#592 - Murder Texts Are Forever - Clifton, Arizona

Smalltown murder is brought to you by progressive insurance.

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Small town murder is brought to you by progressive insurance.

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians, these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

Yay, choo-choo.

Oh, yay, indeed, Jimmy.

Yay, indeed.

My name is James Petrogallo.

I'm here with my co-host.

I'm Jimmy Wistman.

Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today, all aboard the murder train, pulling away from the station.

We have another crazy case today.

We're going to be in Arizona.

Whoa, I have some insight into this case, and I may have even met these people.

That's the crazy part.

Yeah, that's just a little weird spoiler there, but it's a strange thing.

We will talk all about that.

Before we get to that, though, head over to shutupandgivemeurder.com.

Get your tickets for live shows there, including you can still get the virtual live show that we did, the 420 virtual live show.

We think it's the best one we've ever done.

It's really funny.

The case is crazy.

Bigfoot's involved.

So, I mean, you know it's nuts.

I got Jimmy so so stoned.

It's hilarious.

There's a, there's a, I played an edible trick on him and everything.

It's wild.

It's not a good trick.

It's a good trick, I thought.

It worked.

So you can get that if it's anytime 14 days after May the 19th, or I'm sorry, after April 19th, two weeks after April 19th.

If you're in that window, you can definitely still purchase that and get tickets for live shows in person, especially Chicago at the Riviera, May the 17th.

Get your tickets.

The night before is sold sold out in St.

Louis.

So get in there and do that.

Thank you for doing that.

Shut up and give me murder.com.

Also, head over to Patreon, patreon.com slash crimeinsports is where you get all of the bonus material.

Anybody,

$5 a month or above, you are going to get, first of all, hundreds and hundreds of episodes to binge on of bonus stuff immediately, and then new ones every other week.

One crime in sports, one small-town murder.

And do they get both of them?

We'll give it to them.

There you go.

You get it all.

Have it.

This week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, we are going to dip back into the fraternity hazing waters here with a part two of that.

All sorts of Ben Franklin was involved last time.

No one expected that.

Then for Small Town Murder, we are going to dip into the Laurie Vallo trial.

Or Vallo Daybell.

She represented herself, and I watched every goddamn second of it more than once.

So it's going to be a lot of fun to talk about that because she did not do a great job of lawyering.

We'll talk all about it.

Patreon.com/slash crimeinsports.

That said, I think it's time, everybody.

Yeah.

Let's all do this here.

Let's all clear the lungs.

What do you say here?

And let's all take deep breaths and let's all shout.

Shut up

and give me murder.

Let's do this, everybody.

Okay.

Let's go on a trip, shall we?

Let's go to Arizona.

Here we go.

We are going to Clifton, Arizona.

Clifton, yeah.

It's out there in

that is out by Morenzi, out in that southeastern, way far southeast corner of Arizona that people don't even remember exists.

No.

Because like the western part's got like Yuma and all that kind of shit, and like, you know, the northern, but no one ever even remembers southeastern Arizona.

Is this Gila County?

There's nothing there.

This is Greenlee County.

Greenlee.

Golly.

Yeah, this is about three and a half hours to Phoenix, as I know because I've driven this.

It's about three and a half hours to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, the other direction.

That's That's over there.

Right in the middle of that.

It is right outside Marenci, which is a tiny, tiny mining town that we'll talk about because I performed there.

It was the weirdest thing ever.

And about three and a half hours to Casa Grande, Arizona, which was our last Arizona episode.

Right.

Keeping deadly secrets.

That was the guy who pretended he was Scottish

and had a whole scam going and then was a murderer after that.

So population in this town, 3,780.

And I was shocked that there's that many people here, honestly.

How many?

In Clifton, 3,780.

Psycho.

I don't know where, because Morenzi,

I'll explain it in the beginning of the show, but it is the smallest town you ever want to

be, and it's crazy.

The median household income here is right at the national average, about $69,000.

Median home price here, this is crazy, because Phoenix, the prices are out of control.

Here, $118,500.

That's how far out it is.

I cannot express to you how far in the middle of fucking nowhere this is.

It is so far out there.

The motto here is where the trail begins

or ends, depends on how you look at it, really.

If you're there, it certainly begins to get you the fuck out of here.

That's what I mean.

You want to get on that trail to get to somewhere better.

Put it that way.

A little bit of history here.

This area was first known as Gouldings Camp.

named for one of the early miners.

And the town of Clifton was founded in 1873.

The miners would settle along the canyons, like the banks of the stream there, and that's where they would do it.

Mining companies were formed, and all sorts of claims were staked out and developed.

It's all mining here.

It's all it's here.

If the mine shut down, everybody would leave.

There'd be nobody living here.

There's nothing else.

Yeah, they had all sorts of different mines.

The whole history of the town is based on mining, basically.

Copper is the big thing out here.

That's what they're mining, by the way, in case we know it, but I don't know if everybody else knows.

That's what they're doing out there.

And there's still, after 140 years of continuous mining, there's still copper they're pulling out.

Stop it.

It's still going on.

That's how it's a town.

It's crazy that it hasn't dried up yet.

Here are some reviews of this town.

And I'm going to give, there's one review for Clifton, and then I'm going to give a couple for Morency since it's right next door.

Here is four stars.

I have lived in the Clifton-Morency area since I was a child.

It is a tiny town that can be very toxic.

Oh, all that mining.

Change that I would like to see is more things for teens to do along with young adults.

Dude,

when we were in Morency after we did the show, like we saw a couple of teenagers hanging out out there and we actually said, what the hell do you guys do around here?

And they were like, it's fucking rough, man.

They were like, we don't do anything.

Oh, my God.

They were like, this comedy show is the first thing we've done in like months.

Like, there's nothing to do.

We basically go.

He said, see where that parking lot is?

And we're like, yeah.

He goes, we hang out in there.

I'm like,

Okay,

like a bullpen.

It's a grocery store parking lot.

That's what they do.

Uh, four stars

in Morency.

There's a great sense of family and community in this town.

There really is a lot of community here.

They community, yeah, for sure.

Everybody works in the same place, they all do everything together.

The town loves to put on events for everyone in the community.

That was a comedy show, it was literally a community event.

It was crazy, and around the community to enjoy.

Here's three stars: only one big company to work for, the mine.

They pay the best.

Several smaller places to work, but the money's not as good as the mine, obviously.

That's why people drive all the way the hell out here and live here.

Two stars, finally.

Not many places to choose from, but there are several bars.

Mediocre grocery store that's overpriced.

Yeah, that grocery store sucked.

I went in there.

And their pizza is horrific.

There's a pizza place next to the grocery store.

It is

Ohio, Columbus, Ohio-level bad pizza.

It's bad.

How could you expect that to be any good?

Yeah.

They are the only one within a one-hour drive, the grocery store.

And that's really it's right in the town of Marenzi, right there.

Wow.

Things to do here.

All right.

The Frisco River Festival.

It's the Frisco River.

Yeah, that's what that is.

There's

two different rivers or a river and a stream or whatever come together.

They're going to have a festival that includes live local entertainment.

Oh my God.

Are you kidding me?

I don't know where they're pulling local entertainment out of this joint, but

Hunter Jones and her little dancers.

That's one of the Hunter's a Gal, yeah.

Okay.

The High School Mariachi Band.

It says bank, but I think they mean band.

I don't think it's the High School Mariachi Bank, probably.

So they misspelled that on their own website.

A medieval fighting group.

I didn't expect that.

Did you expect that in here?

Joe, what is this?

Joe Chavaria and the Third Stone Band.

Third Stone.

And then a band called Rhythm and Blues.

Very creative.

Holy shit.

You're going to have local talent Rosalyn Carrillo Durrell singing the Star-Spangled Banner.

Jesus.

That's great.

And then a bunch of crafts and foods.

And there will be free face painting, balloon animals, train rides for all the young people, it says.

No age or anything there.

Yeah, just young.

Come and celebrate with our community on Saturday, March 29th, and enjoy the local entertainment, vendor treats at crafts, and a family-friendly fun festival.

Okay.

Family-friendly, fun festival.

A lot of Fs.

Too much.

Yeah.

That said, let's talk about a murder, okay?

There we go.

And in the beginning, I am going to, just to describe what this town is like, I'm going to talk about this.

I did a comedy show out there.

Right.

I think someone, I think you passed it.

I've done it.

You have done it?

Yeah, because I did it the month before or two months before you.

I don't know.

Either way, I ended up at this fucking place, and they paid me $150.

And when you're a struggling stand-up comic, because this was 2015, this is pre-podcast or anything.

When you're a struggling stand-up comic, if someone offers you $150 plus gas money in a free hotel room, you fucking go, baby.

You get in the car, you drive three and a half hours while first stopping at the airport to pick up the two other comics that are coming.

That was part of the gig.

Tried to pick up them.

They paid for gas.

That was part of the deal.

And we drove all the way the fuck out there.

It is a long, bleak drive into southwestern Arizona or southeastern.

We get there.

When we got there, we got to the motel and we were supposed to text somebody when we got to the motel.

So we texted them.

Six minutes later,

she had to be 14 months pregnant, this lady, gets out of her car and comes in.

She's the motel lady, and it's like like 1230 at night and she's hustled.

We're like, oh my God, we're so sorry.

We didn't mean to get you out of bed.

And she's like, tell us where the key is.

She goes, oh, no, no, the comedy show.

Boy, everyone's so excited.

We're like, what?

Everyone.

We get inside.

She's checking us in.

Some security guard comes in who's like the town security guard.

And he goes, are these the comedians?

And she goes, yeah.

And he goes, oh, man, we're so excited, man.

Everybody's so excited.

And one of the comics goes, who's everybody?

And he goes, everyone in town.

He goes, everyone's going to this.

The whole town comes to the show.

We're like, for real?

He goes, oh, no, yeah, it's everybody, dude.

This is like everybody's date night.

This is

I'm taking my wife.

Like, they were all like, I said, pregnant lady, you two.

She's like, oh, I'll be there.

We were like, what is going on in this town?

And the whole fucking town, there was 500 people there.

It was a lot of people.

It was full.

It was full, packed.

They were a great crowd, too.

In that like weird tin building.

Yeah.

Not a crowd you want to to get too esoteric with or anything like that, but they were definitely funny.

There was too much crowd work around here.

You do some dick jokes.

They'll laugh at them, though.

It was good stuff.

They were having a great time.

I was terrified they were going to hate me.

And I was wrong.

I was like, me too.

I could have said anything to

it.

It was easy.

It was just easy, dude.

An easy crowd.

I was terrified.

I thought I was going to die.

What I'm saying is the people in this story, there's a really, really, really good chance that I've met these people.

Yeah.

Because they probably came to that comedy show.

You bet they did, yeah.

So, and you maybe too.

So, anyway, let's get into this here.

Uh, here is a young man let's talk about named Matthew Gerald Misner, M-I-S-E-N-E-R.

Mizener,

uh, Meisner, either way.

He's born in August of 1984, um, grows up in a real nice house, like nice loving home with a good family.

Sure, yeah, everybody happy.

Uh, his parents are Gene and Raymond.

He has two brothers and two sisters.

Right.

So, I mean, just a nice, very nice family.

And I think I might have liked this guy, too, I think if I knew this guy, because

one of his old email addresses was Buddhasmoker36 at AOL.com.

I'm like, all right.

I wonder what that means.

This guy's all right.

Known as a real nice guy.

He's a big guy.

Big, like, kind of stocky guy.

Real nice guy.

Big old head on him.

Just a, just a big, stocky guy.

Looks like he works in the mines type of guy.

He grew up in this area.

No, no, no, he didn't.

He grew up in Pima County, Tucson area.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Okay.

So, yeah, he went to Pima Community College.

I guess he went there.

He wanted to wrestle there because he was a wrestler too, so in high school.

So, yeah, and he ends up meeting a young lady in 2011 after all of this named Georgina Melissa Mendoza is her name.

So, Georgina Melissa Mendoza he meets in 2011.

Apparently,

he's a real nice guy, but he's not very outgoing.

You know what I mean?

Like, he's not a center of attention kind of guy at all.

Sure.

And Georgina's really outgoing.

So a lot of times those kind of personalities attract each other because

he needs her and she needs him.

Yeah, you can't have two people that are that much outgoing because they're bumping heads with each other then.

And you can't have two people just sitting there because then no conversation happens.

Then what?

Yeah, this is good here.

He gives her the spotlight and she has someone to engage with.

So there you go.

So she's born in October 1986.

So a couple of years younger than him, but in the ballpark.

She's very outgoing.

He's a little more introverted, like we said.

Now, he

came from, like we said, a very nice background,

very loving home.

Georgina did not come from such a background.

She had a little bit rougher background.

Yeah.

Her father was very abusive to her mother and ended up in prison.

Now,

like for most of her childhood.

And I don't know if that's for the abuse or for any other things he's doing.

If he's that abusive to his wife, I can't imagine he's an upstanding law-abiding citizen in every other regard, maybe.

So generally, yeah.

If you beat your wife in front of your kids, you're pretty capable of anything at that point, right?

I put nothing past you because you're a monster.

So, anyway, her childhood, she has a stepfather that her mom marries here that is more stable.

So, that's good.

And actually, she kind of pulls it all together.

And in high high school, she does great.

She's a really good student, gets good grades.

She likes to play soccer.

She's in choir and drama and all that kind of shit.

God damn it.

Yeah, she's doing all sorts of stuff and

kind of immersing herself in the school stuff.

High school thing.

Yeah, yeah, which is, I guess, good if you want to be a good student.

I didn't do that, and that's why I was a poor student, probably.

Kids are mean, man.

That's freshman, junior, freshman, sophomore, junior year.

She's like that.

Then her senior year, completely different person, like goes off the rails.

Really?

Starts using drugs here.

And

not smoking weed, put it that way.

She's doing other shit.

She's doing it for real.

She's doing real drugs, so much so that she went from being a very good student and involved in all kinds of activities by the end of her junior year to dropping out before graduating.

What?

Yeah.

Senior year, the wheels came off the wagon here, man.

It's not great.

What the hell is that about?

She ended up going to rehab

after that.

I mean, she was pretty much strung out for about four or five years.

Yeah.

And then went to rehab and had sobered up and been sober for about two years after she was in rehab.

And that's when she met Matthew in 2011, was right around then.

So very different backgrounds.

Couldn't be more different.

Yeah.

And he's catching her on like a good

part in her life.

She's about to really start getting it together.

That's what he's hoping.

Yeah.

I think.

And well, she's presenting herself as fine now because she's very outgoing.

She's not on drugs.

She's all cleaned up.

And it looks like it's, you know, when someone has a big problem and they clean it up, a lot of times that's very impressive because that takes a lot of, you know, willpower and everything else, too.

I mean, sure.

And it's easy to believe this person's going to hang on to all this when they're an outgoing,

loud, gregarious person.

And exactly.

And things that start when someone's 17 years old and go on to 21, like that's, you know, you think of that as

that.

Yeah, people make mistakes.

So, anyway, they get married in 2013.

Oh.

And Georgina gets pregnant pretty quick.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

So now that she's pregnant, now Matthew's like, oh, fuck, I got to get a real job here.

Like, I need

a career.

So he got a job at the Morency Copper Mine.

There it is.

That's it, right?

See what I mean?

That's, yeah.

He gets a job at the Morency Copper Mine, which is certainly not anybody's life goal.

No.

But if you need to make some money and you live in Southeast Asia,

certainly going to do it.

That's the only way to go.

So he ended up applying for work at the copper mine, which is about three hours away from Tucson, like we said.

His whole family's in Tucson.

He leaves everybody and all that shit and moves out in this area.

They moved to Clifton.

Or Safford, Safford, I'm sorry.

They moved to Safford, which is about 40 minutes from the mines.

Yeah, that's a bit out, yeah.

It's to the west.

You have to drive, keep driving east to get there.

Oh, yeah.

But I guess that Safford's a little bit, I don't even know if it's a bigger town.

It's about the same, I think.

It's pretty equal, probably.

It might have a little more people, a little more, there might be a bigger Walmart.

That might be it.

Yeah, exactly.

He might have a couple of things like that.

So he did all that.

He liked his job, by the way.

Gets his job in the mine.

He ends up really liking it.

He digs it.

He likes the people that work there.

He's, you know, everybody says he's a real good guy.

He gets along with everybody.

So, yeah, after their son son is born here,

they're living in Safford, and

their son is born extremely premature,

which is really tough.

His brother said, quote, I mean my brother's wedding ring actually fit around his wrist.

Oh, he was so little.

That's extremely little.

Yeah, that's like when you have like quadruplets or something, they're

that premature.

But this is just one.

He spent several months in the hospital, this poor kid.

So, I mean, that's tough for a new family, too, and young people.

And

it's hard.

It's hard.

So the brother said, I knew he was very excited when his son was finally coming home.

So about less than a year and a half later, they have a daughter, too.

Really?

That experience.

That experience didn't scare them off of fucking leaving it in for a while too long.

Yeah.

That would certainly scare the semen right out of me.

I think I'd be having a vasectomy in a second.

It would definitely scare me to the condomile.

I'll tell you that much at the very least.

I'm not doing that again.

That is a lot.

So the problem is things aren't so great here.

So

no, they have the two kids in a very short window.

And then she gets pregnant again.

Oh, dear lord.

So, yeah.

So now they're having a third kid coming up.

And I think this is hard on both of them, by the way, too.

I mean, I don't think Georgina wanted to have three kids right away either.

Whack, whack, whack.

Put that on the back, man.

Come on.

Dude, put it on something, not

anywhere but in there.

So

Matthew is working long hours.

He's working overtime if he can.

He's, you know, got a lot of bills to pay, if you can imagine that, obviously.

And Georgina then is at home with these two.

Three children in diapers.

Well, one in her stomach and two.

in diapers.

That's brutal.

I mean, that's brutal.

And he's working long hours.

It takes him 45 minutes to get to work, too.

So, I mean, that's two hours.

Add that to the length of his day.

That's an American dream, James.

Yeah, this is brutal.

Yeah.

Brutal.

So by 2017,

it's all gone to shit at this point now in this relationship, and they're going to get a divorce now.

Okay.

So Georgina takes the kids and moves into her parents' home in Tucson, where she was from.

And that December, she gave birth to the third child.

when they were already split up.

And so now they've got to figure out custody.

And that's the problem here: they have a little bit of a problem here.

Matthew's sister said when Matthew and Georgina did get divorced, they had 50-50 custody by the courts.

Matthew wanted to be cordial and follow the judge's orders, but Georgina always wanted to be involved when he had the kids.

She was being much more difficult.

Yeah, one of those.

And I found they have a couple of little things that they get into also.

There's a

Georgina actually gets arrested for disorderly conduct fighting fighting in 2017 at some point.

How old is she?

Don't know where the fuck that happened.

Jesus Christ.

What is she?

32?

30-something?

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

She's fighting.

That's crazy.

So disorderly conduct fighting she gets arrested for.

And we'll talk about it.

Matthew in 2018 is going to get, I don't know if this is a ticket or an arrest or what, but he gets arrested for.

having a child passenger not in a seatbelt, but it wasn't in a regular car.

It was in like a 10-person 10-person 10-passenger van.

You still got to have a car seat.

Yeah, I don't know what, I don't know what seatbelt this is.

So I don't even know if it was his kids, or he might have had other people.

Maybe he had his brothers and sisters.

They're all going on a trip to take their kids.

I don't know what it is.

But there was a child out of a seatbelt, and he was probably driving, which makes it his responsibility.

Yeah, he's the guy driving.

That's all we know.

So that's a couple of things that they get into.

But soon after his divorce, Matthew meets another lady.

And

at the mines, baby.

Yeah.

Really?

Fellow mine worker named Nicole.

Yep, Nicole Chacone.

She looked just sexy in that hard hat.

I couldn't, couldn't resist her.

Hard hat, ponytail coming out the back.

Something about it, man.

I don't know.

So copper cough.

Yeah.

So Nicole and he,

Matthew works quickly anyway.

I mean, met Georgina in 2011.

They're married by 2013.

Here he meets this Nicole in like 2017 or 2018.

And by 2019, they're engaged.

Engaged.

Engaged already.

Yep.

They're planning to marry, by the way.

They have no idea that this is not going to be a great day to do this, but their plan is to get married on St.

Patrick's Day 2020.

No, you're not.

And if you are, it's going to be weird.

So

that's pretty funny here.

Now, fall of 2019, something terrible happens.

Georgina

calls Matthew and tells him that she has cancer.

Oh, no.

Which is obviously terrible.

Even if you hate your ex-wife,

it's your kid's mother.

You don't want her to have cancer.

Jesus, that's horrible for the kids.

And it's just in general.

You don't want to be a shithead and wish cancer on people.

She sent Matthew pictures of herself with her head shaved and...

saying she had chemo.

She said, I tried chemo.

It about killed me and I stopped.

And the medicine I was taking gave me a really bad headache.

So she's basically saying she stopped treatment.

It's poison, dear.

It's going to be awful.

It's not good for you.

Yeah.

You're trying to,

it's basically, can we poison this cancer out of you before the rest of you dies?

That's that's what it is.

We bet the rest of your body's stronger than cancer.

Yeah, I've never heard anybody say, my grandpa got cancer, and it was real easy on him.

Yeah, he loved that chemo, man.

It was great.

He loved every fucking minute of it.

Look forward to talking to the nurses every time.

We've seen plenty of people go through chemo, and it's horrifying.

It's ugly every time.

It's never been good.

Really bad.

Now,

okay, here's when shit gets really crazy now.

Okay.

Matthew offered to help her with the kids, with anything, because this is obviously a big deal.

It's a hard time in your life.

And you would hope, too, divorced or not, when something big comes up, you would hope that someone would try to help, you know, if there's kids involved and everything like that.

Yeah.

Co-parenting isn't easy,

especially if there's disagreements.

But if somebody's sick, you gotta

do it.

Yeah.

So apparently he's offering to help, but instead of taking the help, Georgina apparently used this as a way to limit his visitation rights, basically.

She'd say, oh, I'm sick.

You can't come get the kids and stuff like that.

I have somewhere to go, so you can't get the kids.

Wouldn't that be better if I came and got the kids?

Exactly.

That's the weird part of it.

What are you doing?

I don't understand it.

I understand.

I'm having a rough time.

I need to not have the kids gone.

So Nicole confronted her.

Yeah.

Nicole here said, hey, what the fuck are you doing here?

Fiancé.

Yeah, you're causing him all sorts of strife.

I'm sure he wants to see his kids.

I'm sure they'd like to see her.

So

according to a police report, quote, Georgina, she slapped Nicole and they got into a scuffle.

So now the ladies are fighting.

Oh, God.

My new fiancé is fighting my cancer patient.

Oh, my God.

What a day.

I got my money on the hard hat, personally.

I got my money on the mine worker, if I had to guess.

She's surprisingly enough the healthy one here.

Yes.

No shit.

It's like, I won't have black lung for another 30, 40 years.

I don't think you get black lung from copper.

I think that's a different thing.

No, that'd be really weird.

Copper cough, James.

You get orange lung from copper.

So, copper cough.

So she, Georgina then filed a complaint against

Matthew and Nicole with child protective services.

Hold on.

Yeah.

Didn't she instigate this?

Oh, yeah, she slapped her.

Yeah, she slapped her.

Oh, boy.

Which is not happy.

She said that she claimed that they were abusing their children, which there was no proof of whatsoever.

After investigating the allegation, CPS also determined that wasn't true.

So they said that there was nothing that indicated Matthew or anybody else abused those children.

Now,

Matthew's still concerned because he thinks maybe, you know, the cancer and everything else, maybe she's just acting a little wacky.

You know what I mean?

She's obviously got her mind on other things and, you know, what kind of medicine she's taking that might make her a little loopier.

Who knows?

Who knows?

So he petitioned for full custody of the kids now.

Well, okay.

So now he's like, all right, if you're going to try to say I abused them, I'm going to get full custody because you're wacky.

You slap my fucking fiancé, whatever.

So he petitions for full custody, which he has a court date set for for February 11th, 2020, where he's going to go and present shit and try to get full custody.

Okay.

Small-town murder is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians.

These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates, but potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

This is Larry Flick, owner of the Floor Store.

Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.

Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Plus two years interest-free financing, and we pay your sales tax.

The Floor Stores Labor Day sale.

Don't let the sun set on this one.

Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.

Now,

Nicole and

Matt, they're just, you know, we're waiting this out, basically.

That's it, because she's denying them visitation.

So he's just like, I got to wait till I go to court.

So the day before the big court date, the February 11th date, on February 10th, 2020,

just after 5 a.m., this is, okay, A local fire chief was driving down the highway here.

This is U.S.

191 near Safford.

Yeah.

Down that way.

He spotted a black Chevy Tahoe crashed out on the side of the road.

Oh.

And this area, too, I mean, it's really

rural.

It's out there, man.

Yeah.

It is out there.

So, and in February, too, it'd be dark as shit at 5 a.m.

out there.

Pitch black.

There's no lights.

There's no streetlights.

I don't see anything.

No, I remember driving out there because we got there at midnight.

It was dark the whole fucking time and it was goddamn fucking dark, man.

Headlights only go 50 feet and every 50 feet looks just like the last 50 feet.

That's it.

It is a scary ride.

So this was just entering the horseshoe curve between Clifton and Morency over here.

Yeah.

So this fire chief found the driver slouched over in the front seat covered in blood.

Oh.

They were like, oh shit, this is a bad accident.

Maybe he hit his head on the steering wheel or whatever.

So then a little closer inspection, because this is pitch black, obviously.

Get the old flashlight out looking around.

They find the side of the Tahoe is riddled with bullets.

Oh, this person is maybe shot?

Yeah, they end up getting 14 total bullet holes out of this thing.

So, oh, boy.

Absolutely shot up this thing is, man.

So they were thinking, and then they figure out that he has been shot, the man in the car, which they say, oh, this makes more sense.

He was shot at and shot and lost control and went off the side of the road.

So, yeah, they said at that point, the fire chief realized the victim had three bullet holes in the side of his face.

Oh, fuck.

In his face?

To quote Steven Schriver.

In his face?

Not his face.

Not his face.

That's from the Colorado episode we did a few weeks back with the postal worker who killed her postal worker ex.

That was wild.

So

immediately, and if you have ever lived in Arizona, what would your first thought be?

Somebody came across drug deals.

Or just road rage.

Oh, boy.

Yeah.

Arizona, there is more gunshots fired off on the fucking highways in that state.

It's ridiculous, dude.

It's ridiculous.

It has not deterred anybody from being aggressive because I get flipped off daily.

That's what I mean.

And by old women, by everyone, by everyone.

Everyone is quick with the finger.

Everybody is so fucking angry out there all the time.

Like people say like in the Northeast, people are angry.

Not like that.

They're not violently angry all the time.

They're grumpy, but that's...

They're mad.

These people are looking for an excuse to buck shots off in Arizona.

It's crazy.

With hard opinions on bumper stickers staring you in the face and then being aggressive on top of that.

Fucking nuts, man.

What the fuck?

So, yeah, the first thing they look into is road rage because there's no surveillance cameras out here.

There's no witnesses out here.

It's fucking five o'clock in the morning in the middle of nowhere.

So they're like, that would make a lot of sense.

But they said, who the fuck, in a road rage, you shoot one or two shots off

14 shots.

That seems very much.

Three in the face.

Three in the face.

You're aiming high.

Targeted as fuck.

You know what I mean?

That seems like, I don't like that guy.

He must have made the shittiest move ever on the road.

You couldn't change enough lanes with no directional to make me shoot you 14 times.

You've got to be drifting.

You've got to be,

it's got to be nuts.

Yeah.

Did he have a bumper sticker that says, I have your kidnapped children in the back of my truck?

Like, that's the only thing that would.

While he's drifting.

While he's drifting.

So they look inside the car.

They find the person has a driver's license, and it's Matt Meisner.

Misner.

It's him.

Oh, it's Matt?

It's Matt in the truck.

Oh, boy.

Now, no shell casings are found.

Okay.

So that probably came from inside of a vehicle, they're thinking.

But they would later determine that he died from three gunshot wounds to the head from a nine-millimeter pistol.

So someone.

17 rounds.

Yeah, that's

still a decent shot, though.

Damn fine shot.

Was it?

To be moving and your car driving and all that stuff.

That's tough, man.

So

as they're cleaning up the scene, Nicole pulls up.

Oh.

She pulls up.

She is on her way to work at the Morency mine.

She leaves about an hour after he does.

They have to be there at different times.

So she's on her way there.

She sees the wreck, pulls up, gets out of the car,

and then gets back in her car and drives away.

What?

So they're like, did the dead guy's fiancé just show up and leave?

Right.

What the fuck is up with that?

So they thought that was really fucking interesting here.

So they obviously called her up and said, you're going to step out of work today.

What the fuck, Nicole?

We got to have a chit-chat with you here.

She's a damn good employee.

I'm showing up anyway.

anyway so but when she

when she got there

they told her hey why'd you leave the scene and she goes i don't know it was just an accident and they go that was your fiancé in there and she didn't know she didn't even know she said she she said i didn't know that was him i just saw a car i had no idea it was him it was dark out i don't know wow so yeah she said she didn't even know uh she told them that he left for work at 4 a.m

And that, you know, less than an hour later, she drove out too.

She said that she initially passed by the accident and got back in her car.

She said she exited the car.

She saw a black vehicle and approached where the deputies were, but she didn't want to get too close because it's an accident scene.

She was like, I'm sure it's fine.

So she just got back in her car.

That was that.

She said once she arrived at work, she realized

Matthew wasn't there.

And that's when she started to panic a little bit.

And she realized that.

you know, everybody realized he wasn't there.

And that's when she got a call to leave work.

And she left work and went to the scene.

And she said, I'm the fiancé.

That's my fiancé there, I think.

And then she said, she didn't know.

She said she didn't know he was shot.

She just thought he got in a car accident, though, because they told her he's been shot in the face.

And he was like, She was like, what the fuck are you talking about?

In the face?

So one of the cops said, I explained to her that this is not a traffic accident and this is a homicide investigation.

And her fiancé's dead.

The guy said that she didn't take it well.

She began to cry and shake and go into a total shock mode here.

So the cop said it was heartbreaking.

The lady broke down, you know.

But they still said,

we're going to have to take you down to the station and talk to you because

you have to ask me questions.

You're the closest one to them.

Right.

And B, you did drive up and drive away, which does not look like

there is that.

So they're like, we got to clear you.

They did a swab on her hand for gunpowder residue and no residue, no nothing.

She seems like she's telling the truth and has no idea what's going on and just has bad luck.

So she vehemently denied any involvement.

And, you know, they said, well, do you know anyone who would want to hurt him if you didn't?

And she said, yeah, his fucking ex.

Yeah.

Georgina would really like to hurt him.

And then she

tells them the whole story.

She had cancer and then she's keeping him away from the kids.

She slapped me.

We got in a fight.

You know,

they have a custody hearing tomorrow.

You know, all those things kind of come together.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the next day.

She said that Nicole said Georgina hated that Matthew ended their marriage because now Nicole's saying that he ended the marriage to be with Nicole.

Oh.

Yeah, he was miserable in that marriage and got with Nicole.

Now, I don't know when the overlap or how much of an overlap

at this point, it's not really a

germane fucking matter right now.

It doesn't matter.

So they said that, you know, she said, but it could be jealousy.

She could be mad.

She's been mad at him for years, and it hasn't stopped.

And now she's even madder at him because they're fighting in court and he wants custody.

So she also said, they said, anybody else, you know, just making a list here.

We've got to check people out.

And she said, okay, I got something else.

Oh.

She said, there's a guy, he usually carpools to work every single day with a guy named Samuel Rivera who abruptly

just got out of, said he wasn't carpooling that morning.

Yeah.

Didn't go.

Sam's not riding with him anymore.

Yeah.

Every other morning he's in the car and now he's not.

So they were like, well, that's a suspect then also.

Certainly.

He's not there.

But they find out that he was overseeing an emergency plumbing and maintenance job on one of his rental properties.

And there was workers and people and tenants and everybody else that he was there the whole time.

It wasn't him.

He didn't do it.

So then the cops go, all right, let's talk to Georgina here.

Georgina claims that Matthew and Nicole are abusive to the children and that Nicole had threatened and beaten her on the occasion of their altercation.

Even though we know that Georgina threw the first fucking punch.

Right.

Which if you're terrified of someone, you don't slap them

usually.

Because that's not going to hurt them, but it will piss them off.

A lot.

Yeah.

So she said, I did not feel safe with Nicole.

I knew what I needed to do.

I put in temporary sole custody, she tells

investigators in her interview.

So now, so they look into her.

They do find out that she was home at the time of the shooting.

Oh.

So they're like, okay, well, that's not helpful at all.

They did find out about the full battle, you know, full-blown custody battle and everybody's fighting and nobody likes each other and all that kind of shit.

But she was home.

So they're like, fuck, what are we doing here?

She did tell investigators that

he was a good father at times.

And, you know,

but she basically, you know, said currently it's all unhappy.

She even said that, I know it's Nicole that did it to him.

My poor, my poor kids have lost their father.

She said she had a text message from him reading something along the lines of, if something unexpected happens to me, it was Nicole.

Oh.

And the authorities find that on her phone, too.

She has that on her phone.

Oh, shit.

They corroborate that shit.

So, yeah.

Nicole's going to throw him down the mine or something.

So they said Nicole and Matthew had a volatile romance.

And she, they talked to Nicole and she said, yeah, we did have a volatile romance, but he likes, he likes a lady with some spirit to her, I think.

He likes a spicy lady here.

It's a Southwest.

We like everything seriously.

Yeah, a little spicy.

So she,

but she said it never got to the extent of them wanting to kill each other or anything like that.

They were going to get married on St.

Patrick's Day, like we're a month away from fucking marriage here.

What are you talking about?

So at this point, it's a stalemate.

Yeah.

A couple people with motive, nobody with

any sort of ability to do it, though.

That's the problem.

One was at home on her way to work.

The other one was at home.

What do we do here?

Then a tip comes in.

Who from who?

Sometimes it's just fucking luck.

And this is just a witness.

Oh.

Random person, after seeing it on the news and everything, said,

this is from the police officer, a man called and he had told me he was headed to work and he had actually followed Matthew for miles from Safford, just being in going the same direction.

And at one point he said he lost him.

Matthew was traveling a little bit faster and the guy got behind.

But he says he didn't see him, but he heard a pop in the distance.

So he said he heard a pop and then he saw Matthew's vehicle on the side of the road and right in front of the vehicle on the side of the road was a white car.

And he said, out of nowhere, this white sedan just made a U-turn and went southbound on 191 and started going really fast.

The other way.

That's it.

So they said, basically, there's not a lot of cars on the road.

So if it's not this guy who's coming forward who did it, it's probably that white car.

That other one.

Yeah.

It's probably that.

So, yeah, they're like, okay, this is fucking interesting here.

This guy fleeing the scene from at that point.

Now, Nicole tells investigators that five days before the shooting, Matthew had gone to see his children, and a man in a white sedan was taking pictures of his car.

Oh.

Yeah.

This is very fucking interesting.

So Matthew was on the phone with Nicole at the time that this was happening.

He was parked by Georgina's residence and he was trying to get the white sedan was taking pictures of

Matthew's car.

Matt's car.

And Matthew was on the phone with Nicole and Matthew said that, you know, I was telling him, hey,

he was telling me, hey, this guy just took a picture of our license plate.

What the fuck is up with that?

So Nicole says, why don't you take one of his plate then?

See who the fuck this is.

So he did, and he texted the picture of the plate to Nicole.

So Nicole, with the cops now, pulls out her phone and goes through her shit and goes, here's the fucking plate.

She still has the picture, which is pretty fucking amazing, honestly.

Some tit for tat worked out for once.

For once, all this bullshit picture taken.

Take a picture of me.

I'll take a picture of you.

Sure, you take that.

What are you going to do?

So she said, I have a picture right here.

And it was a vehicle.

It's a white.

They look it up.

And

it's a registered.

It's a white sedan.

How about that?

So the vehicle belongs to, is registered to two Tucson men,

Eduardo Montano Jr.,

who's born in September of 83, so he's about their age, and his grandfather, Samuel Sandoval.

That's who this belongs to.

Now,

right away, they find out that that's the owners of the car.

So they go to talk to them.

Eduardo has two warrants.

He has two misdemeanor warrants.

So they get to take him right to.

He doesn't have the opportunity to say, I don't feel like talking right now.

They arrest him.

You get to talk right now.

Yeah.

And I looked him up.

I found a bunch of dumb shit that he did, too.

Failure to produce evidence of financial responsibility.

No insurance.

No insurance.

Water turn on without authority.

That's some desert shit.

That's some desert shit there.

You're going to be here Thursday to turn it on?

I got it.

I'll just turn it on myself.

Yeah.

And that might have to do with irrigation and all that.

The southwest and the desert.

Water's a big fucking deal, obviously.

You got to have it.

He got busted for this like six times.

I found all sorts of records of him being busted.

So that's a thing that he does all the time.

Or he doesn't pay his water bill and just turns it right back to it.

Either one.

It's just a valve.

He's also busted for speeding, going 30 miles an hour over.

It was a photo enforcement one.

Also driving without a license, suspended or revoked.

And animals with no vet care.

Basically, I guess.

Neglect.

Neglect of his animals.

Yeah, is what that is.

And that was in 2000.

That was one of the things they arrested him for.

Because you can't do that in Arizona.

You can't neglect animals.

You're a fucking monster.

So he had a warrant out for that and something else.

So that's what they took him in on.

They talked to Eduardo, and they said, when they go to the house in the driveway, there's a white Cadillac with the dark-tinted window.

And it fit the description of what the witness said.

White sedan, dark-tinted window.

So they waited for search warrants on the home and car.

They take him down to the sheriff's office.

They say, where were you last night?

Yeah.

Tell me, where did you sleep last night?

Tell me.

He said, I went to my friend John's house.

Yeah.

And they said, okay.

He denies he was anywhere near the crime scene.

They said, well, they know his vehicle was at Georgina's home the day Matthew took a photo of his license plate.

So do you know Georgina?

And he said, yes, I do.

Oh,

she's a friend of mine.

They said, well, how well do you know her?

And he said, we tried dating, but it didn't work out.

Oh.

Apparently, he said they went out for like a month, basically.

It didn't quite work out.

Yeah, I can see it.

And they said, all right, well, you know, tell us about her.

And he said, I've hung out with her and her kids a couple times.

And they said, so who's Matt?

And he said, her ex-husband, the father of her children.

Oh.

And he said, they're having like a custody battle or something right now.

So they said, You ever had any contact with him?

And his answer is, what's his answer?

No.

Me?

Eddie.

That is a terrible answer.

Eduardo.

Yeah, you.

Me?

No, the guy, other people in the interrogate.

No, the other detective, I'm asking.

The fuck do you think?

We're in a fucking interrogation room.

Idiot?

Me?

Me?

He said, me, never.

Never.

All right.

Never.

So they said, well, we have a report of Matt saying that you were taking photographs of his vehicle.

What up with that?

And he says, well, I never talked to him.

Me?

Okay.

Now we're going to go.

Now we're going to go with semantics in a police interview.

He should have just just went, me?

So they press him again.

Well, where the fuck were you that night?

Even though he's already said it.

So they said, we, you know, because these are the people from down there.

So they're like, we didn't drive three fucking hours to come here for nothing on a whim.

You know how shitty that ride is?

Although Tucson's a mite better than Morency.

It is a little bit, yeah.

It's still a long drive from out there, though, because these are the people from that county out coming to Tucson to talk to this guy so he said right well they said if we didn't know more than that and he said well I know my grandfather mentioned there was an accident in Clifton or something and that I may have been involved oh that I may have been involved in and they said well how were you involved in it and he said I don't know I wasn't in an accident

this is a really annoying conversation yeah who me who me

this is the one where like you want you'd probably want to pistol whip this man just for frustrating you, and you can't.

We're going to fire, that's for sure.

We know you did something.

This is crazy.

So they said, because your car was up there that morning.

Yeah.

It was up there because people saw it.

And he said, quote, I swear to you, it wasn't.

Who, me?

Wasn't.

They said, you know.

The guy's dead.

You know what I'm saying?

There's a dead person here.

And

he said, listen, I get that you're putting me in it.

I guess it sounds, looks bad for me.

He said, I completely understand.

He said, but listen to what I'm saying.

I was not there.

He said, I was hanging out with my friends, and then I went home to my grandfather's house.

That's it.

Yeah.

That's that.

He said, I had nothing to fucking do with it.

He denies everything.

He said, we dated briefly, but not enough for me to go kill her ex-husband.

That's crazy.

This is insane.

What are you talking about, basically?

So they investigate him.

They find out that he had been married to his high school sweetheart and left her for Georgina a few months earlier.

He'd been married for 15 years or something and all that shit, left her for Georgina, and then it didn't work, I guess, after a month or so, allegedly.

That's what they're saying.

So then they go talk to his grandfather to check out his alibi.

Yeah.

And this is Sandoval is his name.

And the policeman says this, quote, I asked Mr.

Sandoval, was Edward here all night?

He said, no, as a matter of fact, he wasn't here.

He left at 10 o'clock at night, didn't come back till about 8 or 8.30 in the morning.

Which, by the way, if you were to shoot someone at 5 in Clifton, it would give you just enough time to drive back to Tucson by 8 or 8.30.

It's about three hour, three and change drive.

Small-town murder is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians, these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, but potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

This is Larry Flick, owner of the floor store.

Labor Day is the last sale of the summer, but this one is our biggest sale of the year.

Now through September 2nd, get up to 50% off store-wide on carpet, hardwood, laminate, waterproof flooring, and much more.

Plus two years interest-free financing, and we pay your your sales tax.

The Floor Stores Labor Day sale.

Don't let the sun set on this one.

Go to floorstores.com to find the nearest of our 10 showrooms from Santa Rosa to San Jose.

The Floor Store, your area flooring authority.

So.

Grandpa hates Eddie.

Grandpa hates Eddie.

That's, I mean, this is not helpful at all.

And the cops said the time periods, they all lined up.

The shooting happens around 5 o'clock.

That gives sufficient time to drive that vehicle from 5 o'clock three hours to get back to Tucson nailed it Jesus so they search his house now or grandpa's house really

and they find a nine millimeter pistol

and the gun has 14 rounds missing from being totally full so it's got three left yep

14 missing

so they're like

huh that's interesting we happened to find 14 bullet holes in something and maybe it wasn't all the way full 14 shots maybe it wasn't all the way full we don't know to begin with but it's kind of a coincidence that you could fit 14 more shots in that fucking gun that's all very interesting yeah so uh they also they do forensics and they find out based on ballistics that this is the gun too oh boy so they're pretty Eduardo's pretty fucked here so they tie the gun he's got to be shocked they did this so fast it's oh it all happened really fast by February 12th he's under arrest

So I mean, two days within 48 hours.

They aren't kidding.

That first 48 is mad important.

Oh, it is.

And they got it.

They nailed it with this one.

He's arrested for murder.

He's brought back to Greenlee County, and he's assigned a court-appointed attorney, and he's held on a million dollars bond.

And they go on to say, the police go on to say, we're trying to establish the motive, and that's why we're looking at other leads.

Like, this guy doesn't know this guy enough to just shoot him for no reason.

Still looking at more opportunities.

Oh, yeah.

He said investigators are heading back down to Tucson to continue the investigation.

So this is still ongoing.

Although we do have him under arrest, we still have to do the forensics part of it and still follow up on every lead that we have.

Now,

the day after the murder, while this is going on, police tracked down Georgina, and they said her emotions were kind of all over the place when they talked to her.

They said that she was happy.

She was sad.

She was happy.

She was crying.

She was mad.

She was just,

there was not just like, I have grief.

Range of emotion.

Yeah.

It was a real weird range of emotions that, I mean, and everybody reacts different to tragedy.

But her demeanor, they said, seemed to be rehearsed, the cop said.

It seemed like, I'm going to be upset, then I'm going to pull it together, but then, oh, God, I'm so sad.

But then I'm mad at whoever did this.

And just said it didn't seem natural.

That out of nowhere meltdown after you've been told something and you regain composure and then just fall apart again.

That's the brew magical thing.

Well, that's where the Oscar comes from.

That's the thing.

That's the one that'll get you.

That's where Meryl Street makes her money.

You know what I mean?

That's where it all comes from.

That'll start the sequel being talked about.

That's the one right there.

And it's funny because if you've ever watched interrogations, interrogation videos where you know that the person is guilty.

Yeah.

And they tell them something and then watch their reaction and they don't like, you know, go, oh, it's okay.

They just sit there silently and watch this person perform this.

Like a

like a like a exactly like a comedy crowd that's not having any of your shit, and you say stuff, and they say that you stoned me.

None of this.

It's probably way more uncomfortable to be in the interrogation room with that happening than even on a stage.

And we know that that's very uncomfortable.

It's awful.

It's awful.

Doesn't get any worse than that, except for this.

You guys, I'm trying real hard.

So they ask again about the relationship, and she said she did not want Matthew to have the kids because she didn't like Nicole.

She thought Nicole was a very abusive woman, and she also thought Matthew was a very abusive man

as well.

She claimed, yes, I did date Eduardo for a month, Arduardo Montano, and they confided in each other about past abuse.

They had both suffered.

That's kind of how they got together.

Oh, boy.

Bad backgrounds, but

she said that Montano, when she heard about what happened, when he heard about the children and Matthew and that whole situation, he became concerned for the welfare of her children.

What a great guy.

He's just a magnanimous fuck, this guy.

Already stepdad.

She talked about the physical altercation with Nicole.

They were like, let's talk about that.

What happened there?

She said, Nicole said, fuck that.

Bitch, fuck you.

I said, you don't need to call me a bitch.

I have my house and this is in front of my kids.

And she said, I'm going to fuck you up.

So I slapped her across the face.

She tells a story like

a

not good.

No.

She grabs me and throws me to the ground and starts hitting me and hitting me.

And then she stopped.

She said, I didn't feel safe with Nicole.

I knew what I needed to do.

I put in temporary sole custody.

So they're like, okay, that's great.

Back to Eduardo.

Fascinating story.

Terrific.

She said, Eddie was around my kids.

We dated maybe a month at the most.

We told him what was going on.

Or I told him what was going on with, you know, everything like that.

And I know that I talked to Eddie and I was probably, you know, woe is me, woe is me, like everything I'm going through.

And then he told me some stuff about his childhood.

It was rough.

I felt bad for the guy.

Edward himself had experienced abuse.

So Georgina said, he says, he just says that he's not, that he just doesn't want nobody to hurt them.

That he was very concerned about her kids because he was abused and he doesn't want that to happen to these kids.

So then they said,

Were you involved in Matthew's murder at all?

And she says, quote, I don't want to say anything else.

Oh, Oh,

okay.

Okay.

She's talking about the guy that likes my kids.

Oh, man.

So they look into her.

They're investigating Georgina.

They find out she never had cancer.

What?

She never had cancer.

You bitch.

She faked fucking cancer.

She did that Scamanda shit or whatever the fuck.

Oh, my God.

You're a monster.

Anyone who faked cancer.

You're a fucking monster.

You have to be.

You're a terrible person.

Terrible.

faking cancer those are the only people i wish would get cancer are people who fake cancer because they deserve it at that point they wanted it they're they're they were begging for it

literally asking for it and i hope they get everything they ask for she was downloading photographs off the internet and sending them to matthew to get sympathy get

she downloaded pictures that weren't even of actual cancer pictures what a bitch she got that's why she wasn't letting matthew see kids either because she couldn't show that she she had her hair and all that shit.

Oh, my God.

So she got photos.

The cop said she got photos and said, hey, look, Matthew, I'm dying.

I have cancer.

And the cop said, we actually found the same picture that Georgina sent to Matthew on the internet.

She found the picture on the internet and sent it to him.

Wow.

Holy shit.

Then.

They get access to her phone records because she deleted all of her text messages on her phone and all that kind of shit, right?

Georgina did.

But they found them in her phone records because you can look that shit up.

And the cops said, we found information during search warrants and our investigation that in their communications that she gave Mr.

Montano information in order for him to go out and commit the murder.

Oh, my God.

Yes, this is fucking crazy.

They found also that based on the data that Eduardo was in the area of Matthew's residence that morning at 4 a.m., the morning of the murder, it appeared through text messages that he'd been stalking Matthew.

He was following him at his house, and at one point, there's a text where Eduardo had asked Georgina for Nicole's address,

and Nicole, and Georgina not only gives the address, but describes what Nicole drives and all that kind of shit.

Here's the exact text messages:

one is a few days before the murder from him to her, from Eduardo to Georgina.

Been outside Matt's all night and haven't seen him.

Okay, that's a text message sent there.

Then one text message she sent to him said, You're in my thoughts always.

I love you and we love you.

Oh, the kids too.

The kids too.

So it doesn't sound like they broke up after a month, does it?

No, no, no, no.

Now, the day before the custody hearing on the 10th, Eduardo apparently texted her, quote, Hey, I don't want to do this.

Oh.

This is while he was outside of Matthew's house.

Right.

Hey, I don't want to do this.

She responds back.

This is fucking, she's a whack job.

Quote, if you want to marry me, you need to show me what kind of a man you are.

Kill my ex.

She didn't say kill my ex-husband, but kill my ex-husband.

Show me you got balls.

Wow.

I was thinking she was going to say something like, I'll give you a blowjob if you

or something.

No, way colder.

Way colder.

I don't marry pussies.

You better get to work.

I marry closers.

This pussy's for closers.

Clock in.

Yep.

ABS, always be shooting.

Oh, my gosh.

So February 25th, 2020, she is arrested.

Yeah.

Now, there's a big memorial put on the highway.

If you know Arizona, if you drive out there, there's a lot of crosses on the side of the road because...

People drive fast and poorly, and it's just the way it is.

Fast and loose with the vehicle safety.

Man.

So a lot of them are plain.

Sometimes there's writing.

Sometimes there's little flowers on them or something like that.

Little crosses,

shit like that.

This, there's an elaborate memorial here.

Oh, really?

Yeah, placed on the side of the highway on February 12th.

And it was a statue of an angel with big wings.

Really?

It was a marble white statue about three feet high.

That shit's real.

Attached to it are all sorts of balloons and things I love you, to, you know, like Valentine's Day messages because it was two days before that.

Jesus.

It's a lot.

They said there's a lot of people stopping at the memorial site, and this isn't the safest area for people to be stopping on the side of the highway and doing all this type of shit.

So, yeah, they said at one point, you know, there was like a bunch of high school kids like just looking at the ditch where the car was, just like staring at it, trying to figure it out.

It's either that or standing in the grocery store parking lot.

So, yeah,

got him out of the parking lot for a little bit.

Want to go see where that guy crashed?

That's something to do for an hour or two.

It's better than this place.

Let's go.

No, shit.

Then the memorial was after a week, it's removed.

Yeah, because it's a distraction.

Yeah, they don't know if the family removed it or the highway department removed it, and they can't tell.

There's a big article about it, but they don't know.

They don't know what happened.

All that's there now are two vertical orange stripes painted by the police on the cliff bottom where the vehicle came to arrest because it went off the side of the road down into the gravel.

So September 2020, Eduardo is in court and because he had to wait for that because of the because of COVID.

He is going to plead guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.

He's got it.

They got it.

They got him dead to rights.

They got all the witness.

They got the gun matching.

They got text messages.

Text messages.

They got GPS of where he was.

I mean, you can't be more guilty than this.

It's impossible.

They've got text messages and the gun matches in your house.

You're in trouble.

You're fucked.

So he admitted to conspiring with Georgina during his trial.

Now he'll do this.

Hold on to that for a minute.

To injure Matthew so he would miss attending a court hearing.

That was the point of this, apparently.

He said that he ambushed Matthew, fired multiple shots from a nine millimeter Ruger, which killed him.

Now, Georgina just completely maintaining her innocence.

I don't know anything about it.

If he did it, he did it on his own type of shit.

That's what he says.

Now, during sentencing, Matthew's mother, sister, brother, and Nicole all speak, as well as a co-worker of his, the guy who carpools with him, Samuel Rivera, who was a pretty good suspect for about three hours there.

Thanks a lot, asshole.

Yeah.

And Rivera said, quote, I'm lucky to be here, meaning you could have shot me too.

You bet.

You hurt this whole family and took a good friend away.

I hope you never come out.

You took away from us,

you took away from all of us someone who we really cared about.

His sister said, this is not that guy's sister, Matthew's sister, says that her brother would have

given you the shirt off his back to help a person in need, and that Eduardo, you're a fucking idiot who was duped into getting involved in a custodial situation between him and his ex-wife.

Right.

And said, you took away someone who meant much to all of us.

You took his life away from all of us.

His mom, Matthew's mother, says, I despise this guy, meaning Eduardo.

And I hope he spends the rest of his life in jail and never has an opportunity to see daylight.

You don't know what you did to us, to your own family, to those children, my grandchildren who don't have a father now.

We're still in a state of shock.

I cry every day.

His brother came up and said, now that I have to be that rock for myself and the rest of my family, when it used to be Matthew, I hope he feels every bit of emotion, including the love and anger.

His entire years he spends in that cell, and it consumes him from the inside.

And I hope he does not make it out.

Oh, my.

And that Nicole got on and said she would make sure the children know who their father is and that she hopes that they hate their mother for causing this.

She said,

quote, I pray that they will hate her.

That's hilarious.

That's hard.

That's hard, Corey.

Nicole, that's a mind broad right there.

She's not fucking around.

That's how it is in the minds.

Either you're in or you're out.

I hope you get cancer and your kids hate you.

That's right.

Hope you really get cancer.

So the judge says, you sir may fuck off 25 years for murder

eight years and nine months for conspiracy to be served consecutively okay 33 years and he gets he gets 33 years nine months now according to this he's going to serve um that and he's also ordered to pay restitution of nineteen hundred nineteen dollars for funeral expenses and may have to pay more restitution at a later date okay january 2021 Georgina pleads too, because now

she has to.

Yeah, they got, otherwise, it's first-degree murder, and you're in a lot more trouble.

So, during the sentencing here, it began with her court-appointed attorney addressing the court.

Georgina's.

She spoke for about a half hour and spoke of mitigating circumstances that led to these troubles, including mental health issues, a horrible childhood.

She said that she had mental instability as a factor in her client's life.

She said that's just how she is.

She suggested, listen, you can't, don't put her in prison.

Yeah.

She suggested some type of probation.

Yeah.

Huh?

What's that now?

In which she would receive counseling.

She just needs some therapy and it's some time to think about.

She needs a kick in her ass is what she needs.

Fuck therapy.

She said the threat of daily rape and shanks.

Yeah.

And she said her client was already undergoing counseling, and she pointed out that mental health facilities in the Arizona state prison system are greatly lacking.

I've heard that too.

Now, Georgina, they said her voice as she's sobbing and crying during the 15 minutes she spoke.

She denied being a part of any conspiracy to murder her ex-husband, even though she's pleading guilty.

She said she was not aware that Eduardo was planning to kill Matthew.

She weeped, whooped, weeped,

wept.

I'm kidding.

I don't know why.

I know it was wept, but anyway.

Heavily as she spoke and created

what the newspaper described as a, quote, small mound of tear-soaked tissues on the desktop in front of her.

Victim impact, though, they get to talk.

Matthew's dad said, what he was to us is impossible to describe.

He said, now he's gone, and I'll never be able to hug him again.

He talked about how he attended his son's high school football games and wrestling matches, and they were real close.

A sister of Matthew's said that Georgina's actions and that the love and devotion to her children was behind it.

That's what she said.

She goes, I know that's what it is, but it doesn't matter.

She said, this is not how, because she's being nice to Georgina.

She said, I know it was your kids that did this, but some people weren't that nice.

They kept calling her manipulative.

One member of the family said she was very much a part of the family.

We accepted her.

Some of the family members said she cared only about herself and didn't give a shit about her kids.

One said it was all about her.

She didn't really care about the kids.

It was all about what she wanted.

Man, so the Greenlee County Attorney General, Jeremy Ford, presents a lot of evidence, sharply contradicting, as they say in this article, the claim of not being involved in the murder.

If you want to marry me, show me what kind of man you are after he says, I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do it.

Please don't make me do this.

Talked a guy into it.

Holy shit.

Also, the county attorney called her a danger to society.

Now, here's the thing that's fucked up.

During this, there is a letter the court receives from Eduardo Montano

saying that he acted alone in the murder and she had nothing to do with it.

Somehow she got to him and got him to say, well, he still did it.

He wrote a letter to the court and the judge was like, no, no, no, that's silly.

We know better.

He's serving north of 30 years and still a sucker.

Be like, I'll do you a solid.

Still a sucker.

Yep.

So, yeah, the judge was pretty adamant here.

The judge said that called her manipulative, said

reviewing the notes, the word manipulative stood out several times with you,

said that

much of what was presented by the defense as mitigating circumstances doesn't carry any weight in this courtroom.

And the judge agreed with the prosecutor's earlier comment and told Georgina, you are a danger to society.

And then said, you, ma'am, may fuck off 25 years for murder eight years nine months for conspiracy consecutive 33 years and nine months just like eduardo same shit yep get fucked lady that's what he said yeah or she said the judge so there you go uh according to the plea agreement yeah she plays she does that uh 25 years okay so it's pretty much the same deal now there was a go fund me for matt we've seen some go fund me's remember there was one a couple weeks ago that had a pitiful amount of money we were sad this is a 15 000 goal and they raised $7,076 of it, which isn't bad.

That's not bad.

And yeah, they talk about it.

They talk about this when they put this up in 2020, his kids were 5, 4, and 2.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

That is brutal.

I'm not going to give their names out.

They're still miners, but that's, you know, that's crazy.

So, yeah, they just talk about how, you know.

We try hard as we try to find the answers to this senseless murder.

We ask that friends, family, or anyone who knew Matt please help with what they can.

That is because it's short.

They said to help the family pay for all the arrangements in such short notice.

Now, Georgina is in prison here, and I have her

things that she's done here.

She did high school when she first got there.

Figured it out.

Figured that out.

SA recovery wellness.

C2CHG, self-control.

That's a course that she took, apparently.

New beginnings through peers.

She did a substance abuse thing and then did some water labor, whatever the fuck that is.

Either way, she is in Perryville.

Not a nice place.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

She's in Perryville.

I do.

Yeah.

She's in Perryville in the Santa Cruz unit.

She has, let's see, she's only 5'1.

5'1.

Yeah, she's 5'1.

That's just like Sarah.

Her prison release date, projected eligible release date, is June 3rd, 2052.

She's got a minute.

Got a few minutes in there.

Now, Eduardo, on the other hand, he has an exact same release date.

I think it's a couple, it's like two weeks earlier.

It's May 20th, 2052, because he got arrested two weeks earlier than her.

That's all it is.

And he's in Red Rock.

Red Rock?

In Eloy.

Oh, oh, that's not good.

No, that is out there.

Oh, that's so hot.

Wow.

That's

miserable.

Holy shit.

He's there.

He's in medium-moderate custody class, I see.

And he had a couple of infractions in jail.

What did he do?

Possession or manufacture of an intoxicating substance.

Dude, he's making Pruno.

Yep.

And then a few months later, positive test or refusal of urinalysis, one or two.

I wonder why.

Doing whatever he can in there.

His jobs have been as a maintenance helper and then at the

apostology?

Apostolic.

Apostolic.

There you go.

Apostolic

chapel, which religious shit he's doing, basically.

He's going to refill the fucking wafers.

So there you go, everybody.

There is the story.

By the way, very quickly, there's another Matt Meisner, same exact spelling of the name, everything like that, who was murdered in Tempe in 2020 in July.

Don't name your, if your last name is Misener, don't do it.

Five months later.

Skip biblical names.

There's now a Matthews law because his cats were stuck in his apartment and they made a law so landlords have to let people get in and get pets.

So that's pretty interesting.

But there you go.

There's Clifton, Arizona, and all that crazy shit.

Wow.

You enjoyed that.

That's a wild story.

If you enjoyed that, please get on whatever app you're on and give us five stars.

It helps tremendously.

I'm telling you, we don't know why, but it helps drive us up the charts.

Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com.

Tickets for live shows.

If you are within the two-week window after April the 19th, you can still get the 420 virtual live show.

It was great.

The story was great.

Jimmy was, we got very stoned too.

Oh, my God.

Kept the story together.

It was a really, really good show.

Very funny stuff.

And our costumes were fun too.

So get that also at the Riviera in Chicago, May 17th.

Get your tickets for that.

The night before is sold out.

So get them right there.

ShutupandGiveMemeMurder.com.

Follow on social media at Small town murder on Instagram at small townpod on Facebook.

Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all the bonus material.

Anybody, $5 a month or above, you get hundreds of episode deep back catalog to binge immediately upon subscription.

New ones every other week.

One crime and sports, one small town murder.

You get it all this week, which you're going to get.

For crime and sports, we're going to do fraternity hazing part two.

Crazy fucking stories.

Then for small town murder, the Lori Vallo Daybelt trial.

She represented herself, watched every minute of it.

We're going to talk all about it because it's a lot of fucking fun.

We'll talk about the jurors, what they thought afterwards, too, and her interview and all of that shit.

That is shut up, or I'm sorry, that's patreon.com slash crime in sports.

And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show.

If you want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com, drop down menus.

Take anywhere you want to go.

That's it.

Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

And until next week, it's been our pleasure.

Bye.

Small-town murder is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians, these are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds.

Visit progressive.com to see if you could save.

Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, but potential savings will vary, not available in all states or situations.

At Coldwater Creek, we take a thoughtful approach to design, giving attention to what matters most to you.

From quality fabrics to the fits you love to artful details that captivate.

Coldwater Creek caters to your wardrobe in every season, for every occasion, and in every size.

We create comfortable, confident styles with endless versatility that reflect the life you live.

Discover why Coldwater Creek is the sought-after choice in women's clothing.

For new seasonal looks, shopcoldwatercreek.com.