The Man Who Talked to Dogs

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Speaker 9 He was born with a gift.

Speaker 10 He spoke to the animals.

Speaker 11 A dog trainer to the stars with a beautiful wife.

Speaker 13 He was totally crazy about her.

Speaker 11 But an ill wind would blow through paradise.

Speaker 14 The cattle dogs were very, very upset.

Speaker 15 It was a huge ruckus.

Speaker 18 They told me, we haven't seen Marb, and I knew in my heart something terrible had happened.

Speaker 11 Where had the dog trainer gone? A trail of sinister clues.

Speaker 15 There was three wet blood spots in the hallway.

Speaker 20 There was all sorts of ammunition and guns, firearms on magnets behind tapestries, firearms in drawers all over this house.

Speaker 22 He has his arms around a big roll of plastic, and my brain goes, there's a body.

Speaker 11 Could anyone put it all together and sniff out the truth?

Speaker 9 What did that say to you?

Speaker 20 Well, it says a lot to me.

Speaker 23 October 28th, 2009, routine call, middle of the day. Dispatch sent a squad car to talk to the two ladies who'd phoned it in.

Speaker 26 What was it they said?

Speaker 27 Two cars where they shouldn't be?

Speaker 23 Someone moving something bulky from one to the other?

Speaker 30 Back when it started, the lovebirds should have known, probably, that it was too good to be true, or too good to last, anyway.

Speaker 31 After all, he seemed something of a self-made mutt.

Speaker 33 And she, the pure-bred heiress type, the golden-haired daughter of a wealthy alpha male.

Speaker 34 Whatever.

Speaker 37 By the time they promised their eternal love, the clock to its end was ticking.

Speaker 38 Inaudible to them, of course, like a whistle only a dog can hear.

Speaker 3 Which, come to think of it, begs the question, how did he, of all people, miss it?

Speaker 39 His name was Mark Stover, and he discovered quite early that he had some special, eerily mystical connection with dogs.

Speaker 44 When he talked to them, they

Speaker 24 listened.

Speaker 9 He was born with a gift.

Speaker 35 Stover had become known as Seattle's dog whisperer.

Speaker 10 I mean, it's not as simple as just giving them treats or clicker training or something like that. He spoke to the animals.

Speaker 47 With talents that amazed his loyal clients, Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz, Pearl Jams Eddie Vetter, Major League Outfielder Ichiro Suzuki brought him their dogs.

Speaker 18 You know, one of his phrases was, we train everybody in Seattle from Nordstrom to Nirvana, but

Speaker 18 he was much more than a dog trainer to the stars. You ready?

Speaker 36 Okay. A longtime employee.

Speaker 13 Come on, Samson. He trained

Speaker 22 everyone.

Speaker 18 You know, it didn't matter to him who they were. It was about the person and the dog and the relationship between the person and the dog, not who they were.

Speaker 21 Stormy Cup.

Speaker 3 This woman liked him so much as a client, she went to work for him.

Speaker 15 He would connect with you. He'd find something that he could talk to you about, and then he'd help you train your dog.

Speaker 50 And the setting for Mark's dog whispering business?

Speaker 3 Incomparable.

Speaker 21 Oh, it's beautiful.

Speaker 9 It's a wonderful place.

Speaker 26 Kicket Island is what it's called.

Speaker 35 An 84-acre teardrop of primeval forest and meadows meadows and beaches, plunked a few feet offshore, a 90-minute commute north of Seattle.

Speaker 10 The dogs could go swimming in the water there. There's plenty of trail walks and it was just really, really outdoorsy and beautiful.

Speaker 29 Outdoorsy and beautiful are words which also happen to describe the human love of Mark's life, Linda Opdike, the willowy blonde daughter of Wally Opdike.

Speaker 58 the wealthy investor who'd once helped found Chateau Saint-Michel Winery.

Speaker 39 Linda seemed a perfect match for Mark, according to the clients and friends who knew him best.

Speaker 21 She was

Speaker 59 Mark II.

Speaker 12 You know, I mean, they were peas in a pot.

Speaker 9 They had similar hobbies.

Speaker 12 They didn't hunt and fish, you know, go camp somewhere, you know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 13 He just thought she was the most wonderful thing since sliced bread, basically.

Speaker 3 Very protective of his Linda, was Mark, as clients could clearly tell.

Speaker 13 He just thought she was beautiful, wonderful, smart.

Speaker 13 Never, never, ever said anything bad about her, never.

Speaker 9 Seemed to be in love.

Speaker 13 He was. He was totally, totally crazy about her.

Speaker 60 It was Linda's father, Wally Opdike, who owned Kicket Island.

Speaker 27 Mark and Linda lived there on Wally's Island and grew their very successful business together.

Speaker 64 And then in 2002, they made their union permanent, an intimate wedding ceremony in the presidential suite of the Las Vegas Four Seasons.

Speaker 30 Here was Wally Updike toasting his new son-in-law.

Speaker 17 And Mark, welcome to the Updike family.

Speaker 65 But maybe nothing is forever.

Speaker 35 It was just three years later when Linda told the employees she was taking an extended vacation.

Speaker 9 Alone.

Speaker 18 And that vacation kept extending and extending, and

Speaker 37 she...

Speaker 18 She just never came back.

Speaker 67 So, separation.

Speaker 60 There was a brief affair.

Speaker 26 Linda was one of Mark's best friends.

Speaker 62 And then, divorce. About as ugly as divorce can be.

Speaker 11 I was shocked. I really was.

Speaker 56 So was Mark, apparently, quite thoroughly devastated by all accounts, because now he had lost not just the love of his life, but he had to leave Kicket Island, too.

Speaker 9 Losing her?

Speaker 70 It was, we hardly need to say, a black period just about here. Some quite disturbing episodes, actually.

Speaker 71 Get to those later.

Speaker 55 Suffice to say for now that eventually life went on.

Speaker 71 It was just divorce, after all.

Speaker 71 Not death.

Speaker 9 Not yet, anyway.

Speaker 60 Mark found a new property in nearby Anacortis, Washington.

Speaker 36 And if it wasn't Kicket Island, it was not bad.

Speaker 74 He moved into a new house, new kennels, new start.

Speaker 13 He had found the place that was going to be perfect for him, and it was going to be all his. And I think he was very much looking forward.
He wasn't looking back.

Speaker 65 Eventually, there was also her.

Speaker 49 Her name is Teresa.

Speaker 18 On our third date, though, he let me know that he wanted to marry me. On the third date? I was pretty shocked.

Speaker 21 What was it about you that he liked?

Speaker 18 He liked that I listened.

Speaker 18 and that I was careful with the information that he gave me.

Speaker 18 Not just information, but his... with his heart.

Speaker 9 Which had been really badly damaged.

Speaker 9 And he worried about that.

Speaker 9 Didn't want it to happen again. He saw a safe harbor in you.

Speaker 9 I think so.

Speaker 3 Safe harbor?

Speaker 58 Well, maybe she was, as they made plans for a life together.

Speaker 75 But even then, in the fall of 2009,

Speaker 58 an ill wind was picking up.

Speaker 68 Mark's employees couldn't help but notice it he was off somehow

Speaker 76 he was very different and he told me that he was very paranoid he'd actually been locking his doors

Speaker 57 even though as everyone knew mark's highly trained guard dog ding would have protected him from anything

Speaker 76 i asked him why he was locking his doors because he had ding

Speaker 76 and he said i don't know i'm just i'm just a little weirded out about something he didn't say what No, he didn't say what.

Speaker 19 And Mark, it would take a lot to spook someone like Mark.

Speaker 76 He was always very aware of his surroundings,

Speaker 19 almost dog-like.

Speaker 76 And if there was something there, someone there,

Speaker 76 he knew it.

Speaker 39 And then, October 28th, Mark stopped calling Teresa.

Speaker 79 No explanation.

Speaker 18 So I hadn't heard from him all day, and I thought this... Towards the end of the day, it started seeming odd.

Speaker 18 But then the next day, when I hadn't heard from him by 9 o'clock, I got one of the employees on the phone and I said, what is going on there? Where's Mark?

Speaker 18 And so they told me, you know, we haven't seen Mark. We didn't see him all day yesterday.
And I knew in my heart something terrible had happened.

Speaker 14 But what?

Speaker 38 Well, there's the puzzle.

Speaker 5 Does anybody know, even now?

Speaker 26 Strange goings-on at Mark Stover's place.

Speaker 36 The dogs are restless, and neighbors are about to find out why.

Speaker 15 It took my breath away.

Speaker 45 Mark Stover was a bit like one of his well-trained dogs.

Speaker 5 He was a creature of habit, always on time, never missed an appointment, in bed early, up with the sun.

Speaker 69 And every Wednesday, Mark hit the road for the hour and a half drive south to Seattle Seattle for sessions with his loyal clients.

Speaker 76 A schedule, which employees Amber, we always joke that he was up, he'd beat the rooster out of bed.

Speaker 18 And Beth, who was usually on the road by 7.

Speaker 15 And Stephanie had his breakfast and beat Seattle traffic.

Speaker 65 Knew very well.

Speaker 41 But on the morning of Wednesday, October 28th, 2009, nothing was routine.

Speaker 36 Nothing at all.

Speaker 72 First, Stephanie, whose own house is right next door to the kennels, woke up to a chorus of barking dogs.

Speaker 64 It was, she thinks, about 6 a.m.

Speaker 15 And the kennel dogs were very, very upset. It was a huge ruckus next door.

Speaker 60 Occasionally that sort of thing would happen.

Speaker 15 Very seldom. Very seldom, to that extent.

Speaker 3 Then 8 a.m., Amber arrived at the kennels, and still the dogs were upset.

Speaker 76 They would not settle in that morning.

Speaker 3 Odd.

Speaker 36 Then someone told her Mark was still around.

Speaker 49 He mustn't have left yet for Seattle.

Speaker 76 And I thought that was strange because he had supposed to be gone over an hour prior.

Speaker 80 She walked to the house where Mark made a habit of leaving the carport door unlocked so the employees could use the bathroom.

Speaker 76 And I had noticed a little bit of blood in the driveway. Guy was afraid that his dog had opened her stitches because she'd had surgery.

Speaker 39 Mark's dog, Ding, wasn't just any pet. She was a highly skilled protection dog.

Speaker 14 A lot of blood? Little blood?

Speaker 9 A little blood.

Speaker 82 But noticeable.

Speaker 19 Noticeable.

Speaker 76 And

Speaker 76 I proceeded towards the house and tried to go through the back door and it was locked, which was very, very odd.

Speaker 56 Then, not long after, Stephanie arrived and noticed perhaps 100 yards from where she stood down in the field, Mark's station wagon was backed up to the cardboard area of his house.

Speaker 15 I was kind of surprised that it was parked where it was parked because it was never parked there. It was really hard to get it into that position to begin with.

Speaker 5 Anyway, why hadn't he left for Seattle?

Speaker 24 It was then she noticed must be Mark up at the house.

Speaker 15 Someone who had Mark's hat on, you know, which I thought was Mark, was bringing something big into the back of the car.

Speaker 14 Big, big, big, it looked like to me.

Speaker 15 So I was thinking he was carrying Ding and putting her in the back of the car.

Speaker 45 Ding, who, remember, was recovering from surgery.

Speaker 15 And then

Speaker 15 he went to get into his car.

Speaker 15 He was wearing Mark's hat, Mark's coat, and closed the car door and then proceeded to like scream down the driveway, which Mark would never have done.

Speaker 33 Did you call out to him or wave?

Speaker 15 I waved and I went,

Speaker 15 I hope that's Mark.

Speaker 33 I hope that's Mark?

Speaker 5 Well, of course it must have been, Stephanie thought, rushing a bleeding ding to the vet.

Speaker 85 About 20 minutes later, Stephanie walked up to the house to use the bathroom.

Speaker 3 This time, the door was unlocked.

Speaker 32 But this was weird.

Speaker 15 Before I even got to the door, there was this

Speaker 15 immense smell of bleach.

Speaker 74 Bleach?

Speaker 15 Yeah, like it took my breath away.

Speaker 52 And inside the house?

Speaker 15 There was three wet, what looked like blood spots in the hallway.

Speaker 15 that had obviously been just cleaned and they were still drying.

Speaker 44 Perhaps Ding had bled on the carpet and Mark had cleaned it up.

Speaker 37 But why would he take the time?

Speaker 15 He wouldn't stop and spend half an hour cleaning. His main thing would be getting Ding to the vet, then getting to his appointments.

Speaker 26 But other than those wet spots, everything else appeared to be the way Mark would have left it.

Speaker 15 I was looking for bloody towels. I was looking for bloody paper towels.
The bathroom was immaculate. There was absolutely nothing in the washing machine.
There was nothing in the tub.

Speaker 32 Stephanie wasn't sure what was going on, but it all felt kind of creepy.

Speaker 15 My thoughts were, well,

Speaker 15 that was freaky, and I got out of there, and I didn't go back up to the house the rest of the day.

Speaker 71 You went on with the day.

Speaker 33 But a strange day it was.

Speaker 69 And as the hours ticked by, there was no word from Mark.

Speaker 3 No one could reach him by phone.

Speaker 76 It was very odd that we had not talked to him.

Speaker 81 It was very very strange.

Speaker 50 The following morning, October 29th, still no sign of Mark, no word from him at all.

Speaker 67 Again, Stephanie went up toward his house.

Speaker 15 And I looked up, and there stood Ding by the back door. And she was obviously hurt.
She was growling. And so I started talking to her nicely, thinking, oh my God, what is she doing here?

Speaker 15 And what's gone on? And I backed down the driveway.

Speaker 44 At about the same time, the phone rang in the kettle.

Speaker 86 It was Mark's fiancée, Teresa.

Speaker 18 When they told me Ding was out, there was blood, Ding is never out. Ever.
She's either in the house or she's with Mark.

Speaker 87 She's not just out barking at people.

Speaker 33 No Mark.

Speaker 3 Injured dog.

Speaker 64 Teresa, frantic now, called the Skagit County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 20 All of those

Speaker 20 circumstances were very suspicious.

Speaker 3 This is Detective Dan Louvera.

Speaker 20 Oh, I immediately thought, foul play.

Speaker 20 This is huge. There's more to the story.
And there definitely was.

Speaker 66 More to the story?

Speaker 3 Yes, there apparently was.

Speaker 26 Starting with a secret history, stories of a marriage's ugly aftermath.

Speaker 18 She had been calling key clients and saying really horrible things about him to damage the business.

Speaker 77 It was evening, October 29th, the day after Mark Stover disappeared.

Speaker 53 Skagit County Sheriff's Detective Dan Levera, now retired, told us how he stood in the dark and looked at Mark Stover's big new house and just knew something very bad happened here.

Speaker 20 But what?

Speaker 20 There was no signs of a struggle. There was just a little bit of blood here and there.

Speaker 45 Of course, Mark's protection dog, Ding, was clearly injured.

Speaker 44 That could explain those bits of blood.

Speaker 64 But earlier that day, just inside the carport door, Le Vera's investigation team had been knocked back by the overwhelming odor of bleach.

Speaker 3 And in the bathroom off the hall, they found Clorox bottles.

Speaker 60 Looked like someone tried to wash away evidence.

Speaker 37 This had to be more than just an injured dog.

Speaker 26 Mark Stover's employees told about the strange events the previous morning.

Speaker 36 The barking dogs, the odd business of the locked carport door, the man wearing Mark's clothes, roaring down the driveway in Mark's white Chevy station wagon.

Speaker 3 Mark never drove that fast.

Speaker 14 It didn't look good.

Speaker 71 The policeman poked around, sniffed, measured, and still no Mark Stover.

Speaker 55 The evidence, even without a body, seemed clear.

Speaker 6 This was homicide.

Speaker 27 So by now, a couple of days after Mark's disappearance, his employees were shifting from puzzled to shocked to grief-stricken.

Speaker 76 Mark took a role in my life like a surrogate father.

Speaker 76 And I truly love Mark as a parent and a friend and a family member.

Speaker 41 Sometimes the clues in a mystery such as this can be very personal.

Speaker 48 More about relationships than fingerprints or DNA, as Detective Levera knew full well.

Speaker 85 And in the days after Mark Stover's disappearance, the detective repeatedly encountered a disturbing story.

Speaker 33 These former lovers were afraid of each other.

Speaker 79 What happened to that marriage, the one on the heavenly island?

Speaker 67 In fact, there was a record, the detective discovered, and it was more hell than heaven.

Speaker 20 Well, Mark had issues with Linda, and Linda had issues with Mark.

Speaker 41 To put it mildly, here's the story Mark's fiancée Teresa told the detective, the story she said Mark told her.

Speaker 72 Linda seemed to be doing her level best to destroy Mark's dog training business.

Speaker 18 She had been calling key clients and saying really horrible things about him to damage the business. She called and tried to shut the website down and tried to shut his phones down.

Speaker 55 Which is why, again, this is the story Teresa said Mark told her.

Speaker 14 Why he snooped in her garbage one March morning in 2008.

Speaker 45 This was a three-hour drive from his own house.

Speaker 64 He went there, said Teresa, to look for a paper trail to prove Linda wanted to destroy his business.

Speaker 18 You know, divorce is never pleasant, but theirs just became very visible. And the fighting involved the business.

Speaker 9 He was afraid of losing it.

Speaker 18 Very much so.

Speaker 38 After the garbage incident, Linda came up with a whole slew of accusations that Mark had been harassing her ever since she left him.

Speaker 64 A domestic violence protection order was issued against Mark in April 2008.

Speaker 62 Mark was later charged with criminal stalking.

Speaker 69 He swore up and down that many of the allegations were not true.

Speaker 35 But he was caught going through her garbage, and he eventually took what's known as an Alford plea, which means he agreed to plead guilty, conceding a judge or jury would probably convict him, even though he claimed he didn't do it, much of it anyway.

Speaker 39 But here was the deal, and this was important.

Speaker 72 As part of that arrangement, Mark was ordered to give up his guns.

Speaker 33 For most people, that might be easy, but for Mark, he had dozens of guns.

Speaker 37 He loved his guns.

Speaker 18 It was a passion for him. He loved his hunting.

Speaker 72 No guns, no contact with Linda.

Speaker 74 And Mark agreed.

Speaker 27 Here's what Teresa says Mark told her.

Speaker 18 This will make it all stop.

Speaker 43 In other words, he was telling you, I'm going to let her win.

Speaker 18 He said that was important, that she needed to win.

Speaker 9 Was he afraid of her? Oh, yes.

Speaker 3 Still, after that, things seemed to settle down.

Speaker 44 Mark's business thrived in his new location here in Atacortis.

Speaker 41 He continued to service his clients in Seattle.

Speaker 27 And of course, by then, he had found Teresa.

Speaker 58 But then, in the summer of 2009, two strange 911 calls came into the Skagit County Sheriff's Office.

Speaker 69 An anonymous mail caller claimed Mark Stover was transporting drugs in his car.

Speaker 16 There's a

Speaker 78 Police pulled Mark over, found a small amount of marijuana and cocaine underneath the car.

Speaker 8 But he was not arrested.

Speaker 54 Mark told police he believed he was being set up.

Speaker 7 Those were not his drugs.

Speaker 57 Mark wasn't charged with any crime, but he was terrified.

Speaker 20 He was terrified that someone was trying to set him up to be charged with transportation of these drugs and facing jail time or prison time or both.

Speaker 64 Not long after that drug incident, Mark opened up to a longtime client, told her, she said, that he was convinced his days were numbered.

Speaker 13 He totally shocked me by saying how every time he leaves his house in the morning, he checks under his car to make sure there's nothing like a bomb. He was a shaken man.

Speaker 8 And then about a month later, she said, he called her on the phone, frantic.

Speaker 13 It was just breaking him, him, just totally breaking him.

Speaker 13 Because he knew

Speaker 13 that he wasn't going to survive.

Speaker 13 He knew it.

Speaker 9 Wow.

Speaker 13 He knew his life was over. He just knew it and that there was nothing he could do about it.

Speaker 69 As Detective Levera talked to friends and doggoning clients, he heard all about Mark's fears those last few months.

Speaker 20 He kept on pointing the finger at Linda, but again, there was no evidence to prove that or suggest that, I guess.

Speaker 20 But

Speaker 20 he was concerned and

Speaker 20 he had this feeling that

Speaker 20 something terrible was going to happen.

Speaker 9 What did he tell you about Linda?

Speaker 18 He told me that she will not rest until I'm dead.

Speaker 56 And it wasn't just Linda Mark fretted about.

Speaker 35 He told friends he was afraid of her father, too.

Speaker 9 Why was he afraid of them?

Speaker 18 What I can say is often he would comment that they always win

Speaker 18 and they always get the last word.

Speaker 64 And so, according to his friends, Mark Stover spent the late summer and early fall of 2009 in a state of mortal fear.

Speaker 5 Even escaped secretly to Montana, says Teresa.

Speaker 18 He would only use cash.

Speaker 18 He would call me from payphones.

Speaker 18 He was very worried.

Speaker 18 He even called me and said, you know, if

Speaker 18 things happen, this is what I want you to do. And I said, Mark, how will I know if something happens to you? And he said, you'll know.

Speaker 17 And now, of course, she did.

Speaker 62 Now everyone knew something happened to the dog trainer to the stars.

Speaker 26 And they might never have known more than just that, a mystery unsolved, except for the strange events in a remote parking lot and two sharp-eyed women who now had a story to tell.

Speaker 22 He's bent over and he has his arms around a big roll of clear plastic and my brain goes, there's a body.

Speaker 67 Murder investigations are the top of the craft in the police business.

Speaker 20 Mostly because they can be tortuous.

Speaker 49 It can take years to pry loose a single useful lead.

Speaker 83 But on the day Mark Stover disappeared, two women saw something that didn't belong and called it in.

Speaker 20 They were a huge part of starting this whole process.

Speaker 86 Just a few hours after the employees at Mark's house watched his car drive away.

Speaker 22 I pull forward and there's two vehicles behind the chain.

Speaker 83 Tammy Gilden and her mother, Sharon Larson, called the Sheriff's Department to complain that someone was trespassing in the locked parking lot of a grain shawl just a half mile from Mark's house.

Speaker 64 In fact, they said they saw two cars.

Speaker 84 One, ID'd by the license number, was Mark's white Chevy station wagon.

Speaker 52 Parked back to back, said the ladies, with a black Suzuki SUV.

Speaker 3 And they saw someone moving something between the cars.

Speaker 22 And he's bent over and he has his arms around a big roll of, you know, clear plastic.

Speaker 9 And my brain goes, there's a body.

Speaker 22 Oh, Tammy, no, there's not a body. You've been reading too many good murder mysteries.

Speaker 86 The man transferring the plastic and whatever was in it drove off in his SUV, the ladies reported, leaving Mark Stova's station wagon behind.

Speaker 69 The sheriff's dispatcher sent a deputy to have a look.

Speaker 44 And sure enough, the deputy found Mark's car inside the apparently locked parking lot.

Speaker 23 Except the lot wasn't exactly locked anymore.

Speaker 20 When the deputy looked closer to the chain link, he discovered that one of the links had been cut and that link was placed and attached to the other links, making it appear that it was intact.

Speaker 89 And then, this was pure chance, really.

Speaker 3 The deputy spotted the SUV just down the road and pulled it over, peered around the driver into the back of the SUV.

Speaker 20 There was a lot of stuff in the back of his car. It appeared to be camping-type stuff or tarps and plastic-type stuff.

Speaker 44 The man identified himself as Michael Oakes, lived a good five hours' drive away, away, worked in internet sales, consulting a bit of writing, denied ever being behind the Grange.

Speaker 38 His word against the ladies.

Speaker 3 The deputy let him go.

Speaker 20 The deputy just gave him a warning, said, don't go back there. You know, go on your way.

Speaker 41 It was just a minor trespassing incident, after all.

Speaker 45 But now, a day later, it didn't seem so minor.

Speaker 72 Time to find both cars.

Speaker 31 The dog trainer's car was no longer at the Grange Hall, but an alert detective noticed it in the parking lot of the Northern Lights Casino, three miles from the place where the ladies had seen it.

Speaker 45 Looked like blood on the back of the car.

Speaker 72 And when investigators ordered up the casino surveillance video, they saw this: 6:21 p.m., October 28th, perhaps seven hours after the ladies saw the car at the Grange.

Speaker 39 Here was someone driving Mark's car onto the casino parking lot.

Speaker 33 Whoever it was, abandoned it.

Speaker 64 And now Dan Luvera's investigation was moving very quickly.

Speaker 20 Immediately started trying to find out who this Michael Oakes guy was that was seen behind the Grange by the two witnesses.

Speaker 83 Once police had Michael Oakes' ID, they discovered he was spending time with Linda Opdike, Mark's ex-wife.

Speaker 44 So now, two officers from the Okanagan County Sheriff's Department paid a visit at Linda's house here in Winthrop, Washington.

Speaker 68 And sure enough, there was Michael Oak's SUV in her driveway.

Speaker 49 Once in the house, the officers asked to speak to Oakes.

Speaker 3 He agreed.

Speaker 83 But then, he said, he needed to find his pills.

Speaker 20 He became agitated or frustrated, kept on asking for his medication, and the chief, not knowing if Michael was having some sort of a medical issue, allowed him to look around for his medication.

Speaker 38 And, well, supposedly hunting for pills.

Speaker 20 Michael then secretly snuck out the basement area of the house and went to his vehicle.

Speaker 20 It just so happened that the sergeant was standing on the deck above the driveway and observed Michael Oakes walking outside to the driveway.

Speaker 65 Oakes, apparently not aware he was being watched, took a white bag out of his car, said the officer, and tossed it over a 20-foot embankment outside Linda's house.

Speaker 20 He immediately questions Michael about what he threw over the embankment. Michael said it was garbage.

Speaker 14 Garbage.

Speaker 9 Garbage. But they went to retrieve that bag of garbage.
And what was actually in it?

Speaker 20 It was a gun.

Speaker 31 Inside Michael Oakes' garbage was a.22-caliber Browning pistol.

Speaker 3 Also in the bag, a bloody swatch of carpet and an overwhelming odor of bleach.

Speaker 52 And then, here's what they found inside Linda's house.

Speaker 37 Bizarre.

Speaker 20 Oh, there was all sorts of ammunition and guns. Firearms on magnets behind tapestries.
Firearms in drawers. Loaded guns all over this house.

Speaker 9 Including semi-automatic weapons and

Speaker 89 big-time stuff.

Speaker 9 Big-time stuff, yeah.

Speaker 9 Why?

Speaker 93 Was it an explanation provided for this?

Speaker 21 No.

Speaker 77 Before police left into Opdike's house here in Winthrop, they arrested Michael Oakes on suspicion of murder.

Speaker 69 And back in western Washington, the local buzz began to grow.

Speaker 3 If Michael Oakes did kill Mark Stover, was someone else involved somehow?

Speaker 78 Buzz is discouraged, however, in police work in favor of actual evidence, which in this case arrived in a phone call to police from her.

Speaker 47 Michael Oaks, it turned out, had an ex-wife who volunteered a remarkable story about disturbing visits and puzzling messages from Mr.

Speaker 49 Oakes.

Speaker 65 What did that say to you?

Speaker 20 Well, it says a lot to me.

Speaker 72 As one person opens up, another goes suspiciously silent.

Speaker 41 Both get detectives' attention.

Speaker 9 What did you think?

Speaker 20 Oh, I thought, wow, huge red flags.

Speaker 27 Sometimes the worst thing a person can do is try to influence his own fate.

Speaker 60 As Michael Oakes sat in the back of a police car, under arrest on suspicion of the murder of dog whisperer Mark Stover, he was given an unusual opportunity.

Speaker 28 He was allowed to make several calls from his cell phone.

Speaker 74 He decided, for reasons of his own, to place one of them to a woman named Jennifer Thompson, his ex-wife.

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 3 Well,

Speaker 3 We can only speculate that the result of that call may have been the very opposite of what he intended.

Speaker 40 Here's what happened.

Speaker 27 Not long after Oakes phoned her from the police car, Jennifer placed a call of her own to the county jail.

Speaker 47 She asked to speak to an investigator.

Speaker 5 And not long after that call, this was the story she told in an audio taped interview.

Speaker 37 On October 24th, 2009, four days before Mark Stover disappeared, Michael Oakes stopped in to see her at her place in Western Washington, not too many miles from the Stover Kennels, and talked to her about a job he was supposed to do.

Speaker 95 He didn't give me a lot of specifics. He just said he was here on a job, a signed job, that there was risk involved, possible

Speaker 95 injury to himself,

Speaker 95 that it was fairly dangerous.

Speaker 60 At which point he left for a few hours, then contacted her again.

Speaker 95 He texted me and said, job failed. I'm okay.

Speaker 95 No pay,

Speaker 36 Does that sound like Michael Oakes was a hired killer?

Speaker 9 Well, wait, there's more.

Speaker 72 Jennifer told the police that after Michael left on the 24th, he told her in an email he'd be back in the area later that week.

Speaker 41 And sure enough, on October 28th, not long after that deputy pulled him over to investigate the trespassing incident, Oakes called again, said Jennifer, came to meet her.

Speaker 17 He asked her to drive to a spot near the water, she said, where they could talk.

Speaker 95 Yeah, because he just was sitting there in a frenzy, just

Speaker 95 stressed out. He just seemed very agitated.
And he mentioned that he may be in trouble.

Speaker 3 And then...

Speaker 83 Another reference to a job.

Speaker 8 A job gone bad.

Speaker 95 He said, well, I made an error. I was doing a job and I made an error.
And when I realized the error, I tried to get out of there. But when I was getting out of there, two old biddies saw me.

Speaker 95 I said, well, why is this a problem?

Speaker 95 And he said, well,

Speaker 95 now

Speaker 95 when this hits the fan, in the next 24 to 48 hours, they have my name. There's a 50-50 shot of getting questioned.

Speaker 95 If he he gets questioned he's guaranteed a trial and if he gets a trial there's no one that's gonna stick up for him and he's pretty much going to prison you said looking at felony 10 to 15 years

Speaker 95 so big trouble he told jennifer there was evasive action to take work to be done he was really concerned about getting pulled over with the things in his vehicle He wanted to get them home and get them sterilized.

Speaker 95 And he said, if anyone sees this now, I'm going in right away.

Speaker 94 Going in meaning he would be arrested right away, he thought.

Speaker 3 And if all that wasn't incriminating enough, here was the capper.

Speaker 27 Jennifer told police the story of how their marriage fell apart.

Speaker 63 It happened in the spring of 2008, said Jennifer.

Speaker 68 Then-husband Michael told her about a phone call from someone named John.

Speaker 95 He told me that there was a potential job coming up that he was interested in taking

Speaker 95 about a woman and an ex-spouse that was harassing her. The father of the woman

Speaker 95 was initiating the job.

Speaker 79 A father with a daughter named Linda.

Speaker 86 And it seems there was a plan in store for Linda's ex-husband.

Speaker 95 And they would

Speaker 95 basically use Linda as sort of bait to lure the ex-spouse toward her, and then they would,

Speaker 95 he were to show signs of um hurting her killing her then they would take him out okay and by taking him out you meant or you understood that to be they would

Speaker 33 kill him right Linda and her father

Speaker 55 could that be Wally and Linda Opdike the police wondered Mark Stover's ex-father-in-law and ex-wife plotting to kill him It was a wild story, Jennifer told, and of course horrifying given what seemed to have happened.

Speaker 57 Jennifer said she told Michael back then, don't do it, walk away.

Speaker 37 But he wouldn't listen.

Speaker 58 And that's when things started going bad.

Speaker 20 Well, Jennifer and Michael's marriage started to unravel because Michael had considered taking this job. And Jennifer knew that this was a kill for hire and she didn't want to have any part of it.

Speaker 9 And thus didn't want to be married to a guy who was going to do such a thing. Exactly.
Yeah.

Speaker 49 But remember, awful though it sounded, this was an ex-wife's story.

Speaker 86 And all due respect to Jennifer.

Speaker 3 Maybe she just had a vendetta against him because, after all, he was the ex.

Speaker 9 Didn't she want him back? Desperately, he wouldn't come back.

Speaker 20 Yeah, she still

Speaker 20 had feelings for him.

Speaker 9 So maybe she would just want to get him.

Speaker 20 No, Jennifer was very, very well-spoken, very articulate, very believable. She was the type of...
a woman that you'd want to take home to your mom and dad. She was just very sweet.

Speaker 26 Of course, for Dan Louvera and his team of investigators, this was all pure gold.

Speaker 74 Or, so you'd assume, wouldn't you?

Speaker 83 But assumptions are not the same thing as evidence.

Speaker 3 And.

Speaker 20 We didn't have any evidence to

Speaker 9 support

Speaker 9 that Linda or Wally

Speaker 20 were directly involved, other than what Jennifer Thompson had told us.

Speaker 9 Why don't I just call them in and ask them?

Speaker 20 They wouldn't talk to us. We got

Speaker 9 a letter

Speaker 20 and a phone call from Wally's attorney immediately after Michael Oakes' arrest stating that Wally Updike would not talk to us.

Speaker 14 Had you asked him by then?

Speaker 20 No, we haven't even requested to interview Wally. We hadn't even called him.

Speaker 9 What did you think?

Speaker 20 Oh, I thought, wow, huge red flags.

Speaker 20 I thought, wow, this guy, we asked to talk to him, and he's already got an attorney, and the attorney's already contacting us, telling us not to contact Wally Opdyke.

Speaker 9 It was crazy.

Speaker 20 Same with Linda. She hired an attorney right away.

Speaker 35 Linda invoked her Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.

Speaker 6 A judge ultimately ordered her to sit for a deposition.

Speaker 3 Still didn't say anything.

Speaker 20 Pretty much every question we asked her, she took the fifth on.

Speaker 90 So, there was one defendant in the murder of Mark Stover, Michael Oaks.

Speaker 24 But he certainly didn't look the part of a hired killer.

Speaker 42 All five foot six of him, soft-spoken, understated, articulate, father of four, grandfather, one.

Speaker 59 Yeah, he's not your Hollywood casting for a hitman.

Speaker 47 But cast as defense attorney?

Speaker 39 Seattle's colorful and irrepressible John Henry Brown.

Speaker 59 He's a really kind, compassionate, loving guy.

Speaker 7 Could anyone believe what happened next?

Speaker 2 The accused murderer released on bond?

Speaker 77 The question, was there even a murder?

Speaker 66 And the other question, who was the real villain, anyway?

Speaker 57 Turns out there was a very different side to this story.

Speaker 9 He wanted to provide a little twist of his surprise. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And boy, would he.

Speaker 36 In the months after their famous tulips wilted and the summer sun finally favored Mount Vernon, Washington, events at the town's lovely old courthouse became a kind of parlor-guessing game.

Speaker 72 A quiet little man named Michael Oakes had been charged with killing the dog training wizard Mark Stover, even though no one could find Mark's body.

Speaker 36 Still, the charge, murder in the first degree.

Speaker 5 But early legal skirmishing seemed sometimes to merely add confusion.

Speaker 51 Was it murder?

Speaker 72 Oaks a hired gun?

Speaker 86 Or was it something else altogether?

Speaker 49 And besides that, how intimate was Oakes' relationship with Mark Stover's ex-wife Linda?

Speaker 36 And who was paying for his famous defense attorney?

Speaker 59 The optices are behind this. The optics are behind this.
And you know, and they hired me. I'll tell you, if they hired me, I wouldn't be wearing my Tymex.

Speaker 9 Okay?

Speaker 59 You know, that's ridiculous.

Speaker 78 John Henry Brown settled into a local hotel and set to work deconstructing the prevailing public view of defendant Michael Oakes.

Speaker 24 The copy.

Speaker 36 Here in court, Brown sucked up the attention.

Speaker 59 And I would suggest counsel come to trial and she'll find out.

Speaker 8 Naturally flamboyant.

Speaker 14 I don't think I have a dog in this fight.

Speaker 78 Well, the client seemed to disappear into the woodwork behind him.

Speaker 72 A client who, said John Henry Brown, was not at all the villain the prosecution seemed determined to portray.

Speaker 12 What we have is a man who has, on his own, raised very successfully four children.

Speaker 49 It became, shall we say, a theme.

Speaker 52 Michael Oakes, single father of four, grandfather of one.

Speaker 44 Well-spoken, mild-mannered, but certainly not any ordinary salesman or consultant.

Speaker 74 Oakes, Brown admitted, is a recognized expert in close-quarters combat, knows firearms so well he's written numerous articles for gun magazines, has even trained police SWAT teams, but has no criminal record, and, insisted Brown, he isn't a murderer.

Speaker 69 Still, he must have done something to Mark Stover, didn't he?

Speaker 44 Well, here's where it all began to get tricky.

Speaker 65 If Stover was really dead, said John Henry Brown, and if the prosecution could prove Oakes killed him, then and only then Oakes might provide an explanation.

Speaker 14 Through the legal fog, a little hint came popping out.

Speaker 38 The prosecution had already indicated it would introduce into evidence a bulletproof vest found in Michael Oakes' SUV.

Speaker 64 Now, Attorney Brown seemed to be suggesting that vest would be important to any claim the defense might decide to make.

Speaker 12 And just to make things clear, Your Honor, it's not just the vest, it's a bullet that was found in the vest.

Speaker 45 Indeed, it was.

Speaker 69 Right smack in the center of the vest, a.22-caliber slug.

Speaker 17 Was the defense implying that Michael Oakes had himself been shot?

Speaker 72 No one really knew where things were headed here in September 2010 as trial began.

Speaker 17 Even John Henry Brown quite deliberately broke one of his own cardinal rules.

Speaker 74 He decided not to make an opening statement to the jury.

Speaker 59 I have what I call my famous 10 rules of trial, and I think it's rule number three is never. Never, never, never, ever waive an opening statement.
That's a rule.

Speaker 97 Good morning, everybody.

Speaker 40 This time, the defense would lie in wait while the prosecution made its case that Michael Oak was a first-degree murderer.

Speaker 5 Here's how their story began.

Speaker 20 With a video, a security camera, about 5:30 a.m., the Mount Vernon, Walmart.

Speaker 92 On it, Michael Oaks.

Speaker 75 It's the morning Mark Stover disappeared.

Speaker 3 Receipts found in Oakes's car showed he'd purchased ankle weights, anchor line, shin guards, camouflage clothes.

Speaker 25 Also found in his car, that bulletproof vest.

Speaker 26 Prosecutors argued Oakes arrived at Stover's house a little later that morning.

Speaker 67 Mark's employees were called to testify about what they saw and heard.

Speaker 15 I was awoken by the dogs in the barn next door.

Speaker 83 They saw the spots of blood, smelled the bleach, saw Mark's car racing down the driveway.

Speaker 98 Both back ends were open to each other.

Speaker 3 And then the trespassing incident at the Grange Hall near Mark Stover's house, as called in by those two concerned women, now witnesses.

Speaker 99 There was a guy standing

Speaker 99 between the vehicles,

Speaker 99 and he had a big, huge wad of plastic, a big roll of plastic.

Speaker 26 That someone, Michael Oakes, as identified by his license plate, and that wad of plastic.

Speaker 86 The suggestion was, of course, that it shrouded Mark Stover's body.

Speaker 58 And remember, there was a chain behind the grains that appeared to have been cut that morning and receipts found in Oakes' car showing he bought and later returned a bolt cutter from a Lowe's hardware store the day Mark Stover disappeared.

Speaker 46 A state DNA expert testified Mark Stover's blood is found in the back of his car and in the back of defendant Oakes' SUV.

Speaker 66 Are you aware that Mr.

Speaker 101 Oakes purchased a.22 caliber pistol at your store?

Speaker 45 I am.

Speaker 92 This former hardware store manager testified he sold Michael Oakes that 22 caliber Browning.

Speaker 86 He'd been interested in it for a very specific reason.

Speaker 67 He told me, well, I have a barrel that I can interchange on that that has a threaded end that I can put a suppressor on.

Speaker 33 Silencer, that is.

Speaker 31 Then an expert matched bullet casings found outside Stover's house to Michael Oakes' gun.

Speaker 84 I was able to identify all three fired cartridge cases as having been fired from the Browning pistol.

Speaker 30 Proof that Michael Oakes's gun was fired at Mark Stover's house, where DNA showed more of Mark's blood was found.

Speaker 92 Blood, but no body.

Speaker 2 To try to answer the question of what Michael Oakes might have done with Mark's body, prosecutors presented a surveillance video.

Speaker 25 Shortly after 12 noon, October 28th, the day Stover disappeared, an SUV looked like Michael Oaks' Suzuki, slowly cruising by the waterfront casino, three miles from the Grange.

Speaker 20 Right here, it's the Dark Father SUV.

Speaker 75 Detective Dan Louvera testified that the vehicle spent about 16 minutes back by the casino, out of range of the camera, on a road that leads to a channel, open water, and a dilapidated dock.

Speaker 5 Later, detectives and divers searched, but...

Speaker 20 Didn't find a darn thing. Didn't find a darn thing.

Speaker 70 Then, of course, there was one other key witness for the prosecution, Jennifer Thompson, Michael Oakes' ex-wife.

Speaker 70 Remember, she'd claimed that Michael Oakes told her he'd been offered a job to take out an ex-husband, that he'd been asked by a father of someone named Linda.

Speaker 70 And Jennifer was convinced that meant this was a killing for hire.

Speaker 71 But because that alleged conversation took place when Jennifer and Michael Oakes were married, that made it privileged, couldn't be used in court.

Speaker 70 The prosecution would have to make do with just part of Jennifer's story.

Speaker 42 The judge would not allow her face to be filmed in court, as she told the jury about her visit from Michael just days before Mark Stover disappeared, when he talked about a job he was supposed to do.

Speaker 68 And then there was her meeting with him on the 28th of October, not long after that trespassing incident when a police officer pulled him over. Jennifer said he looked a little frumpy.

Speaker 37 And what was that on his jeans?

Speaker 102 There was a

Speaker 3 rusty reddish stain on his right knee.

Speaker 102 To me it looked like blood. I just said, it looks like you have a dirty knee there.

Speaker 3 And he took his finger and he touched it.

Speaker 102 And he said, yeah.

Speaker 82 But most startling in Jennifer's testimony, all those things she claimed he said, that he was doing a job and something went wrong.

Speaker 3 He was doing a job.

Speaker 27 That he wanted to sterilize his car.

Speaker 66 and his fears about what would happen if the cops questioned him.

Speaker 3 Something that was not planned happened.

Speaker 102 He said, as if there's a trial, it's not going to be good.

Speaker 57 All very methodically, the prosecution appeared to have cornered Michael Oakes, seemed to have met a certain burden of proof, and no one had a clue what Oakes or his attorney would do or say to respond.

Speaker 37 Oh, but John Henry Brown knew exactly how he'd respond.

Speaker 58 And it was a bombshell he had in store.

Speaker 59 We wanted to be the people who brought light into this case.

Speaker 9 We wanted to provide a little

Speaker 9 twist, a turn,

Speaker 9 a surprise. Yeah.

Speaker 57 A very different portrait of the victim emerges.

Speaker 59 Mark Stover was a domestic violence terrorist.

Speaker 3 And then the defendant tells his story to Dateline, even before he does in court.

Speaker 100 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 100 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 100 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 100 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 103 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored.
Catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

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Speaker 103 Good morning. Be seated, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 66 The defense team is reserving their opening statement.

Speaker 3 Experienced observers here in the Mount Vernon Courthouse were puzzled.

Speaker 92 What was lead defense attorney John Henry Brown up to?

Speaker 88 As the prosecution put on its case against Michael Oaks rolled out chapter and verse of the evidence pointing to Oak as the murderer of dog whisperer Mark Stover, Brown said practically nothing.

Speaker 3 Why?

Speaker 62 Strategy, said John Henry Brown.

Speaker 59 We put them through the task of putting on a lot of evidence, and it was just kind of boring them and said we wanted to be the people who brought light into this case.

Speaker 44 So, what was the light in this case?

Speaker 57 The secret twist.

Speaker 59 The evidence shows and demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt for any reasonable person that Mark Stover was a a domestic violence terrorist.

Speaker 3 Terrorist?

Speaker 56 The villain was not his client, Michael Oakes, said Brown, but the victim, Mark Stover.

Speaker 72 Remember, Mark's friends and clients had nothing but good things to say about him.

Speaker 72 But now it was clear Oakes' attorneys would use whatever evidence they could to paint the dog trainer as a threatening, gun-loving predator, someone Michael Oakes would have feared.

Speaker 77 And here the real work of the defense began.

Speaker 5 They focused to a large degree on Stover's behavior with his ex-wife.

Speaker 78 Linda Opdike said Brown was stalked and harassed for years after leaving Stover.

Speaker 86 It wasn't just the incident in which her ex-husband was caught rummaging through her garbage.

Speaker 44 He made a habit of showing up at her house uninvited, said Brown, exposing himself, appearing in her bathroom as she got out of the shower, pointing a rifle at her through a window, leaving handwritten notes, threatening voicemails.

Speaker 59 The fact that he goes into Linda's house with a 45 and puts it on a pillow and threatens to kill kill himself or her, the fact that he breaks into her house, the fact that he steals her journal, the fact that he steals her garbage, the fact, you know, all those things are facts.

Speaker 39 And so, when it came time for the defense to finally make its case, Brown's co-counsel Corbin Vollis did his best to drive the allegations home.

Speaker 108 When Linda said she wanted to be separated from Mark in 2005, he did not take it well.

Speaker 56 He was followed, claimed the defense, were many examples of bad behavior. Mark following her into a beauty salon.

Speaker 108 Mark Stover walks in unannounced. He gives a card to Linda saying he will never let her go.

Speaker 27 Mark showing up at her place uninvited.

Speaker 108 He grabs her by her shoulders and says he can't let her go.

Speaker 89 Apparently spying on her when Linda slept with Mark's ex-best friend.

Speaker 108 The next morning,

Speaker 108 Linda gets a phone call from Mark Stover. And then to Linda's horror, Mark Stover begins to describe in graphic detail the intimacy that Linda had been sharing the night before.

Speaker 39 And sitting in his car outside her home.

Speaker 108 She's calling him on the cell phone. He's following her.
She's pleading with him to stop it and quit following her.

Speaker 86 That time, said the defense, Linda called the cops.

Speaker 89 And he responded, according to her, by sending her a form canceling her health insurance, which was still in his name, controlling

Speaker 26 suggested

Speaker 108 Mark Stover has scrawled across the front.

Speaker 108 Next time, do not call the cops on the guy that controls your health care.

Speaker 3 And then the defense attorney showed the jury a video from Linda's surveillance cameras in the middle of the night.

Speaker 40 A man the defense claimed was Mark Stover creeping around Linda's house.

Speaker 108 What you see is Mark Stover

Speaker 108 walking up the driveway and under her house out of view of the camera.

Speaker 3 But that wasn't all.

Speaker 88 There was a series of odd and threatening voicemail messages, said the defense, many with a similar theme.

Speaker 78 Mark seemed strangely obsessed with getting his wedding photos back from Linda.

Speaker 89 Just one of many transcripts of these calls the attorney read from.

Speaker 108 Send those dang pictures of the wedding. I know you're into the wedding.
You don't give a damn about me. I don't want anything showing that we were married or anything else.

Speaker 89 The defense told the jury that Linda's attorney told Mark to stop contacting her directly, only go through his office.

Speaker 108 But of course, he keeps contacting her and contacting her and contacting her because Mark Stover is dogged in the pursuit of his prey.

Speaker 3 Prey?

Speaker 38 An interesting word, very deliberately picked by the defense.

Speaker 72 Because now they would argue that Michael Oakes also became prey for Mark Stover, would claim that a terrified Oaks believed something unspeakable would happen if he didn't try to appease Linda's ex.

Speaker 70 I mean, the fact of the matter is, you talk about domestic violence terrorists.

Speaker 9 The person who's dead here is Mark Stover.

Speaker 9 Yeah. He's the one against whom the violence was committed.

Speaker 59 Here's something that we've learned in this country, haven't we? You don't negotiate with terrorists.

Speaker 9 Michael didn't know that.

Speaker 59 Michael felt he could negotiate with terrorists. Linda felt she could negotiate with terrorists.
The reality is you can't negotiate with a terrorist. And Mark Stover was a domestic violence terrorist.

Speaker 36 Mark's friends and clients had by now gathered around the courthouse here in Mount Vernon, determined to tell the world, anybody who would listen, that those claims were both unfair and untrue.

Speaker 12 Most of all these reports that we hear are filed by her alone and by her eyewitness alone and absolutely no one else's.

Speaker 12 So you've got to weigh that in at some point, too, that it doesn't have that much meat to it.

Speaker 18 I just knew that wasn't true about him.

Speaker 18 There was nothing in him that was malicious or vindictive.

Speaker 63 And perhaps to answer them, a surprising and extremely unusual strategy.

Speaker 7 In mid-trial, John Henry Brown brought his client to see us.

Speaker 31 Here on the outskirts of Little Mount Vernon, Michael Oakes, before even talking to the jury, would make his case here.

Speaker 82 Preparation for his own testimony?

Speaker 78 Yes, probably.

Speaker 60 But also a wild bomb show of a story.

Speaker 35 An audacious claim.

Speaker 70 I went and I got shot.

Speaker 87 And I won.

Speaker 72 It was early evening, thermometer dropping in the gathering dark.

Speaker 72 When Michael Oakes came to talk to us partway through his trial for murder, he came with a message about himself, which he delivered more or less in the following manner over and over again.

Speaker 110 I'm a single dad.

Speaker 111 I cook three meals a day for my kids. I bring them to dance.
I bring them to school. This has been my life.

Speaker 30 And in case we didn't get it.

Speaker 21 The lens I look at the world

Speaker 91 through is really that of a single dad.

Speaker 110 I'm a nurturer. I'm a father.

Speaker 93 I'm a very peaceable person.

Speaker 111 I just happen to be a single dad who's kind of in a very unfortunate limelight right now.

Speaker 33 Well, yes.

Speaker 27 Charged with first-degree murder.

Speaker 42 So how did he get to this place?

Speaker 92 The story began, he said, when someone asked him to contact a frightened woman he did not know.

Speaker 24 That's how he made that first call to Linda Opdike.

Speaker 107 And she said, I'm dealing with a really frightening stalking situation.

Speaker 60 Michael remember was a security expert.

Speaker 83 He'd trained SWAT teams in close quarters combat.

Speaker 48 He offered to help.

Speaker 93 She put in my hands this very thick file, including video recordings, audio recordings, police reports, page after page, threatening voicemails.

Speaker 78 Linda told him she'd been stalked for years by her ex-husband.

Speaker 111 You get out of the shower, and there he is standing in the bathroom with a gun in his hand and you thought your house was locked.

Speaker 87 How many of those occasions does it take before you go, any room I'm in, any moment,

Speaker 21 I have to be ready?

Speaker 111 And that's the scenario that Linda lived in for at least two years.

Speaker 3 And then, as he worked out a protection plan for Linda, he said, something unexpected happened.

Speaker 21 We really resonated, really worked well together, and connected on a very heart and soul level.

Speaker 9 So it was a romance.

Speaker 9 Yeah,

Speaker 110 it definitely became a romance.

Speaker 33 And so Michael, the diminutive single dad and security expert, and Linda, the beautiful, tall, golden-haired daughter of privilege, embarked on a life together, along with his kids.

Speaker 89 And then one day in late May 2009, said Oakes, he was getting into his car in a Costco parking lot in a town called Kennewick, Washington, when he was confronted by Linda's ex, Mark Stover.

Speaker 21 I was approached by Mark Stover

Speaker 9 out of the clear blue.

Speaker 87 I had never met the gentleman prior to that, never spoken to him before.

Speaker 107 He did not introduce himself,

Speaker 87 and he uh

Speaker 9 take your time.

Speaker 111 I got up every morning, you know, and took my kids to school.

Speaker 111 I had my son in grade school

Speaker 93 and my daughter in middle school.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 14 there was a long pause while Oakes composed himself.

Speaker 9 Sorry.

Speaker 111 He said he needed me to do something.

Speaker 107 And

Speaker 111 he told me

Speaker 21 what my daughters were wearing that morning to school and it had to have been there when my girls got out of the car at their schools, two schools.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 107 he said

Speaker 111 that there was no other choice for me but to do what he wanted

Speaker 9 or

Speaker 93 something bad is going to happen to my kids.

Speaker 9 And

Speaker 21 he said that

Speaker 93 he was in a very tight relationship with the cops.

Speaker 9 And if I

Speaker 21 if as soon as I called, he would know.

Speaker 21 And

Speaker 9 he said

Speaker 93 I was going to do what he wanted, which was what?

Speaker 21 He told me I had to get wedding photos, believe it or not.

Speaker 111 Wedding albums, photos.

Speaker 9 And I had to get them to him or else. What'd you say?

Speaker 9 You know,

Speaker 21 my head was spinning.

Speaker 107 I was so much in shock, I

Speaker 107 didn't say much.

Speaker 110 I listened to him.

Speaker 111 I think I nodded several times.

Speaker 110 I don't remember saying anything.

Speaker 33 But Michael Oakes, the security, weapons, and hand-to-hand combat expert, the trainer of police SWAT SWAT teams, did feel something, he said.

Speaker 93 For six months of 2009, I lived in a perpetual

Speaker 9 state of fear.

Speaker 57 Too afraid, even, to call the police.

Speaker 21 I didn't have video proof.

Speaker 110 I didn't have audio proof.

Speaker 9 I didn't even have a witness.

Speaker 35 And so, according to Michael, he tried to appease Mark Stouffer.

Speaker 94 and looked for the wedding photos.

Speaker 93 I just found the romantic relationship that I have been seeking my whole life, just putting it together.

Speaker 93 And in the middle of this, I'm supposed to say, hey,

Speaker 93 I'd really love to look at your wedding pictures with your ex who's stalking you and driving you crazy.

Speaker 9 Where would you happen to have those?

Speaker 21 I'd really like to look at those.

Speaker 9 So, wait a minute, you didn't tell her that he'd confronted you and asked for these wedding pictures?

Speaker 110 Oh, no.

Speaker 9 Oh, no, no, no.

Speaker 50 Instead, he says he armed his own daughter, trained her, if anyone comes into the house, keep firing until they stop.

Speaker 21 My very first responsibility,

Speaker 93 over and above

Speaker 87 anything or anyone, anyone,

Speaker 21 is the safety of my children.

Speaker 72 And then he claimed he agreed to Mark Stover's demand to meet, supposedly to talk about wedding pictures, at Mark's house October 28th.

Speaker 3 Went there armed with deadly force and wearing a bulletproof vest and did it, he claimed, only to protect his children from an out-of-control madman.

Speaker 3 Really?

Speaker 9 Any rational person would know you don't protect your children by taking a gun to somebody's house to meet with them when you think that maybe there'll be gunplay.

Speaker 9 You don't do that if you're a dad. No, Keith.
Dads don't do that.

Speaker 93 No, Keith, you know what would happen if it was you and and you were in this situation based upon that comment? You would be standing right now on the edge

Speaker 111 of two

Speaker 93 graves and you'd be looking at it and all your friends would tell you, it's okay, Keith.

Speaker 107 There's nothing you could have done.

Speaker 9 Well, f ⁇ that.

Speaker 93 Because there was something I could do and I had to play patty cake with this guy.

Speaker 111 for six damn months to keep my kids alive.

Speaker 9 And then you went and shot him.

Speaker 87 I went and I got shot and I won.

Speaker 93 So because I won the gunfight, I

Speaker 87 know

Speaker 107 that I will not be standing on the side of my children's graves.

Speaker 93 And people aren't going to be patting me on the back and saying, there's nothing you could have done.

Speaker 20 I did.

Speaker 64 Oakes claimed Mark Stover shot first.

Speaker 30 Thus the claim he now made.

Speaker 64 It was self-defense.

Speaker 72 Even though no evidence ever surfaced to suggest Stover was in possession of any firearm at all, or that Stover had ever arranged any meeting with Oakes.

Speaker 34 And as for the story that he was a hired gun for the Optykes, just not true, said Michael Oakes.

Speaker 9 A great many people believe that one or both of the optics are involved. Were they involved?

Speaker 110 Not at all.

Speaker 78 But of course, it was all Michael's story.

Speaker 42 About a crazed dog whisperer, threats to his children, all that fear.

Speaker 9 I mean, who else says that besides you? And what evidence is there that he ever said such a thing?

Speaker 107 Said such a thing as...

Speaker 9 That he was, you know, threatening your kids.

Speaker 93 Keith, it's been the problem. I survived that day in October.

Speaker 21 I was still alive.

Speaker 93 My life continued on.

Speaker 21 And we have yet to see

Speaker 107 if the state is going to finish the job for him or not.

Speaker 93 And I understand I'm in a bit of a fix.

Speaker 11 You solemnly swear a firm testimony about to give this matter to be the truth, whole, truth, tell you.

Speaker 49 So now he'd tell his story to the jury.

Speaker 3 Would they believe it?

Speaker 36 The story comes complete with dramatic reenactment.

Speaker 107 My name is Michael Oakes.

Speaker 28 The task, as Michael Oakes took the witness stand, was not going to be easy, and he seemed to know it.

Speaker 3 He had to admit he did, in fact, kill dog whisperer Mark Stover, but somehow persuade the jury it was only in self-defense.

Speaker 41 You've heard what he told us, his allegations that Stover confronted him, threatened his children.

Speaker 58 He told the jury about what he claimed was Stover's weird determination to get those wedding photos.

Speaker 30 Oakes' version of the deadly events?

Speaker 40 After a series of meetings with Stover about those photos, he demanded Oakes come to his house October 28th, and he obeyed.

Speaker 26 Drove in the middle of the night across the state to Stover's house. He admitted buying all those supplies at the local Walmart early that morning on his way.

Speaker 98 I was very, very concerned about...

Speaker 91 possibly needing to make some sort of on-foot escape through the woods from him and his dogs.

Speaker 31 He bought the anchor line at Waits, he claimed, to help him scale up a nearby water tower in case he found himself running away from Mark's watchdog.

Speaker 67 And those shin guards, they weren't armored to fend off a watchdog, he claimed, but just a gift for his ex-wife Jennifer's young son.

Speaker 84 At 7 a.m., Michael testified. He knocked on Mark Stilver's door.

Speaker 60 He said Mark ordered him, stand in his hallway bathroom.

Speaker 3 And Oakes simply obeyed.

Speaker 31 And and then when he told Mark he couldn't find any wedding pictures

Speaker 77 he got more and more animated and

Speaker 91 got very close to me

Speaker 91 and was very angry and very loud and then he came around the corner with a gun in his hand we tangled and I got shot John Henry Brown had his client put on the bulletproof vest and show the jury what he claimed happened next.

Speaker 3 Courtroom show and tell.

Speaker 29 He's Mr. Stover.

Speaker 23 He's holding the gun out. He's fired at you.

Speaker 73 What do you do?

Speaker 62 That was amazingly fast, Mr. Oakes.

Speaker 23 Is that the way you did that?

Speaker 91 That's how it was trained?

Speaker 96 Mr. Stover was

Speaker 53 shot with his own gun.

Speaker 16 Yes, he was.

Speaker 7 So now Mark Stover was dead in the hallway of his home.

Speaker 50 And soon after, said Oakes, he went outside and was confronted by Mark's dog, Ding.

Speaker 91 I shot a couple times until it stopped coming at me.

Speaker 51 Why didn't he call the police?

Speaker 91 He had said he owned the cops,

Speaker 98 and it seemed like there was some evidence that that might be true.

Speaker 93 I just didn't think they would believe me at all.

Speaker 83 Then Michael said he wanted to see his kids before, as he said, he assumed he'd be arrested.

Speaker 53 Then he said he tucked Mark's gun into his vest pocket, carried the body out to Mark's station wagon, got in the driver's seat, put Mark's hat on his head, and went down the driveway.

Speaker 91 I drove around for a while and just stopped a couple places and sat there thinking about how the heck can I get to my kids.

Speaker 36 He said he thought maybe he'd leave Mark's car and the body behind that Grange Hall, but there was that locked chain, so he went and bought the bolt cutter, returned to the Grange, and those ladies saw him transferring Mark's body to his own car called the cops.

Speaker 109 And when that police officer pulled you over, was Mr. Stover in the back of your Suzuki?

Speaker 21 He was.

Speaker 27 He went to visit ex-wife Jennifer, he said, because he wanted to see her two sons, though he never did.

Speaker 78 Nor did he drive to see his own children, who he said were in Battleground, Washington, a four-hour drive away.

Speaker 98 I realized that I couldn't drive to Battleground with Mr.

Speaker 91 Stover in the back of my rig.

Speaker 47 So instead, he said he ditched Mark's car at that casino, looked around for a place to dump his body.

Speaker 75 There's a kind of a dilapidated looking dock thing, and I got my car as close to that as possible and muscled him out and dropped him in the water.

Speaker 85 An area investigators had searched, but never found anything.

Speaker 51 Then he said he drove across the state, not to his kids, but to Linda's house.

Speaker 34 Though he insisted he did not tell her any of what had just happened, didn't tell her what he'd done.

Speaker 98 I just said I had a really bad day.

Speaker 54 And when the police showed up the next night, he admitted, he did try to throw out some evidence.

Speaker 96 What was your intent?

Speaker 98 I needed one more day.

Speaker 98 I was trying not to get arrested just yet.

Speaker 34 But of course, he was arrested and charged.

Speaker 85 And now it was Prosecutor Rich Wyrick's turn to challenge his story.

Speaker 45 About, for example, that morning at Mark Stover's house.

Speaker 46 Did you hear the gun go off?

Speaker 91 You know, I don't recall anything really.

Speaker 112 Who pulled the trigger?

Speaker 19 I believe I did.

Speaker 112 Okay.

Speaker 101 Was his finger still on the trigger?

Speaker 107 You know, I do not know.

Speaker 66 Where were you when you pulled the trigger, Mr.?

Speaker 98 I don't know.

Speaker 112 Where was the bullet hole?

Speaker 20 I don't know.

Speaker 66 You weren't curious enough to look?

Speaker 98 I was very disturbed.

Speaker 36 And despite all those people who testified, they were knocked back by the overwhelming smell of bleach.

Speaker 81 I don't recall smelling any bleach.

Speaker 66 Did you use any bleach?

Speaker 84 I did not.

Speaker 46 Did you attempt to clean up anything?

Speaker 107 No.

Speaker 46 Didn't try to erase evidence, he claimed.

Speaker 17 And as for those odd supplies, he bought at the Walmart.

Speaker 112 So why didn't you need camouflage?

Speaker 98 If I was going to make my escape through the woods to

Speaker 98 the water tower, camouflage is quite useful for that.

Speaker 66 You would have the camouflage in your backpack that you would quickly change into as you ran through the woods.

Speaker 73 No.

Speaker 91 I would change into quickly and then run through the woods.

Speaker 113 But would this is assuming that Mr.

Speaker 101 Stover has taken the time not to chase you?

Speaker 21 I'm very fast.

Speaker 30 And finally, the prosecutor asked, if he was so afraid of Mark Stover, why not tell someone?

Speaker 17 Why go over to his house?

Speaker 101 You never took one step to enlist anyone's aid.

Speaker 98 That is correct.

Speaker 101 And you walked into Mr.

Speaker 112 Stover's house on October 28th.

Speaker 20 I did.

Speaker 112 And he tried to kill you.

Speaker 98 That is correct.

Speaker 112 And you did nothing beforehand to try to avoid that?

Speaker 61 I think I did a lot to try to avoid it.

Speaker 37 What the jury made of the story, no one knew.

Speaker 34 But wait, the defense wasn't quite done.

Speaker 39 There was one more person, very important to all of this, who until mid-trial had refused to say one word in public.

Speaker 31 The woman at the center of it all, Linda Opdike.

Speaker 66 Ms. Updike, you'd raise your right hand.

Speaker 5 Cancel.

Speaker 86 Whose long silence was about to end.

Speaker 54 And it would with a bang, with stories of who she said was the real Mark Stover.

Speaker 114 And he had a pistol in his hand and laid it on the pillow next to my head.

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Speaker 66 Ms. Opdike, could you raise your right hand?

Speaker 8 For months and months, since the murder of Mark Stover, his ex-wife Linda Opdike had maintained absolute public silence.

Speaker 54 In the face of questions from police and prosecutors, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right.

Speaker 90 So this, at the end of Michael Oakes' murder trial, was quite a surprise.

Speaker 8 Linda Opdyke, defense witness.

Speaker 114 I felt this is an important part of the story that I could tell

Speaker 114 about a dangerous stalking situation, and if there's any information that I could offer up, I wanted to do so.

Speaker 47 And as she began, it was clear she was here to join the defense's campaign against victim Mark Stover's character.

Speaker 109 Would you agree that Mark Stover was dogged in pursuit of his prey?

Speaker 100 Yes, I would.

Speaker 61 The defense claimed Michael Oakes knew Linda Opdyke had been stalked by her ex-husband, and that went to his state of mind when he acted in self-defense.

Speaker 5 So now Linda told the jury some stories she'd earlier told Oakes.

Speaker 31 Her claim, for example, that Mark appeared in her bedroom one night.

Speaker 114 And he had a pistol in his hand and laid it on the pillow next to my head and was

Speaker 114 very disturbed.

Speaker 83 And another time, she said, when she looked out her bathroom window.

Speaker 114 I see Mark on a hillside behind my house. He's looking through the scope, pointing the rifle at me.

Speaker 61 And once, at Linda, long after she left him, after Mark agreed to plead guilty to the stalking charge, she visited their abandoned paradise, Kickett Island, to retrieve some personal things.

Speaker 74 And she said she found in a cubby hole in the master bedroom a wedding candle that she'd thrown away during the divorce.

Speaker 114 I found the wedding candle in there with a 22 bullet casing and a picture of me along with that in the cubby hole.

Speaker 29 Was it a message, a threat?

Speaker 54 In her cross-examination, it was pretty clear that Prosecutor Rosemary Caholokula was deeply skeptical about Linda's fears and allegations.

Speaker 38 No proof at all for Michael's claims.

Speaker 33 And Linda hadn't seen or heard a word from Stover in the year and a half before he was killed.

Speaker 42 So what was she in Oaks so frightened about?

Speaker 97 The last time that you ever saw Mr. Stover or heard from Mr.
Stover was at the protection order order hearing in April of 2008, correct?

Speaker 114 That is correct.

Speaker 86 But she certainly saw a lot of Michael Oaks.

Speaker 97 You continue to have romantic feelings, intimate feelings toward Mr. Oakes and vice versa.
Yes. And in fact, I think that you said that in our interview last week is that you loved him, correct?

Speaker 114 I don't

Speaker 114 recall if I said that or not, but I do.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 90 And hadn't her new lover done her a favor, asked the prosecutor, by getting rid of the ex-husband she accused of causing her so much trouble?

Speaker 97 The fact is that in this case,

Speaker 97 you don't have to worry about Mr. Stover now, do you?

Speaker 114 It appears to be that case.

Speaker 97 And in that sense, the defendant helped you out, correct?

Speaker 114 No.

Speaker 54 Prosecutor Kahula Kula also asked Opdike about her refusal to answer certain questions in the case.

Speaker 97 Now, it's correct, isn't it, that throughout the investigation of this case, you've been concerned about your own potential legal liability in this case.

Speaker 114 Yes.

Speaker 97 And you refused to speak with my office, correct?

Speaker 114 Under legal counsel, yes.

Speaker 64 And this testimony now in court, suggested the prosecutor

Speaker 72 sounded like a woman with an obvious and selfish motive to support Michael Oak's claim of self-defense.

Speaker 97 Isn't it true that

Speaker 97 If this is a case of self-defense, it gets you off the hook, too?

Speaker 17 What do you mean by that?

Speaker 97 You indicated you were concerned about your own potential liability in this case. If a jury were to find that this was self-defense, you wouldn't have any more liability either, would you?

Speaker 114 I have no liability in this case.

Speaker 39 Nothing further.

Speaker 23 And the witness left the stand.

Speaker 86 Daideline wanted to talk to Linda Opdike, but she did not respond to our interview request.

Speaker 33 And as for her father, Wally Opdike,

Speaker 36 his lawyer emailed this statement.

Speaker 7 Wallace Opdyke had absolutely no involvement or prior knowledge of Michael Oakes' murder of Mark Stover.

Speaker 31 Rumors and innuendo to the contrary are baseless and unfair.

Speaker 90 Mark Stover

Speaker 3 was

Speaker 29 a domestic violence terrorist.

Speaker 46 John Henry Brown closed with a powerful recitation of his theme that Mark Stover was the bad guy.

Speaker 50 But even so, he said Oakes didn't want or plan to kill him.

Speaker 84 You don't premeditate up just to the point of shooting somebody.

Speaker 113 You premeditate the entire scenario.

Speaker 113 And what happened after this tragic event is absurd. He has absolutely no plan.

Speaker 94 None.

Speaker 113 And if there's no plan afterwards, I think it leads you to the conclusion that there was no plan beforehand.

Speaker 3 Really?

Speaker 63 Here was the prosecutor's closing.

Speaker 97 Now the less charitable view is that the defendant set out on a path of a cold, calculated execution. Was it because there were some feelings of revenge after this incredibly contentious divorce?

Speaker 97 Was it to prove himself to Ms. Opdike for some reason? And the fact is, we'll never know because the defendant has taken all steps necessary to obscure the truth.
And the deceit needs to stop now.

Speaker 16 Thank you.

Speaker 37 Up to the jury then.

Speaker 3 And as the hours became a day, and then two, and then three,

Speaker 38 it seemed perhaps they were having trouble making up their minds.

Speaker 30 Mark Stover's loyal friends and clients kept vigil, hoping for conviction, eager to tell whoever would listen that Mark was never never the abusive villain the defense contended.

Speaker 72 Michael Oakes, his children, and extended family, were joined by Linda Opdike.

Speaker 64 They waited in a rented waterfront house.

Speaker 38 And of course, neither they nor anyone knew what drama was coming with the reading of the verdict.

Speaker 11 I understand the jury has reached a verdict.

Speaker 19 Yes, we have, Your Honor.

Speaker 57 Emotions boil over.

Speaker 86 Here it was, nearly one year after Mark Stover disappeared, the moment had come.

Speaker 57 The verdict.

Speaker 84 The courtroom is packed.

Speaker 54 On one side, Mark's supporters, on the other, Michael Oakes, his children, his grandchild, and his love, Linda Opdike,

Speaker 3 all waiting to hear Oakes' fate.

Speaker 19 We, the jury, find the defendant Michael Glenn Oakes guilty.

Speaker 42 Guilty.

Speaker 5 Not self-defense.

Speaker 77 Murder.

Speaker 90 The Oakes children, the ones Michael claimed he'd been trying to protect when he killed Mark Stover, cried, screamed, fell apart

Speaker 26 as they watched their father taken away in handcuffs.

Speaker 27 And then the next month, in a more ordered courtroom, the convicted killer stood before the judge to be sentenced.

Speaker 36 Though first, Michael Oakes had a thing or two to say.

Speaker 81 I wish to express the sincere and heartfelt remorse that I carry due to my actions, and I apologize to all that I've harmed through my poor judgment.

Speaker 81 First, I would like to apologize to the members of Mr. Stover's family and all those friends and clients who clearly cared so much for him.

Speaker 81 I also wish to apologize to the members of my own family who've cared for me all of my life

Speaker 81 and who have now sacrificed everything for my legal representation

Speaker 81 and to enable my bail pending trial.

Speaker 36 But Oakes did not withdraw his claim of self-defense.

Speaker 6 He stuck to his story.

Speaker 62 And the judge just didn't buy it.

Speaker 11 And I believe we're still a long ways from the truth as to what actually happened on October 28, 2009.

Speaker 42 And the truth, as the judge told the court, seems elusive still in the stories of Michael Oakes.

Speaker 11 Large parts of your story, I just flat do not believe and never will. If it was self-defense, why not provide the gun

Speaker 11 and the body that matches the story and matches the bullet in the vest?

Speaker 9 Because with those simple things,

Speaker 11 law enforcement would have done an investigation and that probably would have been the end of the story.

Speaker 30 So why did Oakes shoot and kill his lover's ex-husband?

Speaker 31 The judge floated his own theory.

Speaker 11 How does the knight win the hand of the princess? He goes out and he slays the dragon that's chasing the princess.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 11 I think at a starting point here, Mr. Oakes believed he could free Miss Updike from whatever was in her past, whatever dragons were chasing her, and by so freeing her perhaps win her hand.

Speaker 86 The judge gave Michael Oakes the maximum 26 and a half years in prison.

Speaker 43 Now imagine how things might be different.

Speaker 9 Had those two women, the biddies, Oakes called them, not happened by the Grange that morning in October.

Speaker 22 I guess we were end up being the main

Speaker 9 characters in the folk drama, I guess.

Speaker 53 Two ladies who thought Oakes was where he shouldn't be and looked suspicious.

Speaker 7 They did what anyone would have done, they said, when they called police.

Speaker 77 Though now that they've been thinking about it, some.

Speaker 22 To be honest,

Speaker 22 I look at it this way: God put us where He wanted us. We saw what He wanted us to see.
He protected us from what could have happened.

Speaker 57 But of course, a lot did happen.

Speaker 51 Dreadful Dreadful things.

Speaker 32 Paradise lost.

Speaker 30 Life taken.

Speaker 2 Reputation besmirched by a murderer intent on blaming his victim.

Speaker 31 He was, said his friends, smart, funny, generous, unfailingly loyal, ever-reliable.

Speaker 58 He could tame wild beasts with his whisper.

Speaker 43 Not so easy to bring a human heart to heal.

Speaker 77 Hey, everybody, it's Rob Lowe here.

Speaker 24 If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe.

Speaker 116 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, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J.

Speaker 77 Fox.

Speaker 20 There are new episodes out every Thursday.

Speaker 1 So subscribe, please, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.