Sarah Jo Pender

Hey, it's Stephanie Gomolko 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 U.S., 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.

Affordable and easy access to therapy is something everyone should have.

It can help you find the silver linings even during tough times.

Telehealth is one-way accessibility is more convenient than ever.

thanks to Rula.

Rula isn't just affordable.

They stick with you throughout your journey to make sure you're getting the best therapy and that you're making progress.

With Rula, every provider is carefully vetted and chosen for their expertise, making the first step towards better mental health easy.

Rula starts by asking you some questions about what is important to you and then provides a list of licensed providers who match your preferences.

You can have an appointment as soon as the next day.

Thousands have already trusted Rula to support them on their journey toward improved mental health and overall well-being.

Head over to rula.com slash snapped to get started today.

After you sign up, they ask where you heard about them.

Please support our show and tell them our show sent you.

Go to rula.com slash snapped and take the first step towards better mental health today.

You deserve quality care from someone who cares.

When Sarah Pender met Richard Hull, the attraction was immediate.

I'm already picturing like our house in the suburbs.

I'm already putting together our American dreams, but their reality would be a bit more crowded.

He says, hey, I have a buddy and his girlfriend wanting to come up.

Do you mind if they come here and stay with us for a couple days?

The arrangement didn't last for long.

Their roommates have been found dead.

Her whole head was misshapen.

It didn't even look like a real person.

We were dealing with a double homicide.

The investigation of the gruesome crime led to a startling confession.

And a jury would have to decide, was Sarah a criminal mastermind?

I referred to her as a female Charles Manson, or was she just a victim of circumstance?

You know, in every horror film, there's always some really stupid white girl that follows the trail of blood into the house.

I swear to God, that's real.

That's me.

Indianapolis, Indiana, October 25th, 2000.

It was around 6 p.m.

when a Teamster's employee stepped into the alley behind the union's local headquarters to put the day's trash into a dumpster.

There was an individual that opened up the lid and saw two bodies inside the dumpster.

A man and a woman riddled with what appeared to be multiple shotgun wounds.

Both bodies were all but mutilated.

There's nothing worse than a body that's been hit with shotgun pellets.

The injuries that they sustained were horrific.

The stunned employee immediately called the police.

It's not the highest crime part of town.

So the fact that this was a shotgun and the murder made this a little different.

And once the police arrived, one thing quickly became apparent.

They weren't looking at the original crime scene.

There wasn't a lot of blood or coagulated blood that was inside the dumpster, which would be an indication to us that the dump site was different from the kill site.

The police had no clue as to where the couple had been killed.

In fact, they didn't even know their identities.

These individuals, they didn't have any type of identification.

Their extensive injuries meant the victims' faces were essentially unrecognizable, too.

But that didn't mean they were impossible to identify.

Both victims had several distinctive tattoos.

They released the pictures of these tattoos.

People may recognize, oh, I know that tattoo.

And then you will start getting leads.

By the next afternoon, the investigators had the victims' names.

Neighbors recognized those tattoos as belonging to Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman.

But when the police went to the house where Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman had been staying, They soon had another mystery on their hands.

The couple's housemates, 21-year-old Sarah Pender and 22-year-old Richard Hull, were also missing.

Their roommates have been found dead.

We definitely want to find them.

Born in 1979, Indiana native Sarah Pender was only five years old when her parents split and her mother moved to California, leaving Sarah and her older sister with their father.

He had custody of them and he did a great job, you know, trying to do the best as a single parent.

And

it was hard.

By the time Sarah turned seven, her mother was back in Indianapolis and back in her daughters' lives.

They'd be with me,

you know, every weekend and they'd live with me in the summer.

Despite her mother's return, Sarah struggled as she entered her teens.

When I was in high school,

I went through the phase of trying to feed the emptiness inside of me with boys or drugs and, you know, drinking the person.

And that didn't work out real well for me.

However, by senior year, it looked as if Sarah's rebellious phase had passed.

I cleaned up my act and I graduated high school and decided to go to college.

I didn't really worry too much about her because it was like she knew how to keep herself out of trouble and keep her head in her books.

Sarah got into Purdue University, but after a year of studies, money ran short, so she dropped out and went to work.

I found a job at a small construction office and worked my way up from being a secretary to doing reading blueprints.

She was also offered to be gone to drafting school and to where she could go out and do the estimates on the jobs and things like that.

Although only 20, Sarah appeared well on her way to success.

I'm paying my bills.

I don't have debt.

I own my own car.

You know, I'm doing great.

Life is good.

She soon had a new man in her life, too.

Sarah met 22-year-old Richard Hull at a concert in July of 2000.

Before I even saw his face or knew his name, I heard his laughter.

So you have this joyous laughter coming from this bear of a man.

And

I see a silhouette, and he's got a...

a beer in one paw and a cigarette in the other and his shirt's open and he's got this little round belly that just jiggles jiggles when he laughs and i thought oh my gosh i want to meet that man a mutual friend made the introduction and that was all it took and we hit it off instantly it's an instant attraction i i believe so i mean we had fun i mean we're both like flamboyant you know outgoing personalities both of us A former high school football star from the nearby small town of Noblesville, Richard seemed larger than life.

It looks like a big meathead, you know?

I mean, even in kindergarten, I weighed 103 pounds.

I was like a little doughboy, you know.

Within a month, Richard had moved in and Sarah was planning their future together.

We just never left each other after that.

We were together.

That was it.

I'm already picturing, like, our house in the suburbs.

You know, I'm already putting together our American dream house.

There were a few things standing in Sarah's way, though.

Not only was her new boyfriend essentially unemployed, he also had a rap sheet.

Richard kind of got involved up in the drug culture and kind of started

steering down the wrong track.

I had issues with alcohol and then later on came into drugs.

I was my own worst enemy.

As far as Sarah was concerned, Richard's past didn't matter, at least not at first.

She said that he was very, very good to her, very caring.

and very attentive to Sarah, you know, and Sarah just kind of glowed and

it made me feel good, but I still, I still wasn't quite comfortable with the situation yet.

You know, I didn't really know him and that, but she seemed content.

Then in early August, just a few days after moving in with Sarah, Richard asked if an old friend could crash at the apartment.

He says, hey, I have a buddy and his girlfriend want to come up.

Do you mind if they come here and stay with us for a couple days?

His name was Andrew Cataldi.

And like Sarah, he'd first met Richard at a concert.

I was like a security guard bouncer I guess, you know, hence.

And I met Drew.

He was passed out on a, you know, top of a trailer.

I ended up helping Drew get down and everything.

And I ended up giving him my phone number.

And lo and behold, we just stayed in touch after that.

According to Richard, Andrew and his girlfriend Tricia Nordman had recently fallen on hard times.

Tricia Nordman and Andrew Catolli had had some brushes with the law.

Then he tells me, okay, by the way, they walked away from a halfway house and they have warrants.

But since Richard vouched for his friends, Sarah said sure.

It's a halfway house.

You know, you walk away from the halfway house, that's not dangerous, you know.

Okay.

When Andrew and Tricia showed up a few days later, Sarah figured she had made the right call.

Drew is very, a very outgoing guy.

You know, he's very charismatic and they're very brotherly, you know, hey, bro, you know, big hugs.

Trish is very quiet, very polite, and real sweet.

And I, you know, and so I'm like, this is great.

In fact, the couples got on so well that a week later, they even decided to rent a house together.

The apartment that we were in was only a one bedroom, so we ended up getting a house that was literally down the street from Sarah's work.

We're all moving in together.

And I just think it's like college being in college, and you get roommates, you don't know.

Drew and Trish stayed in one room, and Sarah and I had another.

I mean, you know, we'd share household work.

Paying the rent was a bit more problematic.

Sarah Pender was the only one of the four people living at the house that was working.

She was like an assistant office manager, you know,

clerks,

clerk type of thing.

She made good money.

Although, as Richard explained to Sarah, Andrew and Trisha made good money too.

He told me that they were going to sell drugs.

Sarah didn't object on one condition.

My only request was don't sell him out of the house.

He said, okay.

According to Sarah, Richard joined their new business and for the next few weeks, things went well between the roommates.

At least Sarah thought so.

Thanks to their irregular business hours, she rarely saw Andrew and Tricia.

I worked a Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 job.

Drew got up here, you know, we

did our thing and we had our own money and everything and we did what we had to do.

But But according to Sarah, she eventually did see signs of tension between Richard and their roommates.

Towards the end of September, I came home and there was a hole in my wall.

And I was like,

why is there a hole in my wall?

He says, well, that's where Drew's fist went through.

According to Richard, the disagreement stemmed from their business.

Or more precisely, it was due to their products, mostly meth and marijuana, which all four housemates frequently sampled.

I'm not going to sit there and act like, you know, it was just him.

I mean, we all partied and did the drugs.

Even Sarah, although she did try to keep things under control.

She participated, but she was not one

to overdo anything because of her job.

Andrew didn't have as much restraint, according to Richard.

There's a difference between abuse and abuse.

And he wouldn't even stop.

It was just constantly, daily.

Soon the arguments between the business partners became daily too.

Drew's really not a bad bad guy.

He really wasn't, but drugs change people.

They went from being like brothers and partners to really adversaries.

As the tension in the house mounted, Sarah says she told Richard that things needed to change.

I said, look, you know what?

Please just stop selling drugs.

Just get a real job and we can go settle down.

She was like, you really need to chill up.

He said, look, I can't do that, but I'll compromise.

I'll get a part-time job.

But the job, bouncing at a nearby nightclub, only escalated the drama between Andrew and Richard.

He's working on Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights, which is the best nights for what they are normally doing.

And by the middle of October, two months after moving into the house, the situation had finally become more than Sarah could take.

She didn't like fighting.

She didn't like disagreements.

She didn't like anything like that.

I was really concerned about that.

So I said something to Richard.

I said, you know, are you going to do something about that?

Coming up, Andrew and Trisha's bodies are discovered in a dumpster.

We were probably dealing with it with a double homicide.

But were there also two killers?

He saw two people loading the bodies into the truck.

Indianapolis, Wednesday, October 25th, 2000.

It was around 6 p.m.

when a Teamsters Union employee made a gruesome discovery in a dumpster behind the local headquarters.

This person in this case, you know, totally innocent, was just a person that found the bodies.

The bodies were of a man and a woman.

Both had been shot multiple times.

It was clear to us that we were probably dealing with a double homicide.

And based on the wounds, the couple had been killed with a shotgun.

A shotgun was put up right next to his chest and fired and just blew the inside of his chest away.

The female victim's injuries were even more horrific.

She was shot to her head with a 12-gauge shotgun firing deer slugs, which are big bullets, big lead bullets, right into her head.

Her whole head was misshapen and it didn't even look like a real person.

And that presented the investigators at the scene with a serious challenge.

These individuals, they didn't have any type of identification.

The victims' identities may have been a mystery, but did the dead man's pockets contain a clue as to why they died?

We did find methamphetamine, and we thought there's some type of drug involvement.

However, if the pair had died in a drug deal gone bad, it hadn't gone down in the alley where the bodies had been found.

Despite the gruesome injuries, the police found little evidence of blood in or around the dumpster.

It didn't appear from initial indication that this was the original scene of the murder.

They shot him and dumped him in a dumpster just a short distance away.

The fact that the victims had been dumped gave police a potential clue about the killer.

It may indicate that there is some type of relationship between the suspect and the victim because they want to distance themselves from the individual.

Either way, the first priority was identifying the bodies.

Hoping for a hit, the investigators entered both victims' fingerprints into the local police database.

90% of the time, many of our individuals that are victims have been in the system at some time.

They did not come up, which was a surprise to us.

Stymied at the local level, Indianapolis police turned to the state and federal databases.

But those checks would take time.

So in the interim, the investigators fell back to a less foolproof form of identification.

Tattoos.

They were distinctive tattoos that the victims had.

The next morning, pictures of the victims' tattoos and an appeal for the public's help ran on the local news.

Soon after, a caller identified the victims as 26-year-old Tricia Nordman and her boyfriend, 25-year-old Andrew Cataldi.

Police were able to piece together who these people were based on their tattoos.

By the next afternoon, the FBI database had confirmed Andrew and Tricia's identities and explained why their prints weren't on file locally.

The hits came out of, I believe, Las Vegas, Nevada.

So, you know, we were able to

contact the authorities back there and get their pack as...

Neither the caller nor the couple's Nevada file had an Indianapolis address for the victims.

But the file did provide something that would be useful, mugshots.

Indianapolis police spent most of that Thursday canvassing the neighborhood with the pictures.

We were able to determine that these individuals

lived on Michael Street within a three to four block area from the Teamsters local where the dumpster was found.

And they hadn't lived alone.

According to neighbors, Andrew and Tricia had shared the house for the last two and a half months with another couple, 21-year-old Sarah Pender and her 22-year-old boyfriend, Richard Hull.

What's more, Sarah and Richard's landlord told police that they had disappeared around the same time as Andrew and Tricia.

He hadn't seen their car there for like maybe like a day and a half.

Was it a coincidence?

The police didn't think so.

There was definite reasonable suspicion and probable cause for us to obtain a search warrant.

The detectives came out and

ended up going into the house.

And when they searched the house that afternoon, it didn't take the investigators long to determine that it was also the scene of the crime.

They awkwardly placed a couch in the middle of the room like we wouldn't have looked under the couch, but we moved the couch and definitely saw what we believed to be evidence of of where a large amount of blood from either victim was.

Soaked under the carpet, was on the walls, it's on the couch.

Elsewhere in the room, police found more bloodstains.

A bed had been moved over a big spot of blood that was on the carpet, and that was away from the couch.

It was fairly obvious getting into the house the way the furniture was arranged in this one room, what we believed to be the room where the individuals were killed.

As for who had killed andrew and tricia a picture was beginning to emerge according to what the neighbors told police the last they had seen of richard hull was wednesday morning when he'd come around looking to borrow something he asked to borrow a a three-prong into a two-prong plug richard hull that uh that wednesday had rented a rent spaced to try to clean the floors

and he needed a

an attachment because he could not plug the rinse back into the wall.

That would be what we call in the business another clue.

Clearly, Richard Hull knew something about the murders.

But what about Sarah?

Another neighbor whose motorhome was parked behind Sarah and Richard's rental house provided what appeared to be a crucial clue.

There was somebody nearby that got up in the middle of the night and looked out and saw two people loading the bodies into the truck.

By late Thursday afternoon, barely 24 hours after Andrew and Trisha's bodies had been discovered, Indianapolis police felt they were close to cracking the case.

We've identified these people.

They've been identified with the house.

The other two roommates haven't been seen.

Now all the police needed to do was find Sarah and her boyfriend.

Luckily, Richard Hull's criminal record provided a starting point for the manhunt.

Richard's mother's address, the family address, up in Noblesville.

So that's the best address that we have.

At 9 p.m.

that Thursday evening, Indianapolis investigators and Noblesville police started surveillance on Richard Hull's family home.

The police had only been watching the house a short time when Sarah and Richard arrived.

they drove up we surround the car

both sarah and richard were quickly taken into custody they knew who i was because of my past and everything

so um they picked me up in front of my house cuffed and placed in separate squad cars the couple was driven to the noblesville police station Although, according to Sarah, she didn't yet realize just how much trouble she was in.

I'm thinking I'm going to jail on possession of marijuana.

Not I'm going to jail on murder charges.

Coming up, Sarah tells the police what happened.

Trail of blood.

I'm coming out through the kitchen and out the back door.

But will the police believe her?

She wasn't just an innocent bystander.

You know, over the years, I've had my fair share of financial stress, overdraft fees out of nowhere, forgetting a payment and getting hit with penalties, or just wishing I had a better way to stretch my money between paychecks.

That's why I love what QIIME is doing.

As a fee-free banking app, QIIME understands that every dollar counts.

When you set up direct deposit through QIIME, you unlock fee-free features like free overdraft coverage, getting paid up to two days early with direct deposit, and so much more.

QIIME is banking done right.

You can open a checking account with no monthly fees and no maintenance fees.

And when you set up direct deposit, you can actually get paid up to two days early.

Imagine that.

Plus, with qualifying direct deposits, Chime has your back with free overdraft, up to $200 on debit card purchases and cash withdrawals.

No more sweating, that surprise coffee charge.

In fact, QIIIME has already spotted members over $30 billion to date.

And when it comes to access, you're covered with over 47,000 fee-free ATMs nationwide.

That's more than the top three national banks combined.

I use QIIME, and you should too.

Getting paid early has actually made budgeting easier for me.

It gives me a head start on rent, groceries, subscriptions, everything.

And I love getting those real-time alerts when I spend.

It keeps me way more aware of my daily habits.

And the thing I love most, Chime's customer support agents are available 24-7.

It's been super helpful to get the support I need when it works best for me, not trying to cram in extra calls during the workday.

Work on your financial goals through Chime today.

Open an account in two minutes at chime.com slash snapped.

That's chime.com slash snapped.

Chime feels like progress.

Chime is a financial technology company, not a bank.

Banking services and debit card provided by the Bank Corporation Bank NA or Stride Bank NA.

Members FDIC.

Spot me eligibility requirements and overdraft limits apply.

Timing depends on submission of payment file.

Fees apply at out-of-network ATMs, bank ranking, and number of ATMs, according to US News and World Report 2023.

Chime checking account required.

This show is sponsored by Liquid IV.

All right, so let's talk about the seasonal shift.

Summer's full of fun, late nights, and honestly, being a little too relaxed.

Then suddenly, bam, it's fall.

You're juggling a new work schedule, trying to get back into a routine, maybe even heading back to campus.

And if you're anything like me, that shift hits hard.

One thing that's seriously helped me stay focused and energized without feeling totally drained, Liquid IV's new energy multiplier, sugar-free hydrating energy.

I'm loving this stuff.

It gives me a clean energy boost without the crash or that weird jittery feeling you get from energy drinks.

I keep a few packets in my bag ready to go, whether I'm running between meetings, hitting the gym, or just need an afternoon pick-me-up.

It's super easy.

Tear, pour into six ounces of water, shake it up, and boom, hydration and energy simplified.

Personally, I'm obsessed with the lemon lime and yuzu pineapple flavors.

They taste so fresh and light.

Liquid IV isn't just about energy.

Just one stick hydrates better than water alone, and it's powered by LIV Hydroscience, which means you're getting an optimized ratio of electrolytes, eight essential vitamins, and clinically tested nutrients.

Plus, it's non-GMO, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and soy-free.

Whether you're powering through work, recharging after a workout, or trying to avoid that afternoon crash, Liquid IV has your back.

Get focused.

Ditch the glitch with zero sugar and zero crash from Liquid IV.

Tear, pour, live more.

Go to liquidiv.com and get 20% off your first order with code snapped at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order with code snapped at liquidiv.com.

October 27th, 2000.

At a little past midnight, 21-year-old Sarah Pender and her 22-year-old boyfriend Richard Hull were sitting in separate interrogation rooms at the Noblesville, Indiana Police Department.

Suspects and the murders of their housemates, Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, Indianapolis police had picked the pair up a few hours earlier outside the home of Richard's mother.

We took them in separate cars to the Noblesville Police Department where we started our interviews.

The police questioned Sarah first, figuring she would be easier to turn.

Many times, unless they law you're up,

we will work one

against the other.

And based on his criminal record, the police suspected Richard Hull had been the shooter.

My view was that he probably did pull the trigger.

That's basically what Sarah said in the interrogation room, too.

According to Sarah, Richard and Andrew had been arguing about money and drugs shortly before the shooting.

Tired of their fighting, Sarah said she had stepped out.

I walk around the neighborhood.

I decide, okay, I'm going to go get some cigarettes and just, you know, whatever.

Sarah told police that by the time she had returned home, Richard was already loading up the bodies.

I want to ask my son, what happened?

And he's like, shut up and get in the truck.

I'm shutting up.

I'm getting in the truck.

Sarah said she had been too scared to ask questions.

All I could see was like these black pupils.

It must have been from all the adrenaline, but I mean, all I saw were these black eyes.

And immediately the one clear thought I had was,

oh, I'm about to die.

She told police she got up and went to work on the morning of October 25th.

But when she got home that evening, Sarah said she had told Richard she couldn't stay in a house where two people had just been killed.

They got a motel room outside of Indianapolis and stayed there overnight.

Meanwhile, in the neighboring interrogation room, Richard was largely confirming Sarah's story.

They start interrogating him and he confesses.

Although, according to his confession, Richard had shot Andrew and Tricia in self-defense.

Richard Hull in his statement had indicated that he confronted Catolli because some of the things Catolli was saying and threatening Richard Hull's family, this is what Hull said,

that they struggled over the shotgun.

The detectives didn't buy it, especially since Trisha had been shot point-blank in the face.

How do you explain self-defense when you look at the cold-blooded murder of Tricia Nordman?

By the end of the day, the detectives had charged Richard Hull with the double murder of Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman.

But with her statement essentially confirmed by her boyfriend's confession, Sarah was set free.

They were treating me as the key witness or whatever, and

they let me go.

Sarah's Pender's statement place

made sense at that point.

She just got hooked up with the wrong guy.

Just how wrong was quickly becoming apparent as the crime scene text continued to piece together what had happened inside the house.

Preliminary testing of the blood found at the scene revealed that it was Andrew Cataldi's blood on the floor by the bed.

He wasn't sitting on the bed because the blood was on the floor away from the bed.

And it was Tricia Nordman's blood that the police had found underneath the couch.

Tricia Nordman was just sitting on the couch when she was obliterated.

Meanwhile, Andrew's autopsy provided a few more chilling details about the killings.

The pathologist told me that the angle of the shot was 30 30 degrees, meaning that Andrew Cataldi had to have been on his knees when he was shot.

Later that day, the investigators searched the hotel where Sarah and Richard had been staying.

Inside, they found the murder weapon and more.

We find the receipts that come back to the Walmart.

According to the date on the receipt, the shotgun had been purchased the day before the murders.

But the bigger surprise was who had made the purchase.

If Sarah was simply an innocent bystander, what was she doing buying the murder weapon?

She's a lot deeper in it than we thought.

And then there was the fact that Sarah admitted she had gone to work the morning after the murders, spending the day at her desk while Richard was busy cleaning up the crime scene.

Why wouldn't you tell somebody?

Why wouldn't you get away from Richard all?

That's some of the stuff that made me think, we need to take a closer look at this

woman.

The investigators went to Sarah's office and questioned her coworkers.

Strangely, they said she had seemed upbeat, even happy, the morning after the murders.

They had killed their roommate.

So why would you be happy about that?

Did one of Sarah's coworkers have the answer?

Sarah, two to three days before the murder, told a coworker that she was just tired of Tricia Nordman and Andrew Catoldi living there and she wanted to get them them out, get rid of them.

The more that we got into it, she was the one that I kind of think was the mastermind behind this.

She wasn't just an innocent bystander.

She had arranged the whole thing and participated in it and may have been involved in the actual shooting itself.

On Saturday, October 28th, the investigators contacted Sarah and asked her to come into the Indianapolis station.

Taken into an interrogation room and read her rights, Sarah agreed to talk.

I don't have anything to hide.

In the taped interview, she once again walked the detectives through the events leading up to the murders.

According to Sarah, she and Richard had started the evening by visiting her father.

You know, he goes out with my dad, I go out with my stepmom, everything's great.

But Sarah said that things took a turn for the worse when she and Richard arrived home.

As soon as we walk in the door, coming home, this is almost like 10.30, 11 o'clock at night.

Drew is meh, meh, me, meh, meeh, right on him.

Drew had

was

yelling at Ricky about something.

It had to do with a phone.

Then, as the argument grew more heated, Sarah said that Richard had asked her to leave.

He says, look,

you don't want to be around for this.

This ain't ugly.

Sarah told the police she had readily agreed.

I didn't want to be around when they were arguing, so I went for a walk.

According to Sarah, she had returned to find that the front door had been locked behind her, and she didn't have her key.

She didn't understand why.

And the front,

or the front door, was locked.

And she went around back.

When I walked around the back door, there was a large trail of blood.

What appeared to be blood.

I gotta make out

through the kitchen and out the back door.

Despite the blood, Sarah said she had gone inside.

You know, in every horror film, there's always some really stupid white girl that follows the trail of blood into the house.

I swear to God, that's real.

That's me.

Sarah claimed the blood trail had been from Andrew Cataldi's body, which was already on the truck.

Looking back, I think to myself, like, how could I be so stupid?

And when she walked in the house, Sarah said she had found Richard dragging Trisha's body toward the door.

Ricky

And

I was I didn't know what to do.

Sarah told the police that she had only done what she needed to do.

to survive.

Whatever had happened was going to happen to me.

That's what I I was afraid of.

And at that moment, I thought,

if I ally myself with him, then I'm not a threat, then I'll be okay.

But what about the murder weapon?

The shotgun that Sarah had purchased just days before the shooting.

According to Sarah, that had been Richard's idea.

We had talked about making that purchase for some time.

But he had suggested that we go and we should do this weekend.

As for why Sarah had made the purchase purchase herself, she had a ready explanation.

He had told me that

something about his past didn't allow him to buy it.

Sarah protested her innocence in vain, however.

The investigators remain convinced that Sarah was far from the victim of circumstance.

She claimed to be.

We know that she is having a problem with them both.

There was definitely enough probable cause to believe

that she was a part of

the murder.

At the end of the interview, the investigators took Sarah into custody.

By that afternoon, she had been booked into the Marion County Jail on a pair of first-degree murder charges.

Never once in my mind did I ever think that I was going to be arrested for murder or that I even had anything to do with this.

She thought that if she told them the truth, that everything, you know, yes, that she'd be in trouble, but, you know, she wouldn't be in trouble for the murders.

And that wasn't the case.

It was just such a huge blow.

I mean, it really knocked everybody off their feet and kind of threw everyone for a loop.

Coming up, Sarah stands trial.

And she says, I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do.

And Richard betrays her.

So he indicated that Sarah Pender had written this letter.

By July of 2002, 23-year-old Sarah Pender had been awaiting trial in a Marion County, Indiana jail for almost two years.

Accused of killing her former housemates Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, Sarah had pled not guilty to the murder charges.

They wanted her to plead guilty

to, you know, even a lesser charge.

And she says, I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do.

Besides, she figured the murder charges were merely leveraged to ensure her cooperation against the man Sarah said was the real culprit, her boyfriend, 24-year-old Richard Hull.

I think what they were doing was overcharging me in order to get me to turn on him fully.

Instead, it was Richard who turned on Sarah.

In January of 2002, a little more than six months before Sarah's trial was scheduled to begin, her boyfriend had made a deal with the prosecutors.

He was to plead guilty to murdering both Tricia Nordman and Andrew Cataldi.

He was going to say he was an accessory to it and didn't actually pull the trigger.

And Richard allegedly had proof.

When his attorney approached the prosecutors about the plea, he also presented them with a letter.

Because he had indicated that Sarah Pender had written this letter to him.

Based upon the contents of the letter, it was pretty apparent that at least somebody was holding themselves out to be Sarah Pender if it wasn't Sarah Pender.

And if Sarah had written the letter, what it said was explosive.

And this letter basically said, thank you, you know, implicating her in the crime where she took responsibility for the killings.

Now the story is in this letter is that I shot them in some drug-induced rage and that he was this, you know, great savior to go and clean everything up for me and take the wrap.

And I'm just, you know, so grateful.

Sarah did write to Richard in prison, but she says the letter in question was not from her.

He had a buddy of his in jail forge a letter in my print.

But when Sarah's trial began on July 22nd, the prosecutor was prepared to make it the cornerstone of his case.

This letter came the closest to maybe the truth that if anything we'd seen.

In his opening statement, prosecutor Larry Sells said that it ultimately didn't matter whether Sarah had actually shot Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman.

Sarah Pender

was primarily responsible for what happened because she either pulled the trigger

or she manipulated Richard Hole and got him to.

According to the prosecutor, Sarah wanted Andrew and Tricia out of the house and she convinced Richard to kill them and dispose of their bodies.

Larry Sells just totally made it out to be like I was this awful, evil, manipulative person that made this man do it.

But would the jury believe that the pretty young woman was capable of such a horrendous crime?

Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman were just shot point blank with a 12-gauge shotgun.

It's hard to believe that this innocent-looking, mild-mannered

young woman, Sarah Pender, sitting there at the defense table, actually participated in that.

In his open, Sarah's defense attorney told the jury that his client appeared innocent because she was innocent.

He said that his client was only guilty of trusting the wrong man.

Naive argued that she wasn't even there at the time, and when she got back, there was nothing but blood and bodies in the house, and she was, you know, stunned and scared and forced to help clean up them.

And the letter?

According to the defense, it was a forgery.

What Richard Hull hoped would be his get out of jail free card.

The defense attorney tried to tell the jury, hey, this letter's a fake.

He made it.

He has nothing but time, so he forged it while he was in jail.

When the state started presenting its case that afternoon, the prosecutors faced one big hurdle, proving that their key piece of evidence was genuine.

Because of the fact this letter did not surface

for months after the murder, there would be some question about who had authored the letter.

One person wouldn't face those questions, however.

It was the man the letter was supposedly addressed to, Richard Hull.

I wasn't at her trial at all.

I didn't want to put him on a witness stand because I had questions about his credibility as well.

Instead, the prosecution's key witness was a handwriting expert who had compared the letter to samples of Sarah's writing.

Our handwriting experts determined that even though it was printed rather than cursive, that Sarah Pender was the author of that document.

As for the murder itself, just whose finger had been on the trigger didn't really matter, according to the prosecution.

If somebody helped somebody commit an offense, they're just as guilty as the person that did it.

The prosecution claimed Sarah had been in the house on the night of the murders, however.

As proof, they called one of Sarah's neighbors to the stand.

He testified to seeing two people loading the bodies onto a truck in the early morning hours of October 25th, 2000.

Sarah...

And Richard Hull were the only two people there alive.

So Sarah had to be involved with them.

When the defense began its case on July 24th, Sarah's attorneys did the only thing they could do to defend their client.

Try and cast doubt on the prosecution's primary piece of evidence and the man who had provided it.

They knew that we were going to use that letter, so attack that letter.

They knew that we were not going to put Richard Hull on the witness stand, so attack the fact that we didn't do that.

But did that mean the defense was prepared to put Sarah on the stand to rebut the prosecution's claims that she had orchestrated the murder?

The answer was no.

They could not put Sarah Pender on the witness stand, absolutely could not,

because

we would have eaten her alive.

Of course, Sarah could have overridden the wishes of her attorneys and testified anyway, but she didn't.

My parents said, shut up and trust the lawyers.

So of course, I shut up and I trust the lawyers.

When the case went to the jury at noon on July 25th, the prosecutor was confident he had proved his case.

If the evidence shows that at the very least she's an accessory, that's enough.

Sarah felt equally confident that the jury wouldn't be swayed by what she claimed was a forged confession.

Persisting a criminal.

That's what I was guilty of.

I thought, I'm going home with time served, or I'll get some probation.

Coming up, Sarah awaits her fate.

I am willing to take responsibility for my actions.

And the jury makes its decision.

They probably think that's justice.

Indianapolis, Indiana, July 25th, 2002.

After only three hours of deliberations, the jury announced it had reached a verdict in the murder trial of Sarah Pender.

Accused of masterminding the murders of housemates Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, Sarah claimed her boyfriend, Richard Hull, was the real culprit.

I didn't know that it was going to happen.

I didn't plan it, nothing.

He was the one that shot Drew and Trish.

But the prosecutors had argued that Sarah was the one to blame.

She was the driving force, the schemer, the manipulator.

She's the one that convinced Richard Hull to assist her.

Which side did the jury believe?

As she watched the jurors file back into the courtroom, Sarah figured the short deliberations were a sign in her favor.

I thought, I'm going to get some probation.

I'm going to go home and eat lasagna.

And I was so happy.

But then the clerk read the verdict.

Guilty of two counts of first-degree murder.

I fell apart.

I had no understanding.

Why?

Why?

You know, and I just kept thinking, you know, how can God let this happen?

How can these people not see what has happened?

And

it was so, it was so surreal because I didn't expect it.

Sarah's family was equally stunned.

Guilty on both counts.

It

just,

I didn't understand it.

They didn't know my daughter.

And

they called her something

evil.

And

that is the furthest thing from the truth.

At her sentencing hearing on August 22nd, 2002, the prosecutor even compared Sarah to the mass murderer, Charles Manson.

She may not have been involved in the deaths of as many people as Charles Manson was, but she certainly had the ability to control people to commit horrific acts.

The judge sentenced Sarah to two consecutive terms of 50 and 60 years each.

Now she's doing 110 years in prison.

She never really get out.

Five months later, Sarah's former boyfriend Richard Hull, pled guilty for his role in the murders.

He received two 45-year sentences, also to be served consecutively.

If you believe the prosecutors, they probably think that's justice.

But Sarah Pender remains adamant that Richard killed Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, and all she did was help him dispose of the bodies.

I am willing to take responsibility for my actions.

From day one, I I have.

It's not fair that I pay for someone else's actions.

And there's a lot of people just like me who did things that they shouldn't have done, but then they get convicted of things that they didn't do

because they weren't perfect people.

In 2003, Richard Hull admitted to forging the prison letter incriminating Sarah.

Despite Richard's admissions, Sarah's appeals were denied.

In 2008, Sarah escaped from prison.

She was captured four months later.

Keith Morrison and Dateline NBC are bringing you a haunting new podcast called Mommy Doomsday.

The disappearance of two of Lori Vallo's children in Rexburg, Idaho in September 2019 was one of the most bizarre cases the country had ever seen.

It left behind a trail of death, devotion, and doomsday beliefs that captivated the nation.

Listen to Mommy Doomsday from Dateline NBC wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Denise Chan, host of Scam Factory.

You might remember hearing about our investigative series that exposed what's really happening behind those suspicious texts you get.

Inside heavily guarded compounds across Asia, thousands are trapped and forced to scam others or risk torture.

One of our most powerful stories was Jella's, a young woman who thought she'd found her dream job, only to end up imprisoned in a scam compound.

Her escape story caught the attention of criminals Phoebe Judge, and I'm honored to share more details of Jella's journey with their audience.

But Jella's story is just one piece of this investigation.

In Scam Factory, we reveal how a billion-dollar criminal empire turns job seekers into prisoners and how the only way out is to scam your way out.

Ready to uncover the full story?

Binge all episodes of Scam Factory now.

Listen to Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.