WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Caroline Herrling 0:00:46.480 --> 0:00:48.000 School of Humans. 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:53.000 Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.200 an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come 0:00:56.240 --> 0:01:00.120 forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.760 by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:07.720 community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:11.520 point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:15.800 We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:19.080 guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.080 is intended to state or imply that anyone who has 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.600 not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:27.120 Thanks for listening. 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.160 In December of twenty twenty, police and Los Angeles received 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.640 a call from a neighbor of sixty nine year old 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:40.000 Charles Wilding, a reclusive man who lived by himself on 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.080 Kingswood Road in Chairman Oaks. Charles lived in a home 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.120 situated just over the hill from Hollywood in the San 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:51.920 Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Charles's neighbor told the LAPD 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.040 that they were worried about Charles because Charles, who had 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:58.120 lived in his home for approximately thirty five years, had 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.080 not been seen for months by anyone in the neighborhood. 0:02:02.000 --> 0:02:05.560 At first, this didn't seem like an emergency. Charles had 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.680 always been a private person. He didn't drive, and he 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:13.400 rarely strayed far from home. This was an affluent, quiet neighborhood. 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:16.840 People who lived near Charles sometimes saw him walking to 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:19.840 Whole Foods, and when they did, he was polite and 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.120 would wave to them. Charles was an only child, and 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.920 after his mother, June Wilding, died in twenty seventeen, he 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:31.880 seemed to become even more isolated. During the early months 0:02:31.880 --> 0:02:35.600 of the pandemic, Charles put signs around his property saying 0:02:35.640 --> 0:02:38.240 that he had COVID and telling people not to come 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.880 near the house. Then, sometime around September of twenty twenty, 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:48.040 Charles disappeared from the neighborhood, but neighbors started to notice 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:52.360 someone else. A woman had moved into Charles's house. The 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:54.960 woman had red hair and she was younger than Charles, 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:58.520 but she wasn't his daughter or another relative. She appeared 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:00.920 to be in her forties and she told people her 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:03.720 name was Caroline Hurling and that she was the trustee 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.480 of Charles's estate. Some of the neighbors thought there was 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:11.000 something strange going on. They were seeing strange people coming 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.760 and going at all hours of the night, and that 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:17.920 phone call was just the beginning, because investigators would eventually 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:23.920 uncover a conspiracy involving forged wills, false identities, stolen real estate, 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:29.480 millions of dollars, and a body dismembered and dissolved in acid. 0:03:30.640 --> 0:03:31.760 I'm Catherine Townsend. 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.040 Over the past eight years of making my true crime podcast, 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.160 Telling Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.360 a place where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.520 messages from people all around the country asking for help 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.160 with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.320 their communities. If you have a case you'd like me 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:54.760 and my team to look into, you can reach out 0:03:54.800 --> 0:03:57.400 to us at the Helen Gone Murder Line at six 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.520 seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.720 six seven eight seven four four six one four five, 0:04:05.440 --> 0:04:08.400 or you can send us a message at Helen Gonepod. 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:56.640 This is Helen Gone Murder Line. This case was covered 0:04:56.720 --> 0:04:59.600 on the Netflix series Worst Neighbor Ever, but when I 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:02.280 started digging into it, I found out there was a 0:05:02.280 --> 0:05:06.360 lot of information that the show didn't cover. So who 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.360 was the mysterious redhead living in Charles Wilding's house. It 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.560 turns out that the answer to that question is complicated. 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:18.320 The woman known as Caroline Joanne Hurling used a lot 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.440 of aliases. Federal court records identify her as Caroline Hurling, 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:26.240 but some people knew her as Carrie Phoenix. She told 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.080 a former friend who was interviewed for the Netflix series 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:32.360 that she was an actress, But Caroline told others that 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.360 her job was helping people who were facing legal problems. 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.680 Her LinkedIn biography said, quote, I specialize in providing comprehensive 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:44.960 litigation support and crisis management to individuals and organizations who 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:48.000 were facing a broad spectrum of issues and challenges. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:48.840 End quote. 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:54.120 This LinkedIn profile says that Caroline is the founder and 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:59.600 managing partner at Publicly Correct, where she advertised litigation support services. 0:06:00.280 --> 0:06:03.720 The problem is Caroline was not licensed to practice law 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:08.520 in California or anywhere else. Investigators would later say that 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:12.480 Caroline did sometimes represent herself as an attorney. She would 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.200 say that she dealt with properties whose owners were vulnerable, absent, 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.240 or somehow unable to protect themselves. I also looked on IMDb, 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:24.600 the Internet movie database and I found entertainment credits online 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.280 for a woman named Carrie Phoenix. There's almost no information 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:33.320 about Caroline online. I was fascinated by that, but from 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:36.120 the information that I could find, it seems as though 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.240 Caroline had family who lived in Wisconsin. At some point, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:45.240 Caroline moved to Los Angeles. According to her IMDb page, Caroline, 0:06:45.280 --> 0:06:48.120 who went by the stage name Kerrie Phoenix, was born 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.680 on December twenty eighth, nineteen sixty two, in Los Angeles. 0:06:52.440 --> 0:06:56.200 But if that's true, Caroline Hurling would not be forty four. 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:59.160 She would probably be around ten years older than that 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.320 in her fifties. Carrie Phoenix has only appeared in a 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.840 few things, and those listings were from the nineties. She 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:12.040 was featured in projects including the anthology series Erotic Confessions. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:15.400 She played a cheerleader and a redhead, and she played 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.960 a secretary in the TV movie Hefner Unauthorized. Carrie Phoenix 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.640 also appeared uncredited as a student in Halloween h two 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.480 twenty years later with Josh Hartnett in nineteen ninety eight. 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:29.800 She was also listed as a casting director for one 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.760 episode of the television series City Guys in two thousand 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.000 and one, and she appeared in a TV commercial in Japan, 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.080 but other than that, there are no acting credits listed 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.640 since nineteen ninety nine, so it's hard to pin down 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.040 both the truth about her career and her real age. 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.160 This is only more evidence of someone who constantly kept 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:56.360 people guessing. After police got that first call about Charles Wilding, 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:01.360 Adult Social Services opened up a case, and LAPD officers 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.360 went to Charles's home to conduct a welfare check. When 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.920 they got there, they found Caroline and another younger brunette, 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.080 who Caroline introduced as her assistant. Caroline told police that 0:08:12.160 --> 0:08:14.760 she operated a sober living home out of that house 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.040 and that she was helping people battle their addictions. She 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.120 said Charles was alive and staying with friends in a 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.640 beach town called Carpenteria, which was approximately an hour away, 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.440 but she said she didn't have an address for Charles, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.520 only a cell phone number, which the officers tried but 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.360 couldn't get an answer. Caroline said she was the trustee 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.240 of Charles's estate. She said she was helping clean the 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:39.880 house because there was a large build up of black 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.720 mold there. The police went in and checked the head 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.240 else that day. They found a lot of items and 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:49.920 clutter in the home, but no sign of Charles Wilding, 0:08:50.680 --> 0:08:54.400 and Caroline had all of the right paperwork as a trustee, 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.320 so police left the scene. In January of twenty twenty one, 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.080 a caseworker with Adult Protective Services spoke on the phone 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:05.760 with someone who claimed to be Charles, and the agency, 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.840 apparently satisfied with the responses they got, closed its investigation 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.520 for months. The system accepted this voice on the telephone 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:18.840 as proof that Charles Wilding was alive. Meanwhile, the pandemic 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.120 was playing out in the background, meaning that social services 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.360 and in person visits were strained, and that it was 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.120 becoming more and more normalized for people to avoid public 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.920 appearances for months and sometimes even years at a time. 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:35.120 By October of. 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:39.400 Twenty twenty one, approximately a year had passed since anyone 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.320 in that neighborhood had seen Charles. That's when an anonymous 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.000 caller reached out to the LAPD. They said they believed 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:50.240 that something bad had happened to Charles Wilding. They were 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.360 afraid that he might be dead and that other people 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:57.720 could be using Charles's identity for financial gain, So the 0:09:57.960 --> 0:10:02.720 LAPD opened a missing person's investigation into Charles Wilding. That's 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.920 when Detective Mark O'Donnell, who talked to the Worst Neighbor 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:10.600 Ever program, got involved. Detective O'Donnell talked to Caroline Hurling, 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.040 and she continued to say that Charles was alive. She 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.360 gave the detective a phone number that she said was Charles's, 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.080 which he called. According to court documents, a man on 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.240 the other end of the phone said he was Charles, 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:28.560 but when Detective O'Donnell asked Charles to provide information, including 0:10:28.560 --> 0:10:31.680 his social Security number, the man on the phone didn't 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.360 know it. When Mark O'Donnell went to interview Caroline, she 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.160 gave him a second cell phone number that supposedly was Charles's. 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:44.320 But when Caroline left the room, the detector have noticed 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.600 a cell phone bill on the table indicating that Caroline 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.400 had purchased a cell phone just a few days before 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:53.880 talking to the detective with that same phone number that 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:56.880 she had just given him as Charles's phone number attached. 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.920 Now by this point, detectives are realizing that Charles is 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.440 probably not alive. The detective kept digging and discovered that 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.360 Caroline had actually paid someone else five thousand dollars to 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:14.480 lie about having recently seen Charles. According to police records, 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:17.840 the guy she paid told police that Caroline wrote a 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.480 script for him laying out what he was supposed to say, 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.920 which was basically that he last saw Charles with a 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.920 pocket full of money. So Caroline's story was unraveling fast. 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.480 Detective O'Donnell was trying to figure out if there was 0:11:31.560 --> 0:11:34.480 anyone who could confirm that they had had contact with 0:11:34.520 --> 0:11:37.400 the real Charles Wilding, and he was also trying to 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.360 figure out how Caroline knew Charles. She claimed that she 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:45.280 had been friends with Charles's late mother Wilding, but police 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:50.160 were finding out that that was not true. Caroline Hurling 0:11:50.320 --> 0:11:53.880 was not a lawyer or a paralegal, but she understood 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.200 how legal documents were supposed to look. She knew how 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:01.040 to fake signatures, and she also knew things like real 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:06.600 estate trust, powers of attorney, ESCRO documents, and probate filings, 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:10.920 and according to federal prosecutors, Caroline understood how to use 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:16.160 those systems against people who lived alone. Caroline Hurling was 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.480 not actually making a living as an actress or an attorney. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.360 She was what LA magazine, who did a story about 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:27.240 this case, called a professional squattern. Prosecutors say She would 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.960 drive around expensive neighborhoods using online mapping systems, and she 0:12:32.200 --> 0:12:35.200 with her co defendants would identify wealthy properties. 0:12:35.560 --> 0:12:37.400 They would look for the houses that were. 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:41.480 Unkempt, with overgrown shrubs, abandoned landscaping, and swimming pools that 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:45.680 had turned green with algae. They were not necessarily looking 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.080 for empty houses. They were looking for houses where someone 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.600 might be still living but who was either older, isolated, 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:58.040 or somehow vulnerable and unable to maintain the property. The 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:01.440 appearance of neglect told them that the person inside might 0:13:01.560 --> 0:13:05.160 not have anyone checking in on them, like friends or family, 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:10.760 or paid staff like nurses or caretakers. Charles Wilding's house 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:14.480 appeared to be exactly that kind of property, but according 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.920 to court records, Caroline was not the first person in 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.840 her group to find Charles. That person was fifty two 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.080 year old Matthew Jason Croft, aka Speedy. 0:13:25.680 --> 0:13:27.960 Federal prosecutors said that Speedy. 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:31.080 Was involved in a lot of different criminal activities, including 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:34.360 drug dealing and mail theft. He would steal people's mail 0:13:34.680 --> 0:13:37.080 and use it to rip them off somehow, either by 0:13:37.120 --> 0:13:40.240 stealing their information or for applying for credit cards in 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:45.640 their name, and other frauds. It's not exactly what Matthew's 0:13:45.680 --> 0:13:49.400 relationship was with Caroline. He was described in the TV 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.040 show as kind of an on off love interest. But 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.160 I did some digging and found out Matthew was actually 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:58.240 living at a motel with his pregnant girlfriend when he 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.280 was arrested. But Matthew and Caroline were definitely co conspirators 0:14:02.560 --> 0:14:06.920 and they shared a bank account. In the summer of 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.320 twenty twenty, Matthew told prosecutors that he started watching Charles 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.200 Wilding's house and marked it as a residence that he 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.120 believed would be easy to rob, so he broke in. 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.080 But Matthew claimed when he broke in to steal mail 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.760 and some other items, that Charles confronted him, and Matthew 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.800 told Charles he was performing a welfare check. That was 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.920 his story for the break in, and then Matthew claimed 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.000 that he left the house. He went back to Charles's 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:38.240 house months later, sometime around September of twenty twenty, and 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:41.760 he said that when he did he found something horrifying. 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:57.320 He claimed that Charles was dead. Matthew said that when 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:01.040 he broke into Charles's house that Charles's body was lying 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:03.240 on the floor and appeared to have been there for 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:07.280 a long time, so long that Charles's remains has started 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:12.000 to seep into the floor. What happens next comes from 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:16.760 Matthew Crost's account from the federal investigation and the court documents. 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.440 In the Netflix series, Matthew Croft was seen describing rats 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:24.360 coming out of Charles's mouth, but instead of calling nine 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.240 one one, Matthew claimed he took this opportunity to steal 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.080 jewelry and mail, and also personal information that could be 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.080 used to access Charles's. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:35.320 Identity and his assets. 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.520 Then Matthew contacted someone who he believed could help him 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.200 use this information to steal even more money from Charles, 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.640 Caroline Hurling. That was when, according to the Justice Department, 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:51.560 Caroline first became aware of Charles Wilding. The information that 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.320 Matthew gave her was enough for her to take over 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:58.520 Charles's life and his assets. So no one ever called 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.800 police to report Charles's dead body. Instead, Matthew claimed that 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.520 he and Caroline left the body inside the house and 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:08.760 eventually moved it to the garage. 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:10.840 In fact, Caroline. 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.240 Later told investigators that Charles's body was actually in the 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.720 house when police had done that. Welfare check in December 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:21.200 of twenty twenty, but she stated that the garage was 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.800 so packed with items from Florida ceiling they didn't see 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.920 Charles's body. As long as no one reported Charles dead, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:34.080 he could still exist on paper. According to investigators, Caroline 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:37.240 used a forged power of attorney form to claim that 0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:40.240 Charles had authorized her to manage his real estate and 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:43.800 financial accounts. She was also listed as the trustee of 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:48.360 a family trust supposedly created by Charles's late mother, June Wilding, 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:53.440 who had died back in twenty seventeen. Investigators determined that 0:16:53.560 --> 0:16:57.880 the whole thing, including the trust, was a complete forgery. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:01.880 There never was a trust at all, and Caroline had 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:06.760 never known June Wilding or Charles Wilding, and it turned 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:11.600 out that Caroline Hurling had other victims. According to court documents, 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.920 Caroline used information from Charles's house to get data about 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.600 June's safety deposit box. Inside that box, she found the 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.800 name of another woman who was also debt, Jackie Shields Lowenstein. 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.960 According to court records, the will named Charles as Jackie 0:17:28.960 --> 0:17:34.160 Lowenstein's executor and beneficiary, and Jackie Lowenstein's estate was worth 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:38.480 more than one point seven million dollars because Jackie had 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.040 supposedly left her estate to Charles and Charles was not 0:17:42.120 --> 0:17:46.840 alive to object. This gave Caroline control of someone else's estate, 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:50.720 and investigators later figured out this whole thing was a 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:55.000 fraud too, But it took a long time to unravel 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:58.040 this mystery, and in the meantime, Caroline and her co 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.560 conspirators were allowed to operate unchecked and to target even 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:07.840 more victims. Between Jackie and Charles's estates, prosecutors say Caroline 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:09.440 was able to access. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:10.880 Around four million dollars. 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.760 Meanwhile, in June of twenty twenty two, Detective O'Donnell talked 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.640 to a process server who said that they had seen 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.680 Charles Wilding in the flesh. The process server said they 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:26.800 had served documents on Charles Wilding twice because Charles was 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:30.720 being sued by banks for credit card debt. The process 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:33.720 servers said he met twice with a man claiming to 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.840 be Charles Wilding, and then when he spoke to Charles, 0:18:37.120 --> 0:18:40.600 Charles was lying in bed at Caroline Hurling's apartment on 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.040 Beverly Glenn. The process server said that a read headed 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.800 woman was there too and told them that she was 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:52.520 Charles's daughter. Detective O'Donnell believed that this woman was Caroline Hurling, 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.600 but he was beginning to realize Charles Wilding was only 0:18:56.680 --> 0:19:00.600 the tip of the iceberg. According to court documents, Caroline 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:04.040 had perpetuated frauds on other people because not only did 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:08.400 she fraudulently transfer Charles Wilding's house to herself, she then 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:12.480 rented it out to tenants. The detective talked to a 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.800 man and woman who had moved into the home. The 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:19.280 tenant told them that she replied to an advertisement on 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:22.760 a veil dot com to rent the property on Kingswood Road, 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.680 Charles Wilding's house. The tenant said she contacted Caroline Phoenix 0:19:28.120 --> 0:19:31.160 and met with her at a local coffee shop. Caroline 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:33.720 provided the tenant with a rental agreement of four thousand 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:37.760 dollars a month. The tenant said she gave Caroline six thousand, 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:40.600 seventy five dollars and was supposed to send the rent 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.040 payment to an address in Santa Clarita. The detective drove 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.880 out to that address in September of twenty twenty two 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.400 and found that the address where the tenant was supposed 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:52.200 to send the rent payments was just a boarded up property, 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.680 So now police believed that Caroline was collecting rent and 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:00.360 security deposits from the tenant with no intention of actually 0:20:00.400 --> 0:20:03.760 renting the property out. Caroline also gave the tenant a 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.880 bogus phone number, and then she just took these people's 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:08.440 cash and left. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.600 The criminal complaint. 0:20:10.120 --> 0:20:14.840 Alleges that Caroline Hurling had other victims, including a man 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.800 named Robert Taskan who owned a home in Encino, but 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.080 Robert didn't live in that home and his absence gave 0:20:22.120 --> 0:20:25.920 Caroline an opening. Robert Taskin had moved to Abilene, Texas 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.120 with his common law wife, Miricle Williams, around twenty eighteen. 0:20:29.760 --> 0:20:34.360 Miracle later told investigators that Robert struggled with alcoholism and 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.520 that they had moved south to get away from bad 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:40.160 influences and get a new start. The detectives from the 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.560 LAPD ended up teaming up with the United's State's Postal 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:48.320 Service to investigate this case because it got very complicated. 0:20:48.840 --> 0:20:52.920 According to a United States Postal Inspection Service report, Robert 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.240 Tasking came from a wealthy family. They had established two 0:20:56.240 --> 0:21:00.240 trusts for him in California. The trust provided Robert with 0:21:00.360 --> 0:21:04.120 income with monthly payments, but by twenty twenty one, he 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.760 had run through most of the money. He had only 0:21:06.800 --> 0:21:10.640 one asset left his house in Encino, so Robert was 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:12.680 planning to sell it and to use the profit for 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.680 him and Miracle to start a new life. But Robert discovered, 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:19.880 to his shock, there were squatters in his house. And 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:22.840 if you know anything about California, it's one of those 0:21:22.880 --> 0:21:26.720 states where removing squatters can take a long time. So 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.000 Robert took the squatters to court. He won the legal 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:32.680 battle to get them out of his house. Finally he 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.280 thought he could sell his house. But that's when he discovered, 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:40.000 to his horror, his house had already been sold and 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:43.400 someone had taken all his money. In September of two 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:47.400 thousand twenty one, Robert's Encino house had sold for around 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:51.200 one point five million dollars, which investigators say is around 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.040 half of what the house was worth. The seller was 0:21:55.120 --> 0:21:58.880 Caroline Hurling. She told the buyer, a real estate developer, 0:21:59.120 --> 0:22:02.200 that her name was Caroline Phoenix. She explained the low 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:05.600 sale price by claiming she was a licensed California attorney 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:09.160 who represented distressed property owners who needed to sell their 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:13.800 homes quickly. According to prosecutors, that's when Caroline and her 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:18.560 co defendants Matthew and another man, Barram Hassan Shasi, whose 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.840 nickname was Persian Shawn, cooked up another fraud. Caroline created 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:26.680 an ID card in Robert Taskin's name and a forged 0:22:26.760 --> 0:22:29.720 power of attorney document with a false notary stamp. To 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.880 add to the fraud, Caroline enlisted the help of an impostor, 0:22:33.360 --> 0:22:35.520 a person who appeared in front of an attorney and 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.960 pretended to be Robert Taskin, and this person signed the 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:44.320 sale documents. She and Matthew also forged documents claiming that Sean, 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.160 their co defendant, was the seller. As part of the transaction, 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:53.520 the notary recorded the signer's thumb print. Investigators later compared 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:56.600 that print with Robert's real thumb print and learned that 0:22:56.640 --> 0:23:00.400 the two prints did not match. But for Robert Taskin, 0:23:00.960 --> 0:23:05.200 that realization came too little, too late. On September eleventh, 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.280 twenty twenty two, Robert died by suicide at his home 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.000 in Texas. He was fifty three years old. A police 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:15.640 report noted that he had a history of mental illness, 0:23:16.120 --> 0:23:18.400 but it also reported the fact that he was involved 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:22.960 in litigation over this fraudulent house sale. According to court documents, 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.720 The police report indicated there was no witness to the 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:28.600 shooting and Robert's body was cold by the time it 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.680 was discovered in the evening. The last person to see 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:36.360 Robert alive that morning, according to court documents, indicated that 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.360 Robert was fine when the roommate saw him before leaving 0:23:39.360 --> 0:23:45.360 for work, and there was no suicide note. Robert's partner, Miracle, 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:49.560 said in court she believed that Roberts losing his house 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:54.440 and Encino had contributed to his death. Robert Taskin had 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:57.800 planned to leave his assets to Miracle Williams, but after 0:23:57.800 --> 0:24:00.520 the house was sold, there was almost nothing left for 0:24:00.560 --> 0:24:05.520 her to inherit. According to the federal investigation, approximately nine 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.560 hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the sale was transferred 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:12.920 into a joint bank account controlled by Caroline Hurling and 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.960 matthew Croft. Caroline admitted that she took the money and 0:24:17.240 --> 0:24:20.760 deposited it into bank accounts connected to her, and that 0:24:20.840 --> 0:24:24.120 she had used proceeds connected to this transaction to help 0:24:24.160 --> 0:24:28.200 purchase her a home in West Hills. Matthew Croft later 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:32.920 admitted he received around one hundred thousand dollars from the sale. 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:36.680 In October of twenty twenty, four authorities arrested Sean and 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.240 accused him of participating in the property theft. The charges 0:24:40.240 --> 0:24:43.440 against him were allegations that were contained in a criminal complaint, 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:48.240 were not a conviction. According to that complaint, Sean signed 0:24:48.320 --> 0:24:52.080 multiple escrow documents on Robert's behalf as the seller, which 0:24:52.120 --> 0:24:55.000 allowed Seawan to pocket one hundred and eighty thousand dollars 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.200 from the proceeds. Shawn first claimed that he had met 0:24:58.280 --> 0:25:00.720 Robert in prison. He said he loaned a money and 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:03.400 that later Robert had given him permission over the phone 0:25:03.440 --> 0:25:06.520 to clear this alleged debt by selling the Encino. 0:25:06.200 --> 0:25:07.480 House for him. 0:25:07.640 --> 0:25:12.800 Investigators believed that this story was bogus. When Robert discovered 0:25:12.840 --> 0:25:15.680 what had happened with his house, he did challenge the 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:19.400 sale and try to get his house back. Travis Hartgraves 0:25:19.480 --> 0:25:23.160 was Robert's lawyer and case manager. He told investigators the 0:25:23.240 --> 0:25:27.560 legal battle over the house had consumed Robert. He said 0:25:27.680 --> 0:25:29.960 Robert believed that he would never get his house back 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:33.520 and that it crashed him, even though Robert had struggled 0:25:33.560 --> 0:25:36.360 with alcoholism and mental health problems in the past. 0:25:36.840 --> 0:25:38.000 There was another co. 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.520 Conspirator who investigators linked to Caroline and Matthew Krouse forty 0:25:41.520 --> 0:25:44.760 six year old Jason Canner, who, according to the sentencing papers, 0:25:45.000 --> 0:25:48.000 didn't quite fit the typical profile of someone who turns 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:51.920 to crime at a desperation. Jason's father, Paul Canner, was 0:25:51.960 --> 0:25:54.000 a prominent art dealer in Los Angeles. 0:25:54.160 --> 0:25:55.680 He specialized in modern art. 0:25:56.600 --> 0:25:59.480 Paul died in two thousand and two, and Jason moved 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:02.960 to Coming, Georgia. Jason admitted that he forged a trust 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:06.800 agreement for June Wilding, Charles's mother to give her property 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:10.160 to Caroline, and stated he made around sixty four thousand 0:26:10.160 --> 0:26:14.360