Cynthia Coates

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

Smart choice.

Progressive loves to help people make smart choices.

That's why they offer a tool called AutoQuote Explorer that allows you to compare your progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies.

So you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you.

Give it a try after this episode at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

Not available in all states or situations.

Prices vary based on how you buy.

Hey, it's Stephanie Gomolco with Oxygen.com.

When I'm running a marathon, I have enough to worry about.

My hydration, to my time, to how my knee is feeling.

The last thing I need to worry about is blisters.

Thanks to Bombas, that hasn't been an issue.

Don't let bad socks and blisters stop you in your tracks either.

Bombas make slides, socks, and seamless essentials to keep up with however you pace your days.

Bombas offers sweat-wicking blister fighting and impact cushioning socks.

You can also order Bombas abroad.

That's right.

Along with the US, they now ship internationally to over 200 countries.

Head over to bombas.com and use code Snapped for 20% off your first purchase.

That's B-O-M-B-A-S.com, code SNAPT, at checkout.

When a happily married couple is dealt a terrible tragedy, he had suffered several strokes and was a paraplegic.

They find a guardian angel in a handsome handyman.

He was a super great guy, always a smile on his face honest outgoing he wanted to be able to make a difference in somebody's life help them out

but when an unexpected death occurs in their inner circle it strikes terror in a tiny indiana town somebody had been waiting on him it was a predator almost hunting it's just unimaginable

As the investigation heats up, the list of potential suspects multiplies.

She believed that he had been stealing jewelry and money.

He had changed the garage code.

He was planning on firing the victim.

Who is the real killer, and what was their motive?

They were intimate in a romantic relationship for several years.

She kept saying she was only covering for them.

Evidence was buried in the grave.

That was the most morbid thing I've ever heard in my whole entire life.

October 25th, 2014.

It's just before 5 p.m.

in Kokomo, Indiana, when a frantic call comes into the Howard County Call Center.

Dispatch received a 911 call that a man discovered his caretaker face down inside the master bedroom.

Tommy Hammock was the homeowner.

Tommy was a paraplegic, utilized a wheelchair.

Tommy identifies the victim as one of his employees, 45-year-old Corey Story.

Tommy tells the 911 operator that Corey is lying unresponsive on his bedroom floor.

Patrol officers and paramedics are immediately dispatched to the scene.

When the officers arrived, he was laying face down on the floor.

They noticed blood on his back.

They discovered that he had suffered two gunshot wounds.

He was not alive.

It was determined that he was shot once in the back and once in the back of the head.

The officers obviously spoke with Tommy in length to find out his story.

How did he find him?

What time did he get home?

The basic investigative information that you get when you arrive on scene.

According to Tommy, he had just returned home from a birthday party minutes earlier.

His friend and the host of the party, Cynthia Copes, had dropped him off.

She helped him with his wheelchair and get him into the house.

And then, upon getting him into the house, she left.

She pulls away, and that's when he discovers Corey's body.

Who could have committed such a violent violent act?

At the very beginning, everyone's a suspect.

For 54-year-old Cynthia Coates, Kokomo, Indiana had always been home.

A born extrovert, Cynthia was known to everyone in town.

She doesn't know a stranger.

She loves to talk.

Personality is out of this world.

As a teenager, Cynthia met and fell in love with a man more than twice her age, factory worker Lewis Coates.

Like Cynthia, Lewis was extremely outgoing.

He was a character.

He was Lewis was a character.

I loved Lewis, you know.

Despite their age difference, Lewis and Cynthia shared the same outlook on life.

They were always outgoing.

They were always going to the boat, the casino.

Although they chose not to tie the knot, in 1977, Cynthia gave birth to the couple's first daughter, Stephanie.

Three years later, she and Lewis welcomed another daughter, Angel.

Cindy loves her daughters both dearly.

They were close as any mother and daughter can be.

Over the next two decades, Lewis and Cynthia worked hard to provide for their family.

Lewis put in long hours at a chemical plant while Cynthia worked at a local nursing home.

Even with two jobs and two children, Lewis and Cynthia still loved to cut loose every now and then.

Her and him enjoyed the casinos.

They went together, one lost, and the other one tried to help win the money back.

By 1999, Lewis and Cynthia's daughters were grown and living on their own, which allowed the couple to spend even more time together.

That same year, the couple got the news that they would be grandparents.

18-year-old Angel was pregnant.

She just wanted the baby taken care of.

However, that good news turned tragic just a month after the baby was born.

The baby, I believe, died from crib death, Sids.

That just broke Cynthia's heart.

In the painful aftermath of her granddaughter's death, Cynthia was determined to be there for Angel.

Together, they often visited baby Siendra's grave.

Cynthia was very sad about it.

She cared for the baby so much.

As Cynthia did her best to press on, she often found support in a family friend who had suffered a tragedy of his own.

Tommy Hammack was a gentleman that lived here in town.

He was wheelchair bound due to some strokes that he had suffered.

They just were family friends and they had known each other for several years.

Life dealt Cynthia another blow in 2009

when Lewis is faced with a similar situation to Tommy's.

Lewis, he had multiple strokes that paralyzed him.

For weeks, Lewis fought for his life.

Cynthia never left his bedside.

As Lewis began to recover, He and Cynthia decided to do something they once swore they'd never do.

That's when they made the decision.

They got married in the hospital.

Though the couple had finally said, I do, once Lewis was released from the hospital, Cynthia realized married life would be no honeymoon.

Lewis, he was paraplegic and he had to have 24-hour care.

He had a hard time, one, staying awake and two, keeping his thoughts together.

He was really hard to understand with how he talked and kind of go around in circles when he would talk.

Despite Lewis's struggles, Cynthia never wavered in her support for him.

Cindy was there 125%.

She was not going to let him go into a nursing company.

She would mow her own yard, do laundry.

She did it all, kept the house spotless.

That woman took care of that man.

While Cynthia's dedication was admirable, caring for her husband full-time took a toll, both emotionally and physically.

She was not very big, and he was a six foot tall man

that you had to do everything for.

So she bathed him, lifted him, rolled him.

It was a job.

By 2011, Cynthia was on the brink of exhaustion.

As if by fate, 42-year-old Corey Story entered the picture and became Cynthia's saving grace.

He used to go by with his lawnmower.

Down the road, he would mow yards for people.

I guess he must have stopped one day to see if she needed her yard mowed.

And that's how Cindy met Corey.

Corey grew up in Kokomo.

He was a super great guy, always a smile on his face, honest, outgoing.

Recognizing some of herself in the charismatic young man, Cynthia hired Corey on the spot.

He started out mowing yards, and then as she needed things, he would take care of that.

Corey was a natural caregiver.

That's what he pursued.

He wanted to be a nurse.

He wanted to be able to make a difference in somebody's life.

Having Corey around also made Cynthia realize just how isolated she'd become.

She was lonely looking for some type of companionship.

Corey was a funny person.

Cindy was a funny person.

They both were compatible and outgoing.

In 2012, Cynthia asked Corey to move in and help care for Louis 24-7.

Corey agreed.

Cynthia's friends could instantly tell that a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

You know, we're sitting down at the table having a glass of iced tea and I said, oh, how's that going?

She said, he's a big help because, you know, he's a big guy.

She said it takes a lot of pressure off of her.

With Corey around to help Lewis, Cynthia was able to carve out some much needed me time.

She loved to go to casinos, absolutely loved it.

That was what her and Lewis used to do.

And after Lewis becoming incapacitated, not being able to go, it was something she then had to do on her own or with, you know, a girlfriend or somebody that could go with her.

So she went quite a bit.

With Corey's help, Cynthia had regained some semblance of a personal life.

And Corey was such a natural fit as a caregiver that he began helping out with Cynthia's 65-year-old friend, Tommy Hammack.

Cindy had known Tommy from over the years.

He was rehabbing and he had to have 24-hour care.

Almost every day at four o'clock, Corey would help Tommy Hammock for a few hours.

Corey assisted Tommy with day-to-day activities and chores.

But all of that changed on the afternoon of October 25th, 2014, when Tommy Hammock called 911 to report finding Corey face down in a pool of blood.

At the crime scene, we found two shell casings.

One was towards the back of the room.

The second gun shell had been located right next to his body.

All options were open when I first saw the crime scene because it was just, it was so odd.

Coming up, is the sole witness also the prime suspect?

Tommy Hammock had two.380.380-caliber guns.

It was our belief that Tommy could possibly be a suspect at that point.

Or is someone else responsible for his murder?

When she accuses Corey of stealing, it makes him mad, so he accuses her.

By the fall of 2014, 54-year-old Kokomo, Indiana native Cynthia Coates had endured her fair share of personal tragedies, from the sudden death of her grandchild to her husband Lewis's debilitating stroke.

Now, Lewis's live-in caregiver, Corey Story, has been found shot to death inside the home of one of his patients, Cynthia's close friend, Tommy Hammock.

The victim was lying on the floor with his head towards the door.

There was not a lot of blood.

He had been shot in the head just behind the right ear.

He had also been shot in the back as well.

The house was not in disarray.

It was very clean.

Other than Mr.

Story's body lying there, everything else appeared to be normal, with the exception of two spent shell casings that we located on the bedroom floor.

Nothing really seemed to be disturbed.

Nothing was burglarized, and there were no items missing from the house.

It didn't appear to be a break-in.

They're usually going to take the items they want, ransack the house, and be gone.

They want to get in, get what they want to get, and get out before the homeowner's there.

The evidence just didn't support a robbery.

Yet, the evidence does raise another question.

Had Corey been the target of a planned attack?

There was really nothing to show that there might have been a struggle.

It appeared to me initially that somebody had been in the residence waiting on him to arrive for work that day.

Whoever killed Corey knew how to get into the house, and I think also knew what room they needed to go to to wait for Corey.

They waited for Corey to show up.

And the way the scene was processed, he was shot in the back first, and then he was shot in the head.

Judging by the crime scene, the first shot came from a distance.

It wasn't enough to kill him right away.

And so then it appeared as though the suspect then went up to him and then shot him in the head.

Corey's wallet is located on his body.

However, there are two things that police can't locate.

They did know a couple of missing items from Corey's person.

He was missing his cell phone.

Corey's car was parked in the driveway.

We knew for sure we were missing his car keys.

As investigators continue to search the home for Corey's keys and cell phone, they make what could be an important discovery.

The weapon used to kill Corey was a.380 semi-automatic.

We know that just because the shell casings were on the floor.

Tommy Hammack had two.380 caliber guns.

Having discovered the two.380s, detectives turn their attention to the homeowner, Tommy Hammock.

I made arrangements for him to be transported to the Kokomo Police Station for interviews.

He was looked at as a suspect in this case.

In an interview at the Kokomo Police Department, Tommy explains his whereabouts in the hours prior to the shooting.

His demeanor was very, very calm.

Tommy tells detectives that one of his other caregivers, Tiffany Perry, had been with him until roughly one o'clock that afternoon.

That's when his friend Cynthia picked him up.

He had been picked up by Cynthia Coates earlier that day.

After getting him in her vehicle, she drove him to her and Lewis's residence, which is on the north north end of Kokomo, for a birthday party for her husband.

According to Tommy, the party ended around 4 p.m., at which point he and Cynthia left.

Cynthia Coates took Mr.

Hammack home.

After the party, Mr.

Story's car was sitting in the driveway.

He said that Cindy helped him get out of the vehicle, get him into his wheelchair, and she wheeled him up to the landing.

She did not go into the house.

Tommy says Corey's shift was scheduled to start at 4 p.m.

that day.

So he wasn't surprised to see Corey's car in the driveway.

But he was surprised to see the garage door open.

Garage door's up.

And Tommy immediately thinks that's odd because he had just had his garage code changed.

Corey did not even have the code to the garage door.

Mr.

Hammock wheeled himself into the residence.

That's when he found Mr.

Story lying dead.

Tommy adds, there was a reason Corey didn't have the code to the garage.

Earlier in the day, he had changed the garage code.

He was planning on firing the victim, Corey Story, and not having to work for him as a caregiver anymore.

We learned that Tommy had been told that Corey had stole from him while working, and Tommy was concerned enough about that that he had had the code changed earlier that day.

According to Tommy, he had learned of the alleged theft from his primary caregiver, Tiffany.

Tiffany had spoken with Mr.

Hammock and telling him that she believed that Corey had been stealing jewelry and money from Mr.

Hammock.

Investigators asked Tommy point blank, had this alleged theft prompted him to confront Corey at gunpoint?

According to Tommy, the answer is no.

After interviewing him, he had provided us with an account of what he had done that day and we began talking to other people and corroborated all of what he said.

If Tommy Hammock hadn't pulled the trigger, then who did?

Tommy tells police that when his caretaker Tiffany accused Corey of stealing from him, Corey immediately fired back with a similar accusation.

Corey was telling Mr.

Hammock that Tiffany was stealing from him.

When she accuses Corey of stealing, he accuses her.

They both were just trying to point the finger at each other.

It was a tit-for-tat situation.

Is it possible the rift prompted Tiffany to grab one of the guns in the house to shoot Corey?

Tiffany did come on the radar because we had a lot of accusations between Tommy, Corey, and Tiffany.

Everybody wanted to blame somebody else.

When Corey's autopsy report comes back, the results seem to confirm that Tommy is not the shooter.

It appeared as though the shot into his back was pretty much straight on.

Due to the angle of the shot with Mr.

Hammock being wheelchair bound, it did not appear as though he would be able to fire that shot from sitting in a wheelchair from the corner and then get past the victim and get into the living room and then call the police.

That initially gives police reason to believe that Tiffany may have used one of Tommy's 380s to kill Corey.

But an examination of the two weapons soon puts that theory on ice.

We knew that Tommy owned two handguns.

They were both.38 caliber.

We located both of those, and neither one were able to be fired.

They were not in working order.

Though police have ruled out Tommy's handguns as potential murder weapons, Tiffany is still at the top of the suspect list.

We knew Tiffany handed Tommy off to Cynthia to take him to the birthday party, and we knew that Corey was to come on duty at four o'clock.

Coming up, detectives uncover a relationship gone sideways.

She started with the text messages threatening, tearing his clothes up, just being crazy.

She comes screeching around the corner, gets out of the car wearing no shoes.

Let's go!

Bravos, the real housewives of Salt Lake City are back.

Here we are, ladies.

I don't like it.

And they're taking things to the next level.

You know, some people just get on your nerves.

You questioned every single thing I have.

You're supposed to be my sister.

I am your sister.

No, you're not.

We have to be honest about this.

I'm afraid.

You should pay the losses off.

No one sues the bottom.

They all go for the top.

Can I have the crazy pill at Yalta?

Apparently, you're already taking it.

The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, September 16th, I'm Bravo.

And streaming on Peacock.

Streaming now on Peacock.

We sell toilet tissue and local newspapers.

That is in order of quality.

From the crew that brought you the office.

My name is Ned Sampson.

I am your new editor-in-chief.

Comes a new comedy series.

Have you read this paper?

Uh-huh.

It sucks.

But we are going to make it better.

Meet the underdog journalists.

I hope it's not too disruptive to have me shake everything off.

Don't be so self-defecating.

With major issues.

Oscar.

Oh, God.

Not again.

The paper.

Only on Peacock.

Streaming now.

October 25th, 2014.

Local caregiver Corey Story has been found shot to death inside the home of his client, Tommy Hammack.

According to Tommy, Corey and his other caregiver, Tiffany, had accused each other of stealing.

We don't know what their history is with each other, but we know they both pointed the finger at each other when accusations were being made that they were both stealing from Tommy.

The garage door was left open, which was weird and out of place.

It was not left open whenever they left.

According to Mr.

Hammock, Tiffany was only one of three total people that knew the new garage code.

Investigators immediately shift their focus to Tiffany.

In a case like this, you look at everybody that is involved.

in that house with the homeowner.

We knew Tiffany had been with him all morning and cared for him.

According to Tiffany, around 1 p.m.

on the afternoon of the murder, she helped Tommy's longtime friend, 54-year-old Cynthia Coates, load Tommy into Cynthia's car.

She shut the garage door and they pulled away at the same time.

Cynthia pulled away with Tommy and Tiffany pulled away.

Tiffany claims she never came back to Tommy's house.

and never crossed paths with Corey.

Tiffany went home, said she left her cell phone in the house.

She went out and started mowing her lawn and had no idea anything had happened until she came in later and saw on her telephone that somebody was calling saying something's going on at Tommy's house.

As for the dueling theft allegations, Tiffany admits she believed Corey had been stealing from Tommy.

Nonetheless, she insists the accusation was legitimate and in no way personal.

In fact, Tiffany tells detectives she'd never even met Corey face to face.

I think they had spoken over the phone maybe, but

to my knowledge they had never really met because of the shifts that they worked is why they never really ran into each other.

Tiffany also says she has several neighbors who can vouch that she was mowing her yard at the time the murder allegedly occurred.

We looked at her pretty hard.

We looked at her phone records.

Phone records did not show any suspicious activity during the time that the crime had occurred.

She had an alibi.

We determined that she was not involved in the crime.

With Tiffany cleared of any wrongdoing, investigators reach out to Corey's loved ones, starting with Corey's lifelong friend, Candias Scott Moore.

Candias tells police that Corey was adored by nearly everyone who knew him.

I met Corey as a child.

We became friends and Corey was the nicest person in the world.

Corey was a protector.

I've always thought of Corey as my guardian.

In fact, Candias tells police that there was only one person with whom Corey wasn't on good terms, and it wasn't Tiffany Perry.

It was Cynthia Coates.

The detective asked me what the relationship was between Corey and Cynthia, and I told him how volatile it was and that Corey was scared of her.

Candias explains that it hadn't always been that way.

When Corey first moved in as Lewis's caregiver, things went smoothly.

So smoothly that months after moving in, he and Cynthia began having an affair.

Cynthia and Corey had gotten together.

They were intimate in a romantic relationship for several years.

You know, obviously, she was lonely and she had feelings.

Corey liked her because she paid him attention.

She kind of catered to him.

However, according to Candias, as time went on, the relationship became a source of angst for Corey.

Corey struggled with the fact that she was married.

He didn't like it.

Corey wasn't a super religious person, but he did have beliefs and he did have things that his family had taught him growing up that that was something that he wasn't supposed to do.

That wasn't right.

Candia says two weeks before he was killed, Corey decided to break things off with Cynthia.

Corey just...

wasn't feeling it.

He just thought it was a level of disrespect that he shouldn't be crossing.

Corey moved out.

He felt as though he needed to get out of that situation the best he could.

And it was then that he moved into his friend's house.

Cynthia went crazy when Corey told her he didn't want to be with her anymore.

She started with the text messages threatening him, tearing his clothes up, just being crazy.

According to Candias, over the next few days, Corey continued caring for Lewis and truly believed Cynthia would eventually calm down.

Instead, her rage only got worse.

In fact, Cynthia was so filled with jealousy, she even accused Corey and Candias of sleeping with each other.

She assumed that the relationship that Corey and I had was more than just a friendship.

She couldn't believe after everything that she claimed that she had done for Corey that he was going to leave her.

Candias tells detectives that over the next several days, Cynthia continued sending Corey threatening text messages, each one more menacing than the last.

I'm gonna kill you.

She said that so many times.

She threatened his life more times than I can even count.

At first, I don't think he was scared.

And then, as it continued and the level of craziness went to the highest level, he was scared of her.

He told me he was scared.

According to Candy, Corey said that if anything happened to him, that Cynthia would definitely be the suspect that she's crazy enough to kill him.

In spite of Candias' allegations, investigators are skeptical that Cynthia is in fact Corey's killer.

After all, at the time of the murder, she was hosting a birthday party for her husband, Lewis.

We know she planned a birthday party.

She went to pick Tommy up at his residence.

She brought Tommy back to her house where they celebrated Lewis's birthday party.

She had an alibi.

Even so, investigators believe Cynthia's allegedly threatening behavior warrants further investigation.

At 6.45 p.m., they ask her to come down to the station.

We had a phone call with her, and she told us that she was at the casino, which is about an hour away.

She said that she would return.

It's a long way.

She stated that it would take her around 55 minutes.

While investigators wait for Cynthia to return, they phone some of the guests who attended her husband's birthday birthday party.

What they have to say pokes a potential hole in Cynthia's otherwise airtight alibi.

We learned that Cynthia had left the party at one point.

It's debatable as to how long she was gone, but we had been told maybe up to an hour or two she had been gone from the birthday party.

Cynthia told the people at her husband's birthday party that she was going to go and get her car washed.

Whenever she returned, people at the party noted that the car had not been washed.

It did raise red flags.

We felt it was odd that she would leave her husband's birthday party to go wash her vehicle.

That in itself did not make a lot of sense to us.

After speaking to the partygoers, investigators head to Cynthia's house to await her return from the casino.

It was there that they ran into Cynthia as she was pulling into the driveway.

She comes screeching around the corner.

She was very very nervous.

She gets out of the car wearing no shoes.

Cynthia got out of the vehicle and she was only wearing socks.

She wasn't wearing shoes.

And we thought that was kind of odd.

Said she just decided on the way to the casino that she didn't like the shoes anymore.

They had done their job.

She threw them out the window.

Investigators ask a shoeless Cynthia to come down to the station for a formal interview.

Once there, Cynthia admits to the affair with with Corey, but she also makes another stunning admission.

According to Cynthia,

her husband was aware of the situation that she was romantically involved with Corey, and her words are, because he was paraplegic, he was okay with her being involved with someone else.

Lewis was vying with her having an intimate relationship with someone else because he was unable to.

As for the alleged threats against Corey, Cynthia claims the two former lovers ended things amicably and that she was the one who had encouraged Corey to move out.

As for Corey's murder, Cynthia says that she's heartbroken over it.

She said she knew nothing of the murder.

She was surprised that he had been shot and killed.

She was upset about it.

But what about Cynthia's noticeable absence during her husband's birthday party?

Cynthia admits she did leave the party, but not for nearly as long as some of the guests suggested.

She said that she was going to go get her vehicle washed, and after leaving the house and making in a few blocks from the house, she decided that she was not going to get it washed and returned back to the party.

The discrepancy between Cynthia's story and that of the partygoers is a red flag for detectives, as is her lack of footwear.

She was not wearing shoes.

I believe that she may have possibly had blood on her shoes.

Yet for all their suspicions, investigators have no concrete proof that Cynthia killed Corey.

We did not have enough evidence at that time to detain her for the murder.

At the end of the interview, she was allowed to leave.

Coming up, with a killer still on the loose, detectives receive a much-needed break in the case.

There was a phone call stating that she had information relating to this case.

And make a discovery unlike anything they've seen before.

Upon approaching the headstone, the dirt had been obviously turned over.

I thought it was extremely sickening.

Between a bitter breakup and a sketchy alibi, Cynthia Coates has become the prime suspect in the murder of her former lover, Corey Story.

Everything that we did kept referring back to Cynthia as being the main suspect in this case.

Despite their suspicions, police are unable to charge Cynthia with any crime.

It was hard because there was no witnesses and no real solid physical evidence.

Then, on October 28th, just days into their investigation, detectives get a phone call that changes everything.

There was a phone call from a person who worked with Angel Benson, the daughter of Mrs.

Coates, stating that she had information relating to this case.

We had received an anonymous tip that Cynthia's daughter, who worked at a factory in Kokomo, she had confided in a coworker that her mother had shot somebody.

Ms.

Benson took a phone call, came came back distraught, made a comment to the effect of, I think my mom shot someone.

This person also had details about the shooting, that he had been shot once in the back and once in the head.

The call further cements detectives' suspicions about Cynthia.

Though what the caller says next truly catches them off guard.

The same phone call revealed that there might be evidence that police could use buried in the grave of Cynthia's grandchild.

Upon learning this information, we were able to determine that, in fact, Angel did have a daughter that passed away.

It had been several years ago, and she was buried in the cemetery in Kokomo.

We went to the cemetery, spoke to cemetery workers, gave them the numbers that we had, the plot numbers, and we were able to determine the exact location, at least by the numbers, where the baby was buried.

buried.

Mr.

Story's keys with a key fob and cell phone were missing, so we were searching for those, obviously searching for a murder weapon.

Just to the north of the headstone was a small area where the dirt had been obviously turned over and then replaced back into the hole.

What we located were Corey Story's car keys, which we knew were missing from his vehicle or from his person at the scene.

We located parts of a cell phone and we located rubber gloves.

At that point, we were confident that these items had been taken from him during or after the murder.

It's a critical discovery, albeit an unsettling one.

Miss Benson's daughter, I believe, was approximately one month old, and her headstone indicates that.

And to go take this evidence involving a murder and bury that in that spot causes me great concern.

It is disturbing.

With this new evidence in hand, investigators bring Cynthia's daughter, 34-year-old Angel Benson, in for an interview.

At first, Angel is reluctant to talk.

Angel was very distraught over this as she learned the information that we were learning.

She knew things didn't add up.

She knew things were pointing to her mother, and it was hard for her.

She had a hard time.

When we told her that we actually found them at her child's grave, she was very distraught.

That really seemed to bother her.

At that time, she did admit that her mom told her that she had shot and killed Corey.

Angel tells detectives that, like her wheelchair-bound father, she and her sister Stephanie long ago accepted the fact that her mother and Corey were sleeping together.

That is, until Cynthia came to them with some disturbing allegations.

Cynthia began making the allegations that Corey was abusing her from time to time, and then the family began getting upset.

With Corey, there's two different pictures painted.

His friend's family talk about how kind he was and a great guy.

However, if you speak to Cynthia's family, they talk about him being angry, being abusive.

Angel believes it was the abuse that drove her mother to murder Corey.

Whether or not that is in fact the case, Angel's statement provides detectives with the necessary probable cause to make their next move.

We filed charges on October the 28th, 2014.

A warrant was issued for Ms.

Coates' arrest for the charge of murder, and she was arrested that day.

That's when it hit me, and it was like, she snapped.

She really did this.

I was shocked that Cindy had done something like that.

Shocked, but not surprised.

My sister called me and told me that she had been locked up.

I was happy.

There was hope in my mind that his death would be vindicated, that this woman would go to jail for the rest of her life.

Coming up, the case against Cynthia hits an unexpected roadblock.

There were competency hearings conducted as it related to her competency to stand trial in this case.

And jailhouse recordings suggest there may be more to the crime than meets the eye.

She kept saying how Angel and her husband did the crime and that she was only covering for them.

On October 28, 2014, 54-year-old Kokomo, Indiana resident Cynthia Coates has been arrested for the murder of her former lover, Corey Story, who was also the live-in caregiver to Cynthia's paralyzed husband, Lewis.

Now that Cynthia is in custody, investigators hope she will come clean about the crime.

We tried to interview her again,

and every interview that we did with her continued to become more and more bizarre as to the things she was saying had occurred.

She had tried to implicate people as suspects and then would say she didn't name them as suspects and then say that they weren't involved.

Every time that we talked to her, we just kind of went around in circles.

We ultimately stopped trying to interview her at a certain point and just continued on with the investigation.

But when they record the phone calls Cynthia makes from jail, investigators discover another possible motivation for Cynthia's cryptic behavior.

When she's in the jail, she called her daughter Stephanie.

She kept saying how Angel and her husband did the crime and that she was only covering for them.

Could there be any truth to Cynthia's allegations?

Or was this just a smokescreen?

Almost two years later, in September of 2016, as Cynthia's case inches closer to trial, investigators work to uncover the truth.

Angel had an alibi.

We knew Angel was at work.

Phone calls proved that.

Everything we have checked out with her.

We had checked her time card as far as when she was at work.

We spoke to supervision as well as we watched video and everything else.

I didn't think that Angel had anything to do with it.

That you're willing to throw your own daughter, who's been through so much, has lost a child, has always been supportive of you, you throw your own daughter under the bus for a murder that you did?

That, to me, is the ultimate narcissistic personality.

After piecing together phone records, physical evidence, and the statements from Cynthia's friends and family, investigators believe they have a clear picture of precisely how the crime went down.

Corey was supposed to arrive for work at 4 p.m.

that day.

I believe Cynthia knew that.

Cynthia left the birthday party and, I believe, parked her vehicle somewhere where Corey wouldn't see it.

And I think she either had a key or knew the new code to the garage door and went inside and was waiting for him when he arrived for work.

I believe she lay in wait in the bedroom.

Ms.

Coates was hiding maybe in a closet and he walked in.

It would appear maybe he

and was shot in the back.

Then he was shot in the head, which resulted in his death.

As far as motive, investigators don't put much weight in Cynthia's claims that Corey had been abusing her.

Cynthia did claim to her children that Corey had been abusive to her.

However, there were no police reports.

There was nothing ever filed, no contact orders.

There was nothing ever in the system to show that she had been a victim of any beatings from Corey.

I think it was jealousy that finally drove her to kill Corey.

She didn't want that relationship to end.

She didn't want him seeing anyone else.

As the case against Cynthia makes its way towards trial, investigators and prosecutors know it's going to be anything but smooth sailing.

We did not locate the weapon

and not having a murder weapon does have the impact on the state's case.

You kind of have to to ask yourself, like, if this went to a jury trial, what would that look like?

How would a prosecutor account for a missing murder weapon?

We didn't have a confession from her, even with all this evidence that we had.

As far as the case, it wasn't just a slam dunk.

Prosecutors expect Cynthia's attorneys to use the missing murder weapon to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of jurors.

What they don't expect is for Cynthia's attorneys to claim their client is mentally incapable of standing trial at all,

which is precisely what they do.

There were competency hearings conducted as it related to her ability to stand trial in this case.

She was examined by doctors to determine whether she had that capability.

I was reasonably sure that she would be deemed incompetent in the early parts of this case.

The doctors who examined her determined that she was competent to stand trial.

She does suffer from a mental illness, but that mental illness did not rise to a level that would have her deemed incompetent under the laws of the state of Indiana.

Cindy was crazy, but she kind of hid her crazy very well, and she was basically functional.

Even with Cynthia cleared to stand trial, prosecutors aren't sure a guilty verdict is a done deal.

Juries are unpredictable, and the worst possible outcome in this case was for Mrs.

Coates to go free, to walk out.

And we took that risk off the table by entering into the plea agreement.

Cynthia took a plea deal just a couple of days before the jury trial was scheduled.

She admitted that she knowingly or intentionally on or about October the 25th, 2014, killed Corey Story on Quail Drive here in Kokomo, Indiana while acting under the sudden heat, which is voluntary manslaughter.

The judge sentenced her to 20 years in prison, followed by 10 years on supervised probation.

The plea offers bittersweet closure to Corey's family and friends.

I don't think she got enough time.

She needs to spend the rest of her life being miserable.

She took someone's life.

She took someone's friend.

She took someone's son.

Corey's never coming back.

She never wanted to accept the responsibility of her actions.

She tried to play it off as being crazy, temporary insanity.

She was caught up in all of her emotions.

No, you knew exactly what you were doing.

I think she's evil.

I think it's all about her.

She doesn't care what anybody thinks.

She's going to do what she wants to do.

And she snapped.

Cynthia Coates will be eligible for parole from the Indiana Women's Prison in 2029.

She will be 69 years old.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

It's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts.

I'm Alina Urquhart, and I'm Ash Kelly.

And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.

The stories we cover are well researched.

Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group.

With a touch of humor.

Shout out to her.

Shout out to all my therapists out the years.

There's been like eight of them.

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

That motherfucker is not real.

And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Way Back Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid.

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.