, they put pressure on Ashley to tell them everything. Otherwise they said she would be in a lot of trouble as well, and so, in exchange for immunity, Ashley confessed to the police that she had not only been covering for Lindley, but in fact she had also been complicit in the plot to kill Ben. Linley had confided in Ashley about all their marital problems, and about a month or two before Ben's murder, Lindley told Ashley that Ben had raped her while she was sleeping. She said that she was afraid of losing her children in a divorce because Ben had more resources, like you know, he had more money or access to money than she did, and she couldn't see any other option besides killing him. So Ben has no criminal record, no history of violence, not that I'm aware of, I don't think so. So Linley asked for Ashley's help, and I think as she probably felt sympathy for her, and she agreed to help her. Ashley revealed another surprising fact to the police. So June eighth, the day that Ben was murdered, was not the first time that Lindley, with Ashley's help, tried to kill Ben. I just want to say, if any of my personal friends are listening, if you want to murder your husband, don't ask me for help. I will. I will gladly make a podcast about it later, but I will not help you. Yeah, saying the body, I mean, it's one of the we'll talk about it later. But one of the interesting things about this case are the people that were willing to help Linley, and there's more than what we've talked about.

21:37 So Ashley and Linley first decided that they would try to poison Ben. So Ashley did some internet research on the best way to kill someone with pills. She came up with the idea of getting him to overdose on prescription painkillers, and then she got a hold of some percoset, which she gave to Lindley, who blended them up in the blender at work and then mixed them into into Ben's protein shake. That night, Ben got violently ill, but he didn't die, and so the next day they decided on plan B, which was to contact Michael Humphrey. Lindley brought his name up, saying that he had a prior record of being in trouble and thought that he would help her out. Ashley and Lindley searched the internet to find out where Michael Humphrey was living at the time, and remember again, Lindley hadn't seen him or talked to him in seven years or something like that. They together drove out to his place, and I'm sure Humphrey was a little bit confused since he hadn't seen Lindley for so many years. But after catching up a bit, Linley told Humphrey about her situation. She says that Ben was abusing her and she needed a way out. She told Michael how they had tried to poison Ben and asked if he would help her, or if he knew someone would who would help her. He said he'd think about it. A day or two later, he came into the SPA and he met with Lindley in private.

22:53 After he left, Lindley told Ashley that Michael knew some people who would help her kill Ben, but she would need money, a lot of money which she didn't have. People's go to. Wasn't let's kill him instead of like, let's get you out of this toxic environment. Yeah, I know. So Lindley decided that she couldn't come up with the money, and so then they went to Plan C, which was Michael providing her with a gun, which morphed into Michael going with her to kill Ben together. Michael had car problems and so their plan got delayed a couple of days, but finally on June eighth, the plan came together. Lindley and Michael departed from the Spa a little bit before three o'clock to go kill Ben. Lindley left her phone at the spa and asked Ashley to text Ben at some point so that would give Yeah, Ashley. She actually didn't end up texting Ben from Lindley's phone, but she did reply to Ben's Facebook message on the computer at work.

23:52 If you remember, Ben messaged Lindley at three forty five asking about picking up the kids. He messaged her on Facebook. Messaged on Facebook all the time. It's kind of weird to me, but yeah, or was it Facebook Messenger? Yeah? Yeah, I think it was Facebook Messenger. So, pretending to be Lindley, Ashley replied, saying she couldn't leave work and needed him to do it, so this would help with Lindley's alibi showing that she was at the SPA, and also would provide a reason for the kids to get stranded at school so that the school would eventually call Lindley to say that they hadn't been picked up. They also had a number of texts between Lindley and Michael Humphrey from the day of Ben's murder, both in the morning and later in the afternoon. All these texts seemed innocuous enough, Lindley explained them away to police as they were just trying to arrange a massage for an old friend who was having car problems. But eventually on trial for murder. Just a couple of months before Lindley's trial was supposed to start, Michael also decided to cooperate with police. It wasn't a great deal for him. Instead of going to prison for life without the possibility of parole, michael sentence would still be life, but now at least with the possibility of parole, and for that he agreed to tell what he said really happened and to testify against Linley at her trial. So remember, up until now we have Brandon's account of what Linley told him. We have Ashley's account of what she says happened, and now we have Michael's account of what he says happened. They're all a

25:22 little bit different. They're all fairly consistent, but it's a lot to wade through for the attorneys. I know it is. So. Michael's account was that he never actually agreed to help kill Ben. Instead, he offered assistance, first by loaning her his gun just in case she needed it for self defense, but later he agreed to accompany her to the farm to protect her in case she needed it, so that she could go get some of her things and go stay with her dad. When he showed up at the spot, Linley asked him to drive, which surprised him since she knew he had been having car problems. He did drive his car, but then he realized he needed gas, which annoyed Lindley a bit, but she ended up paying for the gas with her debit card. On the way out to the farm, Lindley told him that she was just going to get some stuff from the house and she wanted Michael to be there just to be sure that Ben didn't flip out. When they got to the farm. They both got out of the car. At that point, Lindley sort of pushed the gun toward him.

26:22 He said that he didn't even know she had brought the gun with her until this point. He had loaned it to her a few days earlier, and he kind of pushed back, like, what the hell are you doing? And at that point Ben came out of the snake facility. He was throwing out a box or something, taking it to their dumpster. I'm sure Ben was confused as to who this guy was with Lindley. He had never met Michael before, so thinking on her feet, Lindley told Ben that Michael was an old friend of hers who wanted to look at some snakes. Ben said sure, and so Michael followed him into the snake facility while Lindley grabbed the box that Ben was going to dispose of and she takes it to the dumpster. Ben and Michael go into the facility. Ben washes his hands at the sink because they're very particular about like germs and things like that, and then he walks down the hallway and the facility. At that point, Lindley comes back in. She walks down the corridor passed Michael toward Ben. Michael hears a shot. He looks down the hallway to see Lindley with the gun.

27:23 Ben was around the corner at this point, so Michael says he couldn't see him. But Michael turned and ran out the door, and he heard more shots as he went. A few seconds later, Lindley came running out screaming at Michael to drive, which he does. They head back to the Spa in Columbia all told. Michael says that they were there for maybe five minutes or less. When they got back to the spa, Ashley immediately takes Lindley back to a room in the spa with a shower table, helps her take her clothes off, and then washes her down head to toe while Lindley lay curled down the table. I was going to ask if she had a gunshot rosidue test. She did have a test I'd mentioned earlier on in part one. It came back negative. But yeah, Linley or Ashley apparently scrubbed her down really well. As soon as she got back, Michael came back to the room where Ashley was washing Linley up. Why couldnt Linley wash herself?

28:18 I think she was like kind of shock or hysterical. But yeah. One of them asked Michael if he would take Linley's clothes and dispose of them. He said no, and he said he didn't really want anything more to do with them, and then leaves. Again, this is all Michael's story. He's basically making it sound like he had no idea there was going to be a murder at all. He was just there to help her. But he's in jail for life, right, he has a possibility of parole. That his deal was. He is in prison for life. So I'm not sure if there is more to Michael's story or not, but that was the story that he that he told the police. So he is a life sentence for his involvement in this murder. Yes, yeah, so he really got I mean, and it seems like the evidence against him is just hearsay.

29:06 Yeah I think it is. Yeah, I mean, he was definitely there. He admitted to being there in his story. He had no idea that Lindley was going to kill him. But I don't know if his story is true. He may have gone there with her with the intent that he was going to do it and then he chickened out. But either way, Yeah, he is in prison for life. I guess I'm curious what the evidence is that is against him that the jury heard. Yeah, I wish that I could have found information about his trial. Lindley's entire trial was on court TV, remember watching that. But Michael's trial, there was really no information about it that I found anywhere. I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but I'm guessing he's in a peel process. No, I think he's I think he's in jail. He cut a deal. I mean the deal that he cut was I will now have the possibility of parole. Sorry, I'm sleepy. Yes, that's probably a good time to take a quick break.

30:02 We'll be right back, all right. So going into Lindley's trial, I just wanted to say I had a little snack while we ran a little commercial break. And if you've never had a high chew before, h I c h W. They're in our little snack box that cast send us. I love those. They're so they're so good, Like I love the texture. I know I've had them before, but I don't. I don't remember them at all. It's just it's really chewy, and it's just fruity and I'm sorry. Well, thanks for sharing. You're welcome. Well you knew I had another snack too, would you have? I had some fruit snacks some I don't know what brand there. Welch. Remember at a certain age when our darling daughter would only eat she had four food. She would eats popcorn, hot dogs. It was popcorn. No, it was like fruit snacks, string cheese, pasta, and she ate for yeah, but the Welch's fruit snakes were her favorite. They're good, all right. So let's recap the evidence against Lindley going into her trial. So you have Brandon Blackwell, Lindley's boyfriend starting before Ben's death, saying that Lindley admitted to him that she had killed Ben. You have Ashley Shaw, who cut a deal for testifying that she was complicit in helping Linley to plan Ben's murder. I didn't mention it until now, but there was another SPA employee, a woman named Rachel Hunt, who also said that Lindley told her about her plans to kill

31:34 Ben. She wasn't as involved as Ashley in the planning, but she was also aware of it. You have Michael Humphrey's story of being there with Lindley. You have the gas station receipt on Lindley's debit card for the afternoon of Ben's murder when she originally said she was at the spa all day, And they have a bunch of circumstantial stuff as well, Lindley and Ben's marital problems, Lindley's affairs with three different guys right around the time of Ben's death, her selling the farm soon afterwards, her failing the polygraph, and so on. Yeah, that's that's a lot. It's not looking good for Lindley. No, it's not so. As her trial rolled around in December twenty one, Lindley actually came up with a way of explaining everything, though, Oh okay was a misunderstanding. Yes, despite what she had said before about being at the spa all day, she now admitted that she was actually there when Ben was killed, but that she didn't do it. She took the stand in her own defense, testifying for over four hours and telling quite the tale.

32:36 Before she went into what actually she says happened, she started by trying to paint a sympathetic portrait of her life up until Ben's murder. She talked about her upbringing, her health, issues, her struggles with depression and eating disorders. She talked about her dedication to becoming a massage therapist, even through an unexpected pregnancy and the father of her first child going to jail. She talked about her toxic relationship with Michael Humphrey, who got her addicted to painkillers, and how she quit cold turkey when she went to stay with her dad. She talked about falling in love with Ben after seeing how good he was with her son, and how she supported Ben in his reptile business, putting aside her own career to work with him to grow the business. And then she testified about how things started to get more difficult, money troubles, spending all their time on the business, and then her dreams of opening her own spa when she found that Ben wasn't as supportive of her as she had thought, and then their growing marital problems. She claimed that Ben raped her in the middle of the night more than once. She talked about the stress of running the spa and how she delegated almost everything to Ashley because she was frankly in over her head. She shared some of the text messages that she and Ben had had where she came across as the good guy kind of wondering if they should close the spa and suggesting they go to therapy, while some of Ben's response says that she shared kind of made him look like maybe a bit of a jerk. All that led up to the spring of twenty seventeen, when Lindley says that she basically had checked out of the marriage. She wasn't

34:10 proud of it, but she started having affairs and then she finally decided to tell Ben that she wanted a divorce, and June eighth was the day that she was finally going to do it. But she wanted someone to go with her because she was worried about Ben getting violent, and for some reason, the best option she and Ashley could come up with was Michael Humphrey, even though Lindley hadn't talked to him in years. So she reaches out to Michael. He agrees to go with her as protection, but when they get out to the Snake Facility, Michael just goes crazy and starts shooting Ben without any warning. She said that she was outside the snake facility, so she didn't know exactly what happened in there. She was in shock, and denial, and that's why she didn't call nine to one one at that point, and why her follow up texts to Ben didn't allude to what happened. And her follow texts to Michael, although they sounded like they were trying to arrange a time for him to come in for a massage, they were really her trying to get him to come in and explain what happened. What do you think about Lindley's story? It sounds like a bunch of WHOI It does sound like a bunch of whoie. Yeah, I mean she had to try. Yeah, And the question like when you think about like why would Michael just suddenly kill Ben on his own without Lindley, you know, without her involvement.

35:30 Her defense wanted the jury to believe that it was because a because he was on meth and people on meth are just unpredictable, or b because Lindley had told him that Ben had abused her and that was what he believed to be the only way to deal with abusers. So, you know, her whole her whole defense was that he just did this on his own. But then the other big question is why would all these other people Ashley Michael, Brandon, and Rachel make up this lie about Lindley plotting to kill her. According to Lindley's defense, they all had their reasons, right. Brandon was angry. He wanted revenge because he was in jail for stalking Linley. So he struck a deal, right So, and I think there is some validity to that. He was angry at her, and he did want to strike a deal to get out of jail. But you know, Michael, he was on trial for murder, so he struck a deal so that he could get parole. Ashley and Rachel, that's a little harder to explain, you know.

36:27 But Lindley's defense was that the police pressured them, saying they would be in big trouble if they didn't turn on Lindley. And by the way, the poisoning incident that happened a week or two before Ben's murder, that was completely innocent, according to Lindley. You see, people would send stuff to the SPA all the time for Lindley to try things like protein powder and supplements in hopes that the SPA would start selling those items. According to Lindley, that was why Ben got sick. They had gotten some supplement to try and Lindley brought it home and it wasn't just Ben and Ashley also tried whether whatever the sample was that was sent to them and they both got violently ill as well, But there's no evidence of that correct, correct. So Linley she had an answer for everything, right, Well, she's the victim here, Yeah, that's what That's kind of what it made it sound like. So I do have to admit, like I watched her entire testimony, and even though there's no doubt in my mind that she is completely guilty of premeditated murder, I have to admit that her performance on the stand was pretty impressive.

37:29 As ludicrous as I think her story was, she came across as very earnest and sympathetic. Here's a short clip where the prosecutor asks her, after all the lies that she admitted telling the police, why the jury should believe her? Now? If you're willing to lie to the police about such a vital man, why should these jurors now believe you. I was lying to protect myself, and I told a lot of really awful lies just to do that. But it's just too heavy, and it's too much, and so much bad has come from trying to hide behind those lies. So I understand what the prosecutors saying about all of the lies that I told. But all I can do now is just to sit up here and tell the truth, and at least I will have gotten it out and I won't have to carry it anymore, or Linley's been carrying around this burden. Well, I just had to google a little a little picture of Linley because I you know, he always assessed someone's guilt or innocence by what they look like. Yeah, I mean, she's a cute girl, but Ben, I hadn't seen his picture

39:00 for what a cute guy. Yeah, good looking guy. Yeah, it just seems he just Linley reminds me a little of Kirsten Dunst. Yeah, has a similar look to her. She kind of almost sounded like her in that clip too, Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. So it wasn't I mean her performance again, I thought it was very It came across at least sounding sincere, although I've the psychopathy can make themselves believe what they're saying exactly. Linley's dad testified for the defense about his daughter's character and how she was never violent and how upset she was and how in shock she was after Ben's murder, and her dad obviously he believed these emotions were genuine.

39:44 Diana Waspman, the EMT who was on the scene. She also testified on behalf of Lindley, which I thought was kind of crazy because she really headed out for Sam. I mean, I don't know if it was that or that she just really believed Linley, like she really felt like Lindley was so upset when she broke the news to her that Ben was dead and on the scene and all of that, that she just she felt like she wanted to help. Well, you didn't, I don't. I think we said this in episode one, but Lindley's tiny. She's like five feet tall, one hundred pounds, and you know, people tend to treat you like you look, and she looks kind of like wayfish and you know, yeah, she looks kind of helpless, and yeah, someone that you want to take care of, you know. So what do you think the jury decided?

40:31 Sorry, I just took a drink. I think she's guilty. I think you're not asking me what I think. I mean, I don't know all the I don't know. You listen to. I know you listen to a lot of the trial. Yeah, I guess I think that I don't want to be wrong. I think guilty. All right. They did find her guilty, so they deliberated for twelve hours. They found her guilty, but they did not find her guilty of premeditated first degree murder. Instead, they found her guilty of second degree murder. And in Missouri, the jury decides the sentence for this, I'm never sure like in these trials, sometimes the judge decides. In this case, the jury decides the sentence, like they give the jury. I'm sure they give them some but but yeah, they get to decide the sentence. I'm sure there's guidelines for Oh, if it's second degree murder, here's a range or whatever. They decided that she would get a total of sixteen years. Oh yeah, sixteen years. Ah, and I hope that you have you asked Sam how he felt about that?

41:45 Well, in fact I did. That's a great segue. She is a manipulative monster. She's very pitty me. You know, she comes off as pathetic, almost pitiful, like are things are the animal that you ever help? And and I don't know she was able to convince there was twelve jurors. I don't know how basically good night, I really don't. I would killed to hear for one of those jurors and how they came up with a decision that sixteen years was all my brother's life was worth. This was even the judge afterwards said, you know, they did not understand their instructions clearly, and this was clearly a premeditated murder and they didn't follow their jury instructions. But it's just's a shame of justice wasn't served at all, and it's it shook my belief in the system, not just mine. I can't tell you how many people in the industry my brother worked in we were just completely flabbergasted by by this and the lack of justice in this case. Yeah, I couldn't. I couldn't agree with Sam Moore on that one. I just that's that's devastating. It's really sad. Was Ben when he died? I think it was twenty nine Holy moly? Yeah, and he uh. Sam mentioned the judge also, and I did find a clip of the judge talking to Lindley after her sentencing, and he had he had some choice words about the sentence as well, somehow they got confused, in my view, taking you out of the equation. His brother would still be alive. I don't understand how you're going up there at one minute you want a divorce and to

43:20 get mister Humphrey mad enough to kill. I don't know. It doesn't matter if he killed. You were the one that put him up to it. You're awful, lucky, ma'am. You're gonna get out in your forties, and my forties weren't too bad. I just hope you don't kill again. Oh boy, I know that's not something you hear from a judge very often, that kind of that kind of statement. Wow, yeah, that's all I have as Wow, that's that's crazy. Yeah, dad, And really not justice, No, not at all, not at all. So I'll have a few notes of what happened after, but before or that, I have a few discussion topics, so a little book club discussion. But the first one is how did Linley get all these people? So Ashley, Michael, Brandon, Rachel, they all helped her or covered for She didn't pay them, She didn't pay anybody anything for this. They were all willing to lie to the police without their knowledge of or in Ashley in Michael's case, their involvement in I think if I were in that position, people would be like, no, I'm not helping you. I think she's I think Sam and I'm not just being nice to Seam because he was kind enough to give us an interview. But I think he nailed it when he said that she was like a helpless little creature. Yeah, and you know, people just wanted to protect her. Yeah, that's the only explanation that makes any sense.

44:50 But it's just it's just so mind blowing that all these people, and like Michael Humphrey, like she hadn't seen him in seven years, and she calls him up and he's like, oh, yeah, I'll go, I'll go help you. Like and again, maybe maybe he didn't think that she was going to be Well. Sometimes it's the company that you keep to and some people are more prone to help you murder your husband than others. Yeah. Yeah, maybe it's clear that either Lindley or Michael Humphrey pulled the trigger and killed Ben based on the information that you've heard, Like, which one do you think did the actual shooting and do you believe Michael Michael Humphrey story that he didn't know that Linley was planning to kill Ben that day, that he was just going along to protect her as she went to ask for a divorce. You know, I don't really know. I don't know, but it's crazy that his sentence it's worse than it's so much worse than hers.

45:43 Yeah, I just wow. He really must wake up every morning and just be like, what happened? Yeah, you know, I don't know what I believe. I really don't. What do you think? I think she did it? I think she pulled the trigger. I think he probably knew more than what he said. I think he was probably not so innocent that he thought he was just going there. I'm not sure. I don't I don't know. But he was a drug addict. Yeah, he was definitely using math around that time, so it's very possible that he was. But no money exchanged hands, exchanged hands, like I think gas. I think he got a massage. I think, honestly, I think that's what he got out of the deal, was that. It's just it's so crazy to me, it is crazy. So my last topic we've talked about a little bit as well, But what do you think about the punishment or the lack of punishment for the other people involved. So Michael Humphrey we talked about, he's sitting in prison for life, right, he may get prolled at some point, but she's gonna Linley is gonna be free long before Michael Humphrey is free. And Ashley that's the one that kind of gets me, right.

46:53 They obviously they needed her to testify to help get Linley convicted, but the fact that she was actually you know, she was actively involved in planning and she she was the one that got the prescription painkillers that were used in the first attempt on his life. But she walked away with immunity for the whole thing. That's bananas too. Yeah, wow, the whole case is bananas. Her her testimony on the stand, she just she just comes across as not entitled, just really like, uh boy, I wish I don't have apologetic kind of like she was just up there sort of like not very cooperative, not very helpful. It's just I don't know her. It sounds like no one is respecting that a man lost his life. Yeah, yeah, you know, a young man, you know, with a child. It really is sad that there's it seems like the justice for for Ben has has been lost in this. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So I'm sorry, my Coole. Is there anything because he plead out there's nothing that they can do for him. No, he struck a deal, No innocence project or anything like that. No, No, because ultimately he's not innocent.

48:14 He's not innocent. But that sentence is so harsh. Yeah, I think that it's not so much that he got too harsh of a sentence. Maybe he did, but I think Lindley's light sentence is just ridiculous. It's just insane. I agree. A couple notes the aftermath, so we talked about it a little bit. But you know, unfortunately, as with so many other cases, the kids are also victims in this case, right, two kids, Matthew and Amelia, well three kids, I know, but the two lost both of their primary parents, right Matthew. Ben wasn't Matthew's natural parent, but he was basically apparent to him and to and obviously to Amelia as well. But Jackson, he's without his birth mother because of her actions.

49:00 As I mentioned, Sam and other extended Rennick family members haven't been able to see the kids since Ben's funeral, despite the fact that Sam says he's tried everything he can to establish contact. He said that his lawyers have advised him at this point there's nothing else he can do and he should just wait and hope that they reach out to him at some point. But Sam has three kids of his own, so they have these cousins that they've you know, they have no relationship with at this point. So that's really sad, and it's just, you know, the way these kids, I think they're with Lindley's sister. I'm not sure if all of them. The one maybe with Brandon, but the other two I believe are with Lindley's sister at this point. And the kids, Again, the finances and the inheritance situation are complicated, but I think when the kids turn eighteen, they're going to inherit a fair amount of money. I think Ben had a life insurance policy and the kids would be the beneficiaries of it. But around the time they turn eighteen, Linley will probably beginning out of prison around then or maybe a little bit after that, but she's going to have these kids who are inheriting quite a bit of money. So it's just the whole situation is really not good.

50:15 Not good. In the end, I think that Ben will be remembered, certainly within the reptile community, as one of the most brilliant rare snake breeders who was on the forefront of the techniques and the science behind breeding these one of a kind, beautiful and rare snakes. He was serious, driven and focused. Was he the perfect husband? Probably not? But did he deserve what Linley did him? Absolutely not. I asked Sam how he hoped that his brother would be remembered. It was passion with the snakes in his industry, and as a father, he was an excellent father. You know. I hope the kids get their chance to know that as you you know, as to get older though, he loved to show her more than anything, and he aspired a lot of people in his industry. You know, he was well known well sure that we did, and he's remembered by a lot more than just me. That makes me really sad. Yeah, it does make me really sad. I feel and again, you know, I thank Sam so much for taking the time to talk to me, but I feel so bad for him. You know, he's lost both his parents, he's lost his brother who is close to and the farms and he grew up on and everything. So yeah, very sad, very sad. What happened to the snakes? I think Linley sold them, I'm not I'm not sure who she sold them too, but she had There was a friend of Ben's who was also into the snakes that she had asked to come help take care

51:45 of them after Ben died, and he did, like he went to the farm every day to help care for the snakes and everything, and then he caught wind that she was like talking to people about selling them to someone. So I'm sure she sold them eventually. I don't know to whom or how much money she got out of that, but but yeah, she probably made a fair amount of money on that. All right. Well, thanks for sticking with me on that. It's it's a crazy story. Well you didn't fall asleep. You're amazing. I don't know how you did it, but well done. So I'm a football game to watch too. So you have these episodes too. My heart goes out to you. And then you have to show up for work tomorrow. Oh boy, Oh yeah, I forgot about that. You're a you're a trooper. Thanks. I appreciate that.

52:28 Well, I did want to mention. So I did have a lot of sources for this case, which I'll include in the episode notes, including the dateline episode. Court TV had the video the entire trial which I watched. And just one last thank you to Sam Rennick for spending time with me and just being a complete open book and sharing all of his thoughts. His motivation for talking with me and other people is clear. He just doesn't want he doesn't believe that justice was served, which I agree, completely agree with, and he wants people to know about it. He wants there to be awareness of this and to you know, make sure that people don't forget. So there's nothing we can do because I mean, it would be double jeopardy if she were tried again. Yeah, he said something that he has talked to lawyers about about that, and they've pushed to try to get you know, different charges, but they've basically said it will it will cost too much and they've already done what they're going to do. So that's heartbreaking. Yeah, it really is. Justice was not served, It was not rest in peace.

53:29 Been all right, That's all I got for you, Okay, Well, I wanted to give another thank you to our friend Kat who sent us this package again. It was from Handry Greetings and it's it's pretty funny because I would like to challenge you to get that all back in the box because there's a ton of stuff in there. Pretty small. So yeah, great job package, have fun. Yeah, really a fun treat. Yeah, thank you Cat, and thank you to all our listeners. Do you have anything else? Well, I was just going to mention after I got home from being in Europe for seven days, I came home and I've I've noticed all these things different around the house. You were like on a you were on like an organizing mission or something. Right, I was slightly wasn't It wasn't as amazing as I ate, or like new shelves up in the bathroom.

54:21 There was all kinds of stuff going on, all kinds of stuff. Oh there's like downstairs that everything was different in the basement. It really was like the remote controls were in a different spot. You know, we've lived in our house for three years, and I think I'm just getting antsy, you know how you're just like you look around or like I hate everything. Everything's ugly. You don't do that. Only women do that, I think so. But yeah, I just got rid of some things that I didn't really love, and are the shelves and are we've never we have this weird shower. Tried to describe a shower. It's just like a big open like you you can walk into the shower from two different sides. It was just wide open through shower and there's not a door or a shower curtain. And today actually it was the first time. Because it's in summertime, it's nice, but in the winter it's kind of chilly because it's so open and there's no good place to put like any shelves or any like anything. It's kept everything on the floor. Yeah, where there's like one little place where you're supposed to anyway, long story short, I finally found some shelves that would adhere to the tile. Yeah, and it's awesome because now we have shelves were to put the shampoo and there's a lot of things. Yeah, it's very cool, riveting content. I just think it's funny. When I go away for a trip, I feel like I feel like you're like, Okay, he's gone. Now I can rearrange stuff, and you know, well, I'm not a slave. I'm not your slave, but I don't have to do your laundry and I don't have to cook for you, so the whole day just opens right up for me. Yeah, a lot of extra Well, no I do I do. You know I love an organizing Everyone

55:52 knows I love an organizing project. So yeah, I didn't get to. I bought some like little spice like spice stars like months ago, and I still have not had the opportunity. I've not taken the opportunity to organize like I want to like decant all our spices into all and consistent containers. And that's going to take a few hours. So I haven't made this is I'd better play on another trip. This is the content that people are here for. But yeah, I do like to organize. It just makes me feel lighter and better. And I think a lot of people probably know what I'm talking about. They'll have to post some pictures. I'm sure our listeners will want to see. Not so sure. I did have. I have had a few people ask for pantry pictures, so maybe i'll I've give I have sent them to Yeah, I could put those up. We should all right, Well, thank you everybody for sticking with us and listening. Hope you enjoyed the episode. Can I need to give another well? First of all, our friend Francy one more time. She has a ten percent coupon code, so check out her Etsy. Her Etsy shop is Peach Mountain Signs and her stuff is really cool. Ten percent coupon coupon code kill ten and it is good until the end of October of twenty twenty three. Awesome. Well, thanks everybody for listening. Check us out on our social media channels or follow us on Twitter, LMK pod, Instagram, Love Mary Kill, Facebook, Love Mary Kill. Look at you. Go check out our Patreon where

57:24 we just started it up. But we're going to be doing some bonus episodes, providing some additional content on Patreon and giving you early access to episodes of social free access. Yeah, look at you. You're just getting it all done and on no sleep. Love Mary Kill at gmail dot com too. I want to give a shout out to a special friend that I saw this weekend. Meredith. Oh yeah, one of our favorite people and one of our most dedicated listeners. Yeah, I love you, Meredith. Yeah. Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill your husband. The be be Be