Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Zach here, it's been a long time. How
Speaker 1: you doing okay. I wanted to let you know about
Speaker 1: a new true crime show I've been working on called
Speaker 1: Beyond All Repair. It's a collaboration with w BR in Boston,
Speaker 1: and it's hosted by Amory Severertson of Endless Thread. It's
Speaker 1: the story of a woman named Sophia Johnson who is
Speaker 1: accused of murdering her mother in law with a pair
Speaker 1: of fireplace tongs. She swears she didn't do it, but
Speaker 1: someone says they witnessed it. Her own brother. Amory has
Speaker 1: spent the last three years talking to Sophia and everyone's
Speaker 1: surrounding this crime. And one of the main reasons that
Speaker 1: Sophia is talking to Amory is that at the time
Speaker 1: of the murder, she was six months pregnant. She's never
Speaker 1: met her son, and she wants to try to clear
Speaker 1: her name. There are a bunch of episodes out now,
Speaker 1: but we're going to drop the first one here right now.
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy.
Speaker 2: Heads up, this show has descriptions of violence and strong language.
Speaker 2: WBAR Podcasts Boston.
Speaker 3: Shane, you have no idea how much I'm trying to
Speaker 3: protect you, little brother. You don't know it yet, but
Speaker 3: you're being misled.
Speaker 4: It's the same good morning, how you're doing. Listen to
Speaker 4: me carefully. You're not ready for what will come down
Speaker 4: if you don't stop your nonsense and keep away.
Speaker 3: If you, guys attempt to sabotage or to trouble me
Speaker 3: in any which way, or to try to slow down
Speaker 3: my life, I'm gonna fight you. Guys.
Speaker 4: You don't know what you're playing with.
Speaker 3: Okay. I wanted nothing to do with it in the beginning,
Speaker 3: and up to now I still want nothing to do
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 4: Stop ak shit about me. I don't lie on me,
Speaker 4: but I'm not.
Speaker 3: Going to let anybody lie on me.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 4: Okay, you're Washington Judress, You're wicked.
Speaker 3: All I'm doing is I'm giving you fear fucking morning.
Speaker 3: If you come at me, I'm going to destroy you too.
Speaker 2: You're hearing an implosion of sorts a family on the
Speaker 2: brink of a civil war, or maybe not so civil.
Speaker 2: This is the voicemail box of a guy named Shane.
Speaker 2: The two people leaving him messages his older brother.
Speaker 3: Keep me out of him, and his.
Speaker 4: Dad watch your mount.
Speaker 2: But Shane isn't receiving the worst of it, especially from
Speaker 2: his father. Shane's sister is.
Speaker 4: You are the disease of this Rocket family. You're devious,
Speaker 4: You're waters.
Speaker 2: That's from her voicemail collection. Here's another one.
Speaker 4: Oh, you're so fucking it in your lone, stupid get
Speaker 4: ter the reporter to your lie.
Speaker 2: Give that to the reporter too. The dad says, Hey, Hi, Hello,
Speaker 2: I'm the reporter, and I'm the reason for these intimidating
Speaker 2: voice messages. Part of it, anyway, They started after I
Speaker 2: called that brother and father days earlier. My name is
Speaker 2: Amory Severertson. I work for WBUR. It's a national public
Speaker 2: radio station. I have reopened a box. Let's just say
Speaker 2: that some members of this family were hoping would stay
Speaker 2: shut forever, while others are the reason it showed up
Speaker 2: on my doorstep three years ago. Inside are the details
Speaker 2: of something that ripped this family apart, he said. She
Speaker 2: said between two siblings that left one of them a
Speaker 2: continent away and the other on the run.
Speaker 4: Since the fighting against brother tried to lie to show
Speaker 4: jump your own brother, what kind of FeelA do you have, lady?
Speaker 2: And despite the fact that this event happened more than
Speaker 2: twenty years ago, it's never been resolved. I'm talking about,
Speaker 2: Oh Wow, a murder. I'm Amory Stegertson from WBR and
Speaker 2: ZSP Media. This is beyond all repair. Chapter one, Foxes.
Speaker 2: Let's start with a younger brother receiving voicemail threats from
Speaker 2: his family, Shane Coria. He's the reason I'm here. Hi, Shane, Amory,
Speaker 2: it's so nice to meet you.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I first met Shane back in twenty seventeen. I'd gone
Speaker 2: to his New York City the apartment to interview him
Speaker 2: for another podcast I make called Endless Thread. It was
Speaker 2: for an episode about his experience with homelessness. Shane spent
Speaker 2: a period of time in his teens sleeping on the subway,
Speaker 2: nowhere else to go.
Speaker 6: I was angry and pissed and sad. I only had
Speaker 6: until morning when school started, for like some normalcy.
Speaker 2: Back then, I didn't know much about the murder that
Speaker 2: affected Shane's life, But the way I see it now,
Speaker 2: Shane doesn't end up sleeping on the subway without that
Speaker 2: dark chapter. Shane was born in the Bronx, the youngest
Speaker 2: of four siblings, three boys and a girl, with parents
Speaker 2: who were never not fighting, name calling, violence and ugly divorce.
Speaker 2: It was a bad scene. So by his preteen years,
Speaker 2: Shane and his mom and sister had moved across the
Speaker 2: country to Washington State. They were all devout Jehovah's witnesses.
Speaker 6: Verse Corinthians fifteen thirty three, do not be misled. Bad
Speaker 6: association spoils useful habits. Still know my Verse couldn't shake
Speaker 6: that part.
Speaker 2: Shane is not a Jehovah's witness anymore, in large part
Speaker 2: because of something he was realizing about himself around this time.
Speaker 6: I remember the night that I came out to my mom.
Speaker 6: She was in her room, and I like, roll in
Speaker 6: the chair for my room and like put it in
Speaker 6: the doorway, and I'm like, so, Mom, I have something
Speaker 6: that I want to tell you. And I'm like trying
Speaker 6: to couch it as much as possible, and I tell
Speaker 6: her I'm attracted to men. And she looked at me
Speaker 6: and she said, why hasn't my children become my worst fears?
Speaker 2: Shane's mom mostly stopped talking to him. She'd leave food
Speaker 2: outside his bedroom door, as if you were in solitary
Speaker 2: or something. Right around this same time came this.
Speaker 6: Arrests made in women's killing. Daughter in law accused in
Speaker 6: woman's killing.
Speaker 2: The daughter in law accused is Shane's sister.
Speaker 6: Woman pleads not guilty to murdering her mother in law.
Speaker 6: Slaying suspect has bailed, tripled, woman's murder charge upgraded.
Speaker 2: This murder was a big deal in a small Washington town,
Speaker 2: and words started spreading from newspaper headlines to gossiping teenagers
Speaker 2: at Shane's school.
Speaker 6: I remember like going into the lunch room and like,
Speaker 6: this group of kids is like coming toward me, and
Speaker 6: the like the kid that I don't like is like,
Speaker 6: so is it true that your sister killed someone? And honestly,
Speaker 6: after that, I just kind of stopped going to school.
Speaker 6: I'd always been a really good student up to that point,
Speaker 6: and then I just kind of shut down.
Speaker 2: Going to school felt impossible. Being at home with a
Speaker 2: mom who had barely talk to him felt impossible. So
Speaker 2: Shane flew back across the country by himself to the
Speaker 2: only other place he knew, New York.
Speaker 6: So I slept on the train, went to school, went
Speaker 6: to work, still got over net paycheck hourly.
Speaker 2: Shane finished high school like this, unhoused. He worked part
Speaker 2: time jobs to get by.
Speaker 6: And like going to work in a rumpled suit because
Speaker 6: you have no place to put it like. That was
Speaker 6: when I actually started to feel homeless.
Speaker 2: Shane eventually pieced together enough of an income to rent
Speaker 2: a room in an apartment. He put himself through college,
Speaker 2: then law school. By the time I spoke to Shane
Speaker 2: for Endless Thread, he was working in the Bronx District
Speaker 2: Attorney's office. The criminal justice system, to Shane, is something
Speaker 2: that's brought order to a chaotic life. It's dealt with
Speaker 2: things in a way he hasn't been able to, including
Speaker 2: his sister being accused of murdering her mother in law.
Speaker 2: Even when asked point blank back in twenty seventeen, do
Speaker 2: you think she did it?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: I don't know. Everyone's got a different story, and this
Speaker 6: is where I just kind of surrender to the justice system.
Speaker 2: That's where we'd left things back then as far as
Speaker 2: the murder was concerned. But the experience of hearing his
Speaker 2: larger story told by an outsider was pretty cathartic, Shane
Speaker 2: told me. He wrote to me after that episode came out, saying,
Speaker 2: I feel a bit more unleashed from some stuff I
Speaker 2: didn't fully know was holding me back, and that was it.
Speaker 2: I thought time passed Shane changed legal jobs, adopted a dog.
Speaker 6: Damn good boy. Yeah, I'll give you cuddles of it.
Speaker 2: And then about three years later, in the spring of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, I got an email from Shane out
Speaker 2: of the blue. There was someone else looking to be
Speaker 2: unleashed from something holding her back.
Speaker 6: Look, I don't really know her story.
Speaker 2: Something that's been boxed up and for Shane at least
Speaker 2: untouched for more than twenty years.
Speaker 6: Do I think that my sister is capable of committing
Speaker 6: such a brutal crime?
Speaker 2: Shane was reaching out to say that that question might
Speaker 2: finally get answered because the person who could settle it
Speaker 2: for him once and for all, she wanted to talk,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to talk to me. Coming up Shane's sister.
Speaker 6: Check check.
Speaker 2: It's a couple weeks after Shane emailed me saying his
Speaker 2: sister wanted to quote speak openly about something that has
Speaker 2: caused a lot of pain in our collective eyes, the
Speaker 2: murder of her mother in law. I'd seen pictures of
Speaker 2: Shane's sister in newspaper clippings from the early two thousands,
Speaker 2: handcuffed wearing the stereotypical bright orange jail get up. No makeup,
Speaker 2: her expression ranging from self assured to resigned. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to expect. Twenty years later, and the last
Speaker 2: I'd heard about it from Shane Uh didn't put me
Speaker 2: at ease, And yet when she appeared on my screen,
Speaker 2: I felt surprisingly calm.
Speaker 7: Hi, good morning, how are you hey?
Speaker 2: This is Sophia.
Speaker 5: A little nervous.
Speaker 7: I won't lie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we're embarking on something new. I say that
Speaker 2: as if I knew what we were embarking on. But
Speaker 2: listening back to this, I want to warn my past self. Girl,
Speaker 2: you have no idea what's coming. Sophia didn't neither.
Speaker 7: Well, let's just see where it goes.
Speaker 6: Why not?
Speaker 2: Sophia showed up to our first video call looking nothing
Speaker 2: like the woman I'd seen in the newspapers, her long
Speaker 2: jet black hair, shiny and neat, her face impeccably made up,
Speaker 2: winged eyeliner, red lipstick, meticulously shaped eyebrows, and an almost
Speaker 2: air brushed appearance that defied everything I knew about her
Speaker 2: life at that point.
Speaker 7: I wake up, I have usually several cups of coffee
Speaker 7: and I'm watching the news.
Speaker 2: She sounded so normal, sweet, Even.
Speaker 7: I do a little bit of gardening.
Speaker 5: I listen to music.
Speaker 2: She was talking to me from.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't say where she is. I can't say why.
Speaker 2: I can't say either. Yet I can say that, contrary
Speaker 2: to her appearance, Sophia feels anything but put together.
Speaker 7: The only thing I can do because I'm at my bottom.
Speaker 7: I stand up for myself, because I have zero expectations
Speaker 7: that anyone else can do it for me.
Speaker 2: She feels held back from the life she had imagined
Speaker 2: for herself, a life that was really just starting twenty
Speaker 2: two years ago with a new husband of four months,
Speaker 2: new in laws with whom she'd quickly become close. Then
Speaker 2: came January tenth, two thousand and two. Sophia's mother in law, Marlene,
Speaker 2: was supposed to come over to her house for lunch
Speaker 2: that day. She didn't oh, and when Sophia and her
Speaker 2: husband went over to Marlene's house to check on her,
Speaker 2: they found her lying on the basement floor. Marlene Johnson
Speaker 2: had been bludgeoned to death.
Speaker 4: You know what happened to him on.
Speaker 1: Okay, murdered your mom. I have no idea murder.
Speaker 8: On her forehead or there wasn't any bold.
Speaker 2: Is there something that you typically do on this day?
Speaker 7: This is a day I wish never existed.
Speaker 2: It's now January tenth, twenty twenty two, twenty years to
Speaker 2: the day that Sophie as mother in law was murdered.
Speaker 2: Sophia is in her mid forties at this point, but
Speaker 2: every year on this day, she says, she's transported back.
Speaker 7: I'm twenty three years old in my head, and.
Speaker 8: This is two thousand and two.
Speaker 6: And you know what I thought.
Speaker 8: I thought it's January tenth. And whoever did this to her?
Speaker 7: Do they know that it's January tenth?
Speaker 2: Do they know they're out there somewhere. Then again, there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people who would say that the
Speaker 2: person who killed Marlene is talking to me right now.
Speaker 7: I want to say, and be very honest with you,
Speaker 7: that if I did Marlene's murder, they wouldn't.
Speaker 5: Have to worry about finding me.
Speaker 7: I would turn myself in.
Speaker 2: Sophia has always held fast that she did not kill
Speaker 2: her mother in law, but she also says there's a
Speaker 2: lot to this story that she's never told anyone until now.
Speaker 2: This is how she thinks about her life.
Speaker 5: It is a house that has lots of boxes and
Speaker 5: lots of different rooms that need to be unpacked, not
Speaker 5: necessarily sure where to start.
Speaker 2: Okay, It's Monday, April twenty sixth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 2: I got a box today. The day I started unpacking
Speaker 2: metaphorical boxes with Sophia, a physical one showed up at
Speaker 2: my office. Inside this box were VHS tapes. Sophia says
Speaker 2: that she's never watched them. She told me today that
Speaker 2: she does not want to watch them. She said that
Speaker 2: she's worried that, like it'll put someone else's version of
Speaker 2: the story back in her head head and right now
Speaker 2: she just wants to focus on what she knows to
Speaker 2: be true about what happened. Thirteen tapes in black and
Speaker 2: gold cardboard cases. Oh, this is a lot. It was
Speaker 2: like a time capsule. This box. Those white stickers along
Speaker 2: the long edges, handwriting labeling each one in blue and
Speaker 2: black pen. All right, let's see so these tapes on
Speaker 2: the side. Oh my god, it says State v. Johnson, Comma, Sophia.
Speaker 6: You're ready for the jury.
Speaker 3: That yeah, sure, thank you.
Speaker 7: Okay, Wan'm bringing the jury please.
Speaker 2: These tapes are the video footage of Sophia's murder trial,
Speaker 2: and they were really just the beginning. I didn't know
Speaker 2: what was in all of Sophia's boxes I know now abuse, disownment,
Speaker 2: financial crimes, deportation. To start, The boxes of my own
Speaker 2: life look nothing like Sophia's, And yet the more of
Speaker 2: hers I've opened, the more I've realized that they hold
Speaker 2: a lot of my greatest fears, being betrayed by someone
Speaker 2: who's supposed to be on my side, never being truly believed,
Speaker 2: loving something more than anything in the world, only to
Speaker 2: have it taken away.
Speaker 7: My son turned nineteen years old yesterday. Never met him,
Speaker 7: don't know anything really about him.
Speaker 2: Her son. When Sophia was accused of bludgeoning her mother
Speaker 2: in law to death, she was six months pregnant. She
Speaker 2: gave birth to her only child while incarcerated and hasn't
Speaker 2: seen him since.
Speaker 7: And I do not want another one of his birthdays
Speaker 7: to go by without at least having an image of
Speaker 7: me and hearing the truth about what I'm sure he's
Speaker 7: read and heard about his entire love.
Speaker 2: That's when I realized that Sophia is really trying to
Speaker 2: clear her name. In the eyes of one person.
Speaker 7: The only thing he will ever know is that I
Speaker 7: was accused. His grandmother is dead. This is my legacy,
Speaker 7: This is forever my legacy.
Speaker 2: But maybe it doesn't have to be. Sophia can't start over,
Speaker 2: but she might still have time to change that legacy.
Speaker 2: Pretty early into reporting this story, someone told me that
Speaker 2: Sophia's life just seems so fubar. I wasn't familiar with
Speaker 2: this term, but it's a military acronym fucked up, beyond
Speaker 2: all repair, beyond all repair. That idea has stayed with me,
Speaker 2: not as a statement, but a question. Is Sophia's life
Speaker 2: beyond all repair? And if she is in fact innocent
Speaker 2: of murder? Well, telling her story help change some people's
Speaker 2: minds about her, starting perhaps with Shane.
Speaker 6: Do I believe what she's saying that she believes she's innocent,
Speaker 6: Like I can believe that, But belief is very different
Speaker 6: from fact, you know, like someone still died.
Speaker 7: If he believes anybody believes that, I am that person,
Speaker 7: And I just don't know what that steps.
Speaker 8: That means that I'm not explaining it right, or he dies,
Speaker 8: said no, Ena, And I never want my son to
Speaker 8: ever think that, Mom, I love you anyway. That is
Speaker 8: not the right answer. That's not the right answer.
Speaker 2: The right answer to me is just the truth. I've
Speaker 2: been upfront with Sophia about this from the very beginning.
Speaker 2: I can't root for people in this story, but I
Speaker 2: can root for the truth. And if the people are
Speaker 2: aligned with the truth, then I'm rooting for the people.
Speaker 8: You know, I agree with that.
Speaker 2: It's been almost three years since my first conversation with Sophia.
Speaker 2: I've spoken to dozens of people connected to the story.
Speaker 2: I have thousands of pages of case files and court records.
Speaker 2: I have information And now, what the fuck Shane does too?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 8: This hurts. This hurts.
Speaker 6: I can't read it.
Speaker 2: Years after this murder uprooted his life, Shane's decided he's
Speaker 2: not going to surrender to the justice system anymore because,
Speaker 2: according to the justice system, this murder is technically a
Speaker 2: cold case.
Speaker 7: This is not right.
Speaker 6: I don't care who it is.
Speaker 2: Next time, Shane digs into his sister's case file and
Speaker 2: I dig into Sophia's trial and the key witness who
Speaker 2: testified against.
Speaker 6: Her, the person kind of took it was like stocking
Speaker 6: off their face, and it turned out to.
Speaker 2: Be my sister, Sophia's other brother.
Speaker 3: I'm going to fight you, guys.
Speaker 2: Beyond All Repair is a production of wbur Boston's NPR
Speaker 2: and ZSP Media. It's written and reported by me Amory
Speaker 2: Severertson and produced by Sophie Coodner. Mix sound design and
Speaker 2: original scoring by Paul Vikis, Production manager of WBR Podcasts,
Speaker 2: Theme and credits music by me. Our Managing producers are
Speaker 2: Summatajoshi for WBR and Liz Styles of ZSP. The show
Speaker 2: is edited and executive produced by Ben Brock Johnson of
Speaker 2: WBR and Zach Stewart Pontier of ZSP Media. If you
Speaker 2: have questions about the case, the real people at the
Speaker 2: center of this story, or anything else about this series,
Speaker 2: we want to hear them. Email Beyond All Repair Pod
Speaker 2: at gmail dot com, voice message, written message you do
Speaker 2: you Beyond All Repair Pod at gmail dot com, and hey,
Speaker 2: do me a favor. Will you tell someone you love
Speaker 2: them and tell them about this show in that order?
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: That's Beyond All Repair hosted by Amory Severertson. New episodes
Speaker 1: drop Thursdays. Find it Wherever you're listening to this, let
Speaker 1: us know what you think.