Cabin in the Woods S01E02 Murder on Mt. Baldy

HelloThere
HelloThere
  • last month
Tragedy strikes a mountain community when a beloved resident, 71-year-old Jack Irwin, disappears without a trace; strange crimes plague the old cabin where Jack used to live, and a compelling wiretap operation.
Transcript
00:00Mount Baldy's 35 or 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
00:10It's about eight miles up to the top.
00:14And then there's various cabins strewn about the mountains.
00:19You might not have cell service, you might not see a neighbor for days.
00:24Judy and Marsha wanted to move to the mountain
00:28for a quieter kind of life.
00:32Unfortunately, that just didn't happen.
00:37These strange events have been plaguing the cabin.
00:44I had never seen so much blood. I didn't know what to do.
00:48What the hell happened?
00:50How can anybody in their right mind do this?
00:56There are bad people in the world that have ill intentions.
01:00And that was just tragic.
01:27It was probably about 637.
01:31It was still light, summertime.
01:34I was up on top of Glendore Ridge Road
01:37because there's a big vast area that had been bulldozed to put houses up there.
01:44I was walking my dog.
01:46My dog ran loose and I was running after him.
01:50I ran into these two women.
01:53I had my dog and I was like, oh, thank you for getting him.
01:58Judy Gellert was in her late 40s
02:00and Marsha Johnson was a bit younger in her late 30s.
02:04Marsha was the more outgoing, gregarious type
02:07where Judy was a little bit more shy, a little bit quieter.
02:13The neighbor had rented them that little space.
02:17They had their trailer parked up there for a while and I don't know how long.
02:21It didn't seem nice, but I thought maybe we could be friends.
02:35Judy Gellert and Marsha Johnson met in the late 1980s
02:39in a substance abuse rehabilitation center
02:42where they were both seeking help.
02:45The two developed a close friendship.
02:48And as their relationship deepened, they developed a sexual relationship
02:54and ultimately became partners.
02:58They were able to get sober together.
03:02Judy secured a position as a substance abuse counselor
03:05while Marsha was working in computer programming
03:09and they begin a life of their own, really, a future.
03:15Judy and Marsha spent about 10 years traveling in an RV together.
03:21They had lived in a number of places around California
03:25and by 1998, Judy and Marsha had settled on a campground near Mount Baldy.
03:34In the 1990s, it wasn't the same as now.
03:38Gay couples didn't have the same comfort level
03:41being open and honest about their relationships.
03:44In moving to Mount Baldy, they were probably hoping
03:47to escape the outside world a little bit.
03:51The first time they met, Judy and Marsha were telling Carrie
03:54how they really wanted a permanent home.
03:58The thing is, real estate on Mount Baldy is pretty hard to come by
04:01because the residents don't leave. They stay there.
04:05Carrie said, well, it just happened to be good timing
04:08because she knew of a cabin that was for sale.
04:11And the cabin was being sold by 71-year-old Jack Irwin.
04:20Jack had lived on the mountain several years.
04:24His cabin was like a mile up this little road that wasn't well maintained.
04:32Jack was a Korean War veteran.
04:35He was a loner and he was very frugal.
04:38He was the type of guy that slept on a cot.
04:41He had one knife, one fork, one plate, one spoon.
04:45Very minimalist.
04:47What actually led him to being up on Mount Baldy, he didn't say.
04:52Other than the fact that he did like to be alone,
04:55and that's a good place to be alone.
05:09Once in a while, my husband and I would have Jack down for dinner
05:15because he has no relatives and no friends as far as I know.
05:20He didn't talk a lot, but he would sit and just be with our son.
05:27He was a very private person.
05:31I'm thinking that there was more to his life
05:35that he never talked about.
05:41He loved his cabin and he kept it immaculate,
05:45but Jack was having a harder time as he got older.
05:49You look at the cabin and it's got to be heated by chopping firewood.
05:55As he was aging, that was becoming more and more of an issue.
06:00He was looking for a little bit more comfort.
06:03Marsha and Judy had met Jack and asked if they could buy the cabin.
06:11When newcomers come onto Mount Baldy,
06:14they're greeted with a little bit of skepticism.
06:17They are regarded as outsiders,
06:20and I think it takes a while to kind of penetrate that wall.
06:25He wanted to make sure that the people who were going to buy his cabin
06:29could be trusted.
06:31And they felt this need to impress Jack.
06:37They would meet up at the store and pick up mail together.
06:41They tried to do the best they could for him,
06:44you know, be part of his life.
06:47They were only in Jack's life for a few months,
06:50but they became friends,
06:52and then Judy and Marsha began to spend more and more time with Jack.
06:57He had these two people who were interested in him,
07:00and he liked that.
07:09Early on in 1999,
07:14Jack had told me that Marsha and Judy
07:18had honed in on what was going on in the village
07:22and what the people were doing.
07:25And what the people were like.
07:28Jack really believed that they would take care of the property
07:32and that they would fit in with the community as well.
07:37He sold the cabin to Marsha and Judy,
07:40gave them some great terms,
07:42and it should have been a very wonderful life for those two.
07:46Jack moved to a home about a half an hour down the mountain
07:50in a suburban town called Upland.
07:54It was at the base of the mountain
07:57where he could still have the beautiful view,
08:00but enjoy, I think, more creature comforts.
08:06Judy and Marsha saw Jack quite frequently still.
08:09Material things were not important to him,
08:12but that cabin, that's what he loved.
08:16He was so insistent every day going up the hill to check on it.
08:24There was one day, I was hiking, going down by the cabin,
08:29and I hear this heated argument.
08:32He said,
08:34And Marsha was saying,
08:36I'm sorry, Jack, I'm sorry.
08:39And Jack, I couldn't make out what he was saying.
08:44There seemed to be something about this cabin
08:48that Jack wouldn't let go of.
09:05They were fighting, and then it stopped.
09:11I heard the car start up,
09:13and so I watched Jack's car drive by.
09:18And he drove on down the mountain, and I called Marsha.
09:21I said, Is everything okay?
09:23And she said, Oh, yeah, it was just a misunderstanding.
09:26I didn't know what to think.
09:30This really piqued the curiosity of the neighbors,
09:33because all of a sudden, they're hearing arguments,
09:36and there's a tension,
09:38and I think everybody was wondering
09:40what in the world is going on with these three.
09:44Well, it turns out, prior to the sale of the cabin,
09:47there was a lot going on.
09:49There was a lot of fighting,
09:51a lot of arguing,
09:53Well, it turns out, prior to the sale of the cabin,
09:57Jack didn't realize they are a gay couple.
10:00This was a real change and a surprise.
10:06Marsha and Judy had said
10:08that was not something that Jack could handle.
10:11I mean, long back in the 40s and the 50s,
10:15it was something you never talked about.
10:18And he was very much against them
10:22being in that situation.
10:24So he was verbally not nice to them,
10:29and they had kind of cut it off at that point.
10:33He left and never returned.
10:36By the end of the summer, Jack's trip up the mountain
10:39had come to a complete end.
10:44I had called Jack
10:47to Thanksgiving dinner at our homes
10:50a month or so ahead of time.
10:53I kept calling,
10:55and I couldn't get in touch with him.
11:00We always were in contact,
11:03and with not hearing from him
11:07for days and days and days,
11:10it was not like Jack.
11:15Mount Baldy is the community of people
11:19that all knew each other,
11:21and if you don't see somebody, you check on them.
11:31I had put a sign of Jack missing
11:34on the front of the post office.
11:37Everybody up there has a P.O. box,
11:41so they would come in and ask about Jack.
11:46When Marsha and Judy came into the post office,
11:49I asked them if they had seen Jack.
11:54They did acknowledge that it had been some time
11:57since they heard from Jack,
11:59and there was definitely some question.
12:03Sometimes you just get a feeling or an aura
12:07about a person,
12:09and I had such a terrible feeling
12:13that he was in danger.
12:16And I said, well, you need to call the police.
12:28On October 3rd, 1999,
12:30the Upland Police Department received a call
12:33from Marsha Johnson,
12:35reporting Jack Irwin missing.
12:38She said she lived in a cabinet on Mount Baldy.
12:41So after the initial report was made,
12:44one of our police officers responded to her home
12:48and got some additional information from her.
12:57When the Upland Police interview Judy and Marsha,
13:01the pair describes a relationship
13:03in which they are very close with Jack,
13:06but by the end of the summer,
13:08the relationship between Jack and Judy and Marsha
13:11began to change.
13:13He came to the cabin,
13:15but Jack was very rude and belittling.
13:20Despite the tension there,
13:22they explain that they really care for Jack very much,
13:27and they wanted the police to find him.
13:34There's no crime involved in being a missing adult.
13:36There's no obligation to contact your friends or family.
13:42Our objective is to find out that the person is safe.
13:50They go search the Upland house.
13:52There was nothing in the house
13:54that showed that there was any foul play.
13:58Didn't seem like there was anything out of the ordinary.
14:02Jack had no relatives here in California,
14:04no phone, no credit cards.
14:07We had spoken with other people from Mount Baldy,
14:10and they all indicated that he didn't make a lot of money,
14:14but he had a lot of money.
14:16He bought the house in Upland for cash.
14:20And the other thing is, Jack didn't hide it.
14:24They said that it was not unusual for him
14:26to pull his wallet out and tell people,
14:28I'm okay, I've got plenty of money.
14:30They said that he just spent so little
14:33that it accumulated over his life.
14:37So certainly there was a possibility
14:39that Jack had actually gone off in some city
14:42because he had had the resources to do that.
14:45He could have taken a vacation,
14:47and he is where he has chosen to be.
14:51We put out the national feelers.
14:54We've contacted the L.A. County morgue.
14:57There's no unclaimed bodies that match his description.
15:02There is nothing to indicate where Jack might be.
15:06So they felt that Jack was still alive out there somewhere.
15:11So his information was in a national computer system
15:15where if any law enforcement officer in the country
15:18were to run his name, we would be contacted.
15:23♪♪♪♪
15:29Marsha and Judy knew that Jack simply didn't want them there.
15:33♪♪♪♪
15:37They were trying to build a quiet nest for themselves
15:40where they felt comfortable being in their open relationship.
15:44♪♪♪♪
15:47Being alone in a mountainous area,
15:51there aren't a lot of people around.
15:54♪♪♪♪
15:56While that might have a beautiful side,
16:01it also has a very dark side.
16:04♪♪♪♪
16:06It would be very difficult if somebody were in trouble up there.
16:12You just wouldn't really hear somebody yelling, screaming,
16:20unless you were right there witnessing it all.
16:25♪♪♪♪
16:28♪♪♪♪
16:35♪♪♪♪
16:38♪♪♪♪
16:41♪♪♪♪
16:44♪♪♪♪
16:47♪♪♪♪
16:51Just by the nature of living in such a place like Mount Baldy,
16:58without having company
17:01or without there being lots of people around,
17:06you can become an easy and likely target for a crime.
17:10♪♪♪♪♪
17:13♪♪♪♪♪
17:16♪♪♪♪♪
17:19There had been a burglary.
17:22♪♪♪♪♪
17:25♪♪♪♪♪
17:28A computer and a lot of material things
17:32were taken out of the cabin.
17:35♪♪♪♪♪
17:38The sheriff's department in San Bernardino County came out.
17:43The police did not have any witnesses.
17:47There's no signs of forced entry.
17:51There's no forensic evidence.
17:54They believed that the person or persons who committed this crime
17:58could be from inside the community.
18:01And that brought up all these questions about Jack.
18:05I thought about when Marsha, Jack, and Judy
18:08were fighting outside.
18:10Jack was obviously upset.
18:12That whole thing was weird.
18:16Jack disappears and nobody sees him.
18:18Nobody knows where he's at.
18:20And then the cabin is burglarized.
18:23It was possible that Jack wasn't missing
18:26and we decided he wanted to come home to his cabin.
18:29♪♪♪♪♪
18:35Marsha and Judy felt afraid for their safety.
18:38And at that time, they decided it was time to pack up and leave.
18:44And they gave me their phone number
18:47and said, don't give this to anybody else.
18:49We're gonna be staying with some friends.
18:52Anytime somebody leaves,
18:54you always let your neighbor know,
18:56hey, I'm gonna be out of town for a week,
18:58you know, keep an eye on my cabin.
19:00So I said I would keep an eye on their cabin when they left.
19:03♪♪♪♪♪
19:13The Southern California peak season for wildfires
19:16is late summer and into the early fall.
19:20The fire happened in August of 2000.
19:23I ran up the street to see what was going on.
19:28And I see this plume of smoke.
19:32And it was just black.
19:35It was a terrible fire.
19:37♪♪♪♪♪
19:41The fire department from all different counties were there.
19:46The community was saved.
19:50And so we were very lucky.
19:54Nobody was inside the cabin.
19:57Nobody was injured.
20:00Unfortunately, the cabin was destroyed.
20:04♪♪♪♪♪
20:08Just a shell of a house.
20:13The insurance company hired a private fire investigator.
20:17But this wasn't the result of a wildfire.
20:22The fire came from the cabin.
20:27When I talked to the fire inspector guy that day
20:32after the fire and everything was out,
20:34and he did his, you know, report,
20:38and he told me that there was an accelerant.
20:42And I thought, oh, my God.
20:46So that kind of leaves only one thing,
20:50and that being arson.
20:52Judy and Marsha would have to be asking themselves, why us?
20:57That made me very scared,
20:59because anybody starting a fire up here,
21:01it'd be like starting a fire in their own backyard.
21:05That could have spread real quick.
21:07I can never imagine someone doing that.
21:12It was evident that someone didn't want them there.
21:16And at that time, Marsha and Judy decided
21:19it was time to leave Mount Baldy for good.
21:24And so they moved to the Alpine area.
21:27Then they started a new life.
21:32Jack has been missing for over a year and a half,
21:36and the Upland Police Department had really hit a wall.
21:40These strange events had been plaguing the cabin
21:44where Jack Irwin used to live.
21:47There had been a break-in, a burglary,
21:50and then shortly after, there was a suspicious fire
21:53that had started in the cabin.
21:57We made a decision as an agency
22:00to bring in the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office
22:04to investigate further.
22:10Maury Weiss was already up on the mountain,
22:13and so he wants to see the remains of this man.
22:17He wants to see the remains of Jack Irwin.
22:21Maury Weiss was already up on the mountain,
22:24and so he wants to see the remains of this cabin
22:27that's at the center of all this controversy.
22:31To look for any piece of evidence, no matter how small.
22:38I went to the cabin alone.
22:41It was a mess. It was burned. It was really burned.
22:45There was a deck on the front of the house,
22:47and there was a storage area underneath that.
22:50There was a box
22:53that the fire investigator didn't say anything about.
22:57When Maury Weiss unlocks this box,
23:01the investigation went in a direction
23:04that was much more sinister.
23:21Maury Weiss was down where Jack's cabin had burned down.
23:29There was a box that was sitting outside.
23:34I'm not sure how long he had been there,
23:38but there was a number of different types of paperwork in it,
23:42and I remember going through it and thinking
23:45that we may be starting to look for something a lot more detailed.
23:51Before he went missing, Jack had signed a trust
23:56that named Marsha and Judy as beneficiaries
24:00and also gave them power of attorney.
24:03There's every reason to believe that Jack voluntarily
24:07and with knowledge signed the power of attorney
24:10knowing exactly what he was doing,
24:12which was empowering Marsha and Judy
24:16to spend his funds to support and benefit him.
24:21I went to the neighborhood.
24:24I started talking to neighbors.
24:27Everybody in the mountain knew who Jack was,
24:30and there were a lot of things that came out of it.
24:33That really started to light things up.
24:36After Jack made them his power of attorney,
24:40he was complaining to me
24:43that the girls had never made a payment on the house.
24:48Both Judy and Marsha had declared bankruptcy.
24:52So the arrangement they had is that they would pay him $582 a month
24:56for 10 years, at which time Jack would turn over
24:59the title of the cabin to them.
25:02But in eight months' time, they had only made two payments to Jack,
25:06and he wanted his money.
25:09Then I saw new cars parked up at the house.
25:13They had bought a new Jeep and a new Corvette, a new motor home.
25:18I mean, these women, when they first came to town,
25:22really didn't seem to have anything.
25:26And so when you started hearing that they were buying all these things,
25:30that made us wonder, okay, where is Jack's money?
25:35I was able to write a search warrant for the banking information.
25:43And I just started putting spreadsheets together
25:46that had each transaction and where it went and what it went for.
25:50They took Jack's money, and they immediately spent it on big purchases.
25:55A Corvette, the Jeep Wrangler.
25:58After that, there were multiple withdrawals from Jack's account.
26:03To Marsha Johnson.
26:06She's taken another $7,500.
26:09Then she's taken another $10,000.
26:11And she kept on just taking more and more and more,
26:15until she took it all.
26:18And that led them to me and Sergeant Bobby Dean.
26:23This is very shocking that these two women thought it was appropriate
26:27to purchase these big items as Jack's trustees.
26:32So at that point, I called Marsha and Judy and said,
26:35okay, what in these expenses is for the benefit of Jack Irwin?
26:41Marsha said they had spent a lot of Jack's money buying computer equipment
26:45because she and Jack intended to start a computer business
26:49and that she bought that Corvette to take Jack to and from the doctor.
26:55It's something that we didn't believe.
26:58Marsha or Judy made a statement.
27:01We're on the trust. We didn't do anything wrong.
27:04This was trade fraud, theft.
27:06They were just there to take advantage of him.
27:09I had had some elder abuse cases in my background that I'd worked.
27:13I told them the attorneys were reviewing the matter
27:16and I would be in touch with them to let them know
27:19if there was a decision made to file charges or not.
27:22It's difficult for Maury at that point
27:24because he can't dispute Marsha and Judy's statements
27:28to prove that those withdrawals were not authorized.
27:31We've got to find Jack.
27:34Jack was very conscious of his money.
27:36He knew how much he had and if his money was missing,
27:40he was going to be knocking on somebody's door to find out why.
27:43And we suspected that Jack put the pressure on Judy and Marsha
27:47and wanted to retaliate.
27:49I learned about the burglary.
27:51I knew about the fire.
27:53These crimes went unsolved.
27:55They could never find out who the actual perpetrators were.
27:59That made us wonder if they had anything to do with Jack.
28:04At that point, Bobby looked at both Chris and I.
28:07He said, this would be a great case for a telephone wiretap.
28:11A wiretap on Marsha and Judy could elicit some statements
28:15that would reveal more information.
28:18This has to be authorized by the courts.
28:21And once it's granted,
28:23investigators will use a strategy that we call tickling the wire.
28:30Every three days, we were going to initiate
28:33some type of contact with Marsha and Judy
28:36when Marsha and Judy are separate.
28:40They're not aware they're being recorded.
28:42They're not aware they're being recorded.
29:12I haven't spoken to anybody, no.
29:24We didn't have a warrant.
29:26I had a charging letter from the district attorney.
29:30I was parked right around the corner from her house in Alpine,
29:33so I just drove right around the corner,
29:35knocked on the door and handed her the letter.
29:37There were a number of charges.
29:40Grand theft, fraud, elder abuse.
29:46On that charging letter, it said that they needed
29:48to surrender themselves to the court in two weeks.
29:52I got back in the car and left, and she's on the phone to Judy.
30:09What?
30:21Marsha, she was pretty shook up about the whole thing.
30:25We were hoping to get more information as the wires continued.
30:35At this point, the investigators turn up the heat
30:37on Judy and Marsha.
30:40After they had moved from the cabin
30:42and were living in Alpine, Judy had been working
30:45at the California Department of Corrections.
30:48The whole place was run by cops.
30:57Me and my partner, Detective Perez, went down
30:59and seized her car, astounded her.
31:04What do you mean? What are you doing?
31:05Why can't you do this someplace else?
31:07It was all a plan.
31:10We knew that that was going to require a phone call
31:14because now Judy needs a ride home.
31:27What?
31:39When can I get there?
31:45You try to give them anxiety because people
31:47that are anxious make mistakes.
31:51On the ride up to get Judy, Marsha called her aunt.
31:56We were monitoring the wires, and I was in the office
31:59when the call came in.
32:01Yeah, Heidi. Hi, Marsha.
32:03Hi, listen.
32:04What?
32:05Are you okay?
32:06No.
32:08What?
32:11It's all over.
32:13I'm going to turn myself in
32:17for killing Jack.
32:30I was in the office, and one of my detectives
32:32called me and said, hey, you've got to hear this.
32:35It's all over. Everything's over.
32:37Everything's over? What do you mean?
32:40They picked the expedition.
32:41They confiscated that.
32:42They already know.
32:43They already know.
32:44They're building their case.
32:45It's over.
32:46I'm just not going to do this to Judy anymore.
32:48She doesn't deserve it.
32:49So I'm going to turn myself in.
32:51Oh, Marsha.
32:53Marsha Johnson indicated that she'd killed Jack Irwin.
32:57It was like, wow.
33:00It wasn't like Marsha and Judy.
33:01It took all his money in one day and left and took off.
33:04They did it over a period of months,
33:08and that would lead a trained investigator to say
33:11they knew it wasn't going to come back.
33:15We hoped that she would turn herself in.
33:17Did we believe it? No.
33:18At that time, the team decided to make the arrest.
33:31She was cooperative.
33:33The main thing she wanted to get across
33:35was Judy had nothing to do with it.
33:37Judy had nothing to do with this.
33:45By the time we get back to San Bernardino,
33:47it's 2, 3 in the morning.
33:49In the interview room, she just lets it all go.
33:53Judy went out of town for some reason, I don't remember,
33:57and he came up there.
33:58Why did he come up to the cabin, do you know?
34:02He was really upset, and he said, you know,
34:06he made the biggest mistake he could ever make
34:08as far as selling the cabin.
34:13The reason Jack went to the cabin
34:15was because he was not getting paid.
34:20And there was an argument.
34:24He was walking away.
34:26I just wanted him to shut up.
34:28You know, just to f***ing shut up.
34:32And then I went back into the house,
34:37and I had one of his guns there, and he gave it to me.
34:42And I went back outside, and he was still talking s***.
34:57I don't know what happened to me.
35:05But I shot him.
35:09Shot him in the back of the head.
35:22I had never seen so much blood.
35:25I didn't know what to do.
35:33So there was a chainsaw underneath the house.
35:39And this is really, really hard.
35:41He, um...
35:50I cut his head off.
35:55But when I cut his head off,
35:57I didn't realize how heavy a head is.
36:00It's really heavy.
36:02It's really quite remarkable how matter-of-fact she was.
36:06It's really one of the most cold-blooded things
36:09I've seen in 33 years of police work.
36:15And then I cut both of his hands off with the chainsaw,
36:19and I cut both of his feet off.
36:25And I put him in a plastic container
36:27in the back of the expedition,
36:29and then I drove off.
36:38She took all of these body parts
36:40down to various parts of the mountain
36:44where she was discarding them.
36:48We spent many days up and down the mountain,
36:52but it was so vast without having an exact location.
36:56It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.
37:00No part of his body has ever been found.
37:04Felt like I was in a dream.
37:06I didn't even feel like I was there.
37:08It didn't seem real.
37:09I was, like, watching this.
37:11And I was really mad.
37:13I was screaming at him, you know, for being, you know...
37:17For causing that.
37:18For making me do that.
37:19What?
37:20For making me do that.
37:21For making me do that.
37:22Tell him.
37:25How can anybody in their right mind
37:28take a chainsaw,
37:30fire that thing up,
37:32and cut somebody up?
37:34I mean, that, to me, is just...
37:39sick.
37:42And then her attitude afterward, it's like,
37:45I can do whatever I want.
37:47And in addition to confessing to Jack's murder,
37:50Marsha admits that she set fire to the cabin.
37:56She burned the cabin down to make it look like
37:59that, you know, they were victims.
38:01Marsha also reveals that this burglary
38:04that supposedly took place in July of 2000,
38:07it never happened.
38:09She had hidden the things that she reported
38:12as being stolen.
38:13It was done for the purpose of hiding the evidence
38:16It was done for the purposes of getting insurance money.
38:20Between the money from Jack, insurance claims,
38:24everything they got,
38:26came out to around $470,000.
38:34Marsha was charged with murder
38:37and 34 other counts.
38:40She was found guilty of murder,
38:44grand theft, grand theft auto,
38:46insurance fraud, elder abuse,
38:49and false report of a burglary.
38:52She was sentenced to life without possibility of parole.
38:56Did you have any conversation with her
38:57about what she did to Jack at the cabin?
38:59Judy?
39:00No.
39:01Judy was not even...
39:03Was in there?
39:04No.
39:06The district attorney's office had determined
39:08that they were going to use Judy Gellert
39:10as a witness against Marsha Johnson.
39:12And that she would get a plea deal.
39:15Judy knew about the money.
39:17She was there.
39:18She spent it too.
39:20She was part of the whole thing.
39:22So I was very upset about that.
39:26She only wound up pleading guilty
39:28to one count of receiving stolen property.
39:32She was sentenced to
39:35180 days in jail
39:38and restitution in the amount of $150,000.
39:49When I heard that Marsha
39:52had been arrested for Jack's murder,
39:57it was something that I couldn't believe happened.
40:00People in the community all knew that
40:02Judy and Marsha were a couple.
40:06And nobody put them down because of that.
40:09Not even Jack.
40:11The investigation revealed that
40:13Jack was very fond of Judy and Marsha.
40:16Jack had told me that
40:18they had said that they were family to him.
40:22They were very convincing
40:24and I don't think he doubted them.
40:28It was all about money.
40:31And he was easy pickings to them.
40:36I just think that's the worst thing you can do
40:39to an older person
40:41because all he wanted was friends.
40:43They tried to be like they cared about him
40:47and they were not people that cared about him at all.
40:53There are bad people in the world
40:55that have ill intentions.
40:58And that's just tragic.
41:06I was privileged to know Jack.
41:09He is godfather to our son.
41:13He was very much a part of our family.
41:17And it wasn't just us.
41:20It was a community that loved Jack and missed him.
41:26More than anything, I remember the love he gave to us.
41:31And that'll never go away.
41:36© BF-WATCH TV 2021