Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, this episode's going to be a little bit
Speaker 2: different from the other ones you've heard so far, because
Speaker 2: this time I'm talking about a case that has been solved,
Speaker 2: so there was closure, and it's a case that I
Speaker 2: covered as a journalist. I decided to make this our
Speaker 2: kind of Hell and Gone Special Christmas episode because I
Speaker 2: really wanted to share this case with you. I learned
Speaker 2: a lot from it. It happened about this time of year,
Speaker 2: around the holidays in twenty seventeen. It's also a case
Speaker 2: with the wildest twist I've ever seen, and I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that lightly because I've seen a lot. The person
Speaker 2: who committed the murder is not anyone that the public
Speaker 2: suspected at all. Most importantly, I'm sharing this because I
Speaker 2: think it contains an incredibly important cautionary tale about the
Speaker 2: dangers of social media the impact it can have on
Speaker 2: crime stories, both for the victims and the victims' families,
Speaker 2: and for the people reporting on these cases. By the way,
Speaker 2: I am still working on the Christina Pipkin case. I'm
Speaker 2: doing interviews. I've had a huge response. We've had hundreds
Speaker 2: of calls. The people in Hickory Ridge and around Arkansas
Speaker 2: and actually around the country have been super helpful and
Speaker 2: we're making a lot of progress in that case. I'm
Speaker 2: going to be doing another episode on Christina's case, my
Speaker 2: final one for now, when we come back in January
Speaker 2: after a break next week. So back to this week's case.
Speaker 2: It all started in Broomfield, Colorado, on December twenty eighth,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, nineteen year old Natalie Bollinger was at home
Speaker 2: in her apartment. Natalie lived with her boyfriend, Joseph Joey Marino.
Speaker 2: She had moved to Colorado the year before to be
Speaker 2: near her dad, Ted and her twin sister Alicia, and
Speaker 2: some other family members. Natalie's mother, Roe's self lived in Virginia.
Speaker 2: According to her a Bitchctuary, Natalie was, for the most part,
Speaker 2: a normal teenage girl. She loved animals and nature, and
Speaker 2: had recently enrolled in college with the goal of becoming
Speaker 2: a registered nurse. All of her friends and family described
Speaker 2: her as kind and loving, the kind of person who
Speaker 2: would do anything to help a friend in need. But
Speaker 2: Natalie Bollinger had also had a tough year. She had
Speaker 2: been suffering from depression and going through a lot of stress.
Speaker 1: In her life.
Speaker 2: She had also at different points in her life, used drugs,
Speaker 2: including methamphetamines and heroin, and she posted on Facebook about
Speaker 2: her experimentation with drugs. Joey, Natalie's boyfriend, said he went
Speaker 2: to work at six am that morning. When he got
Speaker 2: home that afternoon at three eighteen pm, Natalie was gone.
Speaker 1: Joey also had.
Speaker 2: A nine millimeter glock and he noticed that his gun
Speaker 2: was gone. He apparently tried to call Natalie, but when
Speaker 2: he did, he noticed that her cell phone was at
Speaker 2: home too. That's when Joey became alarmed because Natalie was
Speaker 2: very active on social media. She was not the kind
Speaker 2: of person to leave her cell phone at home for
Speaker 2: long periods of time. Joey called the police and reported
Speaker 2: Natalie missing. He also called Natalie's mom Rose. He told
Speaker 2: her he was worried because Natalie's phone was at the house,
Speaker 2: her coat was there, her shoes were there, and remember
Speaker 2: this is the middle of winter and she was just gone.
Speaker 2: Police said at the time that at first they weren't
Speaker 2: overly worried because Natalie was nineteen years old, she had
Speaker 2: the right to disappear or not contact people, and she
Speaker 2: and Joey had gotten into some arguments like normal couples,
Speaker 2: but family members let police know it was very unlike
Speaker 2: Natalie not to be on social media at all, and
Speaker 2: also family members let police know that Natalie had been
Speaker 2: dealing with depression and other issues. By the next day, Friday,
Speaker 2: December twenty eighth, police were seriously concerned. Over the next
Speaker 2: few days, the search for Natalie Bollinger made local and
Speaker 2: then national news. Missing posters of Natalie with her distinctive look,
Speaker 2: the tattoo of a three eyed cat on the nape
Speaker 2: of her neck, and purple hair were posted everywhere in town.
Speaker 1: The next day, on December twenty.
Speaker 2: Ninth, police got a tip that a body had been
Speaker 2: found on land belonging to the Macintosh Dairy Farm. The
Speaker 2: body was in a wooded area north of Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 2: and later once police described the tattoo on the body
Speaker 2: the three eyed cat to Natalie's family, they were able
Speaker 2: to confirm that the body found was Natalie Ballinger. She
Speaker 2: was wearing black jeans, a black hoodie, black boots, and socks.
Speaker 1: She was covered in leaves.
Speaker 2: Investigators determined that she had been dead since the day
Speaker 2: she went missing. I'm Catherine Townsend. If you have a
Speaker 2: case you'd like me and my team to look into.
Speaker 2: You can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Speaker 2: Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 2: one four five. That's six seven eight seven four four
Speaker 2: six one four five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 2: I first became involved in Natalie's case back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: right after she went missing. I was working with Investigation Discovery,
Speaker 2: and when I wrote the article about it, I called
Speaker 2: this case a social media murder mystery because social media
Speaker 2: was involved at every single stage, and at every single stage,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, it both helped and hurt the case.
Speaker 2: It started early when Natalie's father, Ted Ballinger, posted a
Speaker 2: message on a TV news station's Facebook page. It read,
Speaker 2: just left the sheriff, my daughter was murdered.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: This was before police officially publicly confirmed that the body
Speaker 2: found had been Natalie. Police said social media did help
Speaker 2: the case in some ways. The Adams County Sheriff Mike
Speaker 2: McIntosh said that those Facebook photos of Natalie's distinctive tattoos
Speaker 2: helped them identify her body. Then there was no news
Speaker 2: for several days. The whole town was talking about the case.
Speaker 2: On January third, Sheriff Macintosh held a press conference at
Speaker 2: the time. He said, quote, I feel comfortable saying that
Speaker 2: there's not a threat to the community. End quote now.
Speaker 2: Even though police did not say much more about the
Speaker 2: murder investigation, if you listen to this podcast or any
Speaker 2: other true crime podcast, you know that when police want
Speaker 2: to convey that they believe that the murder was personal
Speaker 2: and not, for example, something a random stranger did, this
Speaker 2: is often what they'll say. After that, people started to
Speaker 2: speculate that Natalie had some sort of relationship with her
Speaker 2: killer was someone that she knew, and that's when all
Speaker 2: hell broke loose on social media. First of all, you
Speaker 2: had Natalie's family and they were arguing amongst themselves. Natalie's father, Ted,
Speaker 2: had started to gofund me, but there was some controversy
Speaker 2: about that. People made allegations that the money wasn't being
Speaker 2: used properly. On January eighth, Ted said that the funeral
Speaker 2: would be the following day, but later he said the
Speaker 2: services were canceled due to what he called issues with funding.
Speaker 2: And then on January eleven, the other side of the family,
Speaker 2: her mom, Rose, and some others said they were having
Speaker 2: memorial services for Natalie in Virginia. Eventually, Natalie's funeral was
Speaker 2: held at the Church of Saint Teres in Chesapeake, Virginia.
Speaker 2: Since Natalie's social media was public, a lot of people
Speaker 2: went to her Facebook page and they found very detailed
Speaker 2: descriptions of what she had been going through in the
Speaker 2: days and months before her death. Very quickly they saw
Speaker 2: she had been dealing with a guy, someone she was
Speaker 2: scared of, and the final update on her Facebook page
Speaker 2: was a post about Natalie being stalked. Natalie's life had
Speaker 2: a dark side, a dark side that she wrote about
Speaker 2: on social media. Yet she talked about her problems at
Speaker 2: home with some family members, about depression, and about her
Speaker 2: experimentation with drugs, and of course, social media sleuics immediately
Speaker 2: started looking up information on anyone who was even tangentially
Speaker 2: connected to Natalie, including her father Ted. Ted had a
Speaker 2: criminal record that included arrest for burglary, car theft, some
Speaker 2: drug charges, and felony assault. This is all, by the way,
Speaker 2: according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation court records.
Speaker 1: Two weeks before she.
Speaker 2: Disappeared, Natalie posted a statement on Facebook.
Speaker 1: In that post, she.
Speaker 2: Said she was scared because she said she was being
Speaker 2: stalked by a thirty seven year old man named Shawn Schwartz.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Sean Swartz with someone Natalie had met a few years earlier.
Speaker 2: Then they lost contact for a while, and in twenty
Speaker 2: fifteen they seemed to reconnect as friends. Sean also had
Speaker 2: a criminal record. He had been charged with theft in
Speaker 2: the past. For a while, Sean and Natalie became confidants
Speaker 2: and they seemed to really share a lot of their
Speaker 2: problems with each other and support each other. But then
Speaker 2: it seemed like things started to turn. Seawan was becoming
Speaker 2: fixated on her, and if you read the text messages,
Speaker 2: it seems like his fixation increased pretty dramatically throughout twenty seventeen. Later,
Speaker 2: he posted long text messages and social media message exchanges
Speaker 2: between him and Natalie where they shared the details of
Speaker 2: their lives and supported each other. But at some point
Speaker 2: it seemed like Natalie started to become afraid of Sean.
Speaker 2: Natalie claimed that Sean was obsessed with her, and she
Speaker 2: claimed he had driven across the country to see her
Speaker 2: and slept behind her work for weeks. She wrote quote
Speaker 2: he sent emails for over a year close to every day,
Speaker 2: harassing me, making numerous different accounts until I'll block him again,
Speaker 2: threatening my family, telling me he'll kill himself in front
Speaker 2: of me, and sending my friends and family threatening messages
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: On December fourteenth, twenty seventeen, Natalie went to the police
Speaker 2: and asked for a temporary restraining order. That restraining order
Speaker 2: was granted, and a few days later it was made permanent.
Speaker 1: She posted copies of.
Speaker 2: The restraining order online and from that we could see
Speaker 2: that she claimed that Sean would show up in his
Speaker 2: car and sit outside her house for hours. When she
Speaker 2: didn't come out, he would literally just lay on the
Speaker 2: horn four hours at a time. So, of course, because
Speaker 2: Natalie had described this alleged stalking incident and it was
Speaker 2: one of her last posts ever on social media, people
Speaker 2: immediately focused on Sean and pretty soon they were asking
Speaker 2: why wasn't he a person of interest? Why wasn't he
Speaker 2: being arrested. Meanwhile, Sean said he wasn't even in Colorado
Speaker 2: at the time Natalie disappeared. He said he had nothing
Speaker 2: to do with her disappearance, and he said he could
Speaker 2: prove where he was because he had receipts. Sean's social
Speaker 2: media showed videos of him posting these long rants against
Speaker 2: the system and sometimes against Natalie's family. Some of these
Speaker 2: videos seem pretty scary, but at the same time, Shawn
Speaker 2: also seemed like a vulnerable person. According to his own
Speaker 2: description of himself, he had mental health issues and nowhere
Speaker 2: to live.
Speaker 1: So this was a.
Speaker 2: Bollettle situation because you have one person who's been murdered,
Speaker 2: you have a person who's kind of living on the streets.
Speaker 2: And also said that they had medical conditions including Aspergers
Speaker 2: and Tourette's syndrome, things that can cause miscommunications. Sean said
Speaker 2: he was unfairly, in his words, convicted in the court
Speaker 2: of public opinion. Sheriff McIntosh tried to calm down this
Speaker 2: social media storm and made a comment about how Facebook
Speaker 2: had been a mixed blessing in this case. The sheriff said, quote,
Speaker 2: Facebook gets to put out that information before we can
Speaker 2: go through our official steps to make sure that we
Speaker 2: get it right. In today's day and age, it's kind
Speaker 2: of fascinating how much information we can gain from that.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, there is a lot of information
Speaker 2: that is absolutely untrue, false accusations. Our goal is to
Speaker 2: make sure that we're not headed down a rabbit trail
Speaker 2: that we don't need to go down end quote. And
Speaker 2: I think the sheriff's statement really epitomizes the reality of
Speaker 2: social media in these cases.
Speaker 1: I'll admit I sometimes get sucked into it too.
Speaker 2: When hundreds and thousands of people started discussing Natalie's case online,
Speaker 2: and these groups calling for justice for Natalie Ballinger began
Speaker 2: popping up on Facebook, I was looking at them as well.
Speaker 2: People were staying up late at night and going down
Speaker 2: all kinds of weird rabbit holes. But then I started
Speaker 2: to get nervous because people went from sharing information to
Speaker 2: having this kind of mob mentality. The mob mentality towards
Speaker 2: Sean started to scare me, especially once it became clear
Speaker 2: that he really was having issues. In the beginning of
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, I was worried that this whole situation was
Speaker 2: building towards something bad, that something very bad was going
Speaker 2: to happen. People were literally messaging Sean and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out where he was. By this point, he had
Speaker 2: gone to Boulder. He said he couldn't stay with family
Speaker 2: and was basically staying between motels in the street. I
Speaker 2: found myself getting very concerned for him. Also, some of
Speaker 2: his posts seemed very irrational and rambling. I started to
Speaker 2: wonder would he do something to someone else, would someone
Speaker 2: do something to him. The way that everything was playing
Speaker 2: out uncontrolled, in this really public and frankly terrifying way,
Speaker 2: seemed like it was spiraling toward some type of terrifying conclusion.
Speaker 2: On January fifth, Sean posted on Facebook basically challenging the
Speaker 2: police to come find him and, in his words, put
Speaker 2: me in the ground.
Speaker 1: Police arrested him that night.
Speaker 2: He was charged with second degree assault on a peace
Speaker 2: officer and with resisting arrest. Then he was released on
Speaker 2: bail and posted a video saying the police had assaulted him.
Speaker 2: He wrote that he quote wanted my life to be
Speaker 2: over because my friends were afraid, not afraid of me,
Speaker 2: but afraid of public opinion end quote. He then said
Speaker 2: that the bolder police had antagonized the situation, assaulted him,
Speaker 2: and then charged him with assault.
Speaker 1: He alleged the police.
Speaker 2: And his opinion, were hoping that a vigilanti would kill him,
Speaker 2: and when that didn't happen, they threw him in jail,
Speaker 2: and he claimed the police had lied to him. He
Speaker 2: said they told him he was going to go to
Speaker 2: a safe place where he could sit down and fill
Speaker 2: out a report, but he was taken to the hospital instead,
Speaker 2: and he could not handle the environment there, so I
Speaker 2: ended up leaving. Now, the police claimed they were trying
Speaker 2: to help Sean by taking him to the hospital, but
Speaker 2: that Sean became uncooperative and started kicking and fighting with them.
Speaker 2: They say that's why he ended up with the assault charge.
Speaker 2: Whatever the reality of all that, you have a situation
Speaker 2: where in January you have this incident with Sean and
Speaker 2: the police. You have headlines saying that a person of
Speaker 2: interest in Natalie's case was arrested. And even though the
Speaker 2: articles did say that Sean was arrested on an unrelated charge,
Speaker 2: let's be real, a lot of people don't read that
Speaker 2: fine print.
Speaker 1: They just see the headlines.
Speaker 2: So what they saw was that Sean had been arrested,
Speaker 2: and they saw Natalie's name, and again this added to
Speaker 2: that public perception that Sean could have had something to
Speaker 2: do with Natalie's murder. I should add that during this time,
Speaker 2: there were a lot of people trying to help Sean,
Speaker 2: sending him supportive messages, but there were also a lot
Speaker 2: of people following everything that he said online and virtually
Speaker 2: stalking him. Then the case took another dangerous and crazy twist.
Speaker 2: Sean posted a Facebook live video which has now been deleted,
Speaker 2: of himself in a motel where he said he had
Speaker 2: been driven to take his own life. The video showed
Speaker 2: him taking pills from a pudding cup. Several people who
Speaker 2: saw the video managed to contact emergency services. Paramedics rushed
Speaker 2: to the scene and they treated him. Sean made a
Speaker 2: full recovery. And while this whole thing with Sean was
Speaker 2: playing out so publicly on social media, in the background,
Speaker 2: other people were talking about Natalie's boyfriend and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out his timeline. The boyfriend, Joey, by the way,
Speaker 2: was completely cleared by police early in the investigation.
Speaker 1: He was very cooperative.
Speaker 2: Detectives on the case verified that he had been at
Speaker 2: work the time when Natalie had been killed. In the background,
Speaker 2: detectives were doing some old school thorough detective work. They
Speaker 2: were looking through Natalie's phone all of her text messages,
Speaker 2: and there was a delay between the time when police
Speaker 2: got her phone and when they were able to access
Speaker 2: her password and get to her text messages. This happens
Speaker 2: a lot in cases because sometimes police have to get
Speaker 2: a search warrant from the provider, so there was a delay,
Speaker 2: but once they saw those text messages, they got a shock.
Speaker 2: It became very clear there was a very obvious suspect
Speaker 2: in this case, and it wasn't Sean, and it wasn't
Speaker 2: anyone in Natalie's family or her boyfriend, or anyone who
Speaker 2: the public expected, because the man who police suspected of
Speaker 2: killing Natalie Bollinger was in fact a twenty three year
Speaker 2: old Domino's pizza delivery guy named Joseph Lopez. Up until
Speaker 2: a few days before her murder, he had been a
Speaker 2: complete stranger to Natalie. Once police saw the text messages
Speaker 2: between Natalie and Joseph Lopez, which I'll explain in a minute,
Speaker 2: they went to the pizza place where he worked, and
Speaker 2: according to the arrest affidavit, he was cooperative. He realized
Speaker 2: he was caught and he immediately told police what happened.
Speaker 2: And the story that Joseph Lopez told was wild. In fact,
Speaker 2: it's one of the most unbelievable things I've actually ever heard.
Speaker 2: If it was a movie, I'm not sure I would
Speaker 2: find it believable. But like I always say, sadly, this
Speaker 2: is real life, not a movie.
Speaker 1: These are real people, and.
Speaker 2: Again this is why when we cover these cases, I
Speaker 2: take that responsibility very seriously. According to the arrest affidavit,
Speaker 2: Joseph Lopez was randomly scrolling through Craigslist one night. He
Speaker 2: was looking at the women seeking men's section. He saw
Speaker 2: an ad with the headline to put a hit on myself,
Speaker 2: meaning I want to hire a hit man to kill me.
Speaker 2: And apparently this ad was placed by Natalie Ballinger. Now
Speaker 2: this sounds crazy and unbelievable, but according to the arrest affidavit,
Speaker 2: police went through the digital forensics very carefully. They went
Speaker 2: through natalie cell phone. They went through Joseph's cell phone.
Speaker 2: They figured out not only had he responded to this ad,
Speaker 2: but that after he did, Joseph and Natalie swapped contact
Speaker 2: details and they started texting. In the end, they texted
Speaker 2: over one hundred times. They talked a lot in detail
Speaker 2: about the fact that Natalie wanted to end her life
Speaker 2: and she wanted help to do it.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: During this time, Joseph Lopez, who's this kind of shy,
Speaker 2: retiring pizza delivery boy, adopts this kind of fake hit
Speaker 2: man persona. It's like he wanted to be this Jason
Speaker 2: Bourne badass type character, which of course he was not,
Speaker 2: and during the course of these conversations, he agreed to
Speaker 2: kill Natalie Ballinger. He agreed to do it, says the
Speaker 2: arrest affidavit, for an unspecified fee. Apparently there was talk
Speaker 2: of money, but it's not clear how much money. So then, again,
Speaker 2: according to this document, they came up with a plan
Speaker 2: Joseph would pick Natalie up from her apartment on December
Speaker 2: twenty eighth, and after her boyfriend left for work. That's
Speaker 2: exactly what happened. Joseph drove over and picked Natalie up.
Speaker 2: According to Joseph, they talked for a while and they
Speaker 2: drove around. Natalie talked about the problems she'd been having
Speaker 2: in her life, her relationship with her boyfriend, and some
Speaker 2: other stuff, just her general depression. Then at some point
Speaker 2: they started to drive toward the area where her body
Speaker 2: was found. Natalie had brought her boyfriend's gun with her,
Speaker 2: which she had said she would do. This is where
Speaker 2: the story diverges a little bit. Because Joseph Lopez initially
Speaker 2: told investigators that he didn't kill Natalie. He said, yes,
Speaker 2: he did pick her up. They talked for a while
Speaker 2: and then he said, of course, trying to paint himself
Speaker 2: in the best possible light, which many suspects do.
Speaker 1: He said he was trying to talk.
Speaker 2: Natalie out of her killing herself. That's why he had
Speaker 2: gone there, to try and help her and get her
Speaker 2: to change her mind. In the end, he said, he
Speaker 2: had just been altruistic, and then he drove her back
Speaker 2: to her apartment and left her there. So if someone
Speaker 2: did kill her, he said after that, she must have
Speaker 2: found another person to respond to the ad or maybe done.
Speaker 1: It on her own.
Speaker 2: Joseph Lopez was arrested in February, and at around that
Speaker 2: same time, I was looking for source documents, trying to
Speaker 2: ignore the online chatter. I was actually on vacation. I
Speaker 2: was skiing in Colorado. I was an Aspen and I
Speaker 2: decided to take a drive to Adams County, ignore all
Speaker 2: the online chatter, and request the arrest affidavit and a
Speaker 2: copy of the autopsy in person. And that's exactly what
Speaker 2: I did. Now because I was in one of the
Speaker 2: Facebook groups. Because I'll join any group that I can,
Speaker 2: I will do anything to find information that could close
Speaker 2: the case. I communicated with some people there. I let
Speaker 2: them know that i'd written a story for the Investigation
Speaker 2: Discovery blog and that the autopsy report was part of
Speaker 2: that story. It was really strange though, because a lot
Speaker 2: of people said it was fake news. Later, a lot
Speaker 2: of people were very supportive and thanked me for trying
Speaker 2: to provide original documents in a case where there was
Speaker 2: so much speculation. But I think it's really important in
Speaker 2: cases like this to be able to find those documents,
Speaker 2: things that came directly from the medical examiner's office or
Speaker 2: from the police in the case file. Whenever possible, I
Speaker 2: always try to find the original source documents. And what
Speaker 2: that autopsy report showed was that Natalie was killed by
Speaker 2: gunshot wound to the head. She also had a potentially
Speaker 2: lethal amount of heroin in her system at the time
Speaker 2: of her death. I talked to a forensic pathologist and
Speaker 2: asked them to weigh in on that autopsy report. I
Speaker 2: asked the question that a lot of people were asking,
Speaker 2: which is would the drugs in her system have eventually
Speaker 2: killed her?
Speaker 1: And what the.
Speaker 2: Pathologist said was that's actually irrelevant because even if Natalie
Speaker 2: did have a toxic amount of drugs in her system,
Speaker 2: even if she would have eventually died from an overdose.
Speaker 2: That wasn't what killed her. What killed her was that
Speaker 2: gunshot wound to the head. Joseph Lopez told police that
Speaker 2: Natalie wanted to be killed on her knees, executed from behind,
Speaker 2: but again he said he didn't do it. But police
Speaker 2: knew that Joseph Lopez was lying because what he didn't
Speaker 2: know was that police had his car GPS data and
Speaker 2: that data showed that Joseph Lopez, or at least his car,
Speaker 2: had driven to the area near that dairy farm where
Speaker 2: Natalie's body was found. So then he changed his story
Speaker 2: that he did go out there with her, but he
Speaker 2: said Natalie shot herself in the head.
Speaker 1: Again, police knew that this wasn't.
Speaker 2: True because there was that autopsy report. The forensic showed
Speaker 2: that a nine millimeters shell casing was found several feet
Speaker 2: away from Natalie. Natalie had been shot once from point
Speaker 2: blank range, but the killer had been a few feet
Speaker 2: away from her. In addition to that, the angle of
Speaker 2: the bullet was all wrong. The angle, according to the
Speaker 2: autopsy report, was left to right, front to back and downward. Now,
Speaker 2: Natalie was on her knees at the time she was shot,
Speaker 2: she could not have shot herself in the head using
Speaker 2: a downward trajectory from several feet away. The story Joseph
Speaker 2: Lopez was spinning was literally impossible. Finally, Joseph Lopez knew
Speaker 2: that he was caught. He told police, yes, he did
Speaker 2: shoot her, but he said Natalie begged him to shoot her.
Speaker 1: He said they prayed together.
Speaker 2: And that after that she quote knelt down on the
Speaker 2: ground and that he knelt down along her left side
Speaker 2: and slightly in front of her end quote. Then he
Speaker 2: said he shot her. Then he fled the scene, but
Speaker 2: not before stealing her purse and the gun. Police really
Speaker 2: didn't believe anything, Joseph Lopez said, because number one, they
Speaker 2: knew he was a liar, and number two, they had
Speaker 2: started doing a deep dive into his past and what
Speaker 2: they found was seriously disturbing. Joseph Lopez told police that
Speaker 2: he kept a journal in high school, a journal where
Speaker 2: he wrote stories about kidnapping people, torturing them, and executing them.
Speaker 2: According to the Denver Post, now, there's nothing illegal or
Speaker 2: necessarily even alarming about writing horror stories, but he told
Speaker 2: investigators he had had fantasies about doing these things to
Speaker 2: people for real for a long time. So at this
Speaker 2: point people were asking a lot of questions that I
Speaker 2: think are very interesting, Like we talk a lot about
Speaker 2: the right to die, but we're talking about people who
Speaker 2: are older or in pain. What about when it's a
Speaker 2: mental health issue? What about when it's a young person.
Speaker 2: There's a lot about this case that we still don't know,
Speaker 2: because of course we'll never get the full truth from
Speaker 2: Joseph Lopez, Like did Natalie take the drugs herself? Or
Speaker 2: could Joseph Lopez have injected her with those drugs.
Speaker 1: To calm her down?
Speaker 2: And really, even if Natalie Ballinger did want to die,
Speaker 2: the fact is this was still murder. Joseph Lopez was
Speaker 2: a predator. He saw a vulnerable person, someone who was
Speaker 2: talking about wanting to end her own life, and instead
Speaker 2: of helping her or steering her towards some kinds of
Speaker 2: counseling or taking her to drop her off with a
Speaker 2: friend or family member at the hospital, he chose to
Speaker 2: live out a sick fantasy, and he chose to make
Speaker 2: her his victim. Joseph Lopez was charged with first murder,
Speaker 2: and it later came out that Facebook had even played
Speaker 2: a role in helping catch him.
Speaker 1: The police were using old.
Speaker 2: School detective tactics, but they were also using social media wisely,
Speaker 2: it's actually good to see. It's good to see the
Speaker 2: Adams County Sheriff's Department doing a really good and thorough
Speaker 2: job of investigating and of using every tool they.
Speaker 1: Had at their disposal.
Speaker 2: The sheriff said they had found Joseph by searching the
Speaker 2: phone number from Natalie's text messages on Facebook. The search
Speaker 2: showed his mom's Facebook page and that's how they first
Speaker 2: found him. But then after Joseph Lopez had been charged,
Speaker 2: there was more drama because right before the trial was
Speaker 2: due to start, Joseph Lopez was offered a plea deal.
Speaker 2: He ended up pleading guilty to second degree murder. The
Speaker 2: judge sentenced him to a maximum of forty eight years
Speaker 2: in prison. That means that he will be in prison
Speaker 2: until he's at least seventy years old, but technically it
Speaker 2: does mean he will be eligible for parole at some
Speaker 2: point during his life. Ted Ballinger, Natalie's father, told the
Speaker 2: local news channel Denver seven, he was very upset about
Speaker 2: the DA's decision to offer Joseph that deal. Ted said, quote,
Speaker 2: there's no justice in this and for Adams County to
Speaker 2: have enough evidence to convict him and then make him
Speaker 2: an offer is a spit in my family's face. She
Speaker 2: was vulnerable and drugged.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Then he addressed Joseph Lopez and he said, quote, you premeditated,
Speaker 2: brutally shot and killed my baby. I asked for an
Speaker 2: eye for an eye. You've been protected. The Ballinger family
Speaker 2: had no say in this. This is a deal with
Speaker 2: the devil end quote. At the time, a lot of
Speaker 2: people were talking about whether taking the plea deal was
Speaker 2: the right move. I'm not a lawyer, so of course
Speaker 2: this is only an opinion. But I can really see
Speaker 2: both sides of that argument, because on the one hand, yes,
Speaker 2: they did have a tremendous amount of evidence, this was
Speaker 2: a premeditated murder, and they had a confession. But on
Speaker 2: the flip side, there were some complications. For example, the
Speaker 2: defense was trying to have some of Natalie's text messages
Speaker 2: excluded and without going super in depth into their arguments.
Speaker 2: If that had happened, I think that could have been catastrophic. Also,
Speaker 2: it's always a throw of the dice when you're dealing
Speaker 2: with a jury and human emotions, and this is such
Speaker 2: a strange story. I would worry that even if technically
Speaker 2: Joseph Lopez was totally guilty, that maybe there'd be one
Speaker 2: juror who might think she wanted to end her life
Speaker 2: and therefore they might want to let him off more lightly.
Speaker 2: So I do think that there was some risk there,
Speaker 2: and in the end, even though he will be eligible
Speaker 2: for parole, he will be an old man by the
Speaker 2: time that happens. But I can also totally respect and
Speaker 2: appreciate the feelings of some of Natalie's family members who
Speaker 2: feel like they were betrayed. Eventually, Natalie's family tried to
Speaker 2: move on, so did Sean Schwartz. By the way, again,
Speaker 2: he was never charged with anything to do with Natalie's
Speaker 2: disappearance or death. He was completely cleared, but he continued
Speaker 2: to experience fallout from a lot of this social media stuff.
Speaker 2: Now some of it one could argue he fed into
Speaker 2: himself because he was also posting, but the whole thing
Speaker 2: just seemed to get more and more toxic. Eventually he
Speaker 2: started feuding with Natalie's twin sister, Alisha. Eventually, Alisha took
Speaker 2: out her own restraining order against Sean, and then in
Speaker 2: October of twenty nineteen, Alicia disappeared. The Kansas Highway Patrol
Speaker 2: confirmed that there was a vehicle that was involved in
Speaker 2: a police pursuit. Alicia was a passenger in that vehicle.
Speaker 2: After police stopped the car, they took Alisha to a
Speaker 2: hotel where they dropped her off, and after that she vanished. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: Alicia was found a few days later. She was safe
Speaker 2: and well. After the drama between Sean and Alicia, some
Speaker 2: other members of Natalie's family were saying they didn't feel
Speaker 2: safe either. They feel like Natalie's fear of Sean was
Speaker 2: part of the stresses that she was experiencing during the
Speaker 2: last days of her life. I can certainly appreciate their perspective.
Speaker 2: For me, this whole case has exposed the fact that
Speaker 2: you have vulnerable people. These are not public people, and
Speaker 2: when they feel like they're being stalked or targeted online,
Speaker 2: or their families are being stalked at times, online sleuthing
Speaker 2: can be really dangerous. I think about this every single
Speaker 2: day in my job, because there's no doubt that Facebook
Speaker 2: and other social media can be very powerful tools. They
Speaker 2: can give us information about what was inside of victim's
Speaker 2: mind before they disappeared or murdered. They can put you
Speaker 2: in touch with people they can make people feel comfortable
Speaker 2: about reaching out to me and others. But I think
Speaker 2: we have to be very careful with social media. We
Speaker 2: should be polite and courteous, back everything up with solid facts,
Speaker 2: and not succumb to what I call this kind of
Speaker 2: mob mentality.
Speaker 1: Whenever I find.
Speaker 2: Myself spending too long on social media, I start to
Speaker 2: remember I'm a reporter. I have two degrees in journalism,
Speaker 2: I have a PI license, and I'm going back to
Speaker 2: the basics. I go out in the field, get some
Speaker 2: fresh air, try to get some interviews, or if I
Speaker 2: need another perspective, I will find an expert with credentials
Speaker 2: to comment on a case, not just ask random people
Speaker 2: on Facebook. I think about the Natalie Bollinger case for
Speaker 2: another reason, As someone who suffered from depression. I think
Speaker 2: about some of the darkest times in my own life. Luckily,
Speaker 2: for me, I've had wonderful friends and family who have
Speaker 2: been there for me at my darkest times. But even
Speaker 2: with that, depression can be fatal. Sometimes in the depths
Speaker 2: of depression, people do feel more comfortable talking.
Speaker 1: To a stranger.
Speaker 2: I just wish that the stranger that Natalie had reached
Speaker 2: out to was someone who cared about her, not a
Speaker 2: psychopath who just wanted to use her to enact his
Speaker 2: own fantasies. And not to be corny or anything, but
Speaker 2: I put this episode out this week before the holidays
Speaker 2: because I just wanted to remind everyone, even though we
Speaker 2: are talking about crime, so many of these stories are
Speaker 2: horrific and they involve people doing very bad things to
Speaker 2: each other. I truly believe that the best way to
Speaker 2: try to find answers and justice is about all of
Speaker 2: us coming together, helping each other, being curious, and always
Speaker 2: being polite and kind, because in the end, that's how
Speaker 2: we're going to find these answers.
Speaker 1: I really believe that.
Speaker 2: So I just want to say to everybody out there
Speaker 2: this holiday season and beyond, please be careful, be kind,
Speaker 2: and take care of each other. I'll talk to you
Speaker 2: all after the holidays. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
Speaker 2: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Music is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line. It's six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six ' one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans