Episode 611: Preston Murr and the Boise Murder Mansion

Hey weirdos, it's Ash. Before we dive into today's twisted tale, let me tell you about the spooky perks of Wondery Plus.
It's like having a skeleton key that unlocks ad-free listening and early access to new episodes. So don't wait, try Wondery Plus today.
You can join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or in Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast.
Let Audible expand your life by listening.

Explore over 1 million audiobooks and exclusive Audible. Network Podcast.
finance, investing, and more. Maybe you want to kick a bad habit or start a good one.
Speaking

of, I'm actually listening to The Secret on Audible. I love that title so much.
And 10 out of 10 recommend. The soundscaping is pristine.
Get advice and insight from leading professionals and experts on health, relationship, career, finance, investing, and more. There's so much opportunity to learn and more to imagine when you listen.
Start listening today when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash morbid. You guys, I got one of my absolute favorite packages in the mail the other day.
I got a whole box that was put together by Happy Egg. They included some super cool merch in there.
I was super excited to get the little socks, a little hat, but most importantly, I was over the moon to get my Happy Eggs. Happy Egg believes in spreading happiness through the simple pleasure of high quality and delicious eggs.
Their free-range farming standards, working with small family-owned farms to raise their happy hens outside on over eight acres, coupled with the care and treatment their hens receive, lead to tasty orange yolks that are rich and full of flavor. If you've never had Happy Eggs before, I don't know what you're doing with your life.
You need to go to your local grocery store and look for that yellow carton and crack open happy baby. You crack those eggs open and they're about to be the most beautiful yolks you've ever seen in your life.
If you're like me and you love like an eggs bunny moment or even just a simple sunny side up moment, and you have something to dip those eggs into, I do a grilled English muffin,

or you dip the grilled English muffin into the eggs,

or you could dip the egg into the egg if you're really feeling crazy.

Visit happyegg.com slash morbid to find a store near you.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena.

Whoa.

And this is morbid do you ever i bet some people think that we hate each other based off of our like answers yes like whoa like i was like okay calm down but it really i was just like wow she's crazy oh there are definitely some people who think we hate each other should we tell them guys we actually hate each other like it's really hard to be around each other it is i hate it every day it's terrible yeah did i even say and this is morbid yet yeah okay that's good so we're here we're here we love each other it's true in fact i just said hey i did something crazy and she said what and i said i ordered a bunch of pumpkin bagels on a whim that are coming tomorrow and she said that's not crazy at all i'm excited about that and i was like that's why you're my people that's actually not crazy in any way yeah you were like that's not crazy at all especially based off the things that i impulse purchase yeah when i show you my impulse purchases you go that's not crazy at all. Especially based off the things that I impulse purchase.
Yeah, that's true. When I show you my impulse purchases, you go, that's literally insane.
That's insane. Mine aren't bagels.
Mine are just like, look at these bagels that look like a pumpkin. I don't have kids, so I'd just be buying myself doing cool shit.
I'm so excited to put those bagels in the girls' lunches. I'm so excited to put one of those bagels into my face.
Hell yeah. Hell yeah.
Hell yeah, brother. Well, it's morbid.
We're reunited. We're in person.
I'm not COVID-y anymore. You're not COVID-y anymore.
I'm negative. I still got that like lingering cough, which is very annoying.
I never fucking got one. I did wake up this morning though.
I'd also tested negative finally, which is great. And I woke up this morning and i was like sneezing a lot that could be allergies oh because everything's kind of like moving around now with the rain and stuff you know what's so weird like you're just like laying in your bed and then you wake up with allergies like did the allergies come in my room do you know what i mean like i don't really get it did they make an appointment and i didn't write it down? I don't sleep with my windows open, so how do the allergies get in? I think your body is just like, it's allergy out there.
Maybe. That's got to be it.
That's the scientific reason for it. I would love if I asked my doctor and he just said, well, your body is just like, it's allergies out there.
My specific doctor, too, to just to just say i feel like my doctor might say that honestly i also which i appreciate we don't have this no uh i like no communicate it was just like no no no we don't have the same doctor but we do go to the same mine i think would mine also would yeah maybe it's like a practice wide thing yeah i like that all right well that's doctors that's allergies and my abysmal understanding of them and on to the episode because it's spooky season y'all spooky season but i feel like we kind of like made this a theme that we're also doing like i feel like a lot of times we go like full spooky which is like

super fun yeah but without even meaning to we've intertwined true crime into this spooky season yeah it's definitely become like a more like um mishmashed one which i like yeah it's a lot we've touched upon a lot of different things got some like spooky we did some spooky cemeteries and like spooky hotels, which is fun.

We've done some hauntings, some, you know, fake hauntings,

some true crime that caused the fake hauntings. Yeah.
You know? So we're actually in a place of like true crime causing the fake question mark hauntings. Oh, I like that.
This is a place that like, honestly, I'll be quite frank and open with you at the beginning. Most of this is just true crime.
Yeah. And the end is like a little bit haunted, but there's debate over how haunted it truly is.
Ooh. So we're going to be talking, unfortunately, about the murder of Preston Murr, but also the Boise Murder Mansion.
Ooh. So a little after midnight on June 30th, 1987, so not too far back, guys.
No, I was born. I was not.
So there's that. I wasn't even a star in the sky.
Wow. But you were.
I was. You were out of the sky.
Yeah. I mean, I was only like two, but still.
I was here. That's kicking.
You might have been able to walk. Yeah.
I mean, I hope so by then. I don't know.
I'm not there yet, okay? But anyway. I was like, baby, I hope.
I don't know. I don't know how any not there yet okay but anyway i was like baby i hope i don't know i don't know how any of that works but uh a little after midnight on june 30th 1987 when elena knew how to walk yes clinton sparks was woken from sleep by what sounded like somebody running down the street and shouting out of outside of his window no i just go back to sleep no no that's exactly what we tell people not to do.
I know, but it's so scary. It is so scary.
The noise was loud enough to disturb his dog, who started barking uncontrollably at the noise outside. So that's when you really can't go back to sleep.
No, you can't. So Clinton got out of his bed to investigate the noise, and he looked out his front window, where he saw, quote, two figures running toward the door.
A moment later, one of the figures had reached his front steps and was banging on the front door frantically clinton later said i didn't know what was happening i didn't hear voices at that time so completely fucking terrified he backed away from the door and at that very moment he heard a man's voice shout let go of me let go of me oh and the voice sounded desperate, sounded terrified. He said it sounded like someone who was in a lot of pain.
So after hesitating for like a minute or two, because you know, you gotta be. Oh, well, I would not know what the fuck to do in that situation.
I'd be calling the police. That's the only thing I would know how to do.
That's the thing. Like immediately all you need to do in that situation is call the police.
You don't have to have to open your door but because this is 1987 it's not like he has a cell phone on him where he can just quickly call no he's got like where he is like yeah so he opened the door and he saw what appeared to be a large smear of blood on his storm door and he said he could still hear yelling from somewhere outside but by then whoever had been at the door was gone, what the fuck do I do? And I think he probably was sitting – remember, this is like the middle of the night. So he's like, did this just happen? Like, what the fuck? He's very, like, shaken here.
And damn, what a fucking badass that he opened that door. Yeah, because not everybody would.
No. I don't know that I – And honestly, it would be very dangerous too if you – you know what I mean? Like, it sounds like there's multiple people out there.
Oh, knowing what we know, I think it's a good... It's not a good thing that he didn't open the door, but I think it...
It could have gotten a lot worse. Yes, exactly.
Yeah. Yeah.
So after waiting about 10 minutes, he called 911 to report what he believed was a violent altercation of some kind. And he said, I'm pretty sure there's somebody out there in need of assistance.
Like,'s bleeding and screaming. So he told the dispatcher, a couple of guys came up and beat on the door.
I went outside and looked and there's some blood on the door, it looks like. And he said he couldn't see anybody in the street at that time, like when he was calling.
But he said, it appeared as though, quote, something's going on in the house across the street. And when the dispatcher asked what Clinton wanted them to do for him, he was like, well, i'd like an officer to come check out the neighborhood to look around i'd be so irritated i'd be like what the fuck do you think i want you to do like i want you to write me a haiku about it the fuck do you think i want you to do that's the you're the goddamn emergency services i come emergency serve please like i just told you I heard yelling and there's blood on my door.

And somebody in need of help.

And you're like, well, what do you want me to do?

I'm like, your job?

I want you to tell me what you think of the new Terminator movie.

Could you tell me a nighttime lullaby?

Who are you?

Not somebody smart.

No.

So he was like, can you send somebody out to have a look around?

And he gave the address and the cross street and then was like, okay, like, hope you're coming. Goodbye.
Now that same evening, a fire had broken out at a house across town. And the dispatcher decided that emergency should be given a higher priority, the fire, than the disturbance.
So Clinton's call wasn't even flagged as an emergency. Wow.
Which is very.

That's wild. Crazy.
Like, I understand that a fire is, like, happening right now. Yeah.
So, like, that's, you got to triage those things, but it's, like, it's still a big deal. Someone's bleeding outside.
Well, that's, you do have to triage them. Yeah.
To, like, some level of importance. And if somebody's bleeding, I think that would be, like, high on the list.
I i would think so strangely enough though uh the call wasn't dispatched to an officer until 48 minutes after the call was placed awesome at that time the officer who was assigned to the call was busy and asked that it be reassigned but for whatever reason the dispatcher never sent the call to another officer what the fuck fuck? It was like a huge fuck up. Yeah.
So the next day, another resident in the neighborhood called the police to report what they believed was a large amount of blood in the street. Okay.
So much so that, quote, someone or something could have blood enough to have died, they said. What the fuck? So at that point, officers finally got around to investigating the front door of clinton sparks home where they did indeed find a bloody handprint sergeant jim tibbs told a reporter it appeared like he had a whole handful of blood so there was like a straight up bloody handprint on clinton's door oh yeah and clinton's house wasn't the only one police also found a bloody handprint on uh bloody handprints excuse me on the windows of another nearby home like multiple my goodness so they were able to follow a literal blood trail from the large pool in the street all the way to the front door of 805 west linden street the home of daniel and katherine rogers the couple told the investigating officers that they actually weren't home the night before and they didn't know anything about the blood or the supposed fight that happened in the street.
But when officers returned with a warrant a short time later, they discovered that the blood trail led inside the house and continued down into the basement where they discovered more than 13 pounds of marijuana, scales, and packaging material. Oh, oops.
Yeah. So Danielatherine rogers were immediately arrested yeah uh and now they got arrested at that point on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute and the house was cordoned off for further investigation because were they just like hanging they were just in that house with that blood trail going through it yes just like stepping over it when they had to get to the kitchen for a snack I guess.
are you what i guess they just hadn't cleaned up and then the cops come and they're like oh it's fine this is we shouldn't clean this up i think yeah no no this is not like i'm glad that they didn't yeah obviously but like when also the cops come and remember 1987 weed was not legal so you have 13 pounds of weed in your basement i don't know maybe clean up maybe just like you know yeah maybe do anything literally anything but again glad they did it so as they continued searching the rogers home investigators found a significant amount of blood spatter on multiple surfaces throughout the house obviously indicating that something pretty violent had happened there and that they are people. No.
No. Even though there wasn't any victim found in the home

and no wounded victim had reported to area hospitals,

Tibbs told a reporter,

we're safe to say that it was human blood.

Now, during their canvas of the neighborhood,

one neighbor told officers that she actually saw Daniel Rogers

hosing down the front porch of the house that morning,

as well as the yard and sidewalk in front of the house. he cleaned the outside of the home but not the inn in further searching of the home slash crime scene at this point crime scene technicians discovered a handgun and bullet fragments lodged in the wall by the front door one in the laundry room and one in the doorframe leading to the basement.

So like multiple bullets, just bullet fragments just lodged into various places in this home.

That's probably fine.

Yeah, totally.

We don't have to worry.

So I just used NerdWallet's card finder tool to find a better card for me. And listeners, this is genius.
All you have to do is answer a few questions, and in minutes, you'll get matched with recommendations tailored to you. I'm discovering cards I didn't even know existed, and the matching was on point.
The best part? No research needed. The nerds already did that for us.
So if you, like me, want to easily find the right card for you, go to nerdwallet.com to get matched today. Terms and conditions apply.
Credit products subject to lender approval. See nerdwallet.com for details.
Everyone has that friend who seems kind of perfect. For Patty, that friend was Des Desiree.
Until one day... I texted her and she was not getting the text.
So I went to Instagram. She has no Instagram anymore.
And Facebook, no Facebook anymore. Desiree was gone.
And there was one person who knew the answer. I am a spiritual person, a magical person, a witch.
A gorgeous Brazilian influencer called Cat Torres, but who was hiding a secret. From Wondery, based on my smash hit podcast from Brazil, comes a new series, Don't Cross Cat, about a search that led me to a mystery in a Texas suburb.
I'm calling to check on the two missing Brazilian girls. Maybe get some undercover crew there.
The family are freaking out. They are lost.
I'm Chico Felitti. You can listen to Don't Cross Cat on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Now, given the large amount of blood found inside and outside of the home investigators started to theorize that the house had uh probably been the site of a murder yeah likely but unfortunately without a victim they weren't able to charge the couple with anything other than the possession charges that's so fucked up but under the circumstances a judge set their bond at an unusually high amount of $250,000 each.

So it was going to be very unlikely that they'd be released.

Now, the next day, two 13-year-old boys were fishing on the banks of Boise Snake River when one of their fishing lines got caught on two plastic bags floating in the river. and the boys hauled in the bags and when they opened them they discovered the arms and fingers

of a man that police would later identify as 21 year old preston murr holy shit two 13 year olds finding that gruesome of a fucking discovery like and 21 and 21 years old and that's just his arms and fingers so there's the rest of like what happened Well, the next day, Carl Kitchen was fishing with his family when he spotted several objects floating in the Brownlee Reservoir. When he managed to bring the bags to shore, he opened them to discover more body parts later determined to belong to Preston Murr.
Kitchen later told a jury, I saw it had to be a piece of a human body from above the navel to just below the leg joints. Oh my god.
Yeah. Investigators would eventually find 13 garbage bags in total, all containing Preston Murr's remains.
Wow. Now, Preston Murr was like a petty criminal who had spent his short life in and around Idaho Falls, Idaho.
And he'd been arrested on a handful of times for minor offenses, just like disturbing peace he wasn't a violent guy yeah but just a few days earlier on june 29th he had attended a funeral for a friend and during the funeral several attendees including daniel rogers had gotten drunk and gotten into an argument that quickly did escalate into a physical altercation so the police were called to this funeral and preston Murr and the other men were given a citation and asked to leave. So Preston went back to his sister's apartment where he was staying, and he called the police to inform them that after he left the funeral, somebody called his sister's apartment and threatened to kill him.
Whoa. Now, according to his sister, Tonda Streeper, Preston drank and smoked pot recreationally, but as far as she knew, he wasn't involved in any major criminal activity.
She told a reporter she didn't know anybody who would want to kill him. Yeah.
So when investigators put all the pieces together, a picture of what had actually happened to Preston Murr started to emerge with Daniel and Catherine Rogers at the very center of it all. By the end of the week, Catherine had been ruled out as a participant in the murder, but detectives had identified Daniel Rogers' accomplice, 31-year-old Darren Cox.
Both men were charged with the murder of Preston Murr, and Cox ended up being held without bail. So the more detectives learned or looked into Daniel Rogers' background, the more they became convinced that he was the primary shooter in the death of Preston Murr.
Oh,r oh really he had a pretty violent past uh he dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and spent most of his life just working menial jobs he met his first wife kay at one of those jobs and they quickly got engaged and married later kay would tell a reporter that she never actually loved daniel but she saw him as her ticket out of her own abusive family oh Oh, that's sad. What's even sadder because he was just as abusive to her.
Her dad was like really, really abusive. I read one of the newspaper clippings that Dave found I was reading and their dad used to like wake them up in the middle of the night and sit them on the couch and like hold them at gunpoint.
Like she grew up in an incredibly home oh that makes me so sad yeah it's horrific so then she married daniel and he was just as bad oh that happens so often yeah it's it's hard the cycle repeats because it's like you don't know anything that's all you know so you don't know that's what you think love is and that's what you think you deserve exactly but so they moved around for a while from state to state across the South, mostly. They had their first son together.
And then Daniel just suddenly ran off one day with the neighbor's wife. Damn, Daniel.
Back at it again with the neighbor's wife. Like, holy shit.
Yeah. And then he just came back.
But honestly, I'm glad. Oh, he came back.
No, yeah, I was going to say. I was like, he's gone.
Bye. No, Daniel never goes away.
I wanted Kay to be free. He just showed up one day, like came back and begged Kay to take him back.
And she was like, no, you're a piece of shit. So he kidnapped their six-month-old son, essentially holding the baby as hostage until she agreed to take him back.
Fuck this guy. Yeah, he's a piece of shit.
Oh, poor Kay. I know.
And she has her own issues too, which is sad. But she, the good news is it really sounds like she turned her life around.
Good job, Kay. Yeah.
So in 1975, Daniel and Kay's relationship came to an end when he ended up turning her into the police in order to avoid being arrested himself for a robbery that they committed together in South Carolina. They had committed a couple robberies and Kay had committed other robberies herself in the past with various accomplices, uh, even without Daniel.
So she ended up when he turned her in, she ended up being sentenced to 12 years in prison. Holy shit.
Yeah. Cause these were like armed robberies too.
Damn. Um, at that point daniel was awarded temporary custody of their two kids at this point oh god and then this is insane two years later the day the very day that he was awarded permanent custody of his two kids he was arrested after shooting and killing his friend george weatherax during an argument he shot his friend in the head during an argument.
My God. The very day that he was awarded custody of his two children.
Like permanent custody. Why was he not put away forever? I don't know.
Like this man is a problem. For some reason it was only second degree murder that he got convicted for so he only served five years in prison for this.
My God. Yeah.
When he was in 1982, he married Catherine and moved to Boise with his new wife and two children still. And a few years later, he just decided that he was tired of fatherhood.
So he called Kay and told her to come get the kids and take them for good. So she was like, okay.
I can't understand these people. Luckily, Kay, it sounds like she like got married.
I she became a real estate agent, a very successful real estate agent. Okay, Kay.
And she got the kids together. Everything was good.
Okay, Kay. Yeah.
Happy for Kay. Since palming the kids off on his ex-wife, Daniel and Catherine, his new wife, had been earning a living selling drugs primarily cocaine and weed um and through the

checks that they also got an earning through the checks that they received from the state for foster care services no i'm sorry what wait they were foster somehow they were involved in like foster care no i don't know how. As a convicted second degree murderer.
I'm very confused. I don't know if they just used Catherine's credentials, but I'm assuming.
Oh my God. You check into both credentials.
You should. Right? Yeah.
Speaking of foster parents, and I'll say like, no, this is, I'm going to flip it on its head. Okay, good, good, good good because that just made me really sad that they were foster these poor kids are going to that home yeah but i can tell you like there's a foster parent that is it the lady on tiktok yeah i love her and she so i think her thing is them hoffers because their last day was hoffer i think we've talked about them Hoffers before.
I think we have. She and her husband are like incredible.
Just, if you believe in angels, they're angels on earth. Yes, 100%.
I fully am like, you are supposed to be here for these kids. Yes.
Her name is Cindy, and they are just like the kindest seeming people. And they they take babies they take newborns like she has taken newborns that are literally like hours old like literally hours but she is like and she treats them like like you would treat your own newborn and it's just like she uh and she like never shows their faces no she respects their privacy even as newborn know what I mean? Like no matter what.
And I think they, she also has a podcast. Oh, does she? And it's called Mom's the Word.
Mom's the Word? And it's a podcast with her friend. Oh, I want to listen to this.
Yeah. So it's called Mom's the Word.
I want to start listening to it. Yeah, go check that out.
And you can follow like her on Instagram or on TikTok. I think it's them Hoff them hoffers is their thing and you can donate to like i think i think she has like a link tree and you can donate so that they can put like things to like just help with because she's always like stocking up on things because she takes kids at like babies at like a moment's notice and at every age so she's got kind of a stockpile of supplies to be ready for whatever Which obviously she needs to replenish every now and again.
And I came across her for the first time when I saw, like, I was just flicking through my For You page. And it was her before she was about to receive a newborn infant in the middle of the night.
And I just, like, couldn't stop watching her. I remember when you found her.
Because I was just like, oh, my God. Like, and she was just, like, so lovely.
Probably, like, a year or so ago. Yeah.
I remember when you found her. It was more than just like so lovely probably like a year or so ago yeah i remember when you found her yeah but yeah so that that just bummed me out so much that i was like i need a happy like there's good people there's so many good foster parents like so many good ones hope that like they were good to the kids i hope so i i didn't find anything to say about yeah but i don't know but their their contract with idaho health and

welfare ran out in uh june of 1987 so something happened where were they maybe they were like hey we missed that one of you is a convicted murderer so but yeah now going back to the unfortunate murder of preston murr given the state of his remains the autopsy obviously took more than 10 hours to complete.

Oh my God, I can't even fathom what that room looked like.

According to the medical examiner, Preston Murr's cause of death was a single gunshot wound to his head from a .357 caliber handgun. But the doctor noted that Preston had sustained additional gunshot wounds, including one in his shoulder.
But because of the condition of the remains and the amount of time that they'd been submerged in water also, it was difficult to determine if there was any other significant trauma to the body, but they were able to say that there was two gunshots. Now, although investigators were fairly certain that Daniel Rogers had committed the murder, it wasn't until they interviewed Preston's girlfriend that the rest of the puzzle kind of came together.
According to his girlfriend

after the threatening phone call that he got at his sister's apartment he called Daniel Rogers

and Darren Cox who like seemed to be at the I don't know if they were like friends friends. Yeah.

They seem to be like they're around acquaintances at the very least you know like they know each

other. Uh-huh.
And he believed they would know who threatened him and what he should do about it and

obviously felt like safe going to them. So they met at a local convenience store where the cashier recalled seeing preston use the payphone while holding a wooden baseball bat the three men then returned to preston's sister's apartment and discussed the fact that several guns had been stolen from daniel rogers house i think there was like a lot of crime going on yeah circle obviously so preston told daniel that he knew where they might be where those stolen guns might be and after all after that all three of them drove around boise for hours looking for the house where preston thought the weapons would be but they just couldn't find it so he called his girlfriend and he said they were going back to Daniel Rogers' house on Linden Street.

Now investigators theorize that a little after midnight, Preston and Daniel got into some kind of argument where Preston was shot in the shoulder.

And then as he attempted to flee the house, he went to Clinton Sparks' door where he left that bloody handprint.

But unfortunately, Daniel and Darren caught up with him and dragged him back to the house, leaving that long trail of blood in the street that, as you remember, led right to Daniel Rogers' door. In the early hours of December 4th, 2024, CEO Brian Thompson stepped out onto the streets of Midtown Manhattan.
This assailant pulls out a weapon and starts firing at him. We're talking about the CEO of the biggest private health insurance corporation in the world.
And the suspect. He has been identified as Luigi Nicholas Mangione.
Became one of the most divisive figures in modern criminal history. I was targeted, premeditated, and meant to sow terror.
I'm Jesse Weber, host of Luigi, produced by Law and Crime and Twist. This is more than a true crime investigation.
We explore a uniquely American moment that could change the country forever. He's awoken the people to a true issue.
Finally, maybe this would lead rich and powerful people to acknowledge the barbaric nature of our healthcare system.

Listen to Law & Crimes Luigi exclusively on Wondery Plus.

You can join Wondery Plus on the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Lindsey Graham from the podcast American History Tellers.

And if you're still reeling from Ash and Elena's episode on the Boston molasses disaster and you want to dive even deeper, you're in luck. My show doesn't usually venture too far into the spooky or creepy, but we've dedicated two full episodes to uncovering fascinating details about this bizarre molasses catastrophe.
From the company's negligence to the victim's harrowing stories, we explore how this strange event reshaped industrial safety laws and left an indelible mark on Boston's history. And the Boston molasses disaster is just one of many fascinating stories waiting for you on American History Tellers.
We take you to the events, the times, and the people that shaped our nation and show you how our history affected them, their families, and affects you today. Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you catch your podcasts.
Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to both American History Tellers and Morbid early and ad-free. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today.
Now, once they got him back inside, they believed Daniel Rogers shot Murr in the back of the head and then he and darren dismembered preston's body and they placed his remains in 13 trash bags which they then dumped in three different locations across boise after they disposed of the remains they went back to the house and attempted to clean up the crime scene yeah i think outside like they hosed down some stuff outside really lazy business i don't know what they did inside and maybe they were very tired after the outside yeah but that accounted for the neighbor witnessing daniel hosing down his car the yard and the front porch so in late july the ada county prosecutor greg bauer which i feel like we've encountered another. Yeah.
It sounded like a very familiar name. Greg Bauer.
Greg Bauer. It does.
Yeah. But Greg Bauer filed an additional charge of assault against Daniel Rogers for his role in yet another violent crime, the beating of a man named James McMillan, which he had been accused of committing along with his friend James Miller.
So they just, they found that and added that charge to him. They you know what you also did this yeah i think in like interviewing people in his life it probably came up and they were like let's pile these on exactly keep them in here as long as we can well i think they probably saw like oh weird that he murdered a man his friend by shooting in the head and got out in five years so by the end of the month daniel rogers was arra on three separate charges, one for the drug possession with intent to distribute, one for the assault on Miller, and one for the first degree murder of Preston Murr.
And he pleaded not guilty on all counts. At a preliminary hearing held in early September, multiple people testified about what they witnessed on the night of Preston's murder, including testimony from multiple detectives who relayed what Darren Cox had told them about the night of the murder because he sang like a canary.
Yeah, of course. According to Boise Detective Dave Smith, when the upper torso was thrown in the river, it started floating.
Cox was directed by Mr. Rogers to retrieve it and take it to the foothills.
Detective Smith testified after his arrest, Cox, quote, broke down and said he wanted to tell me the truth, but then later became concerned about his confession. Detective Smith continued, he was worried about what he told me, worried about what was going to happen to him.
I mean, as you should be. Yeah.
Which is like, you should. Yeah.
You should give up whatever information you have about somebody's murder. But you should also be worried.
But now you've got to be scared. Now you're going to face the consequences.
And you're both going to go to prison together. Yeah.
So good luck with that. But according to Smith, Darren Cox later led investigators to a local dumpster where he disposed of Preston Murr's upper torso and multiple other items related to the murder.
Detective Smith said, the stench was very prevalent. There was a lot of blood, two shoes as well as gloves that had blood on them.

And further, we found one sock.

So just like all his stuff just thrown in a dumpster.

With part of his torso.

With part of him.

And he's 21 years old.

Yeah, that's a baby.

He has a whole life ahead of him.

Daniel Rogers' lawyers, Emil Mishan and John Adams,

objected to the inclusion of Cox's statements to the police, but that was overruled by the judge who was like no i'm pretty sure that's valuable pertinent info but thanks yeah that's a direct quote uh the defense also requested that the judge close the hearing and trial to the media with a member of the defense telling a reporter i can't even imagine how bad it's going to be if the media sits in on this but But regardless of their concerns, the judge said, nah, kept it open.

Oh, man.

Denied the request.

Oh, shit.

In the months leading up to the trial, the defense team tried again and again

to get the trial moved to a new county.

And at one point, they even moved for a mistrial after the prosecutor, Greg Bauer,

quote, told jurors that Rogers was in police custody on other charges

when he was arrested in Mer's death.

According to Emil Mishan, Bauer's, quote, clearly violated the court's ruling

Thank you. Bauer quote told jurors that Rogers was in police custody on other charges when he was arrested in Merz death.
According to Emil Mishan, Bauer's quote clearly violated the court's ruling and forever tainted the jury panel. But the judge disagreed and declined the motion.
So there's like a lot of fuck shit going on. And I love that this judge is just like, no.
No, it's fine. Daniel Rogers' trial finally started in early March of 1988.
In his opening statement, Bauer gave the jury a brief history of his criminal history, despite the judge explicitly disallowing such information, and presented the state's theory that at some point after the three men had gone back to Daniel's house, Daniel and Preston argued over drugs and Daniel shot Preston to death. The reference to the previous criminal charges and pending drug charges obviously were objected to by the defense.
Yeah. They immediately again moved for a mistrial.
They were hoping so desperately for a mistrial in this case. Hoping, wishing, praying.
But guess what? That was rejected by Judge George Carey. He's not.
No. He only knows.
No. He's not here to play.
No. Among the various witnesses who testified on behalf of the prosecution were multiple police officers, multiple crime scene technicians who explained the evidence that was discovered from the blood in the street to the evidence also collected inside the house.
Officer Mike Majors explained to the jury what the search team had discovered on their initial search of the home, which was the gun, ammunition, which daniel rogers buried in the garden next to the house oh my god obviously that was used similarly boise crime lab technician darla shaver presented irrefutable fingerprint evidence that was collected from the house including prints on the gun and the very bullets that killed preston shit similarly. Oh, shit.
Similarly, even though DNA testing was unavailable to them at the time, the technicians were able to determine all the blood that they found in the house on the street and the axe was from the same person with type O blood, which was a match for Preston Murr. Damn, look at them.
I know. And I think it's – that's why I do love when we cover cases that are like not super modern because they have to work they really do it's not that i'm saying people now don't have to work no of course they have the people now do have a lot more at their disposal to solve these crimes yeah digital footprints and cameras everywhere and dna and all these you know familial dna and all this fun stuff that is great and that what we want.
But that's why we are always saying like the older cases are just like, they're fascinating to see how they come to the conclusion because they have to be so creative with it. When you have DNA, it makes or breaks a case.
Think about like you had to make or break a case without DNA because that wasn't even an option. Like it's just crazy just crazy to think about and 1987 doesn't even sound like that long ago but to think that like wow they didn't even have dna testing yeah like obviously it was like in its infancy they were working on it but just that they didn't have it at their disposal yet it's crazy it is uh crime lab technician wally baker also testified that the bullet removed from preston merce skull was a match for one of the slugs pulled from the doorframe at the scene.
And both of those came from Daniel Rogers 357 Magnum revolver. And so they asked whether two identical guns from the same manufacturer could produce similar results.
They wanted to see like, oh, maybe we can get something, get something here. But Baker said even consecutively made barrels are different, different meaning every gun which i didn't know this and i thought it was interesting every gun that comes off an assembly line is unique in some identifiable way which is how they could conclusively say that both bullets came from daniel's gun yeah the inside of a gun barrel has almost like its own fingerprint really when the bullet passes through it's gonna leave marks that you won't find on another gun.
I never knew that. Yeah.
That's so interesting. Yeah.
Isn't that interesting? Yeah. How did you know that? Just like criminal justice.
I took a ballistics class in college once. Cool.
Like forensic science had ballistics as part of it. That's cool.
Yeah. I feel like that would be like very interesting.
It was. Sometimes I'm like, wow, I really wish I paid attention in college or like did something like this, you know? Well, that's the thing.
It was like something I was really interested in. So I liked it so much.
Yeah. I just wanted to be a teacher back then.
And then I said, I don't know if I want to do that actually. And then you said, no.
And I said, I think I want to do hair. But anyway, when it came time for the defense to present their case, they offered a pretty simple but also very questionable explanation they said daniel rogers didn't kill preston murr darren cox did oh there you go you might as well give it a shot you know i think that was probably the only thing they could have done at that point literally all they have so according to daniel rogers who took the stand in his own defense interestingly enough he couldn't have participated in this murder or this dismemberment because he had an extreme phobia of blood that's i'm sorry real i'm sorry what guys i know you think i did this and i know that like these bullets were shot from my gun and everything but i didn't i have a, but I would never shoot anything because I can't see it bleed because I'm so scared of blood.
Blood gives me the ick, so I can't. I'm like.
Blood makes me go, oh, that's why I couldn't have done this. You shot your friend in the head and served time for that already.
Yeah. Like when you shoot someone in the head, I'm willing to bet that's pretty bloody.
I gotta know. In their like pre-trial stuff when they're all sitting in there.
They practice this.

Like he pitched that idea or somebody gave him that idea.

And they said good, good, write that down.

And they all said good idea.

Yeah.

Let's have you do that.

He literally said, direct quote, I can't stand the sight of blood.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

Whoa.

And he said he had an extreme phobia.

Not just a phobia, an extreme phobia not just a phobia an extreme phobia i you know i doubt it yeah you gotta be quicker i'm just gonna go out and say i doubt it i gotta i'm like the man in the is that the commercial commercial you gotta be quicker than that that's what i would have somebody should have just like called a pod not man to show up to go you gotta be quicker you go, you gotta be quicker than that. You gotta be quicker than that.
That's ridiculous. That's honestly that.
He's like, guys, this is our best bet. That's reckless.
I got something to say. That's reckless behavior.
I'm afraid of blood. I couldn't have done this.
That's reckless testimonial behavior. Tell them there's no way it was me.
I got phobias. Blood makes me go.
Makes me want to throw. Like, what? You just remembered a man's body.

Are you fucking kidding? He's the worst. Now, during several hours of testimony, Daniel Rogers explained to the jury that it was Darren Cox who had gotten in a fight with Preston while the two were smoking some weed in the basement.
And he said he wasn't even there. He was upstairs.
Yeah. And he heard the fight escalate from where he was upstairs.
So far away. And he said by the time he made it down to the basement, which was, you know, so far,

that Darren Cox had pulled out a knife and was threatening Preston.

And he said, I decided to break it up.

He told the jury, they weren't paying me a bit of attention.

At this point, they were fighting and cussing at each other.

Of course they were.

So he said he fired a warning shot to break up the fight in his own home.

Okay.

If I was Catherine, I would be, oh, honey. Yeah.
Oh, warning shots in my house uh i'm gonna get you but he said that only caused preston murr to rush at him knocking him to the floor on his way up the stairs to flee but he said darren cox then grabbed the gun from him from daniel and uh chased preston murr out onto the street eventually dragging him back into the house he said next thing I do is I try to go and stop them. When I got to the kitchen part of the house, I heard the gun go off.
So he's like, it's weird. I'm always so away when these things are happening.
And I just hear them. It's wild.
I'm just like never there, but I'm around so I can hear things. Yeah.
I'm just never close enough to do it. I'm never right there.

And it's because I'm so scared of blood.

That's the thing.

I'm worried somebody's going to like scrape themselves somewhere

and I'm just going to go, ah.

Yeah, I just fire warning shots in my own home.

Yeah.

But in his version of events,

he was simply an innocent bystander

who actually tried to intervene to save Preston Murr.

What a hero.

Oh, wow. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices.
Hi, I'm Mr. Bollin, the host of Mr.
Bollin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors.
So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries,

Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show.

Listen to Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app

or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app

or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. But the problem was that none of the evidence supported his theory or his story.
And by all accounts of the two men, it was Daniel Rogers, not Darren Cox, who was more likely to react with explosive deadly violence. A good try.
He had a whole fuckingblown history of it he shot his friend in the head once to shoot your friend in the head and serve time for it and then kill another man and go up to the jury and to insult them that way by saying i have a phobia of blood so couldn't have been me like so what happened when you shot your friend in the head couldn't be me hello yeah after two Yeah. After two weeks of evidence and testimony, the jury deliberated a little more than six hours, which I'm like, six hours? It took you that long? But they found Daniel Rogers guilty of first-degree murder.
Good. Preston's mother, May, told reporters, I'm so happy with the verdict.
I'm delighted. And a few weeks later, Daniel Rogers returned to the court and was sentenced to life in prison.
Bye, Daniel. Rightfully so.
Now, based on the outcome of Daniel Rogers' trial, which named him as the shooter, Darren Cox retracted his original plea of not guilty and decided to make a deal with the district attorney to plead guilty to charges of being an accessory to a felony and aggravated assault. In exchange for his plea, he got a sentence of five years in prison and a fine of ten thousand dollars my god i just want to reiterate that this man helped his friend kill somebody and dismember their body to the point where it had to fill 13 trash bags yeah like come on and he got five years in prison and a fine wow that's bullshit that is indeed but he in his version event of events he said he didn't know what was happening until after the assault began and after that daniel rogers threatened his life telling him you're either with me or you're against me and he interpreted that to mean that daniel would also kill him if he didn't assist in disposing of the body damn as far as his participation in the murder and mutilation he said it was more or less for my own safety you know more or less i'm like oh you dismembered a man for your own safety more or less if that helps you sleep at night it's the more or less for me yeah you know more casual just offhand yeah but in the years since his trial daniel rogers has actually tried to have his verdict overturned and petitioned for a new trial multiple times claiming among other things that the court abused its discretion in revealing his criminal past and the jury was biased by media attention.
But as of now, he has been unsuccessful. Wow.
Now, the convictions of Daniel Rogers and Darren Cox for the gruesome murder of Preston Murr should have been the end of this tragic story. But for the house on Linden Street, it was just the beginning of a new and definitely more macabre status as the murder mansion boise's most notorious haunted house oh it's kind of unclear at what point the rumors of the haunting began or who started them but it actually does turn out that preston murr is not the first person who died in that house in june of 1952 the home's owner 91 year old birdie sexton she died in her

home i know birdie's like one of my favorite names she died of natural causes after living

in the house for 44 years a few years later in 1958 71 year old john uh i think it's egan

also died in that home well followed a year later by 90 uh 89 year old ellen marker damn

this is like the florida of houses so far yes it is. Just like that retire.
Yes. There you go.
It's so true. But maybe I hope they were all like comfortable and happy in their home.
I know I hope so too. Yeah.
And then the next person to die in the house was murdered. Oh what a terrible.
Because before that it's just like super old. Yeah like people.
At the end of their lives. at the end of their lives dying of natural causes in the home that they that they live in assumably love yeah exactly you know feel comfortable in but terrible way to end that then a 21 year old who was brutally murdered and brutally killed and that was nearly 30 years after ellen marker had passed away despite the gap in years and umly different circumstances of deaths, this group would serve as the basis for the rumors of the haunting at 805 Linden.
I mean, I get it. I would also wonder.
It's a recipe here. In 2012, local news channel KBOI interviewed the home's new owner, Deanne Davis.
She hadn't experienced anything unusual herself, but she was well aware of the rumors about her house. She told them, living there, I don't, I really don't feel that I was ever afraid or felt it was haunted, but there are so many stories that everyone else is convinced it is.
Well, maybe you're not afraid because they're like all happy ghosts. Yeah, exactly.
That's what you would hope. Yeah.
For the most part, she and her children had no reservations about living in a house where something that tragic had happened.

But even they weren't immune to the stories and speculation about the house.

One of her daughters said, I feel there's something kind of there and kind of not.

When I went into the basement, it was dark and I was scared.

And when I went in there, I was like, get me out, get me out.

Because I felt there was something there and I didn't want to go near it.

I mean, yeah.

I feel like there's got to be some kind of vibe.

Yeah. Even if it's not like haunted.
like you know like malevolent you know it's like right it's just a vibe that something's there because like the energy i always say the energy that's dark energy that's like excited that's dark excited that's sinister babe what happened in there and i feel like that stuff doesn't just like go away you know dissipate exactly but according to deanne davis from the moment she moved in with her kids in 2008 they were constantly asked by the neighbors and even paranormal enthusiasts if they would ever open the house for tours uh no like it's my literal home no that's a that's a wild thing to ask someone imagine don't ask your neighbors imagine walking up to your neighbor and being like are you ever gonna like open this place up for tours yeah like your house is fucked up you ever think i haven't people tromps through it for a couple bucks like it's like no thanks no it's also like older people died here at the end of their lives yeah and then a poor young man was brutally murdered what's there to see yeah you just want to walk through my house so you can feel if it's creepy? I'm not getting it. Like what? I think it's the rumors that really added to everything.
Oh, yeah. But she said it had a lot of fame that people would want to come by and have a tour of the house.
It's listed like third in the United States as haunted houses. Is it? I don't.
Maybe at that time, that time as of 2016 yeah i'm not sure if it still is uh but according to the lifelong boise resident and content creator for boise radio station 179 light fm michelle hart said there are so many rumors about the house everything from a crazed serial killer who killed multiple people in the home to it being a frat house for boise state where brothers frequently saw blood running down the walls oh we got more of that yep that's stories of a woman dressed in clothes from the 1800s standing in the window okay which is interesting none of that makes sense but all right nope um she did clarify that the house was actually never used as a bsu frat house but its association with the murder gives it a certain legitimacy and credibility that allows that speculation and the rumors to grow in the years since daniel rogers was sentenced the house has been owned by a handful of people and not a lot of those people put a lot of effort or money into its curb appeal which kind of only added to the notoriety because it looked yeah because then it starts looking a little haunted yes according to heart there are multiple vehicles parked on the property what appears to be trash piled in the second story window broken windows and debris all over the front porch i mean that'll do it yeah not great while heart herself has never gone into the house or onto the property she's been collecting stories from those who supposedly have. And one story from a young woman named Lacey, her best friend's father owned the house and hired his daughter and some friends to do some yard work and cleaning.
And she said, we worked there for about a week. Nothing weird ever happened when I was inside, but I did not want to go near the basement.
And then others had more detailed experiences. According to one of Hart's respondents referred to as Dan D, we were upstairs in one of the side bedrooms when we heard someone walk upstairs.
Didn't think much of it, thought it was the roommate, but then we heard it again and we never heard anyone go downstairs. Me and my friend B went to check it out.
We thought it was someone breaking into the house. We checked everything out, don't see anyone, so we go and stand on the porch to let whoever was there know we're watching if he comes back.
I just thought I was tired until Bea asked me if I was seeing this stuff too. We figured out that we weren't looking for a person.
I stepped out into the front yard and look up to the main bedroom upstairs. In the window is a big black oily looking thing.
I doubt what I'm seeing until it moves back toward the dresser, stops, goes to the door, and disappears. Oh, that's creepy.
An oily looking thing? A big black oily looking thing. Ugh.
Hate it. Now, like Dan D., another respondent, Christy, also saw inexplicable things in the windows.
She said, when I lived on Leadville when I was a kid, I saw a woman in an upstairs window banging on it. It looked like she was screaming, but there were sounds oh that's terrifying horrifying that's chilling so a lot for a lot of people it's like it seems like people who don't live in the house have experiences but for those who actually lived in the house the experiences are much less supernatural uh and they just have more of like an ominous feeling so there it is it's the vibes but, there's definitely something there.
According to a BSU student who rented a room in the house, the basement was creepy and had a weird feeling to it. We would take people down there to scare them.
I never saw any ghosts, but you could tell something wasn't quite right. And it's the basement.
The basement, which. Yeah, which makes sense.
Yeah. That's where like the really bad shit happened.
Exactly. So whether or not the house is truly haunted is a matter of debate but for those who are interested in finding out for themselves they actually might finally have the chance in spring in the spring of 2024 mark iverson the creator and tour guide of ida history began advertising upcoming tours of the house on linden street and according to him he quote hit it off with the home's owner and the two of them are working together on opening the inside of the home for tours and a portion of the proceeds from the tour will reportedly benefit the preservation of the mansion and the property which is nice that's good

that it'll go back to like yeah and care of the property yeah because it sounds like for a long

time the property like wasn't being maintained or taken care of and that's also feeding into all

like the lore yeah exactly so it's like that's better yeah i think the lore. Yeah, exactly.
So it's like, that's better. Yeah, I think so too.
Wow. But what a story, huh? That is a tale.
It's a tale. I've never heard of that.
I've never even heard of this place. Dave suggested it actually.
Yeah, Dave always comes out with these things that I'm like, well shit. Well shit, Dave.
Well shit, Dave. Did you end up seeing if it was on a list anyway? I looked.
I'm not seeing it on any of the lists I'm looking on, but there's so many lists now. It could be on another one.
That I'm like, who knows which one that person was looking at. Yeah, I looked at one point and I didn't see it, but.
Yeah, it's really just on like Idaho things. That makes sense.
Probably like one of the most haunted places in Idaho. Yeah, for sure.
But wow, what a tale. What a sad, sad tale.
Yeah, I don't know if I would want to go. Poor Preston.
Yeah, that's the thing. Like what happened to Preston was like so like brutal.
And senseless. And that he was running down the street trying to get help.
I know. And like those poor people who like, you know.
Poor Clinton. Yeah, like poor Clinton.
like nobody blames that you like hesitated for a second like nobody the right thing and called the police i mean he did yeah the dispatcher if anybody failed yeah real bad like that was yeah that dispatcher failed not a great dispatcher moment sorry like poor clinton poor the people who you know like that's that's rough the neighborhood like damn waking up to that in your neighborhood just a big house too yeah it's it's if you look it up it's a big it is a mansion i was just gonna say yeah yeah it's interesting yeah an interesting tale altogether but in a tragic tale really scary one yeah that is the murder of preston burr and the boise murder mansion so keep an eye because you might be able to take tour if you want to. If that's what you're thinking you want to do.
That's your deal. If you live in Boise.
Yeah. I love saying Boise.
Boise. Boise.
It's Boise. I don't like it.
It's Boise, Idaho. I hope you like Boise too.
And I hope you keep listening. I hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't just keep talking like this.

I don't know what happened.

I've been talking like this all day now.

All right.

Love you.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye. Thank you.
Weirdos! Did you guys hear the good news? The good news! We are so excited to be partnering with Spencer's in a new morbid line available online and in store right now. Honey, they got blankets.
They got jewelry. They have the comfiest sweatshirts.
I've been living in my sweatshirts from them and the pajam jam bottoms. You know I love a good pajam jam.
Also, there is a beauty palette and some makeup brushes. OMG, so exciting.
I'm obsessed. Go buy everything.
I have one of everything and so should you.

Best of all, Spencer's is offering 20% off one item when you use the code Spencer's Morbid.

S-P-E-N-C-E-R-S.

You know how to spell morbid.

For any online order now through October 20th.

Go buy morbid shit at Spencer's.

At Spencer's. Go buy your morbid shit at Spencer's.

At Spencer's. At Spencer's.
Go buy your morbid survey at wondery.com slash survey. Hey, weirdos.
I'm Mike Corey. And like you, I'm drawn to true crime, creepy history, and all things spooky.
If you particularly enjoyed Ash and Elena's coverage of the USS Indianapolis, where 900 sailors battled rough seas, sharks, dehydration, andness in the Open Ocean, you need to check out my podcast,

Against the Odds. We dive deep into this survival story across four full episodes,

revealing details you haven't heard yet. Each week on Against the Odds, we put you in the

shoes of real survivors, from the Thai cave rescue to Somali pirate hostages to the Donner Party.

These aren't just headlines.

They're incredible stories of human endurance. Follow Against the Odds on the Wondery app or

wherever you get your podcasts. Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to both Against the Odds

and Morbid early and ad-free. Start your free trial in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify today.