219: Unhinged Murder Plot Against The Hired Hitman | The Joe Rosebrook Case

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Speaker 17 You put this family through hell, especially Mary Ann Ricker. I do want to say that I'm sorry for the loss of the family.
I know what you want. They will kill me.

Speaker 18 Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly.

Speaker 18 Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Seriously with me, your host, Annie Elise. It's Monday, which means we've got a new deep dive.

Speaker 18 We got to go over this one and I'm going to talk to you about it in a minute here, but it also means it is the start of a brand new week.

Speaker 18 So whatever it is you're doing today, whether you're driving, cleaning, running, working, wherever you're at, whatever you're doing while you're listening to this.

Speaker 18 I just want to say, I hope you had a great weekend and I am wishing you all the best for an amazing week ahead. That being said, okay, there's always a but right now.

Speaker 18 That being said, we've got to talk about this case because as soon as I heard about it, there was no doubt in my mind.

Speaker 18 I was like, got to jump on the mic, got to talk to people about this because it feels honestly like it was ripped.

Speaker 18 directly out of a lifetime movie or maybe even a hallmark movie gone bad because you've got murder you've got murder for hire you've got a hitman you've got a hit on the hitman you have mistaken identity i mean this case is so convoluted and crazy that when i tell you the twists they are a twisted we're going to go through all of it but it is definitely like mr toad's wild ride now it takes place in 2006 so just to paint the scene for you that was what 2006 was the year after i graduated high school so it was like the mecca of the Y2K era.

Speaker 18 It was the simple life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie. It was the Y2K fashion.
It was like peak 2000s.

Speaker 18 So in the early morning hours of May 26th, 2006, 31-year-old Daniel Ott and his girlfriend, Mary Ann, were woken up by the sound of their dog Mulligan.

Speaker 18 They thought that, okay, Mulligan must just need to go outside. Maybe he had gotten into something that he shouldn't have.
This has happened before. So they weren't super stressed out about it.

Speaker 18 They knew they needed to go check on him or let him out, but they kind of took their time rolling out of bed to do so.

Speaker 18 And when they finally did get out of bed, they noticed that things were different this time.

Speaker 18 It wasn't just that Mulligan needed to go outside, had to use the bathroom, or maybe, you know, had gotten into something in the trash can. Mulligan wasn't alone, and neither were Daniel and Marianne.

Speaker 18 Someone had gotten into their house. Now, I know that this might sound insane, especially to all of you true crime listeners, but Daniel and Marianne didn't usually lock their door at night.

Speaker 18 They lived in Burton Township, Ohio, and it's a town east of Cleveland. And most of the people there weren't that concerned about home security or robberies because the town just wasn't like that.

Speaker 18 It was generally a safe neighborhood. Burton Township hadn't had a single homicide for six years.

Speaker 18 And it is such a safe area that the local police department hadn't even bothered bothered to fix their 911 call recording system, which, by the way, it hadn't been working right for months.

Speaker 18 But because there were never any really incoming calls or any high crime, they didn't really have a sense of urgency to fix it.

Speaker 18 And that 911 recording system also wasn't working in the early morning hours of May 26th, 2006.

Speaker 18 And that's why there's actually no recording of the 911 call that Daniel's girlfriend Mary Ann made that morning. She had called 911 to report that something horrifying had happened.

Speaker 18 But before we get any deeper, I want to take a step back and ask, okay, who was Daniel? And was there any reason that somebody might be inside his house, you know, ready to hurt him?

Speaker 18 According to the people who knew him best, Daniel was one of those people who loved everyone. It was hard to find anything bad to say about him.

Speaker 18 He had shoulder-length brown hair, a very friendly smile, and he kind of just had this air about him that just felt safe, almost like you could count on him for whatever you needed.

Speaker 18 Now, Daniel was a lifelong Midwesterner. He was born in Ohio and he had grown up there and spent his whole entire adult life there as well.
He had pretty normal hobbies. He loved to travel.

Speaker 18 He loved movies. He was also a bit of a thrill seeker of sorts.
A couple of times a year, every year, he would hit up one of Ohio's best roller coaster amusement parks called Cedar Point.

Speaker 18 And it's one of the like mecca amusement parks. So, you know, definitely liked to have his fun too.
And he would go there multiple times a year.

Speaker 18 He kept in close contact with his friends, his family, his coworkers, and he had a really great relationship with his girlfriend Mary Ann.

Speaker 18 He worked for a local nursery called Urban Growers, and he was super talented at growing flowers and other kinds of plants. So basically, the opposite of me, because I can't keep a succulent alive.

Speaker 18 I can't even keep artificial flowers alive in the sense that they always get dusty and dingy. So definitely a green thumb.
I think that's the word, right? Not for me, for him.

Speaker 18 But anyway, just the fact that his job was growing and nurturing plants, I mean, it pretty pretty much kind of goes to show, in my opinion, what a tender-hearted guy this guy was.

Speaker 18 His job was literally to keep things alive, to keep them thriving, all so that other people could enjoy them for themselves.

Speaker 18 And in fact, Daniel had such a great green thumb that he had recently gotten offered an amazing opportunity. A company in Grand Rapids, Michigan wanted him to come out and grow their plants for them.

Speaker 18 And this was a huge move that was going to get him a lot further than his current job. So he said yes, and he agreed to uproot his entire life.
He even found a new place to live.

Speaker 18 In fact, he had already shipped most of his belongings to his new apartment, including his bed.

Speaker 18 So that night, when Mulligan, the dog, woke up because there was that home intruder coming into the house, Daniel and Marianne were actually spending one of their very last nights together in Ohio before the big move.

Speaker 18 They were sleeping inside the room on an air mattress with a whole bunch of boxes that were just half-packed surrounding them.

Speaker 18 So in one sense, they knew that everything was going to change for them very soon, but they had no idea of realizing just how things were going to change.

Speaker 18 In fact, they had no idea of knowing that all hell was about to break loose that night. When they woke up, Mulligan was in the kitchen whimpering.

Speaker 18 So, Daniel and Marianne, of course, got up to go check on him, thinking, okay, he must just need to get out, needs to use the bathroom.

Speaker 18 They knew they just had to open the door so that he could get out, do his business. But Daniel and Marianne didn't even make it all the way to the kitchen.

Speaker 18 Because the second that they stepped into the living room, they saw somebody just standing there, like he was waiting for them.

Speaker 18 A masked stranger had come into their house uninvited in the middle of the night, and now they were just standing right there in front of them in the dark. This stranger was also holding a shotgun.

Speaker 18 It is just terrifying to think about. Now they couldn't make out any real features on whoever this person was.
All they knew for sure was that it was a man. The intruder also didn't say much either.

Speaker 18 All he asked was for them to lie face down on their stomachs. Now Mary Ann didn't recognize his voice or even the general look of him.
I mean from what she could see anyway, which wasn't much.

Speaker 18 And as this masked man began to tie Daniel's hands with duct tape, he also asked Daniel a very odd question. He wanted to know what his name was.

Speaker 18 Which asking somebody what their name is at that point when you're tying them up and literally intruding in their home, that's pretty weird, right? You would think that they would know the person.

Speaker 18 You would think that there would be some sort of connection. I mean, what was this guy's plan in all of this?

Speaker 18 And people who are breaking and entering aren't exactly known for making small talk, like, hey, bud, what's your name? I'm just going to tie you up here really quick. It just made no sense.

Speaker 18 So was he trying to make sure that he was in the right place doing the right thing?

Speaker 18 At one point, when the intruder turned away for a minute, Daniel got himself free and then decided to take matters into his own hands.

Speaker 18 He grabbed the first thing that he could find to protect himself and to protect his girlfriend Marianne. Some reports indicate that what he grabbed was a lamp.

Speaker 18 He knew that it wasn't much, but it was all that he had in that moment to defend himself. Now, some reports also say that the intruder was actually walking away when Daniel made his move.

Speaker 18 Maybe the guy was even leaving, who really knows, but even if this guy was on his way out, Daniel still didn't know what he had planned or if he was going to come back.

Speaker 18 His life was on the line, and he felt like he had to do something in this moment. So Daniel ran over and he tried to grab the intruder.

Speaker 18 Now I'm guessing that he was also trying to protect Marianne in all of this. He didn't want to just get away and get him and Marianne to safety.

Speaker 18 He wanted to stop this guy before he could get away or do anything else. But here's the thing.
The intruder had a gun, and Daniel didn't. Maybe he only had a lamp.

Speaker 18 Again, the reports were a little bit vague on what exactly he grabbed. So the intruder ended up struggling with Daniel.

Speaker 18 And while they were fighting, while they were in this struggle, the intruder fired a single shotgun blast into Daniel's chest, right there at point-blank range. Then he ran outside.

Speaker 18 And when he did, a maroon Ford was outside waiting for him. He had actually only been inside the house for a few minutes at that point.

Speaker 18 Although I'm sure for Daniel and Mary Ann, it probably felt like a lifetime. So Mary Ann called 911 just a couple of seconds later, and she was insanely shaken up.
However, she wasn't hurt, thank God.

Speaker 18 The first responders made it there pretty fast, and they did what they could do to save Daniel's life. It seemed like he was going to pull through, too.

Speaker 18 He was responsive, and he even talked to Marianne for a little while. Then they loaded him into the ambulance and they took him to the hospital.

Speaker 18 However, sadly, later that day, he died of his injuries.

Speaker 18 And he was just 31 years old, on the cusp of starting this entire new chapter of his life, this move, this new job, this career, all until somebody came into his home, the place where he felt the most safe, and stole his entire future from him.

Speaker 18 So the biggest question was, of course, who would do this? Especially because, again, Daniel didn't seem to have any enemies. He just wasn't the kind of person to make enemies.

Speaker 18 He didn't have any of them. He was really just such a sweet guy.

Speaker 18 So the police asked everybody who had known him if anybody could come up with any theories, any ideas of who could have possibly done this. But there weren't any real leads at first.

Speaker 18 Daniel's dad, Leroy, said that he had last talked to his son a week before the murder. And at the time, apparently Daniel had been pretty angry.

Speaker 18 And he was angry because his dad, Leroy, had cut his own grass by himself while he was sick, which this again just illustrates who Daniel was.

Speaker 18 Because in other words, Daniel was annoyed because his dad didn't let him do it for him instead. So he got mad at his dad, like, why would you cut your own grass?

Speaker 18 Why wouldn't you let me come and do it for you? Which, again, how does a guy like this end up being murdered? Who would ever have a problem with this guy? Even the cops couldn't make sense of it.

Speaker 18 Daniel's girlfriend, his parents, his friends, and anyone else that the police talked to who knew him were just flabbergasted. As much as I hate that word, they just could not make sense of it.

Speaker 18 Everybody they talked to were also extremely cooperative and they helped with the investigation in any any way that they could.

Speaker 18 Now as for the evidence at Daniel's home, surely there must have been something for the investigators to go off of, right? But unfortunately, there wasn't.

Speaker 18 According to the police, there were no signs of forced entry. They also didn't believe that anything of any value had been taken.

Speaker 18 And because that door had been unlocked that night, like so many other nights, it's not like they could even limit their investigation to the people that Daniel and Mary Ann had known or people who had access or a key.

Speaker 18 And as far as witnesses went, there weren't any besides Mary Ann. And she couldn't remember which way the getaway car had even turned when it drove away from the house.

Speaker 18 She didn't see the man's face either, but she did think that his height was somewhere around 5'10.

Speaker 18 But it wasn't nearly enough information for the cops to go off of or for them to narrow down any sort of suspect list. The murder weapon also was never found.

Speaker 18 And maybe it's worth taking a second to think about that.

Speaker 18 The intruder came to the home with a shotgun, which I have to say is kind of an odd choice for a weapon if you're planning to just rob a house.

Speaker 18 They're big, they're bulky, they're huge, and they're usually reserved for things like, you know, self-protection in your home, hunting, things like that, maybe even hunting a person, but not just a home invasion robbery plan.

Speaker 18 So the best theory that the police could come up with was that the crime had all the markings of a mafia-style hit, which a professional would be able to get in and commit the murder without leaving any real evidence.

Speaker 18 I mean, it makes sense, but does that mean that somebody could have been trying to get to Daniel before he left town since he was right about to move?

Speaker 18 The problem was that the police were missing one key piece to this puzzle, a motive. In the meantime, leads came and went and came and went.

Speaker 18 And for a while, it seemed like every time the cops tried to connect the dots and talk with somebody outside of Daniel's circle who, you know, might know something, they would just wind up right back at the same place, square one.

Speaker 17 we understand it takes courage to come forth in this type of a setting

Speaker 17 and and do the right thing

Speaker 17 we would ask people to come forth and do that we have been diligent in

Speaker 17 as we have with the media and you saw this from day one this is not how we typically handle press issues we have been very cautious to protect

Speaker 17 those who have worked with us, et cetera, and we're going to continue to do that. So, anyone who might have additional information, please come forward.

Speaker 18 There were also a lot of questions that the cops just simply didn't have answers to. One of the biggest was, why was Mary Ann left alive? She straight up witnessed the murder of her boyfriend.

Speaker 18 So, why wouldn't the killer have tied up the loose end and killed her as well? It didn't make any sense. And I know what some of you are probably thinking here.

Speaker 18 Always look at the significant other, right? That's generally the rule of thumb.

Speaker 18 Even if you don't think that the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the husband, or the wife did it, you gotta at least rule them out, right? That's standard protocol. However, here's the thing.

Speaker 18 Marianne was never treated as a suspect.

Speaker 18 And Daniel's family also always maintained that they had the most utmost respect for her, that they never had any reason to question her, to doubt her, nothing.

Speaker 18 So eventually, the investigators asked for the public's help. They said that if anyone had a tip or any information about this murder, they needed to come forward forward ASAP.

Speaker 18 But here's where things get super weird, or start to get super weird, I should say.

Speaker 18 Every now and then, investigators would find someone who seemed like they did know something, but that they didn't want to admit it.

Speaker 18 It was like they were holding back for some unknown reason, like they were under some sort of gag order, that they were scared for their life, or maybe even scared of someone.

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Speaker 18 Investigators ran into a number of people who seemed like they had information that could help solve Daniel's murder.

Speaker 18 But every time that they were about to get somewhere with it, the cops would just hear the same thing.

Speaker 17 Detectives repeatedly ran into the phrase, I know what you want. They will kill me.

Speaker 17 And people flat refused to talk.

Speaker 18 Now for this next part of the story, I need to take you about 200 miles away. And I promise it will all make sense, but just roll with me on this.

Speaker 18 So for now, I need to tell you about a prison called London Correctional Facility. Now stay with me because things are about to go from, hmm, that's a little weird, Annie, to absolutely bizarre.

Speaker 18 Pretty quickly. So there was an inmate in this prison at the time of Daniel's murder, and his name was Joe Rosebrook.

Speaker 18 He was serving 10 years for a whole slew of crimes like theft, obstruction of justice, tampering with vehicle identification numbers, and also the biggest of all, conspiracy to commit murder.

Speaker 18 Now, the first charge was because he had ordered a hit on a former mechanic of his, a guy named Curtis Frazier.

Speaker 18 See, Joe was the head of a ring of chop shops, if you will, you know, where they deal in stolen cars. They chop them apart, sell them for parts, break them down for parts, all these things.

Speaker 18 And his was one of the biggest operations like that in the country, in fact. Basically, he and some other guys would steal all kinds of cars, trucks, vans, you name it.

Speaker 18 They would tear them apart, and then they would either put them back together so that they could sell them without being traced, or they would just sell the parts so that they could get money pretty quickly.

Speaker 18 And he had been running this multi-million dollar crime ring for years.

Speaker 18 He had been doing it out of a 75-acre property in Logan County, Ohio, which also just so happened to be a three-hour drive from where Daniel was killed.

Speaker 18 But I don't want to make it sound like this car ring was the first time that he had done something illegal. It certainly wasn't.

Speaker 18 In fact, Joe was quite the career criminal, and that is putting it lightly. More mildly, I should say.
His first arrest was back in 1983.

Speaker 18 Back then, one of Joe's partners in this illegal business, a guy named Ray Payne, got in trouble for stolen car parts and also for insurance fraud.

Speaker 18 And when the police caught up to him and started questioning him, he sang like a bird and he gave them Joe's name. Now, obviously, this didn't sit well with Joe.
He was pissed.

Speaker 18 And in fact, just a few days later, Ray got into his car, turned on the ignition, and the car just exploded and went up in flames.

Speaker 18 Now, nobody could ever prove that Joe had anything to do with the explosion of Ray's vehicle, but everybody, even the police and Ray, who actually lived to tell the tale, they all thought that he did it.

Speaker 18 And I mean, Joe's whole background was kind of like that. These weird crimes that nobody could quite pin on him.

Speaker 18 People either turning up dead or going missing, but nothing that anyone could actually ever prove. There was one disappearance that jumped out to me too when I was doing my research.

Speaker 18 It's a disappearance that possibly involved Joe, but the cops had a very difficult time proving anything.

Speaker 18 Now to be clear, even now, I can't say for sure whether or not he did it, but I'm going to tell you what happened and you come to your own conclusions.

Speaker 18 So back in the 90s, a guy named Michael Latimer was working for Joe. Michael was only 18 years old at the time.
He was just starting out in life.

Speaker 18 And at the time, Joe, along with some of his friends, already had a reputation for breaking into empty houses, mostly swiping antiques from older people, elderly people who had moved into nursing homes at this point.

Speaker 18 But eventually, Michael joined in on these break-ins. However, he got caught pretty quickly.
And when he did, the cops cut Michael a deal. The plan was simple.

Speaker 18 Michael would turn and spill everything that he knew about Joe, and in exchange, he would walk away without anyone knowing that he had even ever been caught.

Speaker 18 But of course, things didn't go as smoothly as the cops had hoped in all of this. Michael just couldn't keep quiet, and he ended up telling Joe that he was in trouble.

Speaker 18 The cops even think that Michael gave Joe a heads up that he was giving the police information on him. Then, soon after that, Michael was picked up once again by the cops, this time for drug charges.

Speaker 18 And when they did this, the police officially made arrangements to keep him safe. However, on November 23rd, 1999, right after making bail, he got a phone call that seemed to be from Joe.

Speaker 18 And after this call, he immediately left his house. Witnesses then saw Michael getting into Joe's car near a local post office.

Speaker 18 And just a couple of days later, he missed his family's Thanksgiving dinner. And that is when everybody started to worry.

Speaker 18 There was no sign of him and also no indication of whether foul play was involved or not. It was kind of just like one day, poof, you know, he vanished into thin air off the face of the earth.

Speaker 18 And it has been literally decades since then, more than 20 years at this point. And still, nobody has any idea whatever happened to Michael.
No body has ever been found.

Speaker 18 We don't know if he is alive or dead for sure. There have always been some whispers, of course, about what might have happened to him.

Speaker 18 And the word on the street was that Michael was supposed to testify against Joe for an upcoming court case.

Speaker 18 And I think that it should be very clear by now that Joe was definitely not the sort of person that you wanted to make angry.

Speaker 18 Again, no one has ever proven that he had anything to do with Michael's disappearance, but I think you can certainly see why people would have opinions about it, right?

Speaker 18 So even now, after all of these years, Michael is still just a missing person and his case is unsolved.

Speaker 18 His disappearance is still a mystery, and even though there is a ton of speculation going around about Joe, he was never formally charged in connection with it.

Speaker 18 And it also sets the tone for what Joe could have been capable of doing, right?

Speaker 18 I mean, to think of a grown man who would kill an 18-year-old boy just starting out in his life and not only killing him, but leaving his family without answers, justice, and closure about their son's disappearance and, you know, possible murder even, and doing this for years.

Speaker 18 It's just... sick and very, very twisted.

Speaker 18 And even though he was never charged with anything related to Michael and maybe did in fact get away with murder, I will say that throughout the 90s and the early 2000s, Joe was in and out of prison.

Speaker 18 However, he always managed to get out at some point. Not that he would escape from prison, not that sort of thing.

Speaker 18 It just seemed like he never really got nailed for anything that would keep him behind bars for very long.

Speaker 18 And finding people to testify against Joe was very difficult, because most of them were all afraid that if they were to talk, they would end up dead.

Speaker 18 But in the mid-2000s, the cops did manage to find one person who was willing to talk. They were ready to talk all about Joe.

Speaker 18 And not only that, but this person was willing to work with the authorities and actually double-cross Joe. And this person was none other than Daniel Ott.

Speaker 18 Now we know that Joe was clearly a very scary guy and had a very checkered past, to say the least.

Speaker 18 But are we supposed to believe that Daniel, this nursery, green thumb, tender-hearted guy, was somehow wrapped up in this criminal enterprise?

Speaker 18 That he was helping Joe with crimes, with chopping cars, with whatever work he was doing? Was he secretly moonlighting as some sort of car theft snitch?

Speaker 18 Could that have been the reason that Joe wanted him dead?

Speaker 18 I mean, hey, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while and if you follow True Crime, you know that people are definitely good at hiding things and leading separate lives, you know, living a full-on secret life at that.

Speaker 18 It definitely wouldn't be the first time that we've seen something like that. So the question that you might be asking right now is: okay, what was Daniel really involved in? And how did he know Joe?

Speaker 18 Well, as it turns out, Daniel Ott and Joe, they went back for years.

Speaker 18 And at some points, they were even running in the same circles. That is until, of course, Daniel went behind his back and Joe now had a reason to want him, you know, wiped off the face of the earth.

Speaker 18 But there's just one little problem with this whole thing. Even though it's fine, it feels like it might be making sense and all of the things are tying together.
It's not.

Speaker 18 Because what nobody knew, not even Joe, is that there were two different men named Daniel Ott who were both living within 50 miles of each other. That's right.

Speaker 18 We are dealing with two different Daniel Otts. Two guys with the exact same name who lived extremely different lives.

Speaker 18 One was known to be involved very heavily into crime, and the other one was the one that we talked about at the beginning of this episode, a friendly, young, Midwestern guy with his entire future ahead of him.

Speaker 18 So I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, right? Joe, this sleazeball idiot Joe, took out a hit on the wrong Daniel. The wrong Daniel was murdered.
But it doesn't even end there.

Speaker 18 Not even close, guys. Now, let's talk about that for a moment because the odds have to be astronomical, right? And then, remember, it's 2006 we're talking about.
I mean, Google did exist.

Speaker 18 So wouldn't a hitman know who they were supposed to be going after? And wouldn't you think that the person ordering the hit would be pretty specific about who they were supposed to go and kill?

Speaker 18 Now for the sake of clarity, since we're now dealing with two different Daniels, I'm going to refer to the Daniel who was killed as Daniel and the new criminal Daniel as Dan.

Speaker 18 Okay, criminal Dan and sweet innocent Daniel. And here's what we know about Criminal Dan.
Dan was older, almost 40 years older than Daniel, actually.

Speaker 18 And he had sort of this like nice grandpa vibe to him, if you will.

Speaker 18 At first glance, you'd never guess that this white-haired, fragile-looking guy with wrinkles all over his face could possibly ever have a hit out on his life.

Speaker 18 I mean, I'll be honest, he looked more like he belonged in a retirement community playing shuffleboard or a guy just doing like a Sudoku or a crossword puzzle rather than the type of guy who's associated with Joe Rosebrook or guys like him.

Speaker 18 Now, the cops didn't even know about this second Dan until six months after Daniel's murder took place. However, once he got on their radar, he never left it.

Speaker 18 And it turns out, looks can be quite deceiving. Now, Dan had lived an absolutely insane life, and he was one of the worst criminals ever.
It all began when he was just 13 years old.

Speaker 18 That's when he stole his first car, at just 13. And apparently, the feeling that that gave him, the rush of it all, it was something that he could never quite shake.

Speaker 18 According to some estimates, Dan stole over 1,000 cars over the course of his life.

Speaker 18 And each time that he would steal a car, he would just turn turn around and sell them, sometimes bringing in as much as $30,000 to $40,000 per month. And he didn't stop at cars either.

Speaker 18 He also learned how to fly planes at one point. And according to his own words, he quote, only stole four of those, but literally learned how to fly planes.

Speaker 18 There were also bulldozers, tow trucks, RVs, backhos, and basically, if it had wheels, Dan would eventually try to steal it. And a lot of the time, he was successful in doing so.

Speaker 18 At one point in the late 1970s, Dan said that he even stole a car that belonged to Elizabeth Taylor, you know, the old school super famous Hollywood actress.

Speaker 18 According to him, her dog was also in the car at the time, so he made off with her dog too.

Speaker 18 Now, according to Dan, he gave this dog to his cousin without ever hurting it, but this is just something Dan claims happened. There's absolutely no clarity if it's true or not.

Speaker 18 Now, his favorite cars to steal were Corvettes. They were actually his specialty too, because they were worth a lot of money and they were easy to unload, aka resell.

Speaker 18 Some reports say that out of the different kinds of cars that he stole over the course of his, you know, career at this, 100 of them were Corvettes.

Speaker 18 And rumor has it that one time he even showed up to a court date in a Corvette leather jacket. I mean, the audacity, right? Now, sometimes he didn't just steal for himself.

Speaker 18 Other people would hire him to steal cars for them if they needed something specific and he would charge them about $1,200 per car.

Speaker 18 But needless to say, he just couldn't keep that up forever without being caught, right? So he spent his time going in and out of jail.

Speaker 18 He went to prison at least six times and to county jails way more times than that. He had one of those rap sheets that would make most people think like, okay, how was this guy not locked up for life?

Speaker 18 And you would think that with a record like that, he would be facing even more serious time behind bars. But somehow, just like with Joe, Dan always managed to just slip through the cracks.

Speaker 18 No matter how many times he got caught, he would always find his way back out and he would find his way right back into the thick of the criminal world.

Speaker 18 I mean, I guess it's really the only world that he knew, right? So given their similar backgrounds, it's no surprise that Joe and Dan eventually crossed paths.

Speaker 18 And at one time, Joe actually really trusted Dan. In fact, Dan was so trusted that he worked directly with Joe as part of his chop shop ring, his enterprise.

Speaker 18 Now, by the mid-2000s, Joe had been arrested on different charges relating to all of that car stuff.

Speaker 18 And while he was on house arrest awaiting trial, he got word that there was a witness who was going to testify against him.

Speaker 18 And that witness was a man named Curtis Frazier, that former mechanic from Joe's chop shop ring. And Joe couldn't let Curtis testify against him.

Speaker 18 So he reached out to somebody that he thought that he could trust, someone who might be willing to carry out a hit on Curtis for him.

Speaker 18 And the person that Joe trusted, who he believed would be able to carry out this hit and pull it off, that was Dan. So Joe offered him $2,000.
Here's a $2,000 down payment.

Speaker 18 And then once the job's done, I'm going to give you another $13,000. $15,000 all in all, if you just kill this witness for me so that he doesn't testify against me.

Speaker 18 However, instead of carrying out this hit and getting that $15,000,

Speaker 18 Dan did something totally unexpected.

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Speaker 18 Instead Instead of carrying the hit out on Curtis, Dan went to the police with information, just like Curtis Frazier and Michael Latimer had done before.

Speaker 18 He also reportedly agreed to wear a wire and record his next conversations that he had with Joe.

Speaker 18 And when he did, the cops had exactly what they needed: evidence that Joe was conspiring to murder Curtis.

Speaker 18 Joe had already been convicted of some smaller charges, so he was in prison, but this was officially enough to put him behind bars for longer, for an entire 10 years.

Speaker 18 And you might be wondering, okay, well, how did Dan go from being this trusted partner of Joe's, this guy in this criminal enterprise with him, to now double-crossing him?

Speaker 18 Well, Dan and the police have two very different versions of what went down.

Speaker 18 And if you ask the police, they say that Dan agreed to the wiretap in exchange for not getting charged with another car theft that they had linked to him.

Speaker 18 But according to Dan, the call had already been recorded without his knowledge, and he had never even agreed to kill kill Curtis. He simply said that he would find somebody else to do it.

Speaker 18 Which, I gotta just say, I think that I'm inclined to believe the police's version here and not the career criminal, but let me know what you guys think.

Speaker 18 So either way, Dan now at this point had made an enemy. And like I said before, Joe was not the sort of person that you would want to ever betray, that you would ever want against you.

Speaker 18 Not the kind of person that you would want as an enemy.

Speaker 18 Maybe Dan might have thought that he was safe because Joe wasn't a free man anymore, that he was going to be locked away in prison for a long time and that he couldn't hurt him from behind bars.

Speaker 18 But if that's what Dan was thinking, boy, oh boy, was he wrong.

Speaker 18 See, Joe still had friends, and he still had ways of getting in touch with the kind of people who would be willing to do dirty work for him. It didn't matter if he was going to be locked up or not.

Speaker 18 And at one point during his prison stay, someone even smuggled him in a track phone, one of those bulky prepaid cell phones that were popular back in the early 90s.

Speaker 18 I think you might know what I'm talking about. They're like huge.
But somebody smuggled it in for him. And Joe was still calling all the shots and running his chop shop from behind bars.

Speaker 18 And he was also still trying to murder people, apparently. Now, obviously, it didn't really take Joe very long to find out that Dan had apparently crossed him.

Speaker 18 And let's just say it really, really did not sit well with him. And I mean, we've heard about what Joe did to people who snitched on him, right?

Speaker 18 So anyway, Joe had shared a cell with a guy named Chad South. And Chad was about to be released after serving just over a year for a burglary that he had committed in 2004.

Speaker 18 So Joe asked Chad if he would kill Dan for him. And Chad agreed.
Of course, he said he was only going to do it, though, if he got paid.

Speaker 18 So Joe's brother Jeff was supposed to make sure that Chad got paid after the hit was done.

Speaker 18 And on May 25th, 2006, the day before Daniel's murder, Chad drove to Burton Township, he stayed with a friend who lived in the area, and he started planning everything out.

Speaker 18 And the next day on May 26th, Marianne and Daniel were woken up by that masked man who was an intruder in their home.

Speaker 18 Now remember in the beginning of this episode when we learned that the intruder asked Daniel what his name was while he was tying him up?

Speaker 18 Well, the theory is that Chad asked him that because he was genuinely confused.

Speaker 18 He knew what Dan, criminal Dan, was supposed to look like, and he knew that Daniel was way younger than the man he was supposed to kill.

Speaker 18 So he was probably saying something to himself like, uh, this doesn't seem like the right guy, but he says his name is Daniel, so I'm not sure what to do here.

Speaker 18 Let me just tie him up, or should I even be killing this guy? Like, he probably had a lot of reservations. However, as we know, in the end, he went through with it anyway.

Speaker 18 Maybe he panicked in that struggle as Daniel was chasing after him. Maybe he wanted the money that he had been promised.
Who knows?

Speaker 18 But either way, after Daniel's murder, it started to look like Chad had killed a completely innocent man that day. all over a case of mistaken identity.

Speaker 18 The investigators' theory of the whole thing being a hit gone wrong was spot on from the start. However, proving it, that took way longer than they would have hoped.

Speaker 18 It wasn't just about knowing how everything happened and why. They needed time to gather the evidence and piece everything together to make their theory stick.

Speaker 18 And that might be the craziest part of this case, because if you think it's wild now, I'm about to throw a hard left for you in a few minutes here.

Speaker 18 Now, one of the craziest parts of this case was that everyone involved got away with it for over nine years. And here's what the county law enforcement had to say about that.

Speaker 17 Numerous search warrants, wiretap warrants

Speaker 17 were obtained.

Speaker 17 And the matrix, the network of this criminal operation became clearer and began to

Speaker 17 come into focus. The investigation

Speaker 17 was never closed,

Speaker 17 was never a cold case.

Speaker 17 And frankly, looking back over the last nine years,

Speaker 17 I doubt that a week would go by

Speaker 17 without some action by the detectives

Speaker 17 in following up the investigation and in working the case.

Speaker 17 You can imagine the difficulty.

Speaker 17 investigating a homicide when frankly they got the wrong guy.

Speaker 18 Thankfully, the truth, or some version of it, eventually came out in 2015. Now, the big key to this whole case was something that I already covered.

Speaker 18 How Mary Ann saw the intruder, Chad, hop into a getaway car before then peeling away on the morning of the murder.

Speaker 18 Well, the person driving that car finally came forward and started talking to investigators, but it took them nine years.

Speaker 18 Now, this person was a woman named Mindy Stanifer. It's not clear why she now suddenly wanted to talk.

Speaker 18 Mindy was in her mid-20s when everything went down, and by her account, she was abusing controlled substances at the time, and it's believed that she only agreed to help out with the hit because she thought that she was going to get some drugs and some money out of it.

Speaker 18 Now, according to Mindy, when Chad hopped into that car after shooting Daniel, he was covered in Daniel's blood. So much so that she actually threw up just from looking at him.

Speaker 18 She was so disgusted, and it made her so sick that she just threw up right then and there. And that's not all.

Speaker 18 Apparently, when Chad got into the car, he said something to the effect of, I just killed the wrong guy. Although Chad would later deny that he ever said that.

Speaker 18 And the investigators are kind of beating around the bush in this clip, but here's what they think happened.

Speaker 17 Any obviously, Dan Ott,

Speaker 18 he was a renter

Speaker 17 in the Claritin Troy homes, the Dan Ott in Burton Township.

Speaker 17 Is there any indication of how South came to learn that

Speaker 17 Dan Ott was in that home?

Speaker 17 We do, but I'm not able to elaborate at this time as to how that may have been.

Speaker 17 He was typically provided with information and

Speaker 17 may have lost

Speaker 17 the right information and looked it up on his own. So I'm not going to get into that more.

Speaker 18 Unfortunately, the cops quickly learned that Mindy wasn't the most reliable witness. She had a knack for really changing her story.
She was also a little too cooperative.

Speaker 18 She would agree with certain statements, then she would change her mind and say, oh no, that's not what I meant. You know, like kind of going back and forth, wishy-washy, that kind of thing.

Speaker 18 But still, she told the police just enough that they were able to connect the dots and finally start solving Daniel's murder. And it's what finally led the cops to all of the conspirators.

Speaker 18 To Chad, to Joe, to Joe's brother Jeff, who was handling the payments, to another person named Alva Jacobs, because Mindy said that Alva was also in the getaway car with her and Chad.

Speaker 18 And this was all enough for the police to finally indict Joe, Jeff, and Chad for Daniel's murder. Charges for Mindy and Alva, those came later.

Speaker 17 Chad South

Speaker 17 is currently in the Jogger County Safety Center.

Speaker 17 Joseph Rosbo

Speaker 17 picked up

Speaker 17 near Dayton. He is currently in the Joger County Safety Center.
I'm sorry, he was picked up in Florida by mistake.

Speaker 17 And brother Carl Jeffrey Rosebrook was picked up near Dayton, Ohio, and is currently being held in the safety center.

Speaker 18 Witness intimidation, as I'm sure you can imagine, was a huge factor in this case. So the investigators were extra careful about keeping everything under wraps.

Speaker 18 I mean, pretty much until the trial began and it all became public anyway. They didn't want to say which witnesses they were working with, who was testifying, what evidence they had.

Speaker 18 They didn't want to say any of it. The stakes were so high that even the cops had to tread carefully.
They were worried about the potential repercussions from Joe and what he might do.

Speaker 18 So Joe was charged with aggravated murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.

Speaker 18 Chad, the actual gunman, was charged with Daniel's murder plus two counts of kidnapping. Now, Joe's brother Jeff wasn't just any ordinary guy.

Speaker 18 He was actually a member of a nearby town's board of trustees. So this added an extra level of scandal to everything.

Speaker 18 He didn't seem like a career criminal like the others who were involved in this scheme. He just seemed like a legitimate businessman.

Speaker 18 Except allegedly, while Joe was locked up, Jeff was the one who was handling his money. And I mentioned before that Jeff was the one who was supposed to pay Chad after the murder happened.

Speaker 18 But that was just one piece of it. He was doing all kinds of work for Joe, but all he was charged with was murder.

Speaker 18 Not that murder is a minor or small charge, but it does sound like he could have been guilty of so much more than that.

Speaker 18 Now, Mindy, the getaway driver, thought that she had struck a deal that would keep her completely out of trouble.

Speaker 18 She figured she would talk, then she would walk away from all of this without any consequences. But the investigators, they had other plans.

Speaker 18 They ended up charging her with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and obstructing justice. And finally, there's Alva Jacobs, who was the third person in that getaway car that day.

Speaker 18 Now, Alva might not have been directly involved in the actual murder plot, but Alva wasn't off the radar either. He was charged with obstruction of justice.

Speaker 18 Now, as for Dan, the actual target, criminal Dan, this isn't even close to the end of his story. Like I said, it gets even more twisted.
It is like a lifetime movie, guys. All the way to the end.

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Speaker 18 So how did Dan fit into this case? Well, he didn't. Not in any legal way, anyway.
So, he was never charged with anything.

Speaker 18 The only thing that he was guilty of is he just so happened to share the same name as the victim. Now, the trials for everyone involved happened separately.
So, let's start with Joe Rosebrook.

Speaker 18 It should come as no surprise that Joe was not going to go down without a fight. He wouldn't accept any sort of deal, and he chose to plead not guilty to the charges.

Speaker 18 On September 12th, 2016, his trial began.

Speaker 18 A bunch bunch of witnesses against him were other inmates that he had been in prison with, and apparently he had asked around a lot until he finally found somebody to actually be his hitman.

Speaker 18 Now, of course, Joe's lawyer challenged their credibility, basically saying, how could someone with a criminal history and drug abuse be believed?

Speaker 18 But thankfully, in the end, a jury sided with the prosecution. And Joe Rosebrook will never see the light of day ever again.

Speaker 17 All right, the courts reviewed the verdict forms. I note for the record that they've been signed by all 12 jurors together with the specification forms and I now proceed to read the verdicts.
The

Speaker 17 verdict on count one conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and murder.

Speaker 17 We, the jury, being duly impaneled and sworn and affirmed to find the defendant Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder or murder as set forth in count one of the indictment, a first-degree felony.

Speaker 17 It appears to have been signed by all 12 jurors.

Speaker 17 Verdict form for for Count two,

Speaker 17 the complicity to commit aggravated murder or the lesser included offense of complicity to commit murder.

Speaker 17 We, the jury, being duly impaneled and sworn and affirmed, find the defendant Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of complicity to commit aggravated murder as charged in the indictment at Count II, an unclassified

Speaker 17 penalty. There's accordingly no verdict on the lesser included offense.
The specification to count two,

Speaker 17 we the jury being duly empowered and sworn, and the firm finded defendant Joseph Rosebrook, or a person with whom he was complicit with respect to the specification attached to count two,

Speaker 17 guilty,

Speaker 17 and that is signed by

Speaker 17 all jurors.

Speaker 17 The verdict form for count three complicity to commit aggravated murder based on aggravated burglary.

Speaker 17 We the jury being duly impounded and sworn, and the firm funded defendant Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of complicity to commit aggravated murder based on aggravated burglary to count three three indictment and unclassified felony.

Speaker 17 And the specification to count three, where either jury being due Dan would have been sworn in affirmed finding Joseph Rosebrook or person with whom he was complicit with respect to the specification attached to count three guilty.

Speaker 17 And that

Speaker 17 appears

Speaker 17 to be

Speaker 17 signed by all 12

Speaker 17 with respect to both the verdict and the specification. Count four, the complicity to commit kidnapping with respect to Daniel Ott.

Speaker 17 We, the jury, being duly impaneled and sworn and affirmed, find the defendant Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of complicity to commit kidnapping with Daniel Lott as charged account for

Speaker 17 the indictment of first-degree felony. And further, with respect to the specification, the jury

Speaker 17 being sworn and affirmed, finding defendant Joseph Rosebrook, or person with whom he was complicit with respect to the specification attached to Count 4 guilty.

Speaker 17 And those are

Speaker 17 verdicts that are signed by all 12 jurors. The last

Speaker 17 and fifth count, the verdict with respect to the kidnapping,

Speaker 17 the complicity to commit kidnapping with respect to Mary Ann Ricker, precisely the jury bringing dueling accounts and sworn and affirmed find the defendant

Speaker 17 Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of complicity to commit kidnapping of Mary Ann Ricker.

Speaker 17 And the specification, the jury sworn and affirmed finds Joseph Rosebrooker brokered personally, was complicit with respect to the specification attached to Count

Speaker 17 5

Speaker 17 guilty. And

Speaker 17 as well as that entire verdict

Speaker 17 for Count 5, and specification is signed by.

Speaker 18 Now, here's what Daniel's father had to say in court to Joe, the man who was ultimately responsible for killing his son. Joe,

Speaker 17 this family does not accept your apology.

Speaker 17 You put this family through hell, especially Mary Ann Ritter,

Speaker 17 okay, and my wife, Linda, my daughter, who took the life of our son.

Speaker 17 We live with it every day.

Speaker 17 And I hope you spend the rest of your life in prison. And I sure hope you behave yourself.
I hope you learned your goddamn lesson.

Speaker 17 That's all I got to say.

Speaker 17 And I'll spend the rest of my life thanking law enforcement, prosecution, all the detectives, especially the detective better back here that worked so hard and the love and support they show, and all the detectives for our family.

Speaker 17 We appreciate it.

Speaker 17 Thank you, detectives. That's all I have to say.
I'll spend the rest of my life thinking about these people. Won't think for one moment about you, Joe.

Speaker 17 I just hope you behave yourself. You took the life of an innocent man.
If you would have served 10 years and served your time,

Speaker 17 Dan would have probably hired you to give you a second chance at life. But you pulled all this crap, so no mercy for you.
That's all I got to say.

Speaker 18 Now, as for Chad, well, he was kind of a loose cannon when he had his day in court. He actually seemed pretty unhinged.

Speaker 18 And at one point, he was going off on the judge about how his trial wasn't fair because everybody thought that he did it from day one.

Speaker 18 And his lawyer actually had to tell him to like chill out at one point.

Speaker 17 seven times, you might believe me by Richard Carter.

Speaker 17 Go ahead and take that on home, Lisa. That's all I got to say.

Speaker 17 Also expected from you, Mr. Sims.
That man is a bold-faced liar and bought every

Speaker 17 lie. He had to give you a point,

Speaker 17 Miss Verify.

Speaker 17 Anything more you wish to say?

Speaker 17 Go ahead.

Speaker 17 It's horrible, huh?

Speaker 17 Horrible man. I mean, is this the

Speaker 17 You think it's funny? You really think it's funny?

Speaker 17 Keep on smiling.

Speaker 17 Tell the judge some more about it. You lied up there, too.

Speaker 17 Sure, you ain't never talked to Chad Malay?

Speaker 17 She lied too.

Speaker 17 Here's a reason why Chad Malay didn't show up in court.

Speaker 17 I want to work that way out.

Speaker 17 Anything else you want the court to know? No.

Speaker 17 Okay, I'll say it don't matter what I say. I'm sorry I didn't hear you.
I said it doesn't matter what I say.

Speaker 17 I was noting for a doctor.

Speaker 17 I made that clear.

Speaker 17 Anything else?

Speaker 18 There's nothing very else. Chad was also found guilty, and he was sentenced to 15 years to life with the chance for parole after 28 years.

Speaker 18 And Mindy, the getaway driver, she initially pled not guilty to her charges, but then she changed her mind and gave a guilty plea. She was hoping for a less harsh sentence by doing this.

Speaker 18 She even tried begging for mercy in court. Take a listen.

Speaker 17 I just want to say that

Speaker 17 I guess it would be real easy for

Speaker 17 people to assume that because of this situation that I'm

Speaker 17 a really bad person or

Speaker 17 a heartless person that I'm really not.

Speaker 17 I do have

Speaker 17 a lot of sympathy for this whole situation. I think it's a horrible situation.
There are a lot of people that are suffering because of the situation

Speaker 17 on both sides. And

Speaker 17 my heart breaks for that.

Speaker 17 Some good has come out of the situation.

Speaker 17 I have

Speaker 17 made friends with a lot of really good people that have helped me strengthen myself

Speaker 17 and my relationship with God. And

Speaker 17 I'm grateful for that quite

Speaker 17 grateful.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 17 I just

Speaker 17 ask for

Speaker 17 mercy possible so that I can showcase what I've learned. And

Speaker 17 eventually,

Speaker 17 whatever happens, wherever I go,

Speaker 17 I'm not,

Speaker 17 it's not going to be for nothing. You know, wherever I go, I'm going to make a...

Speaker 17 as positive of the situation as I can.

Speaker 17 I'm not going to turn back

Speaker 17 to the life that I used to live. You know,

Speaker 17 I'll be the first to admit I've

Speaker 17 made a lot of mistakes in my life.

Speaker 17 A couple years ago,

Speaker 17 I started to turn that whole situation around. I've completed treatment.

Speaker 17 I regained custody of my daughter.

Speaker 17 I was doing very well.

Speaker 17 That's where I was at when the police came to my house in Florida in December. And

Speaker 17 I'm very capable of

Speaker 17 making the right decisions. And

Speaker 17 there was a time in my life

Speaker 17 I didn't believe that I was capable of that. It hasn't been until

Speaker 17 recently in my life that I've realized that.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 17 it's been a slow process, but

Speaker 17 I promise you that I have seen in myself and others have seen in me a lot of growth these past few years. And

Speaker 17 that's going to continue no matter where I go. So

Speaker 17 I just really hope that

Speaker 17 I'm shown a little bit of mercy today. And

Speaker 17 I do want to say that I'm sorry for the loss of the family, you know, in this situation.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 17 I pray for forgiveness, you know.

Speaker 17 And

Speaker 17 I know the Lord forgives me, so that's where my comfort is the most.

Speaker 17 That's all I wanted to say.

Speaker 18 She ended up getting 18 years. Daniel's family was rightfully disappointed in her.

Speaker 18 I mean, remember, she waited nine whole years before she came forward to the police to share what she knew about Daniel's murder.

Speaker 17 I'm Daniel's father. Mindy, I have no compassion for you.

Speaker 17 You had a chance to come clean. These detectives worked pretty hard.

Speaker 17 And you decided, you made the choice you didn't want to come clean in. You had the opportunity.

Speaker 17 And you probably could have got off a real life sentence if you would have cooperated, but you chose not to.

Speaker 17 You made our life hell.

Speaker 17 You deserve the full sentence. I have no compassion.
My wife and I, our family, have no compassion for you. You made the choice.
You could have come clean, but you made a choice.

Speaker 17 Now you've got witnesses here.

Speaker 17 You want to come clean. You're doing all this good stuff.
You had a choice right here. Come clean this detectives.
You didn't do it. So no compassion.

Speaker 18 Joe's brother Jeff accepted a plea deal and he ended up only having to pay a $1,000 fine plus some court costs, which it honestly seems like he got off super easy here, which is a little disappointing.

Speaker 18 Jeff apologized to Daniel's family in court and said that his brother Joe has been, quote, an embarrassment for our family since the 80s, which, ouch, that feels like a big burn.

Speaker 18 But also, it's pretty rich coming from the guy who pled guilty and admitted to being a part of this whole murder plot and scheme, right? Then there was Alva Jacobs.

Speaker 18 Now, Alva also took a plea deal, namely for just 30 days in a county jail. So far, Joe, Chad, and Mindy have tried filing appeals, but no sentences have been overturned yet.

Speaker 18 Now, Daniel would have been 49 years old this year.

Speaker 18 And even though his family finally has a little bit of closure and answers as to what happened to their son that day, it's really hard to say that justice has ever been served because, frankly, there is no justice that can bring Daniel back.

Speaker 18 Now, also, let's talk about Dan. Because remember earlier when I said that Dan's role in this story wasn't done yet either?

Speaker 18 Yeah, it's true, because Dan went on to survive two more attempted hits on his life after Daniel's murder. Two more attempts, and he survived both of them.

Speaker 18 No one ever got caught or charged with those other two hits, though, so we technically can't say who was behind them.

Speaker 18 But basically, everybody who's close to this case thinks that they know who ordered them. And I'll give you one guess: Joe, of course.

Speaker 18 But if you think that this whole experience and having three hits on you might make you wake up and see the light and stop your criminal behavior and maybe Dan would change, uh, you'd be fooling yourself.

Speaker 18 Because in 2016, at the ripe old age of 78 years old, Dan confessed to at least five theft-related charges, all while he was out on supervised release.

Speaker 18 This included stealing a county drug task force trailer, which he said that he didn't do that, that he was just involved, whatever that means.

Speaker 18 After he served six more months in jail for that, he then got in trouble again. In 2019, Dan was sentenced to a year and a half for two different counts of burglary in different counties.

Speaker 18 He would have been up for parole in January of 2021, but he never made it to that day. He died in prison before he ever had the chance to steal another car.

Speaker 18 Now, if he had lived to see the outside world once again, I think we all probably know where he would have gone next, right? For stolen car number 1001. Dan just could not quit being a criminal.

Speaker 18 He couldn't let go of the thrill. He couldn't let go of the rush that it made him feel all the way up until he was almost 80 years old.

Speaker 18 But because of that, because of all of the criminals involved in this, including criminal Dan, 31-year-old Daniel, his life was forever changed.

Speaker 18 It was quite literally snuffed out completely senselessly. He was the one who paid the ultimate price for all of these dirtbags crimes.

Speaker 18 It's just an absolutely insane case when you really think about it, because I know it was pretty layered, but it's like you have a con artist, thief, criminal hire a hitman to commit a murder, then they flip.

Speaker 18 So you hire a hitman to kill your hitman, then they kill the wrong person. I mean, it is just so crazy.

Speaker 18 It's like I need like a flowchart behind me because you're hiring a hitman to kill your hitman, then finally you do get the hit that you wanted, but it's on the wrong person.

Speaker 18 It's like, what's really going on here? It's just such an insane case. And if you take anything away from it, besides don't be a criminal, please take away the fact that you need to lock your doors.

Speaker 18 Lock your doors all the time, at night, in the day, in the afternoon, in the morning, all the time. Keep your doors locked.

Speaker 18 I don't know that that would have necessarily changed the outcome here for Daniel, but it certainly may have helped. It's just, again, one of those very wild ride roller coaster cases.

Speaker 18 It truly makes you wonder how people are capable of such horrific and atrocious behavior, but they never cease to amaze me, and I'm sure they never cease to amaze you, right?

Speaker 18 There are so many of these sleaze balls out there. All right, guys, I hope that you are having a great week.

Speaker 18 I will be back on the mic with you on Thursday with Headline Highlights, where we are talking about everything happening this week in the true crime world. New cases, case updates, everything.

Speaker 18 So make sure you check back for that. It'll be released on Thursday.
If you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet, take a quick second to do so. It only takes literally five seconds.

Speaker 18 It's also totally free. Just whatever podcast app you're listening on, go to the corner and there's probably like three dots or something and just hit follow.

Speaker 18 That way you won't miss any of these episodes as they get released.

Speaker 18 And spoiler alert, sometimes I release bonus episodes that are outside of the regular release calendar, so you won't miss those either and again it's totally free you just subscribe all right guys thank you again i will be back with you on thursday and until then lock your doors stay safe be nice don't kill people always watch your back all right bye

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