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On a chilly night in March of 2012, a wiry 56-year-old man with a patchy beard trudged through a backyard in rural Iowa with his coat pulled tight around him, dragging something very heavy behind him.

He reached the fence and he paused, scanning the darkness to confirm that he was alone.

His gaze fell on the trailer home on the opposite side of the fence.

The lights were on, and he could hear the young couple inside arguing.

The sound made his jaw clench.

He turned around and looked at the thing he'd been dragging.

Holding his breath and clenching a pack of zip ties in his teeth, he lifted it against the fence post.

He worked quickly using the zip ties to string it up.

And once it was secure, he stepped back, shot a final look at the trailer, then turned and calmly walked home.

But before we get into the story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So, if that's of interest to you, please change the follow button's keyboard settings to another language so their typing makes no sense.

Okay, let's get into today's story.

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On May 25th, 2012, 23-year-old Lisa Techle, who was pregnant with her first child, sat in the passenger seat of her husband's beat-up pickup truck as he sped through the rural backroads of Agency, Iowa.

Lisa and her husband Seth both had the morning off, and so they were running some errands around town.

When the truck suddenly jolted over a pothole, Lisa winced and threw her hands over her belly.

Seth apologized and promised to replace the shock soon, but Lisa just rolled her eyes at him.

She told him it wasn't the truck.

It was Seth's driving.

And she joked that if their baby was going to ride with him, him, it'd better invest in a top-notch car seat.

Lisa was 17 weeks along with a baby girl, and already she and Seth had decided to name her Zoe Maria.

And Lisa had already begun saying the name out loud just to hear how it felt.

As Lisa ticked off the things they still needed to buy, including a bassinet, diapers, and a stroller, Seth let out an anxious groan.

Their baby wasn't even born, and she was already costing a fortune.

But Lisa reminded him that they would have the money soon.

After all, Seth was about to start a new job job in just a couple of weeks.

The new job was thanks to Lisa's dad, who worked as a deputy at the local sheriff's office and had helped to get Seth a spot at the jail.

Lisa was in the same line of work herself, already working as a corrections officer at a prison in the next county over.

And while being a corrections officer was not exactly exciting or glamorous to either Lisa or Seth, it was steady.

and it gave both of them a real shot at eventually moving up to deputy positions down the line.

And so just thinking about the job reminded Lisa that Seth still had not thanked her father yet for getting him this job.

And so Lisa dialed his number, and sure enough, her dad, Todd Caldwell, picked up at the first ring.

Lisa switched to speakerphone and then filled her dad in on the latest from the doctor.

The baby was healthy and already fully formed with fingers, toes, and everything.

She could hear the joy in her father's voice as he told them, for what had to be the hundredth time, how excited he was to become a grandpa.

At some point, Seth chimed in to thank him for the job, but Todd brushed it off, saying Seth had earned earned it.

And it was true.

Even though Seth was only 21, he had already gotten an associate degree in criminal justice, he'd interned with the sheriff's office, and he was a volunteer firefighter.

And so, slowly but surely, he was building the resume to become a full-blown cop.

Seth thanked Todd for the vote of confidence, and Lisa began to say goodbye, since they'd just arrived at their next stop.

But before she could hang up, Todd told them that there was actually something serious he wanted to speak to both of them about.

He said that his office was getting frequent calls from Seth and Lisa's neighbor, Brian Tate, who kept complaining, without evidence, that Seth and Lisa were vandalizing his property.

Todd told them that he didn't trust the guy and that they should really just try to stay clear of him.

Lisa promised her dad that she and Seth would be careful.

Then she told him that she loved him and ended the call to get out of the truck.

Later that evening, after hours of errands and driving around, Seth and Lisa finally reached their home, which was a quiet trailer on a wooded plot just outside of town.

They finished unloading the truck, then cuddled up in bed, listening to their baby's heartbeat through a fetal Doppler monitor until they both fell asleep.

At 5 a.m.

the next morning, Seth was awakened by the sound of his alarm.

He still had a few weeks of work left at his current job as a security guard, whereas Lisa was not working today.

So, Seth switched off the alarm quickly and then climbed out of bed, trying his best not to wake Lisa up.

Lisa did stir a little bit, but rolled over onto her side and went back to sleep, while Seth headed down the hall to take a shower and get ready for the day.

20 minutes later, at 5.23 a.m., Deputy Martin Wunderland with the Wapello County Sheriff's Department was on patrol when a call cracked over the radio.

There had been a shooting just outside the town of Agency, and when the dispatcher relayed the address and the caller's name, Wunderland's hands tightened on the wheel because he knew Seth Techle.

Wonderland worked with Seth's father-in-law, Todd.

Wonderland flicked on his lights and floored it, tires kicking up dust as the cruiser tore through the early morning stillness.

When he arrived at the trailer, an ambulance was already waiting outside, which meant that a paramedic had beaten him there.

Otherwise, the property seemed perfectly peaceful until Wonderland rounded the side of the trailer and saw Seth on the back porch.

Seth was barefoot, shirtless, and sobbing, but the only word that Wonderland could make out was, Lisa.

Wonderland realized that whoever the shooter was, they could still be nearby.

So he ran back to his cruiser, popped open the trunk, pulled out his rifle, and then charged into the trailer.

The living room was dark because the blinds were still drawn, and everything looked untouched, with no obvious signs of forced entry.

A rack of hunting rifles hung on the living room wall, and gleaming bowling trophies lined the shelf below.

For a moment, Wonderland remembered Lisa's father, Todd, mentioning that his daughter had at one point been a state bowling champ in high school.

Wonderland moved quietly down the hall, rifle raised, listening for any movement.

He saw the bedroom door was open, so he stepped inside, and then he stopped.

The bedroom walls were splashed with blood.

Lisa lay motionless in the bed.

Her chest had been torn open by massive gunshot wounds.

The paramedic who had beaten Wonderland to the scene crouched beside her, checking her for a pulse.

He looked over at Wonderland and shook his head.

Lisa was dead, along with her unborn child.

There was a pistol out on the dresser, just sitting there, but one look at it told Wunderlin that it was far too small to cause this much damage.

Wonderland backed out of the bedroom slowly and cleared the rest of the trailer one room at a time, making sure nobody else was there.

Once he was sure it was empty, he returned to his cruiser and locked up his rifle in the trunk.

Then he grabbed his radio, which he used to call dispatch, and he asked them to send backup.

And he specified that they should notify Badge 58 right away.

Badge 58 was Lisa's father, Todd.

At that very moment, Todd was at home, fast asleep.

He was woken by the phone, and when he answered, he heard the familiar voice of the dispatcher, and he thought it was just a work call.

Then they told him that there had been a shooting, and the victim was his daughter, Lisa.

Within minutes, Todd was flying across town, praying that there had been some kind of mix-up and that Lisa was okay.

But when he reached her trailer, a small crowd of deputies were scattered across the yard.

When they saw Todd, they immediately moved to block his path to the front door.

The deputies felt like Wunderland had made a mistake calling him here, because this was not something he needed to see.

But the crowd didn't stop Todd.

He pushed past his fellow officers into the trailer, and when he got to the bedroom, he took one look at his daughter and burst into tears.

Todd stood in the doorway, shaking with ragged sobs.

But within moments, his grief became rage, and he stormed back out of the trailer and he howled, go get him.

And immediately, the deputies in the yard bolted to their cruisers and started pulling out body armor and slamming magazines into rifles.

In seconds, they were geared up and moving in unison toward the house immediately next door to Seth and Lisa.

This house belonged to Brian Tate, who was the neighbor that kept calling Todd's office to accuse Seth and Lisa of vandalizing his property.

Brian was a 57-year-old Vietnam War veteran who was known to suffer from PTSD and schizophrenia.

And so now, Todd was convinced that Brian must have had something to do with his daughter's death, not only because of those calls about vandalism, but also because of something that had happened between Seth, Lisa's husband, and Brian two months earlier.

Late one night, back in March, Seth had been making his way home through the dark streets when he suddenly jammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a deer lying in the middle of the road.

Seth got out and inspected the animal and confirmed that it was already dead.

Clearly, someone else had hit the deer with their car and just left it there.

Seth knew this deer carcass was actually pretty dangerous, and the last thing he wanted was for somebody else to come along here and either run over the deer and create a huge mess, or maybe swerve to avoid it like he had done, but run off the road onto his property.

So he dragged the deer carcass to the side of the road right on the curb and onto what was technically the edge of Brian Tate's property, but in reality, the carcass was really basically out on the sidewalk.

Then Seth got into his car and drove the very short distance to his home, thinking that was the end of it, that he had done the right thing.

But that wasn't the end of it.

The next morning, when Seth stepped outside, the deer had been moved from the sidewalk directly into his backyard.

Seth realized that Brian must have woken up and found the carcass and been somehow mad about it.

and tossed it over the fence directly onto Seth's property.

This was totally irritating.

In Seth's mind, the deer had been hit in front of Brian's place, so really it was Brian's responsibility to deal with it.

So Seth grabbed the deer carcass again, which was now noticeably smellier as it was decomposing, and hurled it back over the fence, back onto Brian's property.

By the time Seth came home from work that evening, he found the deer carcass in his driveway.

And so what did he do?

He picked it up again, dragged it over, and tossed it over the fence onto Brian's property.

And then the next day, Seth found the carcass literally zip-tied to his fence post.

The deer carcass went back and forth, growing more disgusting with each pass until it was almost falling apart.

Eventually, some other animal must have dragged it off, but the feud continued.

Brian began patrolling the fence at the edge of his property and would glare at Seth and Lisa whenever he saw them.

He accused them of throwing rocks and beer cans at his garage, and when Seth and Lisa denied it, Brian stopped complaining to them and started calling the police instead to report them for vandalism.

And then in April of 2012, so just 11 days before Lisa's murder, her father, Todd, had responded to one of those calls himself.

He didn't tell Brian that he was Lisa's father or that he'd already heard all about the deer incident from Lisa.

He wanted to genuinely hear Brian out and see what kind of person they were actually dealing with.

And Brian had not held back.

He'd led Todd around his property, pointing out rocks he swore hadn't been there before, while complaining that Seth and Lisa had committed what he called acts of terrorism against him.

He even produced an old coffee can filled with dog feces that he said had been dumped on his porch and on the hood of his car.

To Todd, Brian just seemed really paranoid.

But as he continued ranting, Todd noticed something else.

Just inside of Brian's front door, leaning casually against the wall, was clearly a shotgun.

Seeing that gun made Todd nervous, so he tried to calm Brian down and assured him that Seth and Lisa were not out to get him here.

He said that they were good people and would not do what he was saying they were doing.

But Brian only grew more upset.

And eventually, Brian just stalked off away from Todd and went inside his house, slamming the door.

And that was the end of the conversation.

And so, from that moment on, Todd had been convinced that Brian Tate was unstable and dangerous.

He had warned his daughter and Seth to steer clear, and he made sure every deputy on the force knew that if they ever got another call involving Brian Tate, they should go in expecting Brian to be the threat.

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So, on the morning of Lisa's murder, when four deputies charged up Brian Tate's driveway, They half expected him to come out shooting.

But when they knocked, Brian answered the door completely unarmed, and he seemed perfectly calm.

He scratched at his beard, looking around at the deputies through puffy eyes, and then asked them what was going on.

The deputies traded nervous glances.

They didn't want to give away their suspicions just yet, so they told Brian that unfortunately his neighbor Lisa had been found dead, and that now they were making their rounds to see if anybody had heard or seen anything unusual.

Brian stared at them for a long beat, then told the deputies to wait right there.

He disappeared back inside his house, then returned with a stack of plastic lawn chairs, which he set out on the lawn.

And to the deputies' surprise, for the next 40 minutes, Brian fielded all their questions about everything from his whereabouts that morning to his mental state and his relationship with Seth and Lisa.

He told them that he didn't know anything about what happened to Lisa and certainly hadn't heard any gunshots that morning because actually he'd been deeply asleep, sleeping off the effects of the new antipsychotic meds his doctor had him on.

The deputies weren't quite sure what to make of him.

Brian was surprisingly open, not defensive or jittery, but he also wasn't acting even remotely shocked by the news of Lisa's death.

And some of what he said raised serious red flags.

For one thing, he kept saying that none of this would have happened if the police had just taken his calls seriously, which of course really made him look quite suspicious because his calls were complaints about Seth and Lisa.

And then once he brought up the vandalism, It was like no matter what the deputies asked, Brian would steer the conversation back to the vandalism.

He said that before his feud with Seth and Lisa, he'd been Mr.

Nice Guy.

People had taken advantage of him.

Now, he said he was, quote, kind of taking a different approach to life right now, being more serious and more not such a nice guy.

Meanwhile, back at Seth and Lisa's trailer home, an evidence retrieval crew had arrived and was busy sweeping the area.

Seth was despondent in the driveway, sobbing and punching his own truck until his knuckles bled, while Todd tried his best to calm him down.

When one of the deputies swung by to say that Seth had been scheduled for an interview at the sheriff's station, nobody was surprised.

Todd and Seth both understood that as Lisa's husband, Seth had to be looked at seriously as a suspect.

And so Seth had no issue doing the interview and said he was just eager to get it over with.

Once Seth sat down inside of the tiny interview room, he half expected to actually recognize whoever it was that came in to speak to him.

After all, he was pretty well connected in town and certainly had a connection to law enforcement.

However, the man who walked into the interview room was somebody Seth didn't know.

He was clean-shaven and wearing a crisp suit.

The man introduced himself as Detective Chris Thomas and said that he was an investigator with the Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation, and he'd been sent to assist with this case.

Suddenly, Seth wondered if maybe he'd made a mistake coming here without a lawyer.

But Detective Thomas assured him he just needed Seth to walk him through what happened that morning.

That was it.

So, Seth began telling the story, struggling to keep his voice level as he described waking up at 5 a.m.

to get ready for work and how he'd just gotten into the shower when he heard what sounded like a gunshot.

Seth said he had jumped out of the shower right away, he had saw the front door open and ran to the bedroom where Lisa was and he had found her still in bed, but she was moaning.

Then he heard a loud thump from the back deck and realized there had to be an intruder.

So he grabbed his pistol from the nightstand and raced after them.

Seth told Detective Thomas that he fully intended to shoot whoever the intruder was, but when he got to the porch, they were already gone.

So he ran back inside to the bedroom and discovered that Lisa was not breathing, and that's when he saw his wife's gunshot wound and realized clearly she'd been shot.

He called 911, but by the time the paramedics arrived, she was already dead.

As Seth finished the story, emotion overwhelmed him and he broke down.

But Thomas didn't offer any comfort.

Instead, he began pressing Seth about his marriage and asked if Seth and Lisa had been fighting or if they were having money problems or extramarital affairs.

Without hesitation, Seth looked up and said, no, there was nothing like that.

But just then, the detective's phone buzzed with an incoming text message, and when the detective glanced down at it, Seth felt a flash of panic as he wondered if maybe the text might be about him.

The real reason Seth was nervous, though, is because he knew he had not been 100% honest with this detective.

He did have a secret.

and he knew that if it came out, it would make him look guilty and also be very embarrassing for Lisa's family.

But now, he realized that keeping that secret was not going to help his situation.

So he decided he would split the difference.

He would tell Detective Thomas some truth, the most relevant information, if you will.

But he would hold back the details that would offend Lisa's father and frankly embarrass the whole family.

And so before the detective could move on to any other subject, Seth said, hold on a minute.

There was another woman.

At least, sort of.

For the past few months, Seth said he'd been texting with a coworker named Rachel.

They'd hung out a few times after work and had even kissed a handful of times, but that was as far as it had gone.

Seth had realized it was wrong and had ended things with Rachel before it turned into a full-blown affair.

But Seth had barely even finished the story when Detective Thomas actually stopped him and said he knew that Seth was actually still lying.

And that's when Thomas revealed that he had been receiving text messages from another team of officers who were questioning Seth's friends, and that through them, Thomas had learned that Seth kept a secret burner phone.

Seth had not just been flirting with Rachel, they'd also been sending each other sexually suggestive photos as well.

Seth was stunned.

One, that his instinct that those text messages the detective was getting was somehow tied to him, that that actually was correct.

And two, he hadn't realized how quickly the people around him would talk about him.

So now he realized that those minor, embarrassing details he'd hoped to keep hidden were going to make him look that much guiltier.

So he changed his story for the second time and admitted that he had held back information because he was scared of what Lisa's father, Todd, would do if he found out about the sexting.

Seth still insisted that he and Rachel had never actually slept together, but he did admit that, yes, there had been racy photos exchanged.

And also that, no, he had not ended things with Rachel.

And yes, Rachel believed Seth was going to leave Lisa to be with her.

In fact, Seth admitted that he had told Rachel that Lisa was going to be packing her bags and leaving that very day.

The moment the words were out of his mouth, Seth knew how bad it sounded.

But by this point, he knew he really didn't have another choice.

He had to say what he just said.

However, he could see from Detective Thomas' face that damage had been done here.

Clearly, he'd messed up by not telling them about the secret phone from the start.

And now, nothing he said would sound like the truth.

Meanwhile, across town, Lisa's father, Todd, still had complete faith in Seth.

Todd was home, grieving with Lisa's stepmom and sisters, when the phone rang.

It was Deputy Wonderland, calling with an update on Lisa's case.

Wonderland started out by telling Todd that Brian Tate, the neighbor, had not been arrested yet, which to Todd was a huge, infuriating surprise.

He'd been sure that by this point they would have Brian in cuffs at the station, but before Todd could say anything, Wunderland dropped even worse news.

He told Todd that state investigators had taken the reins on the case, and they didn't think Brian was guilty.

Instead, they were laser focused on Seth.

When Todd heard that, he did not want to believe it.

He trusted Seth like his own son, whereas Brian Tate had always seemed like a ticking time bomb.

And he was horrified by the thought that an outside agency was going to come in, misjudge the whole situation, and ruin Seth's life while letting Brian walk away scot-free.

But even as he was thinking that, the cop in Todd said to set his emotions aside and just let the investigation play out.

In cases like this one, the husband was typically the one who did it.

And as much as Todd wanted to believe this was different, he wasn't naive.

And he also had complete faith in the police force.

He knew that if the detectives did their job, then Brian would be exposed eventually.

So, he promised Wonderland that he would keep his distance from Seth for the moment and not try to interfere with the the case.

The truth would come out soon enough.

In the days that followed, as Todd made arrangements for his daughter's funeral, he stayed in close contact with the investigation.

Deputies had gone back to Brian Tate's property to ask more questions and look for evidence, but so far, nothing had come of it.

As for Tate himself, he continued to be cooperative.

letting them inside, showing them his extensive gun collection, and answering their questions without hesitation.

As for the crime scene, there really wasn't much evidence there either.

As Todd would learn from his colleagues, there were no signs of a break-in at Seth and Lisa's trailer, no strange fingerprints in the bedroom.

Lisa's autopsy revealed that her killer was likely standing at the foot of the bed when they shot her, but the gun was still missing.

There was only one potentially interesting piece of evidence found at the scene.

Half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich inside of a Ziploc bag had been discovered on the back porch near the steps leading toward the woods surrounding Seth and Lisa's property.

When When Todd heard about the sandwich, he really doubted that it was relevant.

In his estimation, Seth or Lisa had probably dropped it the day before the murder, so the fact that the investigators were focusing on it showed just how little they had to go on.

But then, he got word of a new discovery that immediately put the sandwich out of his mind and looked really bad for Seth.

The morning after the killing, A Mossberg shotgun was discovered in the tall grass outside of Seth and Lisa's trailer.

It had been sent to the lab, and testing confirmed it was a match for the deer slug that ultimately killed Lisa.

Now, the shotgun was not Seth's, but it was registered to one of Seth's friends who told detectives he had left it with Seth for safekeeping.

When Todd heard this, he tried to find an explanation, some reason why Seth would have forgotten or overlooked something that important, but nothing added up.

Because if this was a break-in, if someone else had come into the house to kill Lisa, why wouldn't they bring their own weapon?

But Todd couldn't think of an answer.

And so for the first time since his daughter's death, he actually considered the possibility that maybe he'd gotten this whole thing wrong.

Maybe Brian really was innocent, and Seth was Lisa's killer.

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While all this was happening, Seth had been lying low at his parents' house.

But four days after the murder, he headed to the funeral home for Lisa's visitation.

Lisa's entire family was there, keeping to the opposite side of the room from where Seth was sitting.

It was the first time that Seth and Todd had been in the same space since the morning of the murder, and the shift in mood was unmistakable.

Todd would not speak to Seth at all, but Seth noticed he kept glancing in his direction, almost like he couldn't help himself.

Seth had already been feeling isolated, but this really cut deeper.

Lisa's family had always treated him like one of their own, and now they weren't even meeting his eyes.

He stood to the side, unsure of what to do, until he spotted Lisa's little sister.

Out of all of Lisa's family members, Seth had been closest to her.

So after nervously glancing at her a few times, he got up the courage to cross the aisle and approach her directly.

He didn't know how she was going to react, but he was so desperate for a connection that he just walked over, gave her a hug, and then whispered that he loved her and that she would always be his little sister.

And when Lisa's little sister said she loved him too, Seth's hope bloomed.

He told himself that maybe the cold shoulder he was feeling was just grief and confusion, and that maybe Lisa's family had not given up on him completely.

But as the visitation ended and Seth walked out of the funeral home, a county police cruiser was waiting for him.

Deputy Wunderlin approached him, told Seth to turn around and put his hands behind his back.

He was being charged with Lisa's murder.

Seth didn't resist.

He let Wunderlin cuff him and lead him to the car, then just stared out the window as they pulled away from the funeral home.

Lisa's family stared right back at him, and in their cold expressions, he could see their doubts hardening.

The last thread had snapped.

His friends, Lisa's family, the cops he'd once hoped to work alongside, none of them believed him anymore.

Seth was alone.

But while the state swiftly moved toward a trial against Seth, the media was not ready to let Brian Tate go as a suspect.

Local journalists painted Brian as the unhinged neighbor with a stockpile of guns and a history of paranoia.

Whenever Lisa's father, Todd, would read one of those stories about Brian, he found himself growing more upset about the case.

At the start, he'd been sure Brian was his daughter's killer.

But learning about the shotgun in the grass and also Seth's text message affair had really changed his mind.

Now, reporters were digging up as much dirt as they could on Brian, but instead of Todd buying into them, he found himself feeling something he hadn't expected.

Sympathy.

After all, Todd had really been the one to flag Brian early on as being unstable and potentially dangerous, and he couldn't help but feel partly responsible for the way the media was now portraying him.

And these feelings of guilt only deepened when Todd learned that Brian had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.

The details weren't public, but from what Todd heard, it seemed like the press attention had pushed an already fragile man past his breaking point.

And then, on September 30th, when Brian was no longer in the psychiatric facility, he was found dead inside of his home.

The autopsy ruled it was natural causes, some kind of sudden cardiac failure.

But his elderly mother would tell reporters he had died of a broken heart, that the stress from the media coverage around the case had just destroyed him.

And Todd agreed with her.

He decided that Brian Tate had become the third victim.

He was collateral damage in Seth's murder of Lisa and her unborn daughter.

Now, Todd just just wanted the trial to start.

It finally did on February 18th, 2013, almost a year after Lisa's murder.

And just as Todd expected, Seth's lawyers made Brian Tate the centerpiece of their defense.

But what Todd did not see coming was how much new evidence the defense had uncovered.

Like the fact that just a few days before Lisa's murder, Brian's mother told a neighbor that Brian had stopped taking his medication.

This was a major red flag, both because it raised the question of what mental state Brian was in on the day of the murder, and because it seemed to go directly against what Brian had told police, that he didn't hear any gunshots that morning because he was so tired and passed out from sleeping off his medication.

If that story was a lie, then it suddenly became a lot easier to envision Brian breaking into Seth and Lisa's trailer in the early morning hours, grabbing a shotgun off the wall, and murdering Lisa in cold blood.

But the defense did not just focus on Brian.

They argued that the police investigation itself had been sloppy from the start and pointed out everything from procedural mistakes to leads that had been completely ignored.

Most importantly, neither Seth nor Brian Tate had been tested for gunshot residue, which should have been the typical procedure for this kind of shooting.

No one had checked the spent shotgun shells for fingerprints either.

which could have easily revealed the killer's identity.

Then there was the mystery of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which still hadn't been solved.

The investigators had written it off as unrelated to the case, but the defense pointed out that there was a major problem with that line of thinking.

Seth and Lisa lived in a wooded area with all kinds of wildlife nearby.

If that sandwich had been sitting out overnight, it likely would have been torn apart by animals by dawn.

But it wasn't, which suggested it had not been there for very long.

If it was dropped that morning before the police arrived, it could have only been left by Lisa's killer.

Now, the sandwich itself didn't didn't prove anyone's guilt or innocence, but the defense presented it as emblematic of all the questions that the police could not answer.

It looked like the investigators just hadn't bothered to tie up loose ends because they'd made up their minds that Seth was guilty, even though there was no eyewitnesses and no DNA evidence tying him to the murder.

Hearing the confusing back and forth, Todd couldn't help but worry that the justice system that both he and his daughter fervently believed in would not give him the answers he so desperately needed.

As for Seth, he sat through the debate, listening to all the talk of sandwiches, gunshot residue, and Brian Tate's mental health, feeling the walls close in on him.

Lisa's family was glaring at him, clearly trying to get a reaction.

His friends had cut off all contact with him, and the town where he'd grown up viewed him as a killer.

And so now, his fate rested with 12 strangers.

As the jury deliberated, Seth braced for the worst.

But when the verdict came back, it wasn't a verdict at all.

One juror was holding out, refusing to convict.

For Seth, this was like a gift from the heavens.

One person in the world had looked at all the evidence and believed him.

So, the judge declared a mistrial.

And then, a few months later, they were back in court.

The second trial mirrored the first, with the same arguments and same witnesses.

But this time, the numbers shifted.

Now, three jurors, instead of just one, wanted to acquit.

So, the second trial ended with another hung jury.

Seth Seth felt like things had to be improving for him, but his lawyers knew how close they'd come to losing.

So they decided to go back to the evidence in hopes there was something they'd missed.

And sure enough, they struck on something massive.

Seth's lawyers discovered that in October of 2011, Months before Seth and Lisa's wedding, Lisa had carried out a brief sexual relationship with a coworker named Jason.

She and Jason, who was married himself, had even discussed the possibility that he might be the father of her baby.

This new information gave Jason a powerful motive to want to keep his affair secret from his own wife.

And just as important, this new information showed once again that the police had screwed up.

They must have seen text messages on Lisa's phone that hinted at the affair.

And so their failure to properly investigate the lead was just more proof that they'd been gunning for Seth from the start and had failed to consider other possible suspects.

During the third trial, Lisa's family was forced to sit and listen as Lisa's most shameful secrets were exposed in front of everyone.

It was especially devastating for her father, Todd, since he'd always been close to Lisa and thought she told him everything, but not this.

But the third trial wasn't over yet, and soon, one more witness was called to the stand.

The court was silent as this witness took the stand and got sworn in.

And as they did, the witness glanced around nervously the whole time.

And from the moment the witness actually started speaking, Todd realized he finally knew beyond a reasonable doubt who actually killed his daughter.

Based on the evidence collected at the crime scene and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Lisa Techol on the morning of May 26, 2012.

At 5 a.m.

that morning, before the first rays of dawn began spilling over the trees, the killer stood outside of Seth and Lisa's trailer.

They paced back and forth in the fading darkness, a cigarette trembling between their fingers.

They knew they could not let this go any longer.

Something had to change now.

So, finally making up their mind, they tossed the cigarette, climbed the steps to the trailer, and slipped inside.

The killer moved through the living room, eyes adjusting to the dim interior.

The shotgun was right there on the rack.

They took it down, loaded it with slow, deliberate movements, and then crept toward the bedroom, where Lisa lay sleeping.

The killer hesitated, reminding themselves that it was not too late to stop.

They could put the gun back and walk away.

Instead, they raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger.

As the sound rang in their ears, the killer bolted, terrified that someone had heard.

They ran down the hallway, out the back door, across the porch, and into the woods behind the trailer.

Breathing hard, they reached the tree line where they found a patch of tall grass and ditched the gun there.

For a moment, they just stood there, doing their best to try to compose themselves.

Then, at some point, they turned around, took a deep breath, and walked calmly back through the woods, climbed the porch steps, took out their phone, and dialed 911.

The killer did not worry for a moment that they were actually going to get caught, because they knew exactly who to blame for the murder.

If everything went as planned, the police would take the bait and never guess the truth.

And it might have worked, except for one witness who came forward during Seth's third trial.

The witness whose explosive testimony finally cleared away all doubts was one of Seth's friends.

who admitted to vandalizing Brian Tate's property on Seth's orders.

They dumped buckets of dog feces directly onto Brian's porch and also smeared them across the hood of his car.

It turned out that Seth had goaded Brian into a feud that made him look crazy and dangerous.

And so when Lisa wound up murdered, Seth knew that everyone would assume Brian was the killer.

Because Seth killed Lisa.

He did it because he wanted to be with Rachel.

And because, in the days leading up to the murder, Rachel had begun pulling away.

And so Seth decided to murder Lisa, both so that he could be free to be with Rachel and so that he wouldn't have to start his new life owing child support.

During the third trial, the jury was as convinced as Lisa's father Todd was.

And on Wednesday, July 24th, 2014, they delivered a unanimous verdict.

Seth was found guilty of first-degree murder and non-consensual termination of a human pregnancy, and he received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A quick note about our stories.

They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

Thank you for listening to the Mr.

Ballin podcast.

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Dad?

How do you make a happy egg?

Well, it starts with a happy hen.

Happy egg.

Happy crack.

Happy flip.

Happy poach.

Happy whip.

Happy hen.

Happy egg.

Happy sizzle.

Happy brunch.

Happy hen.

Happy egg.

You can make eggs a bazillion ways, but that orange yoke is how you know what's happy.

Happy

egg.