Recipe for Murder

Speaker 1 Grand Canyon University is one of the largest universities in the country.

Speaker 1 Praised for its community and impact, GCU integrates a welcoming Christian worldview and open discourse into over 300 online programs.

Speaker 1 Redefine your online education through GCU's industry-driven, academically rigorous programs. In 2024, online students received over $161 million in institutional scholarships.
Find your purpose.

Speaker 1 Private, Christian, affordable. Discover available scholarships at gcu.edu/slash slash myoffer.

Speaker 2 It's time for Black Friday, Dell Technologies' biggest sale of the year.

Speaker 3 Enjoy huge savings on select PCs like the Dell 16 Plus, featuring Intel Core ultra-processors and with built-in advanced features. It's the PC that helps you do more faster.

Speaker 3 Plus, earn Dell rewards and enjoy many other benefits like free shipping, price match guarantee, and expert support.

Speaker 3 They also have huge deals on accessories that pair perfectly with your Dell PC and make perfect gifts for everyone on your list. Shop now at dell.com/slash deals.

Speaker 2 It was the cake that should have told them something. The killer cake.

Speaker 4 The cake to die for.

Speaker 2 It was supposed to be the jewel in the crown of the gourmet deli. A deli which more than a few regular customers would rank right up there at the top.

Speaker 2 And just a two-minute drive across the bridge from Palm Beach, Florida, with its five-star hotels, its balmy, perfect beaches, insanely pricey houses, and hungry billionaires who wanted only the best.

Speaker 2 Rich Hardy managed the gourmet deli for four years.

Speaker 6 We were doing about $3 million a year of business. For 150-seat deli, that's an incredible amount.
We would have waiting lines two hours long for people to come in and eat dinner.

Speaker 2 It used to be the 3Gs deli. That's when its reputation was born.
But brothers Andy and Bruce Garnett, who owned the place, had developed some other restaurants too.

Speaker 2 And back in the mid-80s, they were feeling a little overextended.

Speaker 2 And then one day, they met a 33-year-old entrepreneur named Glenn Sandler.

Speaker 8 Out on the golf course, he just said he was looking to get into business. And I said, why don't you buy my restaurant? Just like that.
Over lunch. I think it was a tuna salad.

Speaker 2 What was he doing before?

Speaker 8 Playing golf every day.

Speaker 2 He was retired. Retired from what? I mean, what did he do?

Speaker 8 He had a few different businesses.

Speaker 8 I think one was a no-name or no ad company that he had different products, and I think he sold that. I think he did videos or some other stuff.
But he made a lot of money. He made a ton of money.

Speaker 8 He was basically a self-made millionaire.

Speaker 2 So Sandler bought the restaurant. But expectations for his tenure were, to put it mildly, low.

Speaker 8 At the time, I thought, you know, the guy's going to try to do it for a little while and get bored with it and, you know, be done with it.

Speaker 2 But Glenn Sandler surprised everyone.

Speaker 6 From the day he bought that restaurant, he was there every single day from ding to don, from open to close.

Speaker 6 He was passionate about learning how to be the best deli guy or appetizing or nova slicer there could be. He worked alongside deli guys.
He worked alongside the guys in the kitchen.

Speaker 6 He worked alongside the porters. He was determined to learn every aspect of this business.
There was no doubt that he was a workaholic.

Speaker 2 Sandler probably didn't have to work so hard. He was raised in the Boston Boston suburbs.
It was family money. His dad was a very successful businessman, but he...

Speaker 2 Well, after college in Miami, he proved he had some talent of his own for making money.

Speaker 4 Seemed to be lucky, too, in business and in life.

Speaker 2 In 1981, he married a beautiful young Miami woman named Betty Schustler.

Speaker 8 Pretty much looked like the old Barbie Benton, the playmate.

Speaker 2 Wow. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 She was outgoing, fun. She was a very pretty woman.

Speaker 8 Very beautiful lady.

Speaker 2 And soon enough, a mother. They had two sons.

Speaker 6 I think that she was a good wife and an outstanding mother. I know she was real heavily involved with the PTA, you know, at the kids' school.

Speaker 2 She was just into her children. And after the Sandlers bought the deli, its former owners got to know both of them.
Andy Garnett and his wife went on a cruise with the Sandlers.

Speaker 8 We went down to the islands, had a great time.

Speaker 2 They got along well.

Speaker 8 They got along great. He had a little house down in the keys.
I rode down there with him and spent a few days out on his boat fishing and not that I'm much of a fisherman.

Speaker 8 He wasn't all flashy or anything, just

Speaker 8 a real nice guy.

Speaker 2 So it was a charmed life, apparently. His neighborhood, a place called the Arrow Club.
You get up from dinner and you can go jump in your airplane and go flying.

Speaker 2 Businessman John Herring was one of Glenn Sandler's neighbors.

Speaker 2 Bring your cars in the front of the garage and you take your airplane out the back of the garage and you taxi down the taxiways to the runway and you take off.

Speaker 2 And Sandra was so proud of his four-seater Mooney, like an airborne sports car, the neighbors say. He was very particular and very detailed and

Speaker 2 took great care of his airplane. A beautiful wife, a big house, an airplane in the garage.

Speaker 2 It suited Glenn Sandler perfectly. Glenn loved to fly, and and Betty was always with him.
She always said, I think Glenn was a good husband. But of course, nobody's perfect.

Speaker 2 Everybody has flaws, every marriage, too. And even this neighbor found himself wondering if Sandler was a little too determined to get his way.

Speaker 2 I think Glenn is the control guy, and he was going to control everything that was happening. It was a competitive thing.
He had to win, just had to.

Speaker 2 After Bruce Garnett and his brother brother sold Sandler their deli.

Speaker 7 He'd pay for golf, he'd buy you drinks, he'd give you the shirt off his back. When it came to business, cutthroat.

Speaker 9 Not an option for Glenn Sandler, a loser, to fail.

Speaker 2 He couldn't lose. Absolutely not.

Speaker 9 He could not lose at anything. At anything.

Speaker 2 Like, for example, the cake. Not just any cake, of course, but a chocolate cake.
So good, so creamy, so tempting. It was known as the killer cake.

Speaker 6 People would actually come from all over to buy this killer cake.

Speaker 2 And when Sandler bought the deli, the recipe for the killer cake came with it. But...

Speaker 6 This was one recipe that Glenn, you know, just couldn't get right. He hired a baker to come in and read the recipe and, you know, and just couldn't get it right.

Speaker 7 He believed that I was out to sabotage him by not giving him the right recipe to the cake. And from that day, our relationship went down.

Speaker 2 He felt that

Speaker 5 he lost

Speaker 6 because he couldn't get the cake recipe right.

Speaker 2 And so, given the untimely falling out, the Garnett brothers didn't see Sandler or his wife Betty very much anymore.

Speaker 2 That savvy businessman would not accept defeats, and it seemed it didn't matter what it cost him. A lot of times, it was his way or the highway.
Was that why the marriage ground down?

Speaker 2 Why, in the new millennium, life with Sandler became intolerable for Betty? By 2004, after more than 20 years of marriage, Betty had had enough. She asked for a divorce.

Speaker 2 And Sandler felt blindsided emotionally and financially. If any contest had to be won, then this was it.

Speaker 2 Glenn Dowler, Sandler's manager at the Courme Deli, heard a running commentary on the bitter divorce battle from his boss.

Speaker 10 If he had it his way, she wasn't getting a penny.

Speaker 2 She kept wanting more? Is that something they've talked about?

Speaker 10 Yeah, yeah, I mean, basically, feeling like she's just a greedy, you know what.

Speaker 2 And he saw Sandler change. First, there was the nose job.

Speaker 2 Then Sandler started showing up with women. Quite a few of them.
Was he bringing girls in?

Speaker 10 And he was, you know, would bring a girl in and, you know, tell me, you know, look at his, you know, new girlfriend of mine.

Speaker 2 Did he seem to change after that divorce happened? Oh, absolutely. His personality? Absolutely.

Speaker 10 She wanted the divorce. He didn't, so he was very unhappy.
And yeah, I mean, you can't leave me. You know, if I want to leave you, I'll leave you.
But you are not leaving me. That would mean I lost.

Speaker 2 But Glenn Sandler was a man who could not lose.

Speaker 2 And now he took steps that would make a win absolutely certain.

Speaker 11 Sandler approached him and asked if he knew anyone that could kill his wife.

Speaker 2 Glenn Sandler, the wealthy investor and restaurateur, was a high flyer around balmy Palm Beach, Florida.

Speaker 2 And even if he didn't quite master the killer cake, his deli, his whole existence, looked like a huge success. Except there was this one quirk.

Speaker 2 Sandler, said one of his friends and colleagues, couldn't stand losing anything. Miss a pot on the golf course?

Speaker 10 If he hit a bad shot, you know, it was kind of like duck because that club could fly, you know.

Speaker 2 And Sandler was not a man to cross. An irate Delhi employee found that out when he asked for what Sander thought was an undeserved raise.

Speaker 6 Just took an ashtray and slammed it on the desk, and, you know, and it broke an ashtray. On another, you know, occasion, he'd just snap a pencil.

Speaker 6 Never hit anybody, never actually grabbed anybody by the shirt collar and threw them out, but these were the intimidation things that he would do.

Speaker 2 And then there was another time that Sandler's manager heard his boss pulled out a gun in a showdown with another employee.

Speaker 10 He didn't pull the trigger or anything, so, you know, I think he did it as a scare tactic.

Speaker 2 And then, in July 2004, Betty, his wife of 25 years, threw him out, demanded a divorce, and Glenn found himself competing with her over who got what.

Speaker 2 Deidre Funchon was a reporter for the Broward Palm Beach New Times at the time.

Speaker 12 At one point, he offered her

Speaker 12 more than $2 million,

Speaker 12 and she said, that's not enough.

Speaker 2 That's not enough. I want more.

Speaker 12 That's not enough. And this bugged him to no end.

Speaker 2 You don't cross them. You don't try to take advantage of them.
And you don't leave them. And you don't leave them.

Speaker 2 Around the gourmet deli, Sandler's employees watched his once busy and ordered life start to unravel.

Speaker 10 He was there at 8 o'clock sharp every Monday for year, you know, year after year. And then all of a sudden it got to be where he was showing up at like 8 o'clock in the evening.

Speaker 2 And then, about a year into this downward spiral, it was the fall of 2005, Sandler made a secret friend, a drug dealer named Chris Robinson.

Speaker 12 Chris Robinson then became Glenn Sandler's crack dealer.

Speaker 2 Crack dealer.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Cocaine, tawdry motel rooms, prostitutes, all supplied by this small-time dealer and pimp. And it wasn't long before Sandler Robinson for help with his domestic troubles as well.

Speaker 12 Glenn Sandler, after he'd known Chris for a while, asked Chris if he could throw a birthday party for his wife. That was the terminology he used to throw a birthday party.

Speaker 2 Was there any doubt about what that meant?

Speaker 12 It became clear that he wanted his wife killed, and Chris Robinson said that he and his brothers could get it done.

Speaker 2 What would they do?

Speaker 12 They hatched a plan that Chris and his brothers would take two stolen cars and they would ram into Betty at an intersection and flee.

Speaker 2 And how do you know you're going to kill her that way?

Speaker 5 I don't know.

Speaker 12 But that was the plan that Glenn gave Chris a $5,000 deposit to enact.

Speaker 2 And, well, it was like the killer cake recipe. It just didn't come together.

Speaker 12 No one will ever know whether Chris Robinson really would have carried out that plan because

Speaker 12 before he could actually carry it out, he got arrested on a drug charge, unrelated.

Speaker 2 And sent off to jail.

Speaker 12 And sent off to jail. And I guess he realized that he had a bargaining chip.
And he

Speaker 12 summoned a detective and said, hey, you know, I got some news for you. There's a guy out there and he's trying to have his wife whacked.

Speaker 2 The cop was Tom Beach Detective Jason Latoyle.

Speaker 11 I got there and soon realized that this was some good information and that we needed to act upon it.

Speaker 2 And quickly, because drug dealer Robinson revealed that Sandler had been shopping around, that Sandler told him he'd already been jilted by yet another hitman named Meets.

Speaker 12 Meets was some kind of biker who was supposedly part of the outlaw motorcycle gang. And apparently, Glenn Sandler asked this guy, Meets, if he would kill Betty.

Speaker 12 And he gave Meets a $5,000 deposit.

Speaker 2 He was serious.

Speaker 12 He was serious.

Speaker 12 But then nothing ever happened. Meets rode off into the sunset.

Speaker 2 But was Sandler still looking for a hitman? Maybe the cops could replace Chris Robinson with their own fake hitman, like, for example, an undercover FBI agent whose identity we agreed to conceal.

Speaker 2 Anyway, this agent called Glenn Sandler on the phone. The name he gave himself was Fred, his supposed role, drug dealer Chris Robinson's fed-up street-wise boss.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm looking for Blood.

Speaker 5 That's me. Hey, Blood, this is Fred.

Speaker 2 How you doing?

Speaker 2 Right here began a precarious dance between the FBI agent and the man who always liked to call the shots. A man who didn't know that this time, the shots were being called on him.

Speaker 2 Assuming that in this dance, the would-be hitman could win Sandler's trust. How do you go about making that happen?

Speaker 5 There's things about somebody you can talk about,

Speaker 5 open conversation with.

Speaker 5 Makes you agreeable and understanding that you can talk.

Speaker 14 What kind of bike do you get?

Speaker 14 Harley. Which Which one? Roching.
Ooh, that's a bike.

Speaker 5 Good, you're living the world, baby.

Speaker 14 Huh? You're living the life, ain't you?

Speaker 5 Well, I'm trying. I've always, you know, worked, done my best.

Speaker 2 As Fred, the agent arranged a face-to-face meeting.

Speaker 5 And then I met Mr. Sandler in a parking lot a day or two later.

Speaker 2 This is where he would begin fishing for the job Sander had earlier offered the now jailed drug dealer.

Speaker 15 Hey, this is awkward for me, bro, because I don't usually meet people.

Speaker 2 Listen, I don't either.

Speaker 15 Chris has become a real f ⁇ up for me, Elaine. I don't know what to do about him.

Speaker 2 Then, Sander told Fred he'd also become fed up with drug dealer Robinson.

Speaker 16 He's trying to play me, and I know that, but you know what? I need a job done.

Speaker 2 Fred dismissed Robinson's plan to kill Betty in a car wreck as laughable.

Speaker 15 This guy wants her f ⁇ ing done. He's gonna have a bedridden with a back problem next to me in a wheelchair the rest of her life.
You hit her bee tea boner and she ain't done it.

Speaker 15 What the good is that to the guy?

Speaker 2 So now Fred proposed a different different plan and a new price, $20,000 plus the $5,000 Chris Robinson had already taken. Fred told Sander that his own recipe for murder had one key ingredient.

Speaker 15 How much she weighed?

Speaker 16 Uh, she's very muscular. She's only 5'3, 120.

Speaker 15 Dude, that's eight bags of 50-pound bags of lime. That's all it is in six-foot.

Speaker 16 So if they ever find her, it looked like she got raped or you wouldn't find her.

Speaker 15 The lime takes the bone and all. That's why you use lime.
Lime's a mother.

Speaker 2 So you told him quite specifically,

Speaker 2 it might be, you could say, a chilling detail,

Speaker 2 what you would do to make sure she disappeared forever.

Speaker 5 Only I would know where she's buried and she'd be buried with Lyme and it would take care of all that.

Speaker 2 Fred's act, bizarre though it may sound, was deadly serious because he knew that if he did not win the job to kill Betty Sandler, someone else might.

Speaker 5 I'm sitting in a position where I want to make sure that somebody else hasn't gotten hired in the time that it's taken me to sit in that chair and dock now.

Speaker 17 Hey, everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co-host Woody Harrelson.

Speaker 17 It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name and we're back for another season.

Speaker 17 I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it.

Speaker 17 Listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 18 Just got a new puppy or kitten? Congrats!

Speaker 18 But also, yikes, between crates, beds, toys, treats, and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune, which is where Lemonade Pet Insurance comes in.

Speaker 18 It helps cover vet costs so you can focus on what's best for your new pet. The coverage is customizable, signup is quick and easy, and your claims are handled in as little as three seconds.

Speaker 18 Pro tip: LemonAid offers a package specifically for puppies and kittens. Get a quote at lemonade.com/slash pet.
Your future self will thank you. Your pet won't.
They don't know what insurance is.

Speaker 19 A Mochi Moment from Sadie, who writes, I'm not crying, you're crying.

Speaker 13 This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi, because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP-1. He understood, and I felt supported, not judged.

Speaker 13 I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy.

Speaker 19 Thanks, Sadie. I'm Myra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health.

Speaker 13 To find your Mochi Moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 20 Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 2 Glenn Sander hated losing. Hated it so much he'd already given a man $5,000 to kill the wife who'd rejected him and was demanding millions of his money.

Speaker 2 But he had no idea that the man now offering to do the job was an undercover agent from the FBI, angling to get the contract on Sandler's wife.

Speaker 2 The angry husband and the phony hitman hit it off, with Sander often venting to his buddy about his trouble. Was it hate

Speaker 2 or just greed?

Speaker 5 Probably both at some point, but he was losing his airplane, he believed he was losing his home, his business. And he was concerned that the money was never going to be enough that he was paying her.

Speaker 2 Sandler also told Fred, the name the undercover officer went by, that his wife Betty could reveal some very compromising information.

Speaker 5 He was concerned about her blackmailing over issues that they had, some kind of other illegal activities.

Speaker 2 Illegal activities?

Speaker 5 Yes, sir. Like what? I didn't know at the time.

Speaker 2 Quickly, Fred became the only one who could know the depths of Sandler's desperation.

Speaker 16 I have private strips all over the country that I own. She's blackmailing the s out of me.

Speaker 21 I can't deal with her at all.

Speaker 16 She wants so much money. money, money I don't even have.

Speaker 12 I think that Fred really tapped into Glenn Sandler's vulnerabilities there because as Glenn Sandler's former employees will attest, he didn't have any friends.

Speaker 12 Well, here comes Fred, who seems like a cool guy.

Speaker 12 It's calling him brother.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 12 I think that Glenn Sandler felt that,

Speaker 12 you know, he had finally

Speaker 12 met someone that he could relate to.

Speaker 2 It was a precarious balancing act. Fred quickly set up a plan, telling Sandler he needed to do surveillance on Betty.

Speaker 2 Sandler supplied details of their Arrow Club life, even maps showing his home's location.

Speaker 5 I needed some things. Something to really understand what her daily pattern's going to be.
Where she shops, where she goes to the gym, can let him know there's going to have to be some legwork done.

Speaker 2 What Sandler didn't know was that Fred had helpers, fellow detectives like Jason Latoyle.

Speaker 11 We used our,

Speaker 11 what we call our TAC team to conduct surveillance and determine whatever information we could and provide that to the undercover officer such that he could go back to Mr. Sandler and

Speaker 11 make it seem like, well, I know she goes here and

Speaker 11 last week she was here kind of thing.

Speaker 5 There was a dog or two that were involved. It seemed like the dog traveled with her a lot.
So I made mention of that when I met with him. Like what? What did you say?

Speaker 4 That dog always with her.

Speaker 5 That was enough for him to understand that things were going in the direction he wanted them to go to, and he was excited about that.

Speaker 2 Several weeks went by, and Fred knew Sandler had come to trust. He was the man for the job.

Speaker 5 He became very comfortable. I could tell that he was accepting what was being said to him.
He was very satisfied. I could tell that I was being hired.

Speaker 2 But what about Betty? Surely she should know her husband was cooking up more than just the straw meat sandwiches.

Speaker 2 Now, did you also go up to her and say, look, I hate to tell you this, but your ex-husband wants to kill you, and I'm a cop. I'm going to prevent that from happening?

Speaker 5 Not at that time.

Speaker 2 Why not?

Speaker 5 Detective Latoyo and I sat and talked about that we have no idea what they were involved in. What he kept making statements about.
She'll give me up to the police or she'll testify against me.

Speaker 5 And we didn't know quite what that was. And if it was something that was going to be

Speaker 5 bigger than what he was involved in, she could go back and tell him.

Speaker 2 So you didn't know for sure whether or not she was just an innocent bystander here or whether she may be involved in some activity. Correct.

Speaker 2 There was another reason to play along with Sandler. Detectives had a hunch they wanted to see where it went.

Speaker 2 In one of their parking lot meetings, Fred had schmoozed about the drug business, let Sandler think he not only sold drugs, but transported them, too, by airplane.

Speaker 2 What he didn't expect to hear was Sandler's reply. He volunteered to fly the drugs himself in his own plane.

Speaker 16 This may be your past, but I'm your future. If you have a new my history, you'd be be bros.

Speaker 15 What's your capacity you're playing?

Speaker 16 My capacity? It's 200 pounds.

Speaker 5 That's a key old cleaner, solo mirror on a plane. No, no.

Speaker 2 Then, another surprise. Sandler seemed to have done this before.
He boasted about his smuggling back in those seductive Miami Vice days. Only then a speedboat was his transport of choice.

Speaker 2 I'm in Miami, right in the front of it. My guys in Columbia.

Speaker 22 I mean, I had a couple of customers at Snapchat, but I'd get a thousand a key, no matter what. just to transport, right?

Speaker 16 Okay, and I have always had a minimum of a hundred.

Speaker 22 So I'd get a hundred grand just to get out of bed.

Speaker 2 Was it true?

Speaker 2 As if to establish his credibility as a criminal, Sandler claimed he'd once been charged with cocaine trafficking and then bought his way out of trouble.

Speaker 22 He wound up buying the judge 12 grand. Got away with it, got it expunged.

Speaker 5 The whole nine grand scheme.

Speaker 2 Was Sandler still in the game? Was his some unknown drug ring? Now Fred had to improvise, had to play not only Hitman, but drug smuggler. The case was becoming more complex than anyone imagined.

Speaker 5 I was there for one

Speaker 5 criminal activity, and all of a sudden the second criminal activity really popped and set up.

Speaker 5 Am I sitting with a major smuggler?

Speaker 2 Now, to keep his credibility with Sander and probe Sandler's possible connection with the drug business, Fred would have to stage something that looked like a real drug run.

Speaker 5 Probably two or three times that he'd asked me for crack cocaine, I had to tell him why it wasn't available.

Speaker 5 When it was available before, I let him believe that I receive kilogram amounts of cocaine from Subdix in Georgia, and I meet him halfway, and I pick it up, and that if they saw me arrive in this aircraft,

Speaker 5 they would give me a lot more.

Speaker 2 So he agreed to fly you in his airplane to a meeting place?

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 To get cocaine?

Speaker 5 Yes, sir.

Speaker 2 So the hit on Betty was delayed while Fred organized a drug run from Sebring to Palm Beach. The whole thing is sham.
Only Sandler had no idea he was being played.

Speaker 2 What was real was the fact that in that little airplane, Fred's life would be in the hands of pilot Glenn Sandler, a desperate man, perhaps capable of anything.

Speaker 2 Were you concerned about your own safety? I mean, here's a man who wants somebody killed. Maybe he wants you killed, too.

Speaker 5 I'm always concerned about my safety.

Speaker 2 Who among the loyal patrons of the gourmet deli would have believed it? What resident of Florida's exclusive Aero Club community could even imagine

Speaker 2 that one of their own had put out a contract with a hitman to kill his wife and now was ready to use his own plane to run cocaine.

Speaker 12 It seems to me like he had just come out of a period of really stable, possibly boring stage of his life where he'd been married to the same woman for years and years, doing the same business day to day for years and years, and maybe missed those Miami Vice type of days.

Speaker 2 And now he was getting to live them all over again.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Assuming that is, that the FBI man who called himself Fred didn't blow his cover.

Speaker 5 Because your face reads what's going on in your soul, and you have to be terrified. Like, what did he say?

Speaker 2 Partly because now the undercover team expanded along with the risk.

Speaker 5 The deal was set up to happen in Sebring, Florida, at the Sebring Airport.

Speaker 5 I had agents that I work with here locally also.

Speaker 5 went to Sebring Airport.

Speaker 2 So Sandler took off for the the Sebring Airport, the undercover agent still posing as Fred in the seat beside him. As the little plane soared into the air, Sandler was enthusiastic.

Speaker 2 Fred remained cautious. After all, he couldn't know if Sandler had bought his act or had seen through it.

Speaker 2 And after all, a plane ride would be just the place to shoot Fred and have his body disappear into the ocean.

Speaker 5 Anytime you were going to cover his sense of danger, when I flew up to Sebring with him and his aircraft, I was by myself, and of course, I'm concerned.

Speaker 2 Once in Sebring, they met the supplier. Fred called him T-Bone.
He was actually another federal agent. Over coffee, Fred put everyone at ease.

Speaker 2 Best cook I've ever seen. Then, on cue, T-Bone excused himself, went to the bathroom.

Speaker 5 He left the bag between Sandler and I. I opened it up to see how many were in it.
He looked over and saw the five kilos.

Speaker 5 Leaned back and I said, oh, good, there's five kilos. I was a little excited there was five.
He said, I didn't care if it was 15. He made that statement to me, and he was comfortable.

Speaker 2 The plan was to fly the goods back to North Palm Beach Airport. Fred said T-Bone needed to accompany his cargo.

Speaker 2 To make things look real, Fred told Sandler he wanted to have a little fun with T-Bone, whom he said was afraid of small planes.

Speaker 23 He said not if you could explain.

Speaker 24 You got that Vumbro around the wing now, and Joe.

Speaker 23 that's fing great.

Speaker 2 In fact, T-Bone's fear of flying was also a cover.

Speaker 2 T-Bone was himself a pilot. But Sandler didn't know that.

Speaker 5 No, sir.

Speaker 2 As insurance, Fred made sure T-Bone sat up front next to Glenn Sandler. Still in that little plane.
Sandler was the one in control. In control of several kilos of Coke and two undercover FBI agents.

Speaker 5 I studied the aircraft. I knew what the turnoff key was.
I knew, of course, he was bigger than I was. So the second person I brought in, they could handle themselves.
They could handle the aircraft.

Speaker 2 But I suppose if you've got five kilos of cocaine in your airplane and a guy you think is a bad guy in the plane with you, you just shove them out the door and you've got cocaine all to yourself.

Speaker 5 A lot of things could happen.

Speaker 2 But the aircraft landed safely in North Palm Beach.

Speaker 5 I had them land at the North County airport, letting them think that my guys are going to be there, and a guy from Georgia will get out there and I'll meet him later at the house.

Speaker 2 And then, Fred proposed to Sandler that he abandon his plan to kill his wife. Why?

Speaker 2 Well, for one thing, Fred didn't want some defense attorney later on to claim that he had encouraged Sandler to commit murder.

Speaker 2 And for another, it seemed to him that Sandler still had real feelings for Betty.

Speaker 2 She was missing in the picture.

Speaker 5 Yeah, she's been a hike. She was a hike.

Speaker 12 He also

Speaker 12 seemed to have something of a jealous streak. Glenn had heard she'd been out at a bar in town.

Speaker 11 And this drove him crazy.

Speaker 12 Sort of advertising her newly single status, yeah.

Speaker 5 There's no doubt dating she's the new playgirl in Wellington, you know, she's party girl.

Speaker 2 So, Fred suggested, why not use his beloved airplane to run enough drugs to allow him to pay off Betty instead of killing her?

Speaker 23 It's a shame there because we can make some money in Big Good.

Speaker 2 But Sandler wasn't buying it. He wanted her dead.

Speaker 24 Once it starts, it never

Speaker 24 stops. They don't go away.

Speaker 2 What was Sandler's big secret? The one he couldn't afford to have Betty reveal?

Speaker 5 It was a tax issue from a business that he owned together, and it's a cash-type business.

Speaker 5 He was concerned that she was going to be able to testify to a large amount of income they weren't paying tax on.

Speaker 2 Was that a reason to kill?

Speaker 2 Still, Fred held off, giving Sadler every possible chance to change his mind or reveal some darker source for his murderous intent.

Speaker 5 I want to know for sure that's what he wanted to do, or is there a co-conspirator somewhere pushing him to do this?

Speaker 5 Was there something on the outside, a girlfriend that's telling me he had to go do this now because she was tired of it?

Speaker 25 Hey, this is Will Arnett, host of Smartless. Smartless is a podcast with myself and Sean Hayes and Jason Bateman, where each week one of us reveals a mystery guest to the other two.

Speaker 25 We dive deep with guests that you love, like Bill Hayter, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Aniston, David Beckham, Kristen Stewart, and tons more.

Speaker 25 So join us for a genuinely improvised and authentic conversation filled with laughter and newfound knowledge to feed the Smartless mind. Listen to Smartless Now on the Sirius XM app.

Speaker 25 Download it today.

Speaker 18 Just got a new puppy or kitten? Congrats! But also, yikes!

Speaker 18 Between crates, beds, toys, treats, and those first few vet visits, you've probably already dropped a small fortune, which is where Lemonade Pet Insurance comes in.

Speaker 18 It helps cover vet costs so you can focus on what's best for your new pet. The coverage is customizable, sign-up is quick and easy, and your claims are handled in as little as three seconds.

Speaker 18 Pro tip: LemonAid offers a package specifically for puppies and kittens. Get a quote at lemonade.com slash pet.
Your future self will thank you. Your pet won't.
They don't know what insurance is.

Speaker 19 A mochi moment from Sadie, who writes, I'm not crying, you're crying.

Speaker 13 This is what I said during my first appointment with my physician at Mochi, because I didn't have to convince him I needed a GLP-1. He understood, and I felt supported, not judged.

Speaker 19 I came for the weight loss and stayed for the empathy. Thanks, Sadie.
I'm Myra Ameth, founder of Mochi Health.

Speaker 13 To find your Mochi Moment, visit joinmochi.com.

Speaker 20 Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists and are compensated for their stories. Results may vary.

Speaker 2 In Palm Beach, Florida, the FBI undercover man who called himself Fred probed around gingerly for any motives Glenn Sandler may have had to kill his wife.

Speaker 2 Was it merely Sandler's determination not to lose in the divorce battle with Betty? Was it his fear she'd expose his secrets to the IRS?

Speaker 2 Was it something else? Or someone else?

Speaker 5 Was there something on the outside, a girlfriend that's telling him he had to go do this now? Because she was tired of it. And that never came up.
Sure. It was self-driven.
It was him.

Speaker 5 There wasn't somebody pressing him. It was him that wanted it done.

Speaker 2 How many times did you propose to him that he didn't need to kill her?

Speaker 6 You could do something else that was less severe?

Speaker 5 Several different times. Putting her in a trunk of a car and driving her around for several days, pulling her out and threatening her that more would come next time.

Speaker 5 That wasn't good enough. Burying her alive, pulling her out of the hole, threatening her, this goes any further, this will get finished.
That wasn't good enough. At some point, he had told me that.

Speaker 5 He had offered her $2.5 million and $5,000 a month. And that wasn't big enough or good enough for her.

Speaker 12 In the divorce, any offer that Glenn made financially, she said, it's never enough. It's never enough.
And then when Fred

Speaker 12 promised to have her killed, there's this point where he said, I promise the last words she's going to hear are, is that enough?

Speaker 2 Sandler liked it.

Speaker 23 Tell me, what do you want me to ask this bitch tomorrow when I'm putting her?

Speaker 5 Don't ask her. It won't matter.

Speaker 24 Because it's the only things I ever.

Speaker 24 It's not enough, and I want more.

Speaker 2 So now, it was time.

Speaker 2 Just how he'd do it, Fred didn't say. But he told Sandler he'd use a code to reveal that the murder had happened, that Betty was dead and buried under Lyme.

Speaker 5 It's going to be fun.

Speaker 23 It's almost like something like, I just say the weather's good up north.

Speaker 23 All right, the weather's good up north, but

Speaker 23 she's already fertilizer and the problem's over.

Speaker 2 On the morning of November 8th, 2005, Detective Jason Latoyle followed Betty's car to a stoplight, pulled her over, and gave her the news.

Speaker 11 I told her her husband had hired someone to kill her, that fortunately it was an undercover police officer.

Speaker 2 How did she take it?

Speaker 11 She really wasn't surprised.

Speaker 2 You're kidding. She didn't sort of break down in hysteria or anything?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 11 and that's what really surprised me, but she acted sort of

Speaker 11 really exasperated.

Speaker 11 Just kind of a, you know,

Speaker 11 what now sort of sort of thing.

Speaker 11 Just like she has just grown tired of his

Speaker 11 shenanigans, so to speak.

Speaker 11 This is just like the latest in a series of behaviors she's had to deal with, but she wasn't surprised.

Speaker 2 Eddie Sandler cooperated fully with Detective Latoyle as he went about arranging her disappearance.

Speaker 11 We basically took her into custody and staged her death by collecting some personal belongings of hers.

Speaker 11 I drove her car and parked it in a grocery store parking lot in a conspicuous location so that it would look like she was basically abducted during her normal daily routine.

Speaker 2 With Betty safe, Fred called Sandler. The weather's good up north, he said, which meant she's dead.

Speaker 2 The next day, Fred arranged to meet Sander at a parking lot to collect the 15 grand Sandler had agreed to pay his wife's killer.

Speaker 2 And there, Fred confided to his new friend that even he, a hardened killer, found murdering suburban housewives disturbing.

Speaker 5 I said, you know, even though I've done this before,

Speaker 5 I'm a little uneasy and I need to go settle down.

Speaker 5 You know, he thinks I just came back from burying her and I taken a shower and just met him.

Speaker 5 Dude, just dead, just stop.

Speaker 15 I know, I need to get out of here and get up with him some.

Speaker 5 He said he was a little uneasy too, but he's glad it was over. Glad she was dead.
He made mention of what was said to her.

Speaker 16 But when you said, is this enough? You said what?

Speaker 15 She was more concerned about kids, man. She's just concerned, I mean, that was her big thing.
What's going to happen to her kids? not, you know, she ain't gonna see her kids. They're gonna grow up.

Speaker 15 They still got their dad. Said, Sir, this is enough.
She said, I was only wanting what half was mine.

Speaker 15 She said to me, I said, whatever. Guess what? You're not getting

Speaker 2 Fred gave Sandler Betty's car keys and her cell phone. Proof, he said, that she was dead.

Speaker 15 You wanted us? Trying to get what Fred Yoke.

Speaker 15 You have the phone.

Speaker 12 He wanted to look at her cell phone to see who she'd been calling.

Speaker 2 He was jealous even then.

Speaker 2 Apparently. He seemed to have no remorse at all.
None.

Speaker 5 Cold.

Speaker 2 Cold?

Speaker 11 Excited that this was over. Yes.

Speaker 5 He was happy that this was over.

Speaker 2 But of course, it wasn't over. Glenn Sandler had been a man who wanted to control everything.

Speaker 2 But what he didn't know was that now, perhaps for the first time in his life, he would have no control over what would happen next.

Speaker 15 It's just my mirror.

Speaker 2 In a suburban parking lot near Palm Beach, Florida, Glenn Sandler chatted with the man he'd hired to kill his wife.

Speaker 2 As life went on around them, the two discussed future drug deals, Sandler's airtight alibi for that day, and the need for secrecy.

Speaker 15 Nobody else knows about this, right? Nobody knows. I don't care about about it.

Speaker 21 That's why it's been killing me, you know, to hold it in. You know, because you want to talk about it so bad, but you don't.
You can't, bro.

Speaker 15 Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 And then...

Speaker 21 It's nice little business on here.

Speaker 5 Yeah, right.

Speaker 21 An ounce on it.

Speaker 15 I can adjust my mirror.

Speaker 2 Talk to Glenn. See, bro.

Speaker 2 Just at that moment, Glenn Sander discovered the truth. And down came the squat team.
The game was up, and Sandler finally understood he'd been tricked

Speaker 2 big time.

Speaker 2 How did he react to that?

Speaker 5 He became quiet.

Speaker 2 Here's a guy who goes from wanting to have his wife killed to being happy that she's dead to then discovering that he has been hoodwinked by an undercover cop.

Speaker 2 What, did he just give up at that point? Was he remorseful? Was he sorry? Was he what?

Speaker 5 He became quiet.

Speaker 2 Just he became quiet.

Speaker 5 He became quiet. From reading his body language, his gestures, the way he cooperated, what he said, he was more upset that he was arrested.
He wasn't

Speaker 5 making any other statements besides just being upset that he was arrested.

Speaker 2 Glenn Sandler had been duped by a master, an agent who'd been working undercover for 24 years.

Speaker 12 He is a master actor, a great improviser.

Speaker 12 and obviously must have nerves of steel to be able to get in a situation like this and just act act on it on the fly. It must have taken a lot of bravery.

Speaker 2 Around Palm Beach, people who knew the Sandlers were, quite understandably, stunned. I just said, no, it can't be.
You didn't believe it, but it happened.

Speaker 2 I don't know where that would come from. The Palm Beach authorities carefully crafted their case with a slew of tapes recorded by undercover agent Fred and Glenn Sandler.

Speaker 2 Though briefly he considered an insanity defense, he ultimately pleaded guilty to solicitation solicitation to commit first-degree murder and trafficking in cocaine.

Speaker 2 He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. So what do you think about this guy now?

Speaker 6 I don't know what to think of it because I don't know that Glenn Sandler. I know the Glenn Sandler that taught me a tremendous amount of things about business, you know, cutting-edge things.

Speaker 6 But I don't know the Glenn Sandler, the killer Glenn Sandler.

Speaker 2 Did anyone? Which is why Sandler's one-time colleagues were a little guarded more than a decade ago when they told their stories about the man who would kill rather than lose.

Speaker 10 And knowing that he's capable of that makes him very capable of remembering everything he knows after 10 years and wanting revenge.

Speaker 2 Did you worry a little bit about

Speaker 5 this? Yes.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 5 Why? I don't know.

Speaker 8 Hopefully, he comes out being a nice guy.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 who can say?

Speaker 2 Glenn Sandler came out of prison in 2018. Betty Sandler sold the house at the Arrow Club years earlier, moved away.
But tragedy would not let her go. Neither Betty nor Glenn.

Speaker 12 Glenn had two sons while Glenn was in jail. One of them died in a motorcycle accident.
His father died, and his mother's dead.

Speaker 2 In the end, the bitter financial fight sputtered out. Sandler's claim that he had hidden lots of money from the IRS seemed essentially baseless.

Speaker 12 I believe that the police seized his plane and his motorcycle because they were used in the course of running drugs. And then I presume she got the house.

Speaker 12 He got the restaurant. She got the golf cart.

Speaker 2 But all that cash that seemed to flow from the gourmet deli?

Speaker 12 When it all played out in divorce court and was said and done, considering that his assets had been seized, she

Speaker 12 ended up being entitled to $100 a year.

Speaker 5 That was it?

Speaker 12 That was it.

Speaker 2 As for the deli, it has a new owner now.

Speaker 2 And that creamy chocolate cake, the cake to die for,

Speaker 2 the killer cake?

Speaker 2 Not on the menu.

Speaker 7 Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

Speaker 2 If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 26 And basically, it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish.

Speaker 26 Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 7 Fox.

Speaker 7 There are new episodes out every Thursday.

Speaker 26 So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.