Rachel (00:00)
we get through the whole thing and you go, ⁓ I didn't record.

Krystal (00:03)
I went to press play and I didn't I didn't hear anything and I was like ⁓ no but then I saw

like the audio of yours. And so I like skipped forward and you're talking and I was like, there is no way it recorded just her and not me. There's no way. it did. So I had to, I am going to be an editing genius after this. And it's not because I'm doing extra research and finding every little nook and cranny of how to edit. It's because I keep messing up and I have to fix it. And I'm like, how do I fix this?

Rachel (00:18)
Weird.

Krystal (00:34)
And that's how I learned how to splice my own recording in on yours. ⁓ that made me so mad.

I'm excited about this week there's cases that catch my attention. There are cases that catch many do you think overlap? How many cases do you think you picked that I picked?

Rachel (00:52)
think at least one that I picked that you might've picked.

Krystal (00:56)
I one too. And I think I know exactly which one. you want to explain what our theme-ish of Water Cooler is?

Rachel (01:06)
So Watercooler Whispers will be our current events. What's got us talking? What's got people asking us questions and, you know, kind of what we're chatting and following, what's in the news right now.

Krystal (01:17)
Yeah, and I'm actually giddy about this one. I'm super excited and we don't record with video because that's the editing part. I'm not ready to conquer yet, but if y'all could see me right now, I am giddy. I'm very excited about today.

Okay, Do we say your three then my three or do one, one, one, one?

Okay.

Maybe you name your first one. Do you me to do my first or you?

Rachel (01:39)
Maybe one, one. Okay, so my first one

is kind of an older one, but it's back in the news. And that's the case of Jennifer Dulos. I don't know if you remember this one. She was a mom in Connecticut. She went missing on May 24th, 2019. And her estranged husband, Fotis, and his girlfriend,

Krystal (01:44)
Mmm.

Mm, no.

Rachel (02:03)
Michelle Troconis were eventually charged with her murder. Connecticut. Um, so he was, he was charged and he took his own life. Uh, like shortly after being charged, she, the girlfriend, Michelle Troconis was convicted just recently, a couple of years, but like a year and a half ago, 2024. And.

Krystal (02:09)
have not heard where is this? Can I get OK?

Rachel (02:28)
She was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, evidence tampering and hindering prosecution, sentenced to 20 years and suspended after 14 and a half years plus probation. And why this is back in the news is because she's currently seeking a habeas release alleging, yeah, alleging ineffective counsel. So then I was like, let me look up habeas corpus petition. So that argues that a person is being held

Krystal (02:45)
Maybe a scorpis?

Rachel (02:54)
unlawfully due to insert your reason here, ineffective assistance from counsel, constitutional violation, improper evidence, due process error, or an unfair trial. So that's what she's going after right now. And that brought it back up. And I was like, ⁓ I remember this one. She had five kids, I believe it was, and like had dropped them off for school, came home and then they still haven't, I mean, sadly they have not found her.

her body, you know, the estranged husband is no longer.

Krystal (03:22)
That one does fascinate me.

I can't wait to hear more about that one

people get out on appeals. And so I'm so curious what happened in the first trial and ineffective counsel is probably where she's going with that one. But, ⁓ I am ready to hear about that one. to hear about, okay. My.

Rachel (03:37)
Yeah, I'm gonna have

to do some more digging on that one. So what's your first one?

Krystal (03:43)
if you had to take a stab in the dark of my three because I know you caught wind of one of them because mean case Tracy already brought it

still mad at her about that case. Okay, the one Tracy brought up, I'll go ahead and put that one first, the au pair. So, Banfield, the one that in 2023, the this couple had an au pair, and they they had her living with them. She was 20 years old.

So this guy and this young girl start sleeping together and then they start falling in love and they decide that they are going to get rid of the wife. And the crazy part about it is he is a federal agent. So he knows he's got this great plan of we're going to put her on a fetish website. We're going to use her laptop when her phone is in the home.

and we're going to start looking for someone that comes in with a knife and attack her and basically take her, do stuff with her. And that she wants him to do this the first time they meet because if they meet prior it won't feel the same, she wants it to be a surprise.

And his plan is he's supposed to bring a knife, And when the husband gets there, he's going to save her by shooting him. And then he's going to take her with the knife and say that he couldn't get to her fast enough. And, ⁓ and that's how the story goes. And in 23,

the young girl ends up, they use her because they see her as the weakest one and the police are suspicious about what's going on, so they take her, arrest her, that puts pressure on her and she ends up telling the truth. And it takes a little while, but she's also Brazilian, so she doesn't have any family here, she doesn't have anybody looking after her.

So they're in trial now. And of course, that's, that's what I like. So I've been watching the trial and wow, is all I have to say. yeah.

Rachel (05:35)
Yeah, because she got a

good deal for talking.

Krystal (05:38)
The first deal that she turned down was better than the deal she got for talking. Her first deal was it would be a misdemeanor, that she would just get a misdemeanor. And when you hear what she said on the stand the other day, ma'am, mm-mm, no. Oh, no, no, no. A misdemeanor for what she admitted to is... See, I can't wait to dig into that.

Rachel (05:55)
Yeah, so she'll be.

Yeah, so that's the one she's

going to. She gets time served. But then she's deported back to Brazil.

Krystal (06:05)
Yeah,

she could get, it's not a promise, but she could get up to 10 years and it was going to be like, I can't remember if it's manslaughter that they're offering her, but it's, but yes, she could either get time served or up to 10 years, depending on what the judge says. They haven't promised her anything, but they have told her if she speaks no more than 10 years.

I want to get your thoughts on a couple of things with that one. Yeah.

Rachel (06:28)
Yeah, that one is a crazy case.

think we say that so much, like, this is a crazy case, because you hear it you're like, I would never do that.

Krystal (06:36)
Well, he also, it's

like, who thinks to do that? Like, and he really, it's kind of impressive what all he came up with, you know, because had this woman not spoken, I don't know how they would have caught him. So, okay, what's your second one?

Rachel (06:51)
So my second one we've talked about and it just wrapped up. It's Brian Walsh. That one. That one was just, nope, nope, my last one's the one I think is the same.

Krystal (06:56)
Oh yeah, like that one. Is that the one you thought would be the same?

Okay, okay. I'll save mine for the last

two that I think the same is. We'll have to like try to, we can't say anything at the same time as we know, cause we tried that with our intro and stuff, but we're going to do our best but okay. Yes, let's do Walsh. Brian Walsh.

Rachel (07:15)
Brian Walsh, I I just think this one was,

I get, you know, it's happening in Massachusetts. It's, another one of those stories where, there's that old cliche, you know, the wife goes missing, the husband did it, in this case they did, but I think what got me on this one was that he pled guilty.

to those charges before his murder trial started. Like the, what was it? He pled guilty to the dismemberment? Disposal, that's what it was, disposal of the body. And then in his, pleaded not guilty. lying to, yeah, lying to the, but he pled not guilty to murder and said in trial that he found her in bed, passed. I was like.

Krystal (07:38)
Disposal of a body, yeah. Yeah.

lying to the police.

No, she fell out of bed. Whatever, man.

Rachel (07:57)
Whenever we were watching that one, was like, what is going on with like, how did you like, how do you get from point A to point B and think people are going like, that's what I was like, I'm like, do you really think that there are 12 people who are going to believe this story? Like, I mean, I know you only have to get one person to believe to have a hung jury, but I was just like, sir, you just pled guilty to lying to police and disposal of a body, but not to murder.

Krystal (08:01)
unbelievable.

And then once you hear it was

dismemberment, once you hear how he disposed, you're like, what? Like that doesn't even make sense. I don't like to say mean things about people's looks. I think it means you're not very intelligent if you have to poke at someone's looks. But he does have dumb face, when they would pan to him during trial, I'd be like.

Rachel (08:29)
Right. Like, how did you?

Krystal (08:42)
He's, he's just absolutely like completely muscle-less in his face no emotion at all. You're talking about your wife. They're talking about what you did to her and you have zero emotion. It just drives me insane.

Rachel (08:48)
it was, that was a crazy one.

Krystal (08:56)
that one down too. Okay.

Rachel (08:57)
yeah, we'll to break that one down to

what you know, I think we'll have to have like a trial episode like that'll be a bonus episode like the trial that we're watching or the trial that just wrapped up something like that just to stay with current events and also just have thoughts on you know, like this one is resolved they got they may or may not get convicted but it's resolved it's not always resolved to the victims, family or the victims.

Krystal (09:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Rachel (09:20)
how they feel it should be, but.

Krystal (09:20)
And I'm

curious I do want to have people kind of say, you know what, I like that case, I want to hear more about it. So email us or go to one of our socials and say, hey, I do want to hear more about.

that case. Okay, I'm gonna save my last one that I think we both chose and my second one. I think you probably knew I was gonna choose this one, but it's Corey Richens.

I mean, cloaked in the presumption of innocence because that's what my law channels teach me because she's not been convicted by her peers. But Cory Richens is a young. She met this guy when she worked at like, I don't remember if was Home Depot or Lowe's, but she worked at this.

a hardware store and she met this guy who very successful ran a business and they ended up getting married. signed a prenuptial agreement. I don't think she really, she probably was just so blinded by wanting to get married. She didn't really read the fine print basically it was the only way that she gets to inherit any of his business or, or money. is if something

happens to him other than that infidelity divorce anything like that she gets nothing that came into the marriage with and she opened her own business she was like flipping houses and stuff and kind of a murder type crime she had some financial stuff going on that she was trying to move money and there were some financial crimes which they've been stacking on her now to put even more pressure on her because they want to get her to admit it but basically

She started texting her housekeeper for what she called the Michael Jackson stuff. She was looking for fentanyl to end him. And she got it once. It didn't work. She put it in an egg sandwich. This is obviously all alleged She allegedly put it in a sandwich. got suspicious and told his family, I think she's trying to kill me. I ate this sandwich. It made me sick.

⁓ she had a paramour. So while she's poisoning him with this egg sandwich and she's just waiting for him to go, hanging out with her lover. And so she's, he's texting her. He's like, I don't feel good. And she's like, I just need to go lay down. goes, no, I think I go to the ER. She goes, don't need to go to the ER. You're being dramatic. Go lay down. She knew what he had ingested and encouraged him to just go lay down.

then she asked for stronger stuff. I think that's when she called it the Michael Jackson stuff. and the allegedly she put it in a Moscow mule. He was going to bed. drank it and he didn't wake up

they are going to trial here in February So not only did while they were waiting for her to go to trial, like while they were investigating her, his family was immediately suspicious because he had been saying something happened and he changed the life insurance, and the trust to go to his sister after the sandwich incident. He immediately changed all that stuff because he was like, now if she's trying to kill me.

she knows that's the only way out of the marriage with the money. So I'm changing all of it. She writes a children's book on grief of, I think she had, I don't think she wrote it. think she had like, what's that when someone writes for you, ghost, not a ghostwriter, but a, is it? Okay.

Rachel (12:15)
Go straight in.

Krystal (12:17)
Are You With Me, I think is what it was called. And she was going on a book tour with these local news channels about what it's like for grieving children. So they end up arresting her

Rachel (12:27)
you let our boss know that you were on jury duty?

Krystal (12:29)
have not yet. need

well, because I'm currently on jury duty for the first trial is talking about which was the au pair. Did I tell you who the judges for the au pair? It's Johnny Depp's judge. So I'm really excited to see her again. She's great because she's super fair. And I do really like a fair judge. So yeah, This one starts February. I'm gonna send him like a calendar invite.

this is all my tentative jury time. You know, I'm okay with missing live testimony, but We're on verdict watch. so verdict watch, like when the verdict came out for Karen Reed, I was on, I think, a call with a client. Cause I remember her looking at me and I was like,

I know this is a really weird thing for me to ask, but can you just, we were on a Zoom call and I was like, can you give me just a second? I have been waiting for this. And I don't know if you remember, Karen's was pretty emotional. I mean, it was like, you could hear the street screaming and I was just, I told her, was like, and she was like, did you know this person? I was like, no, thank you for the secondhand embarrassment. I did not know her.

I guess that's actually first-hand embarrassment, but I was like either you're embarrassed for me and I feel that or I'm embarrassed for me because I don't know this person. I'm just so happy for her. So yeah, I will definitely have to block out verdict watch because that's why it's not because I can't pay attention to two things at once. It's because if I'm on camera people think I'm weird. So we're not we're not I'm not falling for that one again. If there is a verdict watch I am going off camera for sure. So, okay.

Third case, let's say the location, let's say the location. Columbus? Is it Columbus, Ohio? Yes, we did it, it's McKee. Yes, McKee, yes, I'm not surprised we chose the same one, but kind of.

Rachel (14:07)
not the same? Okay, so it's Ohio.

Columbus but yeah, yeah the dentist Yeah, Like when this trial starts

this trial might be one that I watched the the like the live trial because I Might I'm trying to figure it out. Like how do you hold? How do you hold a grudge? for over five years Like or I should say allegedly hold a grudge

Krystal (14:21)
Yeah. ⁓

the whole thing.

Bessie, I want to watch it together.

Well, okay, so I.

Rachel (14:37)
for five years and then show up at your ex-wife's house and end lives.

Krystal (14:41)
Well, so I think, I think

I would love to do that with you. I'd love for us to watch a trial together, because you don't have watch the whole thing. And then I watch someone break it down. It does. I mean, so.

Rachel (14:48)
This one, I mean, this case just breaks my heart. Like, you know, they had

divorced, they had, you know, she had moved on and you could even hear it in the wedding vows that they've clipped on the news, like just how emotional she was to find her current husband and start building their life together. And now there's like two kids and I, ⁓ this one, yeah, I don't know why this one hit me.

Krystal (14:59)
Yeah.

him. Yep. Spencer.

Rachel (15:13)
like harder than like, you know, because we hear about cases all the time. This one just, I was just like, like what is going on in the world?

Krystal (15:18)
And I think it's because there

was a lot of weird stuff about this one. mean, number one, it was not like days or hours even. This guy missed work and his staff immediately was like, something's wrong called 911. Imagine if I was that out, if I miss a call in the morning, you're just like, she found something else she had to do this morning, no big deal.

Rachel (15:37)
Well, that's like our

co-worker that, you know, that her and I text all the time. she, if like, I don't hear from her, I will text her and go, do I need to go on Nancy Drew on you? Cause I will. Like that's like a short time. So yeah, I can understand that part. Like this is totally out of the norm for this guy and someone needs to go to their house and do a welfare check.

Krystal (15:49)
Great, yeah.

Well, it was that in that the wife wasn't answering because they tried him. They tried the wife. She wasn't answering and they were like, Hey, you really need to go check. And then the police go and check the wrong house. And they're like, yeah, everything's fine. And they were like, no, it's not fine. So they got in their car and went there and they were like, we're here at the house and they could hear the kids. Yep. Yeah. Absolutely awful. And well, do you know about,

Rachel (16:16)
And then when they could hear the baby crying, I was like, ugh.

Krystal (16:24)
He waved extradition. Do you know what's happening with him right now? Okay, we'll talk about that because yeah, it's very Coburgery. Yeah, it's very Coburgery.

Rachel (16:28)
No, I have purposely not followed about of him because I'm I'm angry and I don't know these people. I have no connection to them, but

but it makes me angry like.

Krystal (16:39)
Well,

he's, he's playing some Coburger playbook right now. And, ⁓ and again, this is the side of cases that I am so drawn to is, is how he's behaving right now, what he's choosing to do. He's waived extradition. I mean, he is prepped to plead not guilty, which is wild because yesterday the chief of police.

I guess that's who she was came out and basically said what they have they believe they have the right person they have his car arriving and leaving around the time of the killings. and he waved extradition, which is what Brian did like yeah, I want my right to a speedy trial. I'm not gonna you know, I'll go and

Then he's now talked to a lawyer and here we are of his lawyer announcing that he's, he is prepped to plead not guilty when he gets there. So they're taking him back to Columbus.

and she was so beautiful. My gosh, this woman, can, and beautiful in the way of her happiness. You can tell how happy

Rachel (17:40)
Just her spirit. Like, yeah.

Krystal (17:42)
you could just see that it wasn't posing for pictures. She was genuine. They were capturing her happiness, not she was like mimicking happiness for pictures. There's such a big difference and you could see that in her. I don't know. I've never said anything like that before, but I'm just thinking about how happy she actually looked. And it was, you can tell it was so genuine.

Rachel (18:00)
Yeah. I think friends said they

still acted like newlyweds five years in, like, and I was like, I don't, yeah, this one, there are some cases that bother me to no end and this is probably going to be one of them, like that it's just going to stick with me. It's just going to be in the back of my mind and you know, which it just, I think it's the kids. I think cases that involve children are the ones that are, always like, really?

Krystal (18:05)
Yeah, I could see that. I could see that.

Mm-hmm.

yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you think of...

Rachel (18:26)
Really? these are small

children. They're babies.

Krystal (18:30)
And they see, if they're the little kid for the au pair one, was only four and was in the house and he knew that. He knew the kid was there. He was like, make sure she stays downstairs or what? Like, you think this is a good idea? I mean, again, it's like, right now it's her word against his, but when you really listen to it, it's like, ugh. And this, so the au pair, there's a four year old. There's the kids.

in Walsh. Oh, there's kids in all of these, right? We picked.

Rachel (18:59)
There's kids in all of them,

I think, yeah. All the ones we picked have children. Yeah, so I think those are the ones that stick with me. they're the ones that I'm always like, you know, it's not just the, you know, it's the victims, but then it's like a ripple effect, you know, where it's like the victims, the victims' kids, the victims' families, their friends, their coworkers. Like, it just keeps rippling out. you know, I mean, knock on wood, I haven't had to personally experience anything like that. And...

Krystal (19:18)
Yeah.

Rachel (19:25)
because it just, can't, I just, I think of these kids growing up. Eventually they're going to get on the internet. They're going to see what people are saying about their parents, saying about what the person who did it, like there's, they're going to see these things. So that's like when, like when we're talking, trying, you know, like, let's make sure we're nice to, you know, because sometimes the kids might see this, right? So was like, well, we can't do that.

Krystal (19:27)
People do some wild things. ⁓

I called him dumb face. Yeah, sorry kids. I didn't mean

Rachel (19:51)
just, you know, I guess sometimes you don't hear about that part, part of it and

Krystal (19:54)
Yeah. Well, mean,

well, think about BTK. His daughter is now out talking about what life was like.

I don't know if you know about Colby, who is Lori Valo's son, he has the YouTube channel and he talks about what it's like being in the, in the weight of everything that happened with his mom.

But yeah,

I'm glad you chose that one. maybe.

Rachel (20:18)
knew we were both

gonna choose the Ohio one, cause that one's just too, too current.

Krystal (20:22)
That's why I did it last

year. We obviously both knew because we both were like, okay, I'm do it last

Rachel (20:27)
gosh Yeah, but all the cases had kids Because do close do lows

Krystal (20:30)
Yeah, that's a big realization.

Rachel (20:33)
Dulose had kids, Brian Walsh had kids, the Ohio one has kids, ugh.

Krystal (20:37)
The Dolos is the only one I knew absolutely nothing about. So I'm excited to hear about that one.

Rachel (20:40)
That one is crazy.

Rachel (20:52)
So I think like, you know, the fact that she's going

after the ineffective counsel piece like for her appeal, which I would love to know how often that works.

Krystal (21:01)
Well, OK, so I think what happened in it and she may have a good shot at it. Possibly that's why it depends on which one she's doing because.

If he's gone, who's telling her that's not what happened? So what did they have against her is what I'm curious about. What did they have that you couldn't get around?

Rachel (21:20)
Well, obviously,

don't know what they had on her, but she got convicted of conspiracy. So they had to have had something that tied her in. Whether that was in his messages or even in his police interview, because they can use that at trial. His police interview. Like, it's not hearsay. Right? I was trying to think of what we could do for our next one, because I was like...

Krystal (21:26)
you

messages, if it's conspiracy, it's probably messages.

Yep, yep, because they read him his Miranda rights, which I know all about nowadays. Yeah, if he

Rachel (21:47)
That's the only one that to me is super interesting. what else? What else has set a precedent? I guess we'll have to look.

Krystal (21:52)
think we should talk about the

history of a pellet. Like when you appeal, why do we have that? Why do we have a pellet? Why can we appeal things and what is that? I mean, that's one I think we could do. I hope so, poor women. ⁓ I would definitely be someone that I would have been like a star case of someone that they burned at the stake because I'm witchy. I feel like I'm witchy and I feel like I would do things that are witchy because I'd be like, you think I'm a witch? And then that...

Rachel (22:01)
That might be from the Salem witch trials.

Right?

Krystal (22:20)
my bird problem, like it's not a problem. I think it's great. But I intentionally am trying to attract birds. I want to walk down the street and a flock of crows follow me. And people be like, you seen that one girl that lives over there that birds follow her? And they'd be like, which, which? Yeah. I would be doing things that would make people think I was definitely a witch. Like put meat in my shoes or something. So all the dogs come after me and smell my feet.

Rachel (22:41)
Yeah.

Krystal (22:46)
I know, I feel like I would do weird stuff just so people would think I was  a witch.

Oh, we need to say something nice about our coworker each of them. Yeah.

Rachel (22:50)
There you go. Yeah, that's what you gotta tell her.

yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll have to start including

that like in every episode. ⁓

Krystal (22:58)
Yeah, like

an Easter egg. We'll just lay one in certain episodes then we know which ones he didn't listen to. I hope he knows what he asked for. ⁓

Rachel (23:01)
Yeah.

You are not

listening to all the episodes, are you?

Krystal (23:11)
Look, Lego

man.

Rachel (23:13)
you

Exactly. ⁓ that'll be funny. Yeah. We'll to start coming up with some things that we can slide in there. Our tech savvy coworker.

Krystal (23:16)
Yeah, that'll be the one.

Yeah, this.

Yeah, the one that used to work for that place that has ⁓ only letters.

Rachel (23:22)
who's always giving us, giving us, giving us good suggestions.

We'll see who listens by like, you know, this coworker.

Krystal (23:30)
Yeah.

yeah, that's it. We'll put two nuggets in and see which one of them come back first. I'm sure we hear from Tracy I'll definitely make sure that's in there. you even name dropped me. But the other two, the one that worked for initials, we need to have her on one soon.

Rachel (23:42)
We have to have Tracy on an episode like soon. We'll be like, and this is Tracy. This

is our third cohost.

Krystal (23:48)
Hilarious.