Episode 270

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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

She said,

Do you think that I will ever be able to forget the sound of someone trying to breathe?

Welcome back.

This is season 11, episode 270 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters

are real.

Well, I have nothing clever to say today.

Nothing to upset or piss off the audience of people that are always very eager to be offended by things.

In this case, it was the attempted assassination of a former and future U.S.

president.

We all seem to have lost our fucking minds, so if you're calling for the death of another human being, please leave.

We don't need you here.

Today, we're exploring deep in the North American wilderness among nature's wildest plants, animals, and

cows.

Uh, you're actually on an Organic Valley dairy farm where nutritious, delicious, organic food gets its start.

But there's so much nature.

Exactly.

Organic Valley small family farms protect the land and the plants and animals that call it home.

Extraordinary.

Sure is.

Organic Valley, protecting where your food comes from.

Learn more about their delicious dairy at ov.coop.

We are constantly being watched these days through various forms of technology that monitor the most mundane parts of our lives.

Driving through morning traffic, buying a donut, that sort of thing.

Then there's the things we're willingly offering up ourselves.

Like, for example, dancing on TikTok, or posting pictures of our weekend on Instagram, or tweeting about what an idiot Elizabeth Warren is.

And yes, I did call it tweeting, because I don't know what else to call it.

But despite that, despite the big daddy state, the surveillance state from 1984 that we're all living in currently, people still do horrible things.

Almost as if deterrence don't always work.

It's like they don't even think about the fact that they're being watched 24-7.

I mean, most of us probably don't think about that, so I guess it makes sense.

Whether you go to the gas station or DM a friend on Instagram, you are constantly being tracked.

The government can find out exactly where you were at what time, pretty much, unless you take precautions.

unless you cover your tracks.

Listen, I'm not going into a boomer, state-of-the-world,

spraying you with the garden hose kind of thing.

Just bear with me here.

The point is that despite knowing all of this, criminals still think that they can get away with murder for some reason.

And sometimes, they actually can.

You would assume, as a logical person, that crime rates would be going down in such a surveillance surveillance state.

But it's quite the opposite.

The thing about footage is that we still don't get the full story.

That's the problem with things like TikTok, where you have a 15-second condensed piece of information with no context.

What happens when, let's say, surveillance video lacks sound?

It's easy to think we can get a full picture just from surveillance footage, but sometimes what's recorded can fit multiple stories at once.

And the truth is always hidden much deeper and is often much harder to decipher.

On October 5th, 2017, police were called to a quaint apartment in Plantation, Florida.

Sergeant Chris Topher was one of them.

Good morning, sir.

Good morning.

Where do you work?

Plantation for the Department of City of Plantation.

And how long have you worked for?

Almost 24 years.

Okay, and what's your current rank?

Sergeant.

Okay.

And were you working there back on October 5th of 2017?

Yes.

And

what were you doing for the police department back then?

I was a Road Patrol officer, and on that day,

this incident happened two weeks before I got promoted.

So during this incident on that day, I was actually riding with then Sergeant Ryan.

She was training me

in my new position.

Okay.

Okay.

Tell us a little bit about when you got there.

Anything that you noticed right when you got on scene?

As far as walking inside the house,

I noticed that there was a female in the living room.

She was talking to an officer who seemed visibly upset.

The woman who was visibly upset was Isabella Tagliarini.

Her dyed blonde hair hung over her face as she sobbed.

And what else did you notice as you kept going through the hall?

I noticed

just doing the cursory walk through the house, I noticed that in one of the bedrooms, all the furniture appeared to be moved in the middle.

There was also a very strong smell of household cleaning products, specifically fabuloso, which has a very distinct scent to it.

Inside that bedroom was also on one of the walls

freshly applied wet paint.

I could tell that it was wet just due to the smell of paint in that specific room, as well as the way that the light light from the window was glistening on the sheen of the newly applied paint.

Also in that room was a red solo cup, like the kind you would drink at a party from.

It had an unknown liquid in it, also.

And then on the inside of the white part of the cup, there appeared to be some dark red spots.

That was also in the room.

After walking through what felt like a renovated bathroom with one lone red party cup, Sergeant Topher made his way out to the backyard.

Walking through the residence again, out towards the back patio, there was a wet mop that was on the ground leaning against the side of the house.

Cement underneath it was wet, so that indicated to me that the mop had been wet or freshly used.

More officers soon arrived on the scene.

Isabella sat crying as the plantation police department invaded her home and started poking around.

She was scared.

Her roommate, Nicholas Wilcox, was missing.

But Isabella knew exactly where he was, and she said she would show police.

Here's Lieutenant Kucha.

I was instructed to take

a witness, Isabella Taglerini, and transport her to Knob Hill and Cleary Boulevard to the rear of a Publix.

And when you took her, did you take her in your vehicle?

I did.

And was she in the front or the back?

She was in the back seat.

Why is that wrong?

She was transported.

Nobody rides in the front seat.

Who was giving you directions?

She was.

And

you remember if she said anything as you were getting close to the

specific statement.

I just read it out of my report.

She said, this is the area.

I remember those cameras.

Was she pointing to the cameras?

Yes.

At the Publix, Isabella led the officers towards a big dumpster.

And did you approach that dumpster?

I did.

What did you notice about it when you walked back there?

I noticed that there were some

blue latex kind of medical gloves, like the kind of a nurse or a doctor would wear.

They were on the ground right in front of the dumpster.

Then all the officers looked inside.

I saw a tarp

elongated,

probably around six feet or so in length.

On each end of the tarp was a belt, like a dress belt, like the kind of a man would wear with a suit, on both the top and the bottom of the tarp.

The contents of the tarp looked human, like someone had stuffed a limp body into a giant tube and tied it off with two belts.

It was Nicholas Wilcox.

Isabella Tagliarini confirmed it.

Here is Prosecutor Peter Sapak.

My name is Peter Sapak.

I've been working for the state attorney's office, 17th Judicial Circuit, for about 18 years.

About seven of those have been in homicide and capital crimes.

Peter Sapak was one of the detectives called after Nicholas Wilcox's body was found.

The medical examiner, I don't have it in front of me, but if I remember, is blunt force trauma.

He had a number of very deep wounds to his face, which were consistent with a very hard object hitting him a number of times, and also some stab wounds around his neck area.

So the way he

died was blunt force trauma in combination with some stab wounds.

Where he was found in the dumpster, he was actually in a tarp, a blue-grayish tarp that was taped up.

Nicholas Wilcox had been beaten and stabbed, then rolled into a tarp and chucked into a dumpster behind a Publix.

Quite an unceremonious ending.

if you ask me.

The 39-year-old general contractor had been living a simple life devoid of crime.

He was separated from the mother of his children, but spent plenty of time with his kids.

He wasn't doing anything remarkable or unremarkable, as this is often the case for most victims.

But Isabella had not called the police to report Nicholas missing.

This whole thing started to unravel.

when she got her ex-husband involved.

You have to understand that Isabella called her ex-husband, Mr.

Taglerini, but

she had no idea that Mr.

Taglerini would go out of his way and call the plantation police department.

So when the police arrive, she's kind of caught off guard.

Isabella did not expect the police to come rolling into her apartment that day, smell the bleach and the fabuloso, and see the wet paint.

She never expected the cleanup job to be spotted.

As the police drove Isabella down to the police station to speak with her, she kept quiet.

Well,

for the most part.

She said, uh,

do you think that I will ever be able to forget the sound of someone trying to breathe?

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Isabella Tagliarini was a Brazilian immigrant who, like most women in her position, came to the United States for a better life.

Here's Prosecutor Sapak again.

When she originally came here, it was with

either a boyfriend or another ex-husband, and that relationship fell apart because there was domestic violence, so she was really left in this country by herself.

And she met Mr.

Taglerini and, you know, kind of developed from there on.

So she did move here with another man at first.

After Isabella divorced her first husband, Nicholas Taglerini, she met a man named Eric Robinson.

Eric was a bit older than Isabella.

He was big and burly with a shaved head and kind of mean eyes.

He had been involved in some criminal activity, but worked construction and spent most of his time at the gym.

I'm going to reiterate, he was a big dude.

But he was known to be a gym rat.

That's where they met.

Isabella and Eric struck up a romance as soon as they moved in together in June of 2016.

Due to her immigration status, Isabella relied on the men in her life for employment.

She never really had a career of her own.

She moved to America on the back of an old boyfriend, and then, when she married Nicholas Tagliarini in Florida, he took care of her.

Now that she had started things up with Eric, she relied on him in the same way.

She really never had a job of her own.

She was always taking care of, whether it be her ex-husband, Mr.

Tagliarini, or Eric Robinson, or Nicholas Wilcox.

You know, she was always,

you know, she was always looking for somebody to take care of her, I believe.

That was the dynamic, and it suited Eric nicely.

You see, Eric was a controlling guy.

I'm trying to paint you a picture of Eric that translates into words.

Imagine an aging club bro in his 50s with bad tribal tattoos and a shimmering tan.

Yeah,

that kind of guy.

The kind of guy who posts pictures on Facebook of himself wearing salmon pink pinstripe shirts with with bejeweled patterns.

Are you starting to get a vibe here?

Isabella was under Eric's thumb and he took advantage of that.

Plus, they weren't the most chill couple on earth.

According to neighbors, the two fought constantly and sometimes their fighting spilled out onto the street for all to see.

There's always issues here at this house.

She ran over there a couple times to escape, and she's always screaming stuff about

what he's doing.

The guy Eric, he was a big guy.

As if things weren't crazy enough, Eric and Isabella decided to invite their friend Nicholas Wilcox to move into their shit show.

Maybe they thought that a third party would help keep the peace.

Maybe they just needed the extra income.

Either way, 39-year-old Nicholas moved in.

Nicholas Wilcox, when did he move into that apartment?

In the middle of June of 2017.

Nicholas was a roommate, correct?

Was the roommate.

How many bedrooms in that apartment or that house?

Three bedrooms.

Master bedroom.

A master bedroom, a bathroom inside, and then two other bed,

two other bedrooms, and a bathroom.

So Nicholas would have his own bedroom?

Yes, of course.

And did you share a bedroom with Eric?

Yes, we did.

This is August of that year.

were you sharing a bedroom with Eric?

Yes, I was.

Nicholas moved in, and Isabella soon started working for him.

She had no job, and he needed an extra set of hands.

What did Nicholas Wilcox do for a living?

He was a general contractor.

Are you a general contractor?

No, I'm not.

How would you be working for him?

He offered me the job in the beginning to tape and to clean the places where he was working.

And the majority of the time, which county were you working?

We were in West Palm Beach, so Palm Beach County.

Working together every day, Nicholas and Isabella developed a strong friendship.

He often did work preparing houses for hurricanes, and as Hurricane Irma loomed in the distance, so did a spark between the two roommates.

But then in June of 2017, a big fight between Isabella and Eric erupted in the home.

He was arrested on domestic violence and strangulation charges, but let out two days later.

Isabella did not want to press charges.

Here's prosecutor Saipak again.

So many times you see this, and I've had this in many homicides where

the woman or a man is beaten and it happens over and over again and all you see is the victim show up to the state attorney's office and say they don't want to prosecute.

It's a circle.

And sometimes it ends up

in murder.

So Eric was released, and things in the apartment only intensified between the three.

Though he had not made it known yet, Nicholas developed a crush on Isabella and would often get involved when she and Eric argued.

Now, there was even a recording that we had, and on the recording, it's Isabella Tagarini recording a fight between Eric Robinson and Nicholas Wilcox, and they're really getting into it.

And

the reason for the fight is something to do with Isabella.

And at one point,

when Eric Robinson realizes that Isabella Tigerini is recording both of them, he jumps on top of Isabella and you can hear her screaming.

Tensions were high, but Isabella and Eric stayed together and she went off to work every day with Nicholas.

What a strange arrangement.

Then, in August of 2017, Eric was arrested for cocaine possession.

This time, he would not be bailed out quite so quickly.

Nicholas and Isabella continued living in the apartment together, despite Eric's absence.

And

I bet you can kind of guess what happens next.

Yes.

How long would it take?

It takes

maybe three weeks.

And

did you have any communication with Eric Robinson on that point?

No, I didn't.

You moved out to Nicholas Workhouse?

Yes.

According to Isabella, it took a few weeks, but Soon Nicholas was sleeping in her room.

Their relationship had been growing for so long that it it was only a matter of time before the spark would ignite, before the berry white music would start playing, before love would be in the air, or something.

Anyway, with Eric stuck behind bars, Nicholas and Isabella were safe to embark on the honeymoon phase of their romance.

It was like a fairy tale.

That is, until the early morning hours of October 5th, 2017.

Isabella and Nicholas were laying in bed, sound asleep, after another blissful night together of fucking and whatever else they were doing.

When Isabella was jolted awake at 2:30 in the morning, I woke up with

Eric holding my mouse and my neck.

And then I opened my eyes.

The television was still on,

and that the lights were on.

You saw Eric on top of you, or was he on top of somebody else?

He was on top of me.

In the faint glow of the television, still on and flickering in the corner of the room, Isabella saw Eric's angry face, and he climbed on top of her.

crushing her body down with all of his might.

And like I said, big dude.

Well, at the moment,

Eric made a question, not asking if I want to leave or die,

and also

telling me to be quiet, continue holding.

I couldn't turn my head

to any side,

and I could hear Nicholas Wilcox struggling to breathe.

What do you mean by that?

Was a noise that that will never leave my mind.

Forever heard of a person

struggling.

I couldn't see him, but he was struggling.

Terrible noise, like

a noise like this.

In my mind, I saw that Nick was gagged, or

I didn't know he was hurt.

Then Eric walked me out

of the

bed until

around the bed I couldn't see Nick.

At a glimpse of my eyes, I saw some

face

that looked like

blood.

Eric threw the comforter over Isabella's head and covered her mouth.

Then he marched her into the living room and shoved her down onto the floor.

Sat me down

and he was telling me that

he was still not sure if he was going to kill me too,

asking

why

I

cheated on him and stayed with Nicholas Wilcox.

And

we could still listen.

Nicholas trying to breathe and he said that he had to finish his job.

Eric grabbed a crowbar and stormed back into the bedroom towards his former roommate and friend, Nicholas.

He had a big piece of metal, dark metal,

like

I didn't know the name before, but was a big

metal, and

he was

doing like hitting him several times

and saying,

die, motherfucker, die, motherfucker.

And that's what he was doing until the noise disappeared.

How did you react?

I couldn't look.

I was so afraid, so scared, because I knew I was going to be the next.

Isabella sat in the hallway trembling as she listened to Eric pummel Nicholas over and over with a a metal rod until the gurgling stopped.

Blood had sprayed all over the bedroom.

Isabella was shrieking and Nicholas was dead.

Eric then comes back out into the living room and starts talking to Isabella.

He

told me, where is your medications

for anxiety and

depression?

I said it's inside the bedroom in the same drawer.

So he told me, he gave me

to take four bars and then have

some vodica

so

I could calm down and probably he could take control of my actions after that.

Eric gave Isabella her cocktail of vodka and Xanax, then then wasted no time getting to work cleaning up the mess.

Now, let's be clear, four bars of Xanax, in case you don't know, is quite a bit.

About as much as some people take before calling into our voicemail hotline.

954-889-6854.

So,

she must have been completely out of it.

Eric was preparing.

Eric asked me if there was where

there was black

bags or something else and

somehow he came up with a tarp,

silver tarp.

Where did he get the silver tarp?

I mean it was in the house because that was Nicholas'

job.

He was putting tarps in the roofs in the roof of the houses because there was a hurricane.

Isabella trembled as she watched Eric wrap Nicholas in a tarp.

He wrapped it

like a buridon

and he put two

belts, one around

the neck and one around

the foot, the feet.

I remember

One of the belts, Eric mentioning,

the motherfucker was using my belt, the other I don't know,

was around the house.

Eric took both her and Nicholas's phones and told her not to bother trying to call for help.

I could never leave his sight.

That was

his

mandatory order to stay next to him.

Eric dragged Nicholas out of the bedroom and shoved him into the back of his work truck.

The sun was beginning to come up and Isabella's reality was closing in on her.

Eric said she was next if she did anything, called anyone, or tried to run.

He threatened to have her kids back in Brazil murdered.

He had connections, he said.

Why wouldn't Isabella believe him?

Eric was supposed to be locked up in jail for a long time for drug charges.

Then, boom.

All of a sudden he shows up in her bedroom and kills her boyfriend.

Thank you, American Criminal Justice System.

Bill Beck better my ass.

I was so scared, so afraid, and

I didn't trust the police at that time.

Because that's the thing.

And why Isabella Teglerini was on the witness stand and why she had been arrested herself.

Eric left.

He wrapped up Nicholas and left Isabella all alone in the apartment with her phone for hours.

She could have called the cops.

She could have run outside and screamed for any one of the neighbors who knew how dangerous Eric was, but she didn't.

Instead, she did what Eric told her to do.

She started cleaning the apartment.

As Isabella floated around the murder scene in a traumatic daze, she sobbed and wondered how Eric had known what was going on between her and Nicholas.

Was this all planned?

Why had he showed up at the apartment at 2:30 in the morning?

Eric returned to the apartment an hour later and made more demands of Isabella.

He asked me to

wear some luxuries and be sexy.

He wanted to have sex with me.

I did to survive.

This was right after after he came back, correct?

Right after he came back.

After the two had sex, in quotes, Eric and Isabella loaded up his car and set off to get more cleaning supplies.

Being fresh out of jail, Eric had to check in with his probation officer sometime later as well.

But still, the question remained: how did Eric find out about Nicholas and Isabella?

Prosecutor Saipak had an idea, and it all came down to a silly little love contract.

We were thinking that he gets out of

Brow County Jail.

His ex-girlfriend, Ms.

Kensek, picks him up.

They go back to her location.

Sometime that night when he gets out, he goes back to

the location of the homicide.

We know that because Ms.

Kensek testified that she drove him there so he can pick up his Cadillac.

We believe that he went in the house prior to the homicide, saw this note on the wall, took it to his ex-girlfriend, Smith Kensek's home, and

the following night or the night afterwards,

he borrowed, well, he stole her car to go to the location and bludgeon Nicholas.

The love note in question was a single sheet of paper signed by Isabella and Nicholas with their blood.

Cute.

Remember how I said they entered into the honeymoon phase fast?

Yeah,

well, these two were completely in love like two stupid teenagers one night after a couple of cocktails they drew up a little romantic deed it was almost like a childish contract uh that they wrote together that you know that that nicholas wilcox will marry isabella tagrini and be faithful to her at all times and then it was signed and i believe it was uh also

not signed with blood but there was there's fingerprints uh laced with blood and both their fingerprints were on the note.

And her story was that she left that note on the bedroom wall.

And then after the homicide, it miraculously appears with Eric Robinson's property at his other girlfriend's place.

So how it got there, we don't know, but we're assuming that he read this and obviously got upset.

And

it's a knife that cuts both ways.

You know, it shows us that Eric Robinson obviously read it because it's with his property and it's supposed to be on the wall in the in the bedroom of the homicide location and wasn't obviously but at the same time it doesn't paint Isabella in in in the greatest of uh greatest of ways I guess because uh like I said it's it's a little childish after Eric returned from dropping off his ex-girlfriend's car he had to dispose of Nicholas's body which was still at the house in his work truck.

There was a lot of driving back and forth during the whole crime, and Isabella was not the most credible witness, being on four bars of Xanax and completely traumatized.

The truck is actually backed up to

the backyard of this residence, and there's a neighbor, Miss Ginsberg's, that sees somebody that looks like Eric Robinson backing up the victim's truck

to the back door of the homicide location and putting something heavy inside the truck.

That being, you know, the tarp that the body was wrapped in.

And then the truck speeds off.

Isabella and Eric took off in Nicholas's truck with his body in the back.

They had no idea where they were going to dump it.

From there, you know,

they go to the Everglades, but there's too many people there, according to Ms.

Tagarini.

They show up at the dump and

they don't end up dumping the body at this place because, again, there's people watching.

Eric was brazen.

Judging by his actions that day, Prosecutor Saipak believes he thought he'd never get caught.

You know, the fact that he's driving around Broward County with the body in the truck, in the victim's truck, you know, he's going to a dump and there's very good video at this dump.

It's beyond HD.

You can hear all the conversation.

You know, the worst place to dispose of the body, especially in Broward County, is a dump because their surveillance is top-notch.

He's not kidding.

The dump footage is clear as day, and you can watch it all on YouTube.

There's a number of stops, and in today's day and age, you record it everywhere.

There's nowhere you can go where there's no cameras or cell phone technology can also pick you up.

If you have a cell phone on you, you're constantly giving the police information.

After an unsuccessful trip to the dump, Eric had to meet his probation officer, so he took Isabella to the courthouse, which happened to be down the street from a Publix.

Meanwhile, don't forget the body is still in the car as they're driving.

While Eric is at the courthouse, Isabella is left at the Publix to wander and wait for him to return.

Of course, like Prosecutor Sapak said, her entire trip to the Publix is filmed.

Isabella strolls around the store pushing a grocery cart and examining items like a typical housewife.

Just imagine pushing your own cart past her at that moment.

And remember, there's a body in the parking lot in her car.

Then, she's seen using her phone, and Eric walks into the store and finds her.

I was afraid, and I have to make him

very sure that I was...

going to to be in my sight and do whatever he told me, that I was not going to run away.

I was going to tell

everything he told me to do.

The footage is damning.

Isabella had multiple opportunities to get help.

She was alone in publics for over half an hour.

And right across the street is the courthouse.

Filled with cops.

Yet she does nothing but embrace Eric and follow his lead.

Like a good little accomplice.

And even though she embraces him at the supermarket, that can be explained as, you know, someone being in fear.

You have to realize she's from Brazil.

All her family is in Brazil.

And the people that she knows here is really her ex-husband, Mr.

Taglerini,

Nicholas Wilcox, who's dead now, and Eric Robinson, who murdered him.

So she really has no place to go.

So her story starts making a lot more sense when you put it in context, you know.

Isabella and Eric ended up throwing Nicholas's body in the dumpster behind the Publix.

Ironically, that was the place with fewer people around.

Then they went home and began their cleanup job.

They got rid of all of the evidence, scrubbing every drop of blood from the scene and painting the bedroom.

But still,

it wasn't enough.

Yeah, the mattress was disposed of at a different dump site not too far away from the homicide location.

It was ripped up and police were able to discover that as well because of isabel tigerini and they were able to match the dna to that of deceant mr uh mr willcox when the police arrived on scene there was obviously no mattress um the place really reeked of bleach

and they also use uh what's what's it called um

fabuloso is the cleaner i would know i grew up in little havana and still have traumatic memories.

It stinks.

You have to understand that unless you do a very good job and you're someone like Dexter, you're never going to get rid of

blood evidence as much as you want to try.

After they cleaned everything up, Eric left Isabella alone in the house.

And that is when she finally cracked and called her ex-husband, Mr.

Tagliarini, and told him what happened.

He then immediately called the cops.

When the police arrive, she's kind of, you know, caught off guard, and Mr.

Robinson's not in the area.

But when the police were there, they knew what kind of vehicle he drove and they saw the vehicle driving past.

When they saw the vehicle driving past the homicide location, they did what's called a felony stop,

guns drawn and he was taken into custody and he never gave a statement.

Eric may be brazen, but he wasn't dumb.

He refused to talk the cops.

You should too.

But Eric was still arrested for the murder of Nicholas Wilcox and taken to jail.

Isabella was also arrested for her part in the cover-up, but her family would soon bond her out, and she'd be on an ankle monitor until the trial.

Isabella would appear to be the victim in all of this, but Eric's defense was going to make sure that the jury got the full picture.

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Isabella Tagliarini had been in bed with her new boyfriend and roommate Nicholas Wilcox when her old boyfriend, Eric Robinson, caught her cheating on him.

Eric had been released early from prison, unfortunately, and came home to find a love note from Nicholas to Isabella.

He became so enraged, he bludgeoned Nicholas to death with a crowbar in his sleep and made Isabella help him cover up the murder.

This sick love triangle had ended in murder and now Isabella would have to face her part in the horrific crime.

Eric Robinson didn't say a word to the police and lawyered up with a strong female litigator who was determined to make the jury see all the faults in Isabella's story and character.

Her defense was that Isabella actually murdered Nicholas herself and called Eric to help her finish the crime.

What happened in this case is that Isabella Tadliarini killed her boyfriend, Nicholas Wilcox and blamed it on her ex-boyfriend Eric Robinson.

You will hear that Eric Robinson was arrested by the Plantation Police Department immediately based on what Isabella Tagliarini told them.

The police rushed to judgment.

They thought what they had at first was someone being honest and straightforward.

Turns out, Ms.

Tagliarini's stories and statements and details kept changing.

Well they really try to blame everything on Isabella because of the inconsistencies in her statement and obviously the number of times that she could have called the police but refused to do it.

And I believe that they also try to

blame her immigration status.

that she wanted, you know, she wanted a green card and Eric Robinson was not, you know, not the person that was going to give it to her.

So, you know, she kind of got Eric Robinson involved in this.

Their story was that she committed this heinous act, called Eric Robinson to help her dispose of the body.

And that's kind of their story.

Because if you think about it,

if you paint the picture that way, our evidence

also fits that scenario because a lot of the evidence that we had was subsequent to the actual homicide, post-homicide.

You know, the cleanup, driving around with the body.

These are all things that happen after the homicide.

So if you blame it on another person and say, listen, that person called Eric Robinson to help him clean up the crime scene, all the evidence that we had and we presented fits that scenario as well.

Ms.

Tagliarini gives five different statements under oath to the police.

Finally, on October 14th, they confront her with all of the inconsistencies because as they start pulling surveillance and doing doing things they start to realize how what she had told them was not necessarily true.

For example, I'll give you one example.

The evidence will show that she told the police that

immediately after leaving the house that her and Eric Robinson

with the body, with Mr.

Wilcox's body in the bed of the Ford F-150, And I know I'm throwing a lot of details out to you, and this will all kind of come together as you start hearing the evidence, that That they took that vehicle to the courthouse with the body in it, and that

she

waited,

had no phone, he had taken her phone.

What comes out in the next week or so, after the lead detective pulls the footage from the Publix right down the street,

is that

no, they were not in the F-150.

In fact, Isabella Tagliarini was actually driving Eric Robinson's Cadillac to Publix.

And

the surveillance shows that Ms.

Tagliorini has her phone the entire time and her purse,

and that when Mr.

Robinson comes to meet up with her at the Publix so they can leave, they're hugging, they're kissing, they're holding hands.

Despite her bad behavior and the small details changing in her story, Prosecutor Sapak said that what actually mattered about Isabella's testimony never changed.

The root of her testimony never changed.

It was always, you know, it was always that story, the truth of what happened.

Minor things might have changed.

She might have said that they drove a different vehicle when they came to public.

So when we look at the surveillance, you know, it wasn't the truck, it was the Cadillac.

And she was driving when she said that Eric Robinson was driving.

So small things that maybe she didn't remember, but you know, the general aspect of her testimony never changed from day one.

And you know, you have to understand they don't have to prove anything.

The state is the one that's bringing the charges, so we have to prove up the charges.

The state had to prove that Eric did this without a confession or the murder weapon.

The crowbar was never found.

Their strategy had to be airtight, which is why they decided against first-degree murder.

In Florida, you know, we have various types of homicide.

You have first-degree premeditated murder, and the law doesn't necessarily fix the amount of time that must pass between the origination of the thought and the execution of the homicide.

You know, it can take a second just by pulling a trigger.

Then you have also felony murder, which is also first-degree homicide, which means that somebody is killed within the perpetration of an enumerated felony, such as burglary, such as robbery, such as, you know, robbing a bank, things like this.

If somebody dies, that's also first-degree murder, okay?

And then you have murder in a second degree, and that is, hey, we don't know what happened inside the apartment necessarily because we don't have any witnesses other than Isabella Tagherini, but

it is murder with a depraved mind, which means that there was some sort of rage

on the part of Eric Robinson.

That seemed to fit our storyline a lot more because essentially we didn't have to prove motive.

We didn't have to prove premeditation.

You know, the sentence for second-degree murder is life.

The sentence for first-degree murder is life as well.

So

it enabled us to explain the story with what he had and the evidence that we had without having the need to prove an extra element, that being the premeditation part of it.

Eric's defense lawyer argued that Isabella killed Nicholas herself and then had Eric handle the cleanup.

But prosecutor Sapak found that far-fetched for many reasons.

And you have to understand also her physical abilities.

You know, she's a small person.

You can see that, you know, when she takes a stand.

But to dispose of the body, you know, wrap them up in a tarp, to even move a mattress, these are all things that you need some amount of strength for.

And if you look at Eric Robinson, you could see that he's capable of it.

And I don't believe that she'd be able to commit this murder on her own and dispose of the body and so forth.

But there were many weird things that Isabella did that really trashed her credibility.

For one, she tried to go on the Dr.

Phil show to talk about the murder.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Here's Eric's defense lawyer discussing this with the judge during the trial.

At some time in the past, I believe, a couple of years, Ms.

Tagliarini reached out to the Dr.

Phil show to be a part of the show.

They contacted me to ask me if we wanted to be involved, which

while this case was pending,

it wasn't before the incident.

No, no, no.

Okay.

Obviously, I declined their invitation, but that's how I found out about it.

So I did ask Ms.

Tagliarini in deposition about it.

Her answer about why she wanted to go on the Dr.

Phil show was because she wanted to get some type of therapy.

And she knew that part of being on the show that maybe she would be able to get therapy.

I mean, what can I say?

I'm kind of with Eric's defense lawyer on this one.

Therapy from Dr.

Phil?

This is America.

There are thousands of hotlines in every state that offer free trauma counseling and assistance for those in need of it, but

I guess some people really like trashy daytime television.

Here's the judge's response.

What is the relevance of that?

I mean, let me put it this way.

If you ask her about it, then the net and

it opens up the door to the why.

So

I think it's totally irrelevant, but if I do allow you to ask it, that means the state gets to ask, you know, why did you do it?

Because obviously you're bringing it out because you think that there's some sort of negative connotation of that.

Well, I think it's fair to say that for somebody who was so traumatized by an incident, I think it's just a sort of...

Well, there are different

conclusions you could make.

One, you could say that it's a bizarre act and maybe she's seeking some type of publicity the other another argument could be that she was suffering and needed free therapy

still isabella decided to testify against eric because

well

just because

she was promised nothing and that says something about her character that perhaps negates this weird dr phil stuff So prior to her testimony, we never promised her anything.

And that's, you know, the reason for that is so we can ask her on the stand.

And it's true, have you been offered anything?

You play it open to a judge.

You don't know what you're going to get.

And here are the possible penalties.

And you're here testifying because, you know, you want to, and it's of your own free will.

And that's essentially what you did.

The prosecution's whole case rested on Isabella's story.

That was all they had, along with the video footage, which actually made her look worse and helped the defense.

Despite all this, the jury came back in favor of Isabella.

They

believed her.

You know?

I mean, for some reason, there's a propaganda campaign that says that women aren't believed when they say something, and I'm not sure what the fuck these people are talking about.

Modern-day Western culture bends over backwards to believe women, whether they lie or not.

But regardless, Eric wouldn't be so lucky.

He would be locked away for life.

Prosecutor Sapak and his team were happy with this verdict.

But the question remained, why did Eric think he would get away with this?

As Sapak said, we leave a digital footprint everywhere we go today.

Everybody knows this.

Isn't that right, Siri?

I really think that he thought he could control Isabella.

I think that he was such a domineering personality in that relationship that there was no doubt in his mind that she would ever flip on him.

You have to realize that without Isabella's testimony, you know, from the beginning, it'd be very hard for the police to go in the right places to look for.

That being the dump, you know, that being the various locations that she told us about.

Eventually, I believe they might be able to get there through a cell phone technology.

But, you know, without her immediate intervention and her ability to tell the story and exactly where they went, that enabled the police to go to these locations and get this, get this surveillance footage, which might have been deleted by the time they would have gotten there.

The true hero of this story is Isabella's ex-husband, because without his 911 call, who knows how long it would have been before anyone noticed Nicholas Wilcox was gone.

Eric sent out text messages from his cell phone to friends and family, trying to explain his absence, and he worked for himself with Isabella.

All of Nicholas's family was in New York except for his father, who attended trial every day.

In a very real sense, Eric and Isabella could have gotten away with this if that 911 call had never been placed.

But

they didn't.

And now Eric Robinson will spend the rest of his life behind bars until he dies.

Good.

Good.

There is no parole in Florida.

When you go away,

when you're sentenced to life in Florida, the only way that you're getting out is in a casket.

Murder is crazy.

Murder is crazy, and

murderers do

a lot of things that don't make sense.

And that's why they get caught sometimes.

Eric Robinson was a controlling man who thought he could get away with murder.

After all, every time he was put in jail for hurting Isabella, she refused to press charges, and he'd be released again.

It's not shocking that this relationship ended in homicide.

This is a recognizable pattern that often ends in bad things, including homicide.

It was volatile and crazy from the start.

As for Nicholas Wilcox, he just got caught up in a love triangle.

Isabella was an attractive, exotic woman, and I'm sure she had a damsel and distress type mentality that appealed to him.

Maybe if that stupid love contract hadn't been posted on the wall, none of this would have ever happened.

She could have kept lying, gotten away with the affair.

It really doesn't matter, though, because Eric Robinson found out he lost it and decided to take matters into his own hands.

What is the moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen?

Well,

there's a few.

The first one is that Three's Company was a great show in the 80s, but it doesn't work in real life, despite what these fucking TikTok millennials will try to sell to you.

Love is messy, and there's no room for a cuck chair.

Look, at the end of the day, what happened here is that the world is full of dangerous, scary, crazy people.

Eric Robinson was one of them, and he proved it that night when he murdered Nicholas Wilcox for sleeping with his girlfriend.

There's probably another lesson here somewhere in this one.

It might have to do with the fact that we're constantly being monitored.

Even if we're not committing a crime, even if we're not Eric Robinson, even if we're just good tax-paying civilians trying to do the right thing,

we're still being monitored every second of every day by Big Brother.

Because we value our safety above our freedom, unfortunately.

Don't believe me?

Hey, Siri,

Stay safe, sassholes.

Well, that's gonna do it for another one.

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