Michelle and Jonathan Nyce - Part 2

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. 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 today? I'm pretty good? How are you? I am doing great? Great. We have an audience for our recording today. We have a very special mess. We have our little friend Clover in here. She is really excited to hear about this case.

0:41 Well, I know that there's a trigger warning coming up, so it'll make sure that she heeds that warning. Yeah, definitely. March Madness is here. Do you know what that means? There's a bunch of insane leprechauns running around. It does mean that, But it also means that I have created our very own bracket challenge. I called it Love Mary Madness, and I want to invite all of our listeners to join. Make their picks, see how their picks stack up against hours. Okay, and oh I have to do a bracket. You have to do a bracket as well. Historically I'm not great at it. Well, you know, there's a lot of luck involved, so you never know it's all for fun, but we are going to put up some prizes. The overall winner will take home a one hundred dollars gift card.

1:25 Oh, I thought you were going to say a date with Rich. No, but we have also fifty dollars gift cards for the top men's and women's brackets, and there will even be a consolation prize. If you finish dead last will give you a prize as well. So I have a chance. You have a chance the ultimate prize though, if anybody gets a perfect bracket. I haven't talked to you about this yet, but if anyone gets a perfect bracket, we will personally show up on your doorstep and bring you snacks. Oh how great is that? That's great? So you can get all the details and sign up now at Madness dot love mary dot com. Okay, that's Madness dot lovemarykill dot com. Registration closes March eighteenth, so don't delay.

2:08 Okay, So I told Rich that no one was going to sign up, So prove me wrong and sign up and make Rich's day. Are you ready for a snack? Yes? Because I know that it's a really nice box. That are very sweet, lovely kind friend, Carla sent who was one of our biggest supporters and just a gem of a person she is. And Carla went over and above the call of duty here, so she sent a large box. She went to BUCkies, which we've talked about many times on here, which we've never been to because we don't have the Shison too. We are going to it at some point, But Carla went to Bucky's and she just went crazy. She bought like all kinds of stuff and sent it along. So I'm probably not going to list everything that's in this box because there is a lot. But there are beaver nuggets, of course, sea salted carmel, also cinnamon beaver nuggets, which I don't think we've had before, right I don't.

3:01 I'm excited, No, I don't think we have. I'm excited about that. There's also some snack stick spites, hallapenno, honey flavor, oh, some cherry maple beef jerky, some praline peacans, a Bucky Bar, milk chocolate, and a dark chocolate Wow. But then there's she also sent all kinds of non food items too, like this nice BUCkies. Oh my god, Oh that's so cute, and. A nice Bucky's towel and a little Old Bucky's mascot. There's there's more. So thank you so much, Carla. It is just so nice of you. We really appreciate it. You know. It's really hard for me not to send, like everyone who sends something to us back a gift, because that's just how I operate. So Carla, thank you so much. She's just the sweetest and she sends me funny memes all the time and I adore her. So thank you so much, Carla.

3:49 Yeah, we appreciate it. Well, why don't we try it to try a couple of I really want to try the cinnamon Beefer nuggets and then maybe we should try the Hallapenno honey snack stick spites. Okay, all right, let's do it. What did you think those were. Really good and together? I thought they were really yummy together. It's a good combination. Yeah, it really was. The snack snick snack stiff bites jalapeno honey is an interesting flavor combination. I love both of those things, but I wouldn't have expected them to go together that well. But they really are good together. And the cinnamon Beaver.

4:29 Dugget has a chaser. Yeah, really good. Yeah, really good. Thanks again, Thanks Carla. Shall we get to part two of the Michelle and Jonathan Nice Story? Absolutely. I do have a couple of trigger warnings. First of all, this episode does contain discussions of domestic violence and homicide, which may be distressing for some listeners. Also, at the very end of the episode, we have a segment where we talk about cruelty to animals, So please listen with care. Would you like to give us a recap of part I'm going. To say, can I give a recap of Part one? I knew you wanted to. In part one, we met doctor Jonathan Nice, a brilliant six foot for molecular biologist who believed he was on the verge of curing the world's asthma. In nineteen ninety, he traveled to the Philippines and married twenty year old Michele Riviera after using whiteout to lie about his age on their marriage license. For over a decade, they lived out a version of the American dream, a twenty one room mansion in New Jersey, three children, and a one hundred million dollar pharmaceutical deal. But as Jonathan's ego grew, his world began to collapse. He lost his company, his massive payday, and finally his grip on Michelle. After discovering Jonathan had lied about his age for years, Michele's resentment turned into a secret life of her own. She began a clandestine affair with a local gardener named Enio, meeting him in seedy motels to escape the fortress that Jonathan had built for her. By the summer of two thousand three, the gentle Giant was a man on the end edge,

6:00 Unemployed and increasingly paranoid. Jonathan had began tracking Michelle's every move, even writing dark emotional poetry about her betrayal. The stage was set for a collision between Jonathan's obsession with control and Michelle's desperate need for freedom. One thing to point out is that Michelle had a fairly large family back in the Philippines, and she sent money to them regularly. She still had ties to her family, strong ties for her family. Yeah, and Jonathan often took credit for basically saving them, bringing them out of poverty, but it was really unclear whether it was Jonathan that was taking the initiative to send the money or whether it was Michelle. In one word, thing, Jonathan was fired from his job by the board, right, that's right.

6:45 It was his company, but he basically kept bringing in new venture capitalists to keep the company afloat, and they finally realized this guy's a liability. He's a brilliant scientist, but not a good businessman, and they ended up shelving the rug that he had spent his time researching on, saying that it wasn't really that effective. Well, and you've referred to him as brilliant several times, but really his brilliance I think is questionable because the drug that he spent twenty years developing was shelved. Yeah, that's true. I think he did have I think he was fairly brilliant in some ways, Like he did develop a drug that could have been used for some childhood leukemia sufferers, but it didn't get picked up because the economics weren't that great. But it is hard to tell whether he was truly brilliant or whether he was a little bit more of a fraud maybe.

7:33 Well we talked about this a little bit in episode one, but just how the pharmaceutical industry works and if something shows even mild potential, a lot of times it gets so much money through it at it. People throw money at it, but it also takes years to figure out whether it really is successful or not. In July two thousand and three, not long after he discovered Michelle's affair, Jonathan dropped a bombshell on his wife. He told her that he had just received a call from a man who had played a portion of an audio tape of her having sex. Michelle panicked. She first claimed that she had gotten a job on a phone sex line, but under Jonathan's relentless questioning, the truth finally spilled out. She admitted to the affair, though she downplayed it as a drunken mistake. Jonathan later claimed that he sat with her that afternoon while she called Enyo to end it forever, but Jonathan wasn't taking any chances. Two weeks later, he left a threat on Enyo's voicemail if you put your hands on my wife, you're going to be a dead man. The next day, he walked into the FBI's West Trenton office with an extraordinary tale. He told Special Agent John Mulligan that Enyo, under the alias Alexander Castaneda, was extorting him for five hundred thousand dollars in exchange for sex tapes. He showed them calls that he had received on his cell phone that had come from a Shell Station payphone as his proof.

8:56 You had mentioned this a little bit in part one, But Enyo was a little bit of a scammer artist himself. Yeah, he had three different names that he used. He was dodging child support payments, he had different Social Security numbers, and he had asked Michelle for money more than once. The case was handed over to Detective Daniel McCune of the Hopewell Township Police, who interviewed Jonathan and Michelle separately. He found Michelle distant and emotionless, a woman clearly trapped in a loveless marriage. She admitted to the affair and to lending Enyo one thousand dollars, but she looked the detective in the eye and denied any knowledge of a half million dollar blackmail plot. McCune's professional instincts immediately signaled a red flag. Why had Jonathan waited two weeks to report a threat to his family and why were there no instructions on how to pay the money. When mckune pulled the surveillance tapes from the shell Station, he didn't see Enyo's truck. He came to the conclusion that Jonathan had made up the extortion attempt to drive a wedge between Enyo and his wife. Then Jonathan's claims grew more or outlandish. He sent a bizarre fax to the detective claiming Enyo had tried to hire Michelle to kill him, and that mysterious trucks were lurking outside their kitchen window at night. Mckune was in disbelief the story was ludicrous.

10:15 He officially shut down the investigation, labeling the extortion allegations unfounded. Despite the investigation being shut down, Jonathan sought a restraining order against Denio. On August twenty first, the two rivals finally stood face to face in a courtroom. The judge, sensing the toxic volatility of the triangle, issued a mutual restraining order. If Enyo saw Michelle, he was to turn the other way for two years. They were legally bound to stay apart. So Jonathan has not had another job since he was fired from his lap. No, he had dreams of starting this other company, I think it was called Prism Pharmaceutical that he was planning, and he wrote a kid's book and he was writing poetry and things like that, but at this time point he had not had another job.

11:02 As two thousand and three wore on, Jonathan Knys found himself caught in a spiral of erratic behavior. He began seeing a psychiatrist and was prescribed laurezapam to manage his anxiety, but the medication only seemed to heighten his volatility. In a moment of raw vulnerability, he broke down in tears at his parents' house, telling them about Michelle's betrayal with the Gardener. Toward Michelle, he acted with a confusing blend of desperation and dominance. He began lavishing her with expensive gifts, yet simultaneously moved to choke off her independence. He closed their joint bank account and placed her on a meager three hundred dollars a month allowance, claiming he wanted her to learn to manage finances. To Michelle, it was a declaration of war. She called her family in the Philippines, telling them the money was stopping and that she wanted a divorce from a man who had become obsessively controlling.

11:59 In a last ditch effort to save the marriage, Jonathan orchestrated a second honeymoon in Charleston, West Virginia, he visited a doctor to obtain a viagraa prescription, determined to physically reclaim the intimacy they had lost, but the trip couldn't fix what was broken. Upon their return, Michelle took a decisive step. She got a job. For nine dollars and twenty five cents an hour. She began working as a beauty adviser at the Chanelle counter in Macy's. She loved the work, the social interaction, and most importantly, the escape from the mansion where Jonathan was always present. Jonathan hated it. He could feel his grip slipping. In a bizarre attempt to re establish himself as the center of her world, he announced the founding of a new perfume company, Sampaguita is that right that is named after the national flower of the Philippines, a symbol of innocence. He began obsessively trying to synthesize the flowers scent, drafting business plans that included Michelle and her best friend, Larissa. It was another make believe world designed to keep Michelle under his professional and personal watch, but the real world was closing in Jonathan was drowning in debt, even being sued by his own dentist over a thousand dollars bill. In September, he put the house on the market for one point six million dollars, claiming he wanted to move closer to his parents in Pennsylvania. Michelle was horrified. She didn't want to leave the life she had finally built for herself. The

13:29 atmosphere at one keith Wood Court turned toxic. Theodoro, who was visiting again, witnessed Jonathan's temper exploding at the dinner table, slamming his fists with such violence that Michelle would simply get up and walk out. Jonathan began telling his confidant, Sherry Leonard, that he was worried about Michelle's state of mind, even floating the idea of having her committed. Sherry Leonard was his ex assistant. Yeah, she had worked with him for a number of years. They were purely put They were like brother and sister, but they were very close. She was the one person that Jonathan would basically confide in. Things reached a fever pitch in October when Michelle was offered a well paying modeling gig for a TV commercial.

14:13 It was a chance for her own success, her own spotlight. Two days before the shoot, she called her friend in tears. Jonathan wouldn't let her do it, She said she was a woman living in a multimillion dollar home surrounded by six thousand tulips, who couldn't even say yes to a five minute commercial without her husband's permission. By the end of two thousand and three, the restraining orders meant to keep Michelle and Enno apart had become little more than paper suggestions. Despite the court's warning, the two were back in each other's arms within a month. According to Enyo, Michelle was the pursuer, calling him in tears until he agreed to meet. The weekly motel meetings resumed, and with them a continuing transformation in Michelle. She began dressing like a teenager, swapping her to designer labels for trendy outfits to go clubbing with her twenty one year old friend Amy.

15:05 At thirty four, Michelle was in the best shape of her life and leaned into the attention she received at the chanel counter. She was flirting with customers, even scheduling dates with men who had no idea she was married. The contrast at home was staggering. While Michelle was staying out late going to nightclubs. Jonathan was a ghost in his own mansion. He would take his lorazepam and wander out to the swing set he had built for the kids, sitting in the dark and contemplating how his life had gotten to this point. At a Christmas party in December, Michelle was the life of the room, singing Madonna on a karaoke machine and wanting to stay until the party was over. Jonathan sulked in a corner, eventually dragging her away for a screaming match on the drive home. Yet days later, on New Year's Eve, they hosted a lavish party for two dozen friends. They appeared relaxed, happy and perfect, even making double date plans for Valentine's Day and a summer vacation to Cancun. On January ninth, two thousand and four, Teodoro prepared to return to the Philippines.

16:08 But Teodoro was Michelle's dad, and he came over to the United States at least two or three times that I read, and stayed for like six months at a time, so he was almost part of the household. At a certain point. The night before he left, Michelle confided in her dad that she was finally done. She had a plan. She was waiting for the one point six million dollar house to sell, and the moment the papers were signed, she was filing for a divorce. But if I remember right, he took like a big loan out on like a second mortgage out there. He took a second mortgage out. So yeah, I'm not sure how much equity they had in the home, but they I think they bought it for nine hundred thousand dollars, so they were selling it. If they were able to get one point six million, it was a pretty significant profit they would make.

16:51 It was the last time Teodoro wouldever speak to his daughter. The very next night, January tenth, The Nicest went out for a night in Philadelphia with her friends Larissa and John Sues. They dined at expensive restaurants and danced at the Catman Do nightclub until the lights came up. To the Sues. They seemed like a couple enjoying the prime of their lives. But back at one keith Wood Court, things were about to reach their final violent breaking point. One thing to point out is that Michelle didn't really tell anyone any of her close friends about her relationship with Enyo. I think the only one who knew was her friend Amy, who was twenty one years old, that she had met at Macy's and they had started hanging out together. But it is interesting that a lot of the couple's friends really didn't know that the marriage was struggling or falling apart. There had been some public fights and things like that, but a lot of people really had no idea that they were in trouble.

17:46 People were probably surprised by this couple though, because there's twenty years difference in them, right, Yeah, and you've described Jonathan as tall but you know, portly, Yeah, and not in great shame. Michelle is young. Out. We'll be back after a break. Thursday, January fifteenth, two thousand and four, began with the quiet, muffled stillness of a New Jersey snowstorm. Hopewell Township schools were shuttered inside the mansion at one keith Wood Court. The morning was a study in domestic contrast. Jonathan sat at his computer obsessively refining the color layout for his sampaguita perfume his scent of innocence, while his three children played video games nearby. Michelle drifted in and out running errands before her evening shift at Macy's.

18:42 I'm so curious what this perfume smelled like? Yeah, did he develop it in his lab? I think he was working on it. I don't think he ever finished. By all accounts, the afternoon was a picture of dedicated fatherhood. Jonathan took five year old Samantha sledding on the massive hill behind their home. When she fell and cried, he brought her in and took the boys out for the rest of the day. As dusk fell, the rolls shifted. Michelle prepared for work while Jonathan bundled the kids into the car for gymnastics, followed by a pizza dinner at TG's Tratoria. They arrived home just before seven pm to a package that the children had been waiting for, a model castle from the Lord of the Rings.

19:23 The kids spent some time getting started on the model, then by eight pm, Jonathan claimed that he and the kids were tucked into the king sized master bed. They watched the Jim Carrey comedy Bruce Almighty on pay per view, and by ten PM the lights were out and Jonathan later insisted they were all fast asleep. That sounds like a picture perfeed day with three young cousins. Meanwhile, at Macy's, Michelle called Eno around five thirty pm to arrange a rendezvous. After her shift ended at nine fifteen pm, she clocked out. Security footage later showed her still in her black uniform, her bras Chanelle name tag glinting under the parking lot lights, a thick gold chain around her neck. She drove her Toyota land Cruiser to an Applebee's parking lot where Enyo was waiting in his Nissan Maxima. As Michelle climbed into Enyo's car, her cell phone rang. It was her friend Amy checking in. Michelle lied with practiced ease, telling Amy that she was headed to the supermarket. As soon as the call ended. Enyo pulled into the parking lot of Mount's Motel, a CD spot not far from the high end mall where Michelle worked.

20:32 Enyo booked room two O two for two hours under the name Jose Pineda. It cost thirty dollars Inside the room. As they began to have sex, Michelle's cell phone lit up. It was Jonathan calling from the mansion. She glanced at the caller id and simply switched it off, turning her attention back to her lover. When their time was up at midnight, the motel clerk called the room. Michelle freshened up, putting on her favorite Chanelle twenty two perfume, a set of luxury to mask the smell of sex in a thirty dollars motel room, and you know, drove her back to her land cruiser. They kissed, and at twelve thirty am, Michelle pulled out onto Quaker Bridge Road.

21:12 So I'm a little curious how CD motels work. Apparently pay for them by the hour, which is a little disturbed. But then at midnight is someone waiting for the room And I'm guessing, like the cleaning people aren't there at midnight. And I don't like to think about it too much, but yeah, it's a little bit. It's a little bit sortid. And I'm glad we exactly know the answer to that, because if you were like, oh, no, the cleaning cruise there are twenty four hours a day, and I'd be like. Yeah, they come right in right when you're leaving that husband, Oh. Yeah, not that we have not been at CD motels but it's been a few years in a while, and we never were in one where we re rented by the hour when we were poor and young, and we're now we're old and poor. But there were some motels that we rend to that I was like, I am not comfortable staying here, honey.

22:05 Yes, I remember those days well. Michelle was driving the thirteen miles toward their mansion, toward her sleeping children, and toward a husband who, despite his claims of being asleep, had been watching his calls to Michelle go unanswered. Michelle Nice was heading home for the very last time. The next morning, the silence of the snowy landscape was broken at eight fifty one am when the first officers from the Hopewell Township Police Department arrived at Jacob's Creek Road. They had been called to what appeared to be a routine traffic accident, but the PSEE ANDNG Electric Company workers who discovered the vehicle already knew better. As one worker told the responding officer, you can slow down from running.

22:50 She's already dead. The Toyota land cruiser sat in the shallow water of the creek, but the scene immediately defied the logic of a simple crash. The damage to the VA was minor, yet the interior was a chamber of horrors. Blood was smeared across the steering wheel, both front seats, and the left running board. Officers noted that the driver's seat was pushed back as far as it could go, far beyond the reach of the five foot four Michelle Nice. Michelle was still in her black Macy's uniform, her brass name tag and a white channel ribbon still pinned to her lapel. A thick gold chain remained around her neck, but she was missing one gold earring. In her left hand.

23:31 Her fingers were clenched tight around a clump of hair and fibers. As the Hopewell officers, who had never handled a homicide waited for the new Jersey State Police Major Crime Unit, they began to document the anomalies. First, the footprints, a clear set of size twelve footprints led away from the passenger side, crossing the creek and disappearing up toward the road. Then there were the injuries to the woman in the car. Despite the intact windshield dashboard, Michelle had suffered massive traumatic head injuries that were inconsistent with a low speed slide into a creek. Finally, there was a large black suitcase in the back seat. It was bloodied on all six surfaces. When investigators opened it, they found it packed with clothing. The investigators looked from the bloody suitcase to the size twelve tracks in the snow. This wasn't a woman who had lost control on an icy road.

24:26 This was clearly a staged crime scene, and one that was not staged very well. It didn't take officers long to trace the land cruiser back to Jonathan Nice. At nine thirteen am on Friday, January sixteenth, officers arrived at one keith Wood Court. Before showing up, they learned a curious detail. The Nice homes burglar alarm had been triggered at six a m. That morning. A patrol officer had checked the perimeter then but found nothing out of the ordinary. When they knocked just after nine am, ten year old Trevor and five year old Samantha answered. Their mother was at work, they said, and their father was dropping their brother off at school. The officers waited in the driveway.

25:06 When Jonathan's Hummer H two finally pulled in, The officers noted that he was disheveled, his hair was messy, his clothes rumpled. As they walked toward the house, Jonathan reached out and closed the garage door, an instinctive move that struck the officers as a deliberate attempt to hide whatever lay inside inside the house. When told about the crash, Jonathan immediately asked what hospital Michelle was in. Once the officers delivered the news of her death, Jonathan's reaction was not one of grief, but of deflection. As little Samantha sat on his lap drawing a picture, Jonathan began a cold, clinical tear down of his dead wife's character. He spoke openly of her infidelities and her unstable nature. Right in front of the child. He pointed the finger at Eno, the gardener, and her morally bankrupt young friend Amy. To the police, it felt less like a husband's grief and more like a prosecutor building a case against the victim.

26:03 Detective Mchune, the man that Jonathan had once tried to fool with the five hundred thousand dollars extortion story, took the lead on the case. He and his sister, Detective Karen Ortman, recognized the need to lock Jonathan into a statement. In the car ride to the station. They used Jonathan's own ego against him, flattering him about his scientific achievements to keep him talking. So the two detectives are brother and sister. Yeah, that's a really interesting dynamic. It is. And apparently this was the first case they had ever worked together. I didn't go into a lot of detail on it, but the book that I read talked a little bit about this, how they were really excited to work a case together because they had never had that chance before. Do you think they thought over who was going to be the bad cup?

26:45 Probably? I don't want to be the bad cup. Jonathan claimed that he had last seen Michelle at four pm the previous day, when she left for work. He said he went to sleep at ten pm with the kids, only waking at six am when his mom called because the burg their alarm in Jonathan's house had been triggered and she had been notified. Jonathan also repeated the fake story about how he and Michelle had met, and he told the detectives that he took larrazapam when Michelle stayed out late so that he wouldn't worry. But remember, how did they meet? It was like you kept saying, meet cute. I can't remember well. They actually metted through a pen pale ad, but the story that they made up was that he was scuba diving in Hawaii and she stepped on his foot and they started talking for there. Detectives noticed that Jonathan's hands were covered in small cuts and scratches. His fingernails were torn and dirty. They asked to take photos and Jonathan agreed. Then, during the drive back to the house, Jonathan made a massive blunder. Wistfully musing about his relationship. He said, you know, I really thought things were going to work out, and he explained that they only fought when Michelle threatened to leave.

27:56 When mckune asked when she had last threatened to move out, Jonathan and replied last night. If he hadn't seen her since four pm, as he had claimed, how could she have threatened to leave him last night? Even as the police canvassed the neighborhood, Jonathan was busy managing the narrative. He called Michelle's best friend Larissa, not to grieve, but to convince her that Michelle was a bad person who had been seeing her lover every night. Larissa was shocked she had no idea that her best friend had been having an affair. Most tellingly, Jonathan made no effort to call the Philippines. Michelle's family found out through a friend who saw the news. When a devastated Teodoro finally reached his son in law, Jonathan offered nothing but the cold scripted line, Michelle died in a car accident. Jonathan wanted everyone to believe that he was the victim of a cheating wife and that she was the victim of a vengeful gardener.

28:51 Even if I was cheating on you, wouldn't you be sad if I died in a car accident? Yeah, of course. Wouldn't you inform my family? Well? Yeah, absolutely. That part is kind of shocking that he didn't call her family at all. It wasn't even important enough for him to let them know. At six fifteen PM, as the temperature plummeted to abiding sixteen degrees, the medical examiner arrived at the edge of the creek. Michelle's body was frozen solid, a state that preserved the final violent moments of her life with clinical precision. It didn't take long for the emmy to look past the accident staging. It was without a question, a homicide. The autopsy performed the following morning told a story of a woman who had fought desperately to survive. Michelle's body was a map of a brutal, prolonged assault. First, there were the defensive wounds. Her hands and wrists were covered in injuries, and the hair and fibers found clenched in her left hand further confirmed her final desperate struggle. Second, Michelle was black and blue from head to toe. Her forehead bore three lacerations so deep they exposed the bone.

30:00 The top of her head had been struck with such force that fractured the skull, causing massive intracranial bleeding. And crucially, the medical examiner found blood on the soles of her feet. This was a devastating detail. It meant Michelle had been standing, walking, or perhaps running, through her own blood as she tried to escape her attacker. Did she have shoes on? I don't believe she did, okay. But the most disturbing revelation was the timing. The presence of frothy blood in her lungs told the medical examiner that Michelle Nice did not die instantly. She had survived the initial skull, crushing blows for at least ten minutes, gasping for air and inhaling her own blood before her heart finally stopped. The report was clear Michelle had been beaten to death by blunt force trauma. She hadn't died from a car sliding into a creek. She had died in a struggle that began long before the land cruiser ever reached Jacob's Creek. As the forensic details were logged, the police were already looking back at the twenty one room mansion. They were thinking about the size, twelve footprints, the scratched hands of a disheveled husband, and the garage door that Jonathan Nice had been so quick to close.

31:15 While the forensic evidence was mounting, detectives began interviewing those closest to Michelle. When they spoke to Amy Sumayang, Michelle's friend and confidant from the Chanel counter, she confirmed that Michelle had been seeing Enyo. In fact, she was certain that Michelle had been with Enyo the night before. After her shift ended at Macy's. By ten a m detectives tracked Enyo down at the home he shared with Patricia Abod. Unlike the disheveled husband they had interviewed earlier. Enyo was cooperative, eventually returning to the station with his lawyer to lay his cards on the table, and New's confession was detailed and surprisingly transparent. He admitted that he and Michelle were seeing each other and that they had broken the restraining order in October on a to stay away from each other.

32:01 He confirmed their final rendezvous at Mount's Hotel, where they had parted ways at twelve thirty am. Enyo also admitted to the police that to explain his late arrival to Patricia, he had used a classic ruse. He stopped for two Heinekens on the way home so his breath would smell of alcohol, providing a legitimate reason for being out late and snoring on the couch. Patricia confirmed his story. She had been so annoyed by his late, drunken return at one fifteen am that she banished him to the sofa for the police. Enyu's timeline checked out and helped to clear him. If he was at his house by one fifteen am, a fact corroborated by a suspicious wife, he couldn't have been the one staging a car crash in a Creek miles away. Soon after that, the spotlight shifted back to the man who had claimed to be tucked up in a king sized bed watching movies with his kids while Enyo was drinking Heinekens to hide a mistress.

32:59 Jonathan Knight was at home, likely staring at the clock waiting for the scent of Chanelle twenty two to enter the house for the very last time. So the oldest child is at least ten. At twelve, I believe the oldest child was. Were any of them talked to by the police and able to corroborate his. Alibi, We'll talk about this in a little bit, but the police were not able to talk to them for quite a while after this happened. Okay, the investigation at one keith Wood Court was no longer a courtesy call. It was a forensic investigation. By the evening of January sixteenth, the detectives had seen enough contradictions to treat the Nice residents as a primary crime scene.

33:39 As Detective Ortman was crossing the t's and dotting the eyes on the search warrant, investigators worried that Jonathan was in the basement desperately attempting to erase any physical evidence, and they weren't wrong. Knowing he had left those size twelve tracks in the snow, he didn't just hide his shoes, he destroyed them. I don't know if you remember from Art one when he was on his sabbatical, when he was unemployed, one of the things he did was to invent a new kind of footwear where he took the souls from work boots and cut them off and pasted them or glued them onto the bottom of a pair ofmocracy. It was like a lug soul, right yeah. Now. He used a scroll saw to cut the boot's souls off and slice the souls into small, unrecognizable fragments. He then hit the pieces in various locations, including inside a box of Christmas decorations. His work was interrupted by his five year old daughter, who came downstairs to tell him the police had returned. At eight thirty one pm, officers arrived to remove Jonathan from the home to prevent the destruction of further evidence. The cool clinical scientist was replaced by a man scrambling for a lifeline. He fumbled through the yellow pages for an attorney he had used for a minor municipal hearing. Months earlier, his police escorted him through the house to pack a bag. They noticed broken glass in the master bathroom. Jonathan's explanation was immediate and practiced.

35:06 The kids broke the glass earlier. They let him pack a bag. Yeah, I'm actually surprised a little bit about this whole thing because they didn't have the search warrant yet, but they told him he had to leave the house. They knew that they were working on the search warrant, but I'm surprised that they could tell him he had to leave. At that point without a search warrant. Yeah, And I think that would come up later in one of the. Appeals that his It sounds like they were kind of going through the house, Like you said, they went to the basement and he saw that is it does seem not normal. Yeah. Once Jonathan Is and his family vacated the premises, the forensic team spent three days meticulously searching the mansion. They didn't have to look hard to find the violence Jonathan had tried to wash away. Detectives found blood on the door jam and floor of the basement in the garage.

35:57 The dwarf frame leading into the house was stained and the floor showed clear squirl marks where someone had attempted to mop up a significant amount of blood, and a shelving unit. In the garage, investigators recovered a baseball bat stained with what appeared to be blood. Nearby lay an empty bottle of hydrogen peroxide, apparently used here for a desperate failed cleanup. The garage contained a lot of evidence and various garbage containers. They found plastic trash bags stuffed with numerous blood soaked white paper towels. There was also evidence found hidden away in odd places. In the living room, a pair of men's black pajama bottoms soaking wet, had been stuffed behind a couch. There was a plastic bag filled with more bloody paper towels tucked in the chimney, flu behind a fireplace in the basement, and upstairs, the washing machine was filled with reddish brown tinted water. So this guy does not know how to clean up a crime scene at all.

36:55 No, he doesn't know how to stage a crime scene, and he doesn't know how to clean it up. The mansion was no longer a dream home. It was a laboratory of murder. Jonathan's desperate attempts to clean up the scene had been futile. We'll be back after a break. By Sunday morning, January eighteenth, the walls had effectively closed in on Jonathan Nice. He arrived at the police station with his father and brother. Still attempting to control the narrative, he tried to resurrect the Enno frame up theory, claiming Michelle was so terrified of Enyo's wife that she had disabled the garage lights, thinking that she was being followed home.

37:38 The detectives were unimpressed. To them, the idea of a third party killing Michelle inside her own home and then staging her car in a creek was, as they put it, the dumbest frame up. Ever, when Jonathan realized the police had enough probable cause to arrest him, the negotiator in him emerged. He tried to broke her a deal for a short sentence in exchange for a state. The detectives refused to play. They leaned on his ego once more, telling him that a man as logical and analytical as he was should see how lopsided the evidence had become. Jonathan, Ever, the scientist agreed, saying he probably wouldn't believe himself either.

38:18 A brief legal hurdle appeared when Jonathan's attorney, Lee Engelman, called the station. He left a message with the police saying he wanted to represent Jonathan and advising him not to speak with the police. After consulting with the assistant district attorney about their legal obligation in the situation, the police told Jonathan that Engelman had called, but they didn't tell Jonathan that his lawyer had left a message advising him not to speak. So this is kind of interesting and I am not a lawyer at all, but so this lawyer calls them up while they're interrogating Jonathan, says I want to represent him, tell him not to talk to the police. And the police said that his lawyer called, but they didn't say the part about him lawyer advising him not to call the police. I'm not sure how ethical or legal that is, but it seems a little bit of a gray area.

39:08 Had he called his attorney. This is the attorney he called. He just grabbed the Yellow Pages while they were trying to get him to leave the house, and he just this was an attorney I think he had worked with once before on something mentioned other matter, but it wasn't someone he had worked with regularly. The police did read Jonathan his Miranda rights, but Jonathan, perhaps believing he could still outsmart his interrogators, declined to speak with his lawyer. He said he just wanted to be helpful to the investigation. The breaking point came when Jonathan asked the one question that still haunted his ego. Had Michelle been with eno that night? When the detectives confirmed that she had, Jonathan's composure shattered, he began to hyperventilate, spiraling into a sobbing breakdown. The knowledge that she had chosen the gardener over him and had declined his call while in that motel room was the final ego wound that he couldn't sustain. Through the tears, the confession finally came, though it was wrapped in a new layer of make believe. Jonathan claimed he had acted in self defense. According to his taped statement, he was in the kitchen at two am making some warm milk for Samantha when he heard Michelle's car. He met her in the garage, where he claimed she was acting high and aggressive. He alleged that she lunged at him with a sharp, shiny object, a stiletto or a letter opener from her chanel bag. He claimed he threw her to the concrete floor to protect himself and her head hit with a sickening funk. Jonathan insisted he spent fifteen minutes

40:40 trying to save her, but that she kept flailing and trying to stab him even as she bled. He claimed he only staged the accident to protect the children from the knowledge that their mother had tried to kill their father. He blamed his foggy decisions like stuffing wet pajamas behind a couch on the heavy dose of lazapam he had taken earlier. Are you buying this story? Self? Noice? And sometimes my eyes just roll up so far into my head that it's shocking. Well, I think the police weren't buying it either. At the end of the nearly two hour interview, Nice was arrested for a first degree murder and his bail was set at two million dollars cash. While Jonathan Nice had sat in an interrogation room spinning a tale of stiletto lunges and self defense, the investigators were piecing together their own theory of what happened that night, one based on the evidence the detectives believed that Jonathan didn't wake up by accident. He had been waiting since early December. He had been seething, and on the night of January fifteenth, his patients finally evaporated. After tucking the kids in at ten pm, he didn't sleep. He sat in the darkened dining room watching the driveway. When Michelle's land cruiser finally pulled into the garage at twelve forty five am, Jonathan was already moving. He met her at the garage entrance.

42:00 As she stepped out, he hit the button to close the garage door, sealing them inside. The argument was immediate. He smelled her Chanelle twenty two perfume and knew exactly where she had been. As the shouting escalated, Michelle pushed past him, heading for the master bedroom to pack. She was done. She grabbed the large black suitcase and began throwing clothes inside, declaring that she was leaving him in the master bathroom. A scuffle resulted in a broken wineglass, bleeding and in her stocking feet. Michelle dragged the heavy suitcase back down to the garage, desperate to get to her car. It was there that Jonathan snapped. He yanked her from the vehicle with such force that he left finger shaped bruises on her arm. Then he reached for the baseball bat he swung with the full weight of his six foot four frame, fracturing her skull. Michelle didn't die instantly. She put her hands up, fighting for her life, sliding through her own blood on the concrete floor. As she tried to crawl away, Jonathan caught her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and drove her head face first into the concrete again and again until he heard the sickening thud that signaled the end of her resistance. Then he tried to stage her death as a car accident on a slick, snow covered road. He lifted Michelle's lifeless body into the driver's seat of her land Cruiser and tossed her blood soaked suitcase into the back around two fifteen am.

43:24 Wearing only a T shirt and pajama bottoms in the six degree cold, he used a plastic ice scraper to work the car's pedals while sitting on or next to his wife's body to steer. He drove to a specific opening in a white picket fence, a spot that investigators believe he may have scouted earlier. He let the car roll down the fifteen feet into the frozen creek, then stepped out of the passenger side, leaving the engine running and his dead wife behind. The walk home had been a nightmare of adrenaline and freezing water. At one point, the ice on the creek broke, soaking his customid moccasins. When he finally reached the house, the cleanup began a frantic attempt to scrub the garage and hide the evidence in fireplace flues and behind couches. After he accidentally tripped the burglar alarm in his basement, Jonathan knew it was only a matter of time before the police arrived. He went back upstairs and climbed into bed with his sleeping children, waiting for the phone to ring. However, when the officer showed up just after six, he just looked around the perimeter of the house, and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, assumed it was a false alarm. It wasn't until Jonathan returned from taking his son to school that the police had arrived to tell him that his wife had been found dead.

44:39 At his arraignment, Jonathan pleaded not guilty, but immediately began rambling, attempting to explain his confession until the judge silenced him. Though he claimed to be indigent and requested a public defender, the court, noting his one point six million dollar home and passed executive salary, denied the request, forcing him to find the funds or private defense. Meanwhile, the investigators returned to the mansion with a singular focus. The shoes. The size twelve wavy prints leading away from the passenger side of Michelle's car were the missing link, and they hadn't been found in the initial search. This time, though, in the basement, they discovered a forensic puzzle. They found a single piece of rubber near the scroll saw, then another and another hidden behind a workbench. They recovered the soulless leather moccasins. Detectives eventually recovered all fourteen pieces of the cut up souls, fitting them back together like a jigsaw puzzle.

45:37 The fit was perfect. The scientists had tried to destroy the evidence, but he had only succeeded in creating a clearer trail of his own guilt. As the story went national, the perfect history of the Nice family was systematically debunked, the story of the Hawaii scuba diving accident was revealed as a total fabrication. Investigat discovered they had actually met through a Filipino dating site, a revelation that led to Michelle being cruelly branded in the press as a male order bride, a label that devastated her friends. Detectives reinterviewed Enyo, who admitted his aliases were used to dodge Child's support, but claimed he had never tried to extort Jonathan for a half million dollars. No evidence of a sex tape or an extortion plot was ever found. For six weeks, the Nice family shielded the three children from police. When they were finally interviewed in the presence of a psychiatrist, they were unable to help the police. They may have slept through the attack that killed their mother, they may have blocked out any memories, or they may have been coached on what to say. Michelle's friends were left reeling.

46:48 The happy, go lucky woman they had known had been living a triple life of shame, secrecy, and survival, one that none of them had been aware of. While Jonathan Nice sat behind bars, an a new war erupted over the three children left in the wake of the violence. Just six days after the arrest, the Riviera family announced their intent to seek custody of Alex, Trevor, and Samantha. They wanted to bring the children back to the Philippines, to the culture and family Michelle had so desperately missed. If I remember correctly, they had never visited the Philippines because Jonathan had kind of blocked it. Yeah, he wouldn't let them go. The divide between the two families became a chasm. The Nices, who were caring for the children in Pennsylvania, withdrew their offer to pay for Michelle's funeral after a dispute over her remains. Jonathan's family pushed for cremation. Theodoro, guided by his faith and a father's grief, wanted to bring her body home for a traditional burial. In a staggering show of community support, Michelle's friends Larissa and Jean took over.

47:52 They raised the thirteen thousand dollars needed to transport Michelle's body across the globe. But even in death, Michelle was a piece of evidence. Her body remained under police guard while Jonathan's legal team insisted on a second autopsy to hunt for proof. Of his self. Defense claims that tributes to Michelle painted a picture of a woman far removed from the unstable caricature Jonathan had presented. At a service in Princeton, Larissa described a woman whose laughter could warm your heart and who treated everyone from the rich to the poor, with the same down to earth grace. On February thirteenth, funded by donations from the Victims of Crime Compensation Board, Michelle finally began her journey home. When she arrived in the Philippines, her family held a traditional funeral, though the casket remained closed. The brutality of the attack had been so severe that morticians could not reconstruct her face.

48:48 On Marge fifteenth, sixty three year old Theodora Riviera flew back to Newark Airport with just six dollars in his pocket. He moved into a studio apartment found by Larissa, vowing to find work and create a home for his grandchildren. He faced immediate pushback from Jonathan's defense team, who accused the rivieras of being after the money. Tyodoro strongly denied this. He was there for justice and for the children, and he believed they were being brainwashed. The children hadn't ever been told their father was charged with murder. They were being fed a narrative that their mother was bad. Really admire Theodoro's efforts here to try to get custody of the children, but it was really an uphill battle.

49:31 He was coming from halfway around the world that children had never been to the Philippines at all, and here he was. He's like, I'm going to move there. I'm going to find a job, I'm going to work, I'm going to build a home there. I mean, he was really dedicated to trying to make it work. Heartbreaking. Jonathan knew he would need serious help to overcome the mountain of evidence in his own confession. In February two thousand and four, he hired Robin Lord, a flamboyant, sharp tongue defense attorney with a reputation for winning unwinnable cases. Lord was the perfect match for Jonathan. She was one of the few people with a personality large and controlling enough to keep the former CEO in check. Lord was a polarizing figure in New Jersey's legal circles. She was known for her vehement anti police stance and what seemed to be her hobby of humiliating officers on the stand despite being married to a deputy.

50:23 Sheriff, and her husband apparently was an aspiring actor as well, who had appeared on One Life to Live at a certain point. But I wasn't able to track down anymore about her husband whether his acting career became a success or not. I used to watch One Life to Live every day. Yeah, well, I don't know if I watched it every day, but yeah. She was simultaneously the bane of the Mercer County Prosecutor's office and a patron saint for those facing insurmountable odds. She once famously gave a judge the fingering during a disagreement, and she made no secret of her belief that most police officers lied to secure conviction. Lord's strategy was immediate and aggressive. She beefed up the defense team with heavy hitters, including Maria Noto and the famous forensic pathologist, doctor Michael Boden, who conducted a second autopsy to hunt for self defense evidence.

51:16 She launched a pr campaign to humanize Jonathan, telling reporters he spoke to his children daily from jail. Also that makes them a good person. She successfully fought to allow Jonathan to post bond rather than straight cash, though the judge countered by raising the bail to two million dollars. Most significantly, Lord hired John Coy, a veteran of the Trenton Police Department, with a specific mission dig up dirt on Michelle. Lord knew that a self defense claim from a six foot four man who had beaten his five foot four wife to death was a nearly impossible cell to win. She couldn't just defend Jonathan. She had to put Michelle's lifestyle on trial. She aimed to transform Michelle from a victim into a provocateur, a woman whose secret life could be used to explain, if not justify, Jonathan's explosion of a violence.

52:09 One of the things that really bothers me about this case is this this whole I understand the defense team is going to do whatever it can to get their client acquitted, but just this character assassination. It really bothers me because they really tried to paint a picture of Michelle as first of all, she's a mail order bride, which you know, they kind of made sure that that sounded really awful, and just that she was having an affair, and it just seemed like they were really out to paint a picture of her as really a bad person. I know that's their job, but it is like, how do you sleep at night? Yeah. As two thousand and four progressed, the legal battle shifted from the crime scene to the bank accounts, and March, a judge dealt Jonathan a significant blow by freezing his assets at the request of the Riviera family. They are attorneys argued that Jonathan shouldn't be allowed to liquidize his estate to fund his high priced defense while his children's future was at stake. That happens a lot, and I think that's such a good point. Simultaneously, the custody battle intensified.

53:09 Jonathan's brother Michael, filed for temporary legal custody, arguing that the children, who had never been to the Philippines were better off in the suburban Pennsylvania life they knew. Robin Lord took the offensive, leveling a shocking and unproven accusation against sixty three year old Theodoro, claiming he was involved in a male order bride scheme. Theodoro, speaking in broken English at a press conference, vehemently denied the slanderous claims, asserting he was only there for his grandchildren, and that it was Michelle's generosity, not Jonathan's, that had supported his family. In a pre trial maneuvering, Lord attempted to suppress Jonathan's one hundred three minute tape confession, arguing that police had violated his rights. She made several other motions, trying to suppress evidence gathered from the house as being part part of an illegal search and seizure, and trying to get the charges thrown out Altogether. The judge ruled against Lord on nearly every front. She did succeed, however, in getting his bail reduced again. On August sixth, two thousand four, after his family scraped together seventy five thousand dollars, Jonathan walked out of jail. He moved in with his parents in Collegeville, tethered to a GPS inkle monitor, and allowed only supervised visits with his children. The most heartbreaking update before the trial came from Jonathan's mother, Emma. She claimed the children had come to terms with the tragedy, but the reality seemed more like a systemic erasure. Six year

54:40 old Samantha had recently drawn a family portrait that included everyone except her mother. She simply wrote the word mommy in the empty space where Michelle should have been. As Jonathan spent his days writing bairy tales for his children and preparing his defense, the woman who had actually given them life was becoming a ghost in her own family. Very sad story. Yeah, that is very sad. You just wonder in all these cases, like how do you do this to your children? Like the literally the worst thing that you can do is take away your children's parents. We'll be back after a break.

55:25 On June seventh, two thousand and five, the trial of Jonathan Nice began in a courtroom thick with anticipation. Judge Bill Mathesius presided over a jury of sixteen, four of them later to be named as alternates, while a gallery packed with curious onlookers and press came to watch things unfold. The prosecution's message was simple, Yes, Michelle had been having an affair, but the price of infidelity shouldn't be your life. Robin Lord's defense was equally clear. This was a tragic accident born of a confrontation with an unfaithful wife. The trial became a masterclass in courtroom theater and forensic sparring. In a dramatic clash Lord humiliated the medical examiner, asking if she was aware that medical journals say that you can't tell the difference between post mortem and anti mortem bruises.

56:15 The medical examiner, doctor Rafat Ahmad, said that that wasn't true. Then Lord pointed out that a Mod was carrying with her a copy of the nineteen ninety three edition of the Standard Forensic Pathology textbook. Lord produced the latest two thousand and one edition and showed a Mod the updated chapter indicating that post mortem and anti mortem bruising couldn't be distinguished in most cases. A Mod stammered, I didn't read that chapter. The point wasn't especially relevant either way. But the jury took a note of the medical examiner's blunder. That is a really interesting point, and you would think that it's probably really easy to bruise a body post mortem.

56:56 Yeah. Lord successfully lobbied for the jury to visit the craft site. The strategy worked. Several jurors, seeing the steep embankment for themselves, began to question if the police photographs had been deceiving. The embankment was steeper than they had realized. The defense's expert, doctor John Adams, testified that Michelle's injuries were classic fall injuries, which could have resulted from the car's descent down the embankment. However, the judge became extremely troubled when it was revealed that Adams had repeatedly revised his reports after back and forth exchanges with the defense team. So we talk about this a lot of expert witnesses, you know, they basically say whatever they're paid to say.

57:38 That well, I don't know if that might be a little overly cynical, yes, but in this case, the judge found that this expert had actually revised what he was going to say after phone calls with the defense attorney. And the other thing I was going to point out here is doctor Michael Boden, who had been involved. He was no longer involved at the trial, so I don't know if he did not to the conclusion that the defense team wanted, and so they dismissed him and brought in this other guy who was a little more willing to say what they wanted him to say. But also his schedules because he's. Very busy, base very true. In a major setback for the prosecution, the judge barred Michelle's father and sister from taking the stand. As a result, the jury never heard from the two people who could have spoken most directly to the reality of the marriage, Teodora, who had lived with the couple and witnessed Jonathan's temper firsthand, and Melodia, Michelle's sister, to whom Michelle had privately confided her fears there's another thing that really bothers me. Both of them flew over from the Philippines to be at the trial, and then the judge said, no, you can't testify, And part of his reason was that their English wasn't great, and he was like, well, I think people might misinterpret what they had to say. And it almost sort of feels a little bit racist that he didn't allow them to testify against him, because there's no reason why they shouldn't have been able to. Yeah. As the trial reached its climax, the most controversial moment occurred during jury instructions.

59:05 Robin Lord successfully argued that the jury should be allowed to consider several alternatives to first degree murder. They could find Jonathan guilty on lesser charges, including aggravated manslaughter, reckless manslaughter, or passion provocation manslaughter. If you ever heard of passion, provocation manslaughter. I had never heard of it either, but it is the least serious of those charges. It carries a five to ten year sentence, and it's defined as an intentional killing committed without malice in the heat of passion following a provocation, so it occurs when a reasonable person could lose self control due to being provoked and the killer didn't have time to cool off before acting.

59:46 In an even bigger blow to the prosecution, the judge agreed to explicitly name marital infidelity as a reasonable provocation that could drive a person to kill in the heat of passion. But basically the judge is saying, well, you can consider this lower charge. And one of the reasons why someone might kill this way is because they found out their wife was having an affair, which basically feels like the judge was just leading the jury to this conclusion. In her closing statement, Lord didn't hold back, launching a final assault on Michelle's character. She painted Michelle as anything but a normal sweet woman, citing her red thong and rent by the our motel rooms as evidence of a lifestyle that would drive any man to the brink. She argued that if a brilliant scientist like Jonathan had premeditated to kill his wife, he would have used some invented drug or the gun in his office. He wouldn't have killed her in a clumsy garage brawl.

1:00:39 I know she's doing her job, but that really enbriages me. Yes, me too. The prosecution pleaded for common sense, reminding the jury that Michelle was a human being with a right to life regardless of her flaws. They argued that Jonathan's ego simply couldn't handle being left for a gardener. The passion provocation manslaughter charge didn't makes sense. Jonathan had known about Michelle's affair long before that fateful night. It wasn't something he just learned about that night, causing him to snap. The jury was left with a choice. Was Jonathan Knice a cold blooded murderer who staged a crash, or a provoked husband who snapped in a moment of passion and then panicked. After fourteen hours of deliberation over three days, the jury returned their verdict. They found Jonathan Knice guilty of the lowest possible homicide charge, passion provocation manslaughter, along with tampering with physical evidence. The jurors were largely unconvinced by the state's medical examiner, whose sparring match with Robin Lord had effectively neutralized her testimony. One juror told The New York Times they believed Jonathan simply overheated in an angry moment, while another noted that Jonathan's high intellectual capability seemed coupled with an inability to deal with people, especially women. The sentencing on September twenty second, two thousand and five, became a final explosive battlefield. Jonathan used his final statement to paint himself as the savior of Michelle's family, describing them as starving squatters he had rescued. He expressed

1:02:11 no remorse for Michelle's death, focusing entirely on his own love and support for her, in a move that drew heavy criticism. The judge agreed that Jonathan's PhD and status as a pharmaceutical executive could be considered mitigating factors. When the prosecutor asked if a doctorate degree meant a more lenient sentence than a high school dropout, the judge bluntly answered yes. Jonathan repeatedly interrupted the sentencing proceedings, shouting from his seat when the prosecutor mentioned his failure to pay for Michelle's funeral or his lack of interest in his children. The judge sentenced Jonathan to seven years for manslaughter and one year for evidence tampering, to be served consecutively, with credit for time served and good behavior. Jonathan Nice would be free in less than five years. Less than two hours after being sentenced, Jonathan allowed to wear a business suit instead of prison Orange did an interview with Dateline from his lawyer's office. The next day, there was an outcry that Mercer County Sheriff Kevin Larkin had allowed the interview to happen. The Mercer County Prosecutor's office, which had known nothing about the interview, launched an immediate investigation. Sheriff Larkin apologized, saying in retrospect, he was wrong to have allowed it. The story of Jonathan Knice did not end with his twenty ten release from prison. Shortly after his release, he told the press, all my training is in cancer research, so I'm going back to my roots. But this time, he said he was going to treat canine cancer. Starting

1:03:43 in twenty twelve, Jonathan launched a company called Canine Care to desperate pet owners across America. He was a brilliant scientist who had found the breakthrough the pharmaceutical giants had missed. He marketed two cancer curing drugs to Mexol and Naturizone, with claims that would move any despairing dog owner to Mesol will almost always restore a cancer stricken dogs appetite, spirit, and energy. But the miracle drugs were nothing more than a random collection of bulk ingredients that Jonathan blended together himself. He even falsely claimed his research was funded in part by the US Food and Drug Administration to add a veneer of government sanctioned legitimacy. The reality was a multi year scheme of predatory cruelty. Around nine hundred pet owners were defrauded of nearly a million dollars in total. He induced families to pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of having their dying pets included in trials that didn't exist. Ultimately, the drugs were found to have zero medical value and no FDA approval. He was selling hope to the hopeless while their pets continued to suffer. In February twenty twenty, the FDA and the Department of Justice finally shut him down.

1:05:00 Now in his seventies, was federally indicted for wire fraud and the interstate shipment of misbranded animal drugs. In December twenty twenty two, a jury convicted him on all counts. On February sixteenth, twenty twenty four, at age seventy three, Jonathan Knice was sentenced to ninety seven months over eight years in federal prison. It was a sentence longer than the one he had received for killing the mother of his children. A search of the federal inmate system indicates that Knics died five months after being sentenced in July twenty twenty four, at age seventy four. No cause of death was given. I can't one hundred percent confirm that he died, but you know, I always search like I do an inmate search, and the record for him it just had a little thing at the bottom that said date of death blah blah blah. So I assume that's accurate.

1:05:49 But I didn't find any other news reports on that. Jonathan Nice's legacy is defined by a lifelong pattern of deception and a refusal to take responsibility whether he was inflating the value of a failing pharmaceutical company, or casting himself as a savior to justify a brutal murder. Jonathan consistently prioritized his own image over the truth. Even at seventy three years old, facing his final years in a federal self or defrauding pet owners, he remained the same man the public first met in two thousand and four, Articulate and highly intelligent, but fundamentally incapable of empathy. He didn't just break the law, he exploited the desperation of people who trusted his scientific credentials, choosing to profit from their desperation rather than face the reality of his own professional and personal failures. But the heart of this story isn't Jonathan Nice. It's the woman who once planted six thousand tulips in her driveway. Michelle Nice was far more than a headline or a cruel caricature of a male order bride or a cheating spouse. She was a mother who worked to build a community for herself despite years of isolation, a daughter who remained deeply loyal to her family in the Philippines, and a woman who was finally finding the confidence to live her own life. Michelle didn't die because she provoked her husband. She died because she made the choice to leave him and start her own life. Today, while she is buried in her home village, her memory is kept alive by the family and friends who fought

1:07:20 to tell her side of the story. Honoring Michelle means looking past the cold, perfect image that Jonathan tried to project and remembering the warmth and the personality that she brought to a house where she was never allowed to be truly independent. Rest in peace, Michelle. There's a few things we should discuss before we wrap up. First of all, what do you think about the verdict, the passion, provocation, manslaughter verdict. I mean the fact that he got five He was in prison for five years, right, that's disgusting to me. He ended Michelle's life. She had a lot of years left to live. She should have been able to live those years with her children, and that was not an adequate sentence in my opinion. Just don't like the passion plea.

1:08:01 You ended someone's life, right, you get one chance at life. He took her life away, and to me, it doesn't matter what the circumstances were. You ended a woman's life. Yeah, I completely agree with you, and just the like the definition of this passion provocation manslaughter charge, it's like, well, it almost sounds like you're excusing it, like, well, he was provoked, he you know, he was upset, he was just like it just makes no sense to me that that carried such a light sentence and almost seems like you're. Just you know, but it almost seems like it's white privileged too. Yeah. I do think there was a lot of that in this case. You know, here's this woman from the an immigrant from the Philippines. Her character was assassinated, and yet just.

1:08:41 Because he was articulate and he was a scientist, a failed scientist, I might add, it doesn't mean his life is worth more than hers. Yeah. Well, just the fact that the judge said that he could take into account the fact that he had a PhD and was a scientist, and he could take that in account in the sentencing, and that basically saying his life mattered more than someone who, you know, was a lowly gardener or worked some manual job. That really I think the judge in this case was not very fair. I'm an adamant believer in it doesn't matter where you went to school, It doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter where you were born. Like, we are all equal. We should, we should all especially the same when it comes back to the same rights. Just because you have a college degree. And even if he did invent a cure for cancer, it doesn't mean that, you know, he shouldn't have served a life prison centerence.

1:09:35 Yes, especially when it comes to justice that we should. We should all be equal in the eyes of the law and in the justice system. We talked about this a little bit already, but Robin Lord, his defense attorney, was very aggressive and a big part of our strategy was to basically assassinate Michelle's character make it seem like Jonathan was somewhat justified and provoked. What do you what do you think about that defense? I know we kind of talked about it all right, but you know, is it as a defense lawyer, it's your job to do what you can to get your client acquitted. I mean, she was doing her job. I don't feel like I don't really have a problem when her doing that because her sole job, you know, her goal is to get him off and whatever it takes to do that.

1:10:16 I don't like it, but. You know, it's just kind of part of it. I'm curious because she obviously is one of those attorneys that is worth her weight in goal, right, is really good at manipulating the jury. So how did he pay for that or did she work pro bono? You know, I don't I wasn't able to find that out because I do know that his assets were frozen. We talked about that a little. Bit and did he he still had assets? He had assets. I don't think he was, you know, super wealthy, But I don't know whether she was paid or whether she just did it for the because it's such a high profile case. It was you know, in the media nationwide at the time, so she may have done it for that case. But yeah, I wasn't able to find out if she was paid or not. The last thing I want to ask you is about his his fake cancer drug for.

1:11:01 Grow disgusting. Yeah, I mean, what does that say about him as a person, Like, you know, he killed his wife, went to jail for it, and then he comes out and does this other fraud. And people love their pets so much, and it's so traumatic to have an ill pad that you love, and people will spend any amount of money to keep their pet alive. So it's really disgusting. Yeah, and I do think like he may have had some talent scientifically early in his career, but apparently by that time he was just basically out to. A snake oil salesman is what we call him. Yeah, exactly, horrible. Well, last thing, I just want to give a quick shout out to my main source in this case was a book by John Glatt, which is called Never Leave Me from two thousand and six.

1:11:47 John Glatt writes a good true crime novel. Oh really, I've never read one of his books before. Yeah, but it was very good, very detailed, and really well written. Before we go, I have compiled a list of the top ten most eccentric scientists of all time. We have been talking a lot about science, and it does seem like scientists in general. Maybe this is stereotyping, but it do seem to be a pretty eccentric lot by and large. Wouldn't you agree? Okay, I don't really know. I would say inventors maybe, but I guess scientists and inventors go hand in hand.

1:12:30 Whatever you say, Rich. Well, Also, I just got I just got done watching Frankenstein on Netflix. Oh, did you. It was of course about a mad scientist as well. So did you enjoy that? I did, Yeah, it was it was very good. I thought it was very well done. I don't have time for cinema when love is blind. I know you've got your Love is Blind schedule is pretty full. Well. Here here are some very eccentric scientists throughout history. The first one Nikola Tesla, as we all know, the inventor of the electric vehicle. Not really, but Esla was the father of alternating current electricity. He was a germophobe and he had a very specific hatred of a type of jewelry. He would refuse to speak to any woman wearing this type of jewelry. So what do you what do you think that might have been? No, it was pearls, and maybe I was trying to think of why would that be.

1:13:22 I think the pearls were listening to him, or. Maybe because he's a germophobe and pearls come from an oyster like maybe it grossed him out or something. I don't know. But he also claimed to talk to pigeons. He had a deep affection for pigeons and he claimed to be able to talk to them and He was so obsessed with the number three that he would walk around a building three times before he would enter it. Oh wow, that's that's kind of ocd ish. Henry Cavendish, who was the man who discovered hydrogen, He was so painfully shy that he would do anything possible to avoid talking to his housekeeper. He actually added a second staircase to his house just so he could avoid running into his housekeeper, and if he wanted dinner, he would just leave her a note on the table rather than actually talking to her.

1:14:08 He was actually with everyone or yeah. I think so, it's very sad. William Buckland. His life's skull was to eat every animal on earth. So he basically started going through the animal kingdom and tried to taste every animal he could possibly eat. Do you think that included insects? It did, Actually, yeah, there was. I think he said that the least favorite animal that he ever ate was a blue bottle fly. Apparently, Yeah, we've all had a bad experience with the blue bottle fly. Jack Parsons, who was the founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a brilliant rocket scientist. He practiced sex magic in his backyard and he performed occult rituals before every rocket test because he thought that that would ensure a successful launch, which seems wild, like somebody being a scientist but also being really superstitious.

1:15:03 Right, strange, And there is some block involved in science. Usually that's the episode of definite. But when you're doing a rocket launch, I could see you would want to do anything you could to be sure it was successful. Oliver heavy Side quite an interesting name. He was a mathematical genius. He was so eccentric that he replaced all his furniture with giant granite blocks, and he painted his fingernails bright pink, which is kind of nice. Yeah, lovely. Stubbins Firth the doctor who tried to prove that yellow fever wasn't contagious, and he tried to prove that by smearing fluids from his patients into his own eyes. Oh, I know, that's really pretty gros. He didn't get sick.

1:15:46 He actually didn't get sick from that, so I guess he was right. What is you? I'm trying to remember what yellow fever is. I don't really know what yellow fever is either. Kind of like leprosy. A lot of people think like leprosy isn't contagious either, Yeah, you don't. Even if you're not sure if something's contagious or not, don't don't rub it into your eyes. Well he was right though. He was. There was a scientist named hennig Brand who spent months boiling fifteen hundred gallons of human urine in his basement. Okay, The question there is where did he get all that urine exactly? You know he did it? Do you know why? Why? He thought it would turn into gold if he did that.

1:16:27 But the year was this, I don't have I didn't write down the year. This was a long time ago. He was like an alchemist, so that kind of tells you sort of the timeframe. When I was asking what year it was. Yeah, but he did actually discover phosphorus by doing that, which is apparently a pretty important find. It's a very valuable element to understand. All right. There's a couple more. Tico Brahe who was an astronomer in the sixteenth century. He lost his nose in a duel over a math formula. He had a dispute with another signs they decided I think they were using like swords and the one the guy. Yeah, so he had a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life. Wow, Pythagoras, you know Pythagoras.

1:17:12 Yeah, course A equals He had to be C over four A C. Wow, you nailed it. Yeah, wait no, I help me out. A squared plus B squared equals squared. Yeah, the Pythagorean. What about? Where's the like the what am I thinking of? There is. Or something? I actually know what you're thinking of, but I can't. I can't come over it. Okay, don't. You don't have to email us, you don't have to tell us. We'll figure it out. But he was obviously a very famous Greek thinker. He had his whole theorem. He was also a cult leader. He had a cult which was called Pathagorianism. The Cult of Triangles. It had a lot of bizarre customs, including that members of the cult could not they couldn't take public roads, they couldn't eat beans, they couldn't bake breads, and they were not supposed to put their left shoe on first.

1:18:04 Well, I'm out, I am not going to know. I like bread, both bread and beans. But he was allegedly he was killed by an angry mob who had pursued him to the edge of a bean field, and he didn't want to go into the bean field, and so they caught him and they beat him to death. Wow. Believe that or not. I don't know. It's alleged, all right. Last one Giovanni Aldini. So this one was inspired by my watching Frankenstein. So he actually had this. He was in the nineteenth century. He was a sensation. He would travel across Europe and he would perform public reanimation experiments. His most famous demonstration was where there was a person who was executed, a criminal who was executed, and he applied electrical currents to his body in front of a crowd, which watched in horror as his muscles twitched and his jaw quivered and stuff like that.

1:18:54 Sounds pretty horrifying. Was it fake though? No, it wasn't fake. I mean it's basically if you apply electrical stimulation. They weren't a live He was just making their muscles. It was making their muscles move. But people were freaked out, and he apparently was believed to have been a major inspiration for Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein. That makes sense. So you often tell us how you are a genius. I don't often. Often you often tell people that I tell. Because you tell me that you're a genius. Are you at all disappointed that, at your ripe old age that you haven't I haven't had a major invention or discovery upset other than this podcasts? Well, yeah, other than that, you've produced a couple of great kids.

1:19:37 I've done that, Yeah, but I haven't had any major still, do you think? Yeah? Absolutely, I don't have any weird eccentricities. Even the big science guy. Actually, I mean, what do you mean. I'm not a big science guy. Am I like science? A fan of science, but you're not. You're just I don't know, Like in college. In high school, I took tons and tons of science class. I was not a biology or a chemistry or. A chemistry guy. Yeah, and I took chemistry, a lot of chemistry and a lot of biology because I was going to pursue a medical degree, but I didn't. Ye, So no, I always shied away from those I did, Like, you know, physics. You did a lot of You did more math where I don't have as much math in my background.

1:20:20 But yeah, I'm going to keep working on that scientific. Discs and we're going to hold you to it sounds good. Before we go, I want to thank everyone who communicates with us via Instagram and email and Spotify comments. It all counts as engagement and it really does help us out. And I always love to see your comments, and we might not I think we respond to most of them. I feel like if you have a question or a comment, I try to respond if it's something relevant to my case. And but yeah, we love hearing what you guys have to say about these cases or you know, whatever you have to say to us. I'd love to hear it. And we just appreciate yourself in your friendship so much.

1:21:02 We thank you, Thank you so much to Carla for the wonderful package. We love you and we're just grateful for everyone. But she's just amazing. Yeah, thank you, Carla. Well, thanks so much for hanging out with us. And until next time Don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife