Speaker 1: On May twenty seventh, twenty fourteen, Anne Bender was in
Speaker 1: court awaiting a verdict for the second time. She'd been
Speaker 1: re tried for murder, which is allowable under Costa Rican law.
Speaker 1: The trial had lasted seven days. Anne was shaking. The judge,
Speaker 1: Adolpho Calderon began.
Speaker 2: An absol He told the court that John Bender could
Speaker 2: not have shot himself because he had a wound at
Speaker 2: the back of the head.
Speaker 1: The judge said other evidence that the crime scene also
Speaker 1: made suicide impossible. The blood, the bullets, the position of
Speaker 1: the body. It all pointed to only one conclusion. Anne
Speaker 1: had argued during the court case that John suffered from
Speaker 1: bipolar disorder and that he'd attempted to take his own
Speaker 1: life before the judges weren't convinced by her defense. Finally,
Speaker 1: Judge Calderon announced the verdict without a doubt. He said,
Speaker 1: the court agrees that the death of John Felix Bender
Speaker 1: was homicide. Ann had murdered him. She was guilty. The
Speaker 1: sentence was twenty two years in prison. From Exactly Right
Speaker 1: Media and iHeart podcasts produced by Blanchard House, This is
Speaker 1: Helen Heaven, I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter seven, A second chance
Speaker 1: and was led away by gods. In total shock, she fainted.
Speaker 1: Do you remember her reaction?
Speaker 3: Stunned?
Speaker 1: Author Carol Vaughan witnessed the verdict.
Speaker 3: I think she and her legal team neither one thought
Speaker 3: that that was going to happen. I think her legal
Speaker 3: team had done a very good job of defending her.
Speaker 1: And do you remember her walking out or what happened.
Speaker 3: I remember they tried to get her out as quickly
Speaker 3: as possible through a side door, which you're not supposed
Speaker 3: to use, things like a fire door, but she could
Speaker 3: barely walk. She was overcome. It was awful, and we
Speaker 3: were all looking at each other just in total disbelief.
Speaker 1: She was immediately remanded to a psychiatric hospital, where she
Speaker 1: was held under guard and put on suicide watch. When
Speaker 1: she was over the shop and considered well enough, she
Speaker 1: was moved to the prison.
Speaker 3: And I didn't know how awful it was where they
Speaker 3: were sending her and what they were doing to her,
Speaker 3: and how you'll equipped she was for it. Had I known,
Speaker 3: I would have been flopping out also, because it's just
Speaker 3: being in jail as a woman in Central America is
Speaker 3: just no day at the beach.
Speaker 1: The verdict horrified Anne's family and everyone who'd supported and
Speaker 1: believed in her. What worried the most was that Anne
Speaker 1: might not survive being in prison. The stress of the
Speaker 1: trial and the verdict had weakened her. She was frail
Speaker 1: and very thin. Ken Anne's brother, was her spokesman throughout
Speaker 1: the trial and outside the court. Speaking in perfect Spanish,
Speaker 1: he told reporters.
Speaker 2: Nois.
Speaker 1: My sister is not a killer. The second trial was
Speaker 1: a fallacy, a dark day for Poisseladon very ugly. Friends
Speaker 1: and family had to move fast and make a lot
Speaker 1: of noise about what they believed was an appalling miscarriage
Speaker 1: of justice. They created a gofund me page and started
Speaker 1: a petition Free and Bender on the popular change dot
Speaker 1: org platform to mobilize supporters. An actor reads what one
Speaker 1: of her friends wrote on their page.
Speaker 4: We family and close friends are doing everything in our
Speaker 4: power to end this nightmare. An innocent woman is dying,
Speaker 4: and we can make this write we can.
Speaker 1: Her lawyers also sprang into action, preparing an appeal. Anne
Speaker 1: had one other person fighting her corner, a man named
Speaker 1: Greg Fischer. Anne met Greg in San Jose, where she'd
Speaker 1: been living around the time of her first trial. Originally
Speaker 1: from New New York. Greg had lived in Florida, Arizona,
Speaker 1: and then Costa Rica. Just like John had been, Greg
Speaker 1: was into bodybuilding and fitness and liked to ride motorbikes.
Speaker 1: He was handsome and, according to friends, kind and compassionate.
Speaker 1: It was a second chance for Anne. They lived together
Speaker 1: in an apartment in a smart suburb of San Jose
Speaker 1: and even got a puppy. But then came the second trial,
Speaker 1: and just over a year after they'd started their relationship,
Speaker 1: Anne was found guilty and started her twenty two year
Speaker 1: prison sentence. All hopes of that new life were taken away.
Speaker 1: Greg now dedicated all his time to fight for her
Speaker 1: release and visit her in prison. An actor reads his
Speaker 1: Twitter bio at the time.
Speaker 4: Working every day to help save Ann Bender from the
Speaker 4: terrible injustice doneder her by the people she trusted the most.
Speaker 1: He and s Amavan's friends and family contributed as much
Speaker 1: as they could to her campaign. Greg was always thinking
Speaker 1: of new ways to raise money to help Han's calls.
Speaker 1: They also took to social media and tweeted everyone from
Speaker 1: The New York Times to Fox News, hoping a journalist
Speaker 1: or campaigners or politicians would pick up her story, and
Speaker 1: someone did pick up the story. But closer to home.
Speaker 1: I'm at a cabin on the outskirts of pere Zeladon,
Speaker 1: in the shadow of those beautiful mountains. It's owned by
Speaker 1: Carol Vaughan. She lives here with her dog, Garbo. You'll
Speaker 1: have heard from Carol throughout the series. She's dressed in
Speaker 1: her Hallmark Loud Hawaiian shirt and red lipstick. In her
Speaker 1: younger days, back in America, she was a tap dancer.
Speaker 3: I was an avid tap dancer. I don't tap any
Speaker 3: anymore because of my age, but had a tap dance studio,
Speaker 3: taught it, continued to perform it in nightclubs both in
Speaker 3: New York and in Washington, DC. And I feel like
Speaker 3: in my heart I'll always be a tap dancer.
Speaker 1: Carol even danced with Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood star in
Speaker 1: the forties and fifties. She gave up the love of
Speaker 1: her life, I e tap and moved to Costa Rica
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve, where she could have retired relaxing on
Speaker 1: her rocking chair on the verandah, taking it nice and easy,
Speaker 1: but she isn't a type to do that. Instead, she
Speaker 1: dived right into a new career as an investigative reporter
Speaker 1: for a local newspaper, The Tico Times. Before we can
Speaker 1: sit down to chat, we're off for a walk with
Speaker 1: her dog, Garbo, and she starts to tell me how
Speaker 1: one story took over her entire life and still dominates it.
Speaker 3: It's so embarrassing. I became possessed and obsessed with the
Speaker 3: story of the Benders. It's raining you, guys. We're going
Speaker 3: to cross and go down just a bit, and he
Speaker 3: should poop.
Speaker 1: Okay, and shallah, we'll wait for the poop. Back in
Speaker 1: the cabin, we start from the beginning how she became
Speaker 1: possessed and obsessed with the Benders. One day, her editor
Speaker 1: gave her a new assignment covering an Bender's murder trials,
Speaker 1: starting with the second, the one in which she was convicted.
Speaker 1: Carol had no idea what she was about to get into.
Speaker 3: My Spanish was pretty good, but I wasn't great. And
Speaker 3: in court you have to be quick, and you have
Speaker 3: to pay attention, and you have to understand legal things
Speaker 3: that I didn't understand. So when he first said this
Speaker 3: is your assignment, that I want you to go do this,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, you know, I'll try it. But I
Speaker 3: can't promise that it's going to be great. First day trial,
Speaker 3: I thought, oh, I'm going to do this because this
Speaker 3: is to the reaction of the people in the courtroom
Speaker 3: and the looks on people's faces. And there are three
Speaker 3: judges in all court cases here, criminal court cases, and
Speaker 3: they would fight with each other and say nasty things
Speaker 3: to each other and things that would never happen in
Speaker 3: American court. So the drama was so intense. I realized
Speaker 3: that it wasn't just a writing assignment. It was also
Speaker 3: my telenovela, my soap opera of the day.
Speaker 1: Did you know about the case already? I mean, did
Speaker 1: people talk about it? Was it just a big thing here?
Speaker 3: Everyone talked about it. It was in all the local papers,
Speaker 3: on all the local radio and TV.
Speaker 1: And was now in the only all women's gennel in
Speaker 1: Costa Rica. Originally a convent, it was now a fortress with.
Speaker 3: Gun turrets, guys walking around with guns. She was in
Speaker 3: an ambito with twenty women.
Speaker 1: That's a prison dorrmitory.
Speaker 3: There weren't enough mattresses for everyone, so they would share
Speaker 3: mattresses or some people would just have to sleep directly
Speaker 3: on the floor. You have to wear your own clothes,
Speaker 3: but you're not allowed to replace your clothes. So people
Speaker 3: are in like Robinson Crusoe, torn outfits. Their women there
Speaker 3: who are pregnant. They're women there who have their own
Speaker 3: children with them.
Speaker 1: Let's just stop here for a moment. Imagine what it
Speaker 1: must have been like for this privileged woman, an American
Speaker 1: used to the comfort of Buracaeyanne in the middle of
Speaker 1: the jungle, protected by armed guards, surrounded by staff, beautiful jewels,
Speaker 1: tiffany lamps, watching the sunset every evening over their own
Speaker 1: private jungle. Now she was in jail, convicted of murder.
Speaker 1: The contrast couldn't have been more extreme.
Speaker 3: The food is inedible. I mean, they'd be maggots crawling
Speaker 3: out of the of the rice. I don't know how
Speaker 3: she survived. I really don't.
Speaker 1: And you went to visit her in prison. Can you
Speaker 1: recall the conversation you had.
Speaker 3: While she was in this dormitory with twenty people. I
Speaker 3: think they let me go with her outside. I was
Speaker 3: not allowed to tape, but I was allowed to take notes.
Speaker 3: She in general always wore black, and she wore skirts
Speaker 3: all the way down to the floor usually, and then
Speaker 3: long sleeves because there's no climate control.
Speaker 1: In jail, right, Well did she tell you?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 3: I was very concerned with how she was if she
Speaker 3: was being treated well as well.
Speaker 1: As a journalist, Carol was working as a volunteer for
Speaker 1: the American embassy. In fact, her father had been a
Speaker 1: diplomat in Latin America.
Speaker 3: I said, you know, we'll get your soap, We'll get
Speaker 3: you toilet paper, because there's no toilet paper in jail.
Speaker 3: Let us know what you want, we will get it
Speaker 3: to you. So that was the most of the conversation
Speaker 3: was are you taking care of your health? She had
Speaker 3: a heartport and she couldn't keep it clean because she
Speaker 3: was only allowed to bathe once a week.
Speaker 1: What is a hart court.
Speaker 3: It was something that would allow them to inject medicine
Speaker 3: right into her heart because her heart was not strong.
Speaker 2: Gosh.
Speaker 1: So she was really seriously, oh yeah, off, that sounds
Speaker 1: quite frightening for her if she can't actually, you know,
Speaker 1: keep it clean.
Speaker 3: So all of that stuff about just human human How
Speaker 3: are you holding up?
Speaker 1: It's a question lots of people were asking how was
Speaker 1: she surviving day in day out, especially as she was
Speaker 1: so frail. The answer Carol got to her question surprised her.
Speaker 3: She confessed to me that she was actually well accompanied,
Speaker 3: that she felt very comfortable with the women that she
Speaker 3: was living with, and that they were taking very good
Speaker 3: care of her, and she felt kind of good about that.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, isn't it? To go from a sort of
Speaker 1: house she was living in on top of a hill,
Speaker 1: a mansion, yes.
Speaker 3: With just one other person, and now she's thrown into
Speaker 3: a dirt bin with twenty and she's okay, how does
Speaker 3: that happen?
Speaker 1: Luckily, Anne had won the sympathy of the other inmates.
Speaker 1: They seemed to pity her.
Speaker 3: The women rallied around her, recognizing she was a wounded birdie.
Speaker 1: They saw her as a wounded bird.
Speaker 3: They brought her clothing to wear, Their families brought her
Speaker 3: food from home. And Anne suffered a lot from the cold,
Speaker 3: so they would heat water forward to pour in her
Speaker 3: pail so that she could get a little comfort there,
Speaker 3: and then they would take her out to the back
Speaker 3: so she could sit in the sun and try to regroup.
Speaker 3: They were very sweet to her.
Speaker 1: What was it about her do you think that made
Speaker 1: people sympathize?
Speaker 3: I think she reads as a wounded, wounded person. She
Speaker 3: was very sympathetic always to wounded animals where they lived,
Speaker 3: and I think it was because she was one. She
Speaker 3: just got bury with the broken wing.
Speaker 1: It was hard for anyone to survive in there, let
Speaker 1: alone an American who was used to a certain lifestyle.
Speaker 1: But those women rallied around her, cared for her, helped
Speaker 1: her survive, and there was.
Speaker 3: Greg Ann's boyfriend would bring her food and then enough
Speaker 3: food to share among the other prisoners so that they
Speaker 3: would take better care of her.
Speaker 1: Carol also helped her.
Speaker 3: After the health issues of how are you, what can
Speaker 3: we do for you? The embassies looking after you. We
Speaker 3: will visit you. Here's a number to call if you
Speaker 3: get in trouble. Telephoning in jail as a huge problem
Speaker 3: because there's only one phone and you're allowed two minutes
Speaker 3: on one kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Carol felt like she and Anne were connected. Their fate
Speaker 1: had brought them together.
Speaker 3: Because here I am. I'm a single American woman here
Speaker 3: in Costrica with not very much knowledge to the country
Speaker 3: or the language or anything. And I felt that a
Speaker 3: kindred spirit. She was a female. She was wrongly accused,
Speaker 3: I thought, and it wasn't one hundred percent sure she
Speaker 3: was getting good legal help.
Speaker 1: Carol was also fascinated by Anne's story, and she had
Speaker 1: an article to write, one which would eventually become a
Speaker 1: book titled Crazy Jungle Love. So she had to ask
Speaker 1: the harder, more probing questions.
Speaker 3: I said, well, Anne, you you know what happened. I
Speaker 3: didn't want to say did you kill him? Just you
Speaker 3: know what happened? And she told me what she's told everyone,
Speaker 3: that she was awakened by his voice, and that John
Speaker 3: always came to bed with a gun. And she roused
Speaker 3: herself after she heard him say something she thinks it was,
Speaker 3: You'll now know what it's like to wake up next
Speaker 3: to your dead husband. And she saw that he had
Speaker 3: a gun pointed at his head, and she tried to
Speaker 3: grow and the gun went off and he died instantly.
Speaker 3: He was shot in the back of the right occipital
Speaker 3: and it never came out.
Speaker 1: The occipital is a particular part at the back of
Speaker 1: the head. What do you do make of that explanation?
Speaker 3: I think that's what she thinks happened.
Speaker 1: Though it was twenty fourteen, four years after John's death
Speaker 1: and with prison time ahead, AND's story didn't change, but
Speaker 1: what had changed was public opinion. During the first trial,
Speaker 1: she'd won over many Costa Ricans. They were sympathetic. After
Speaker 1: she was convicted, that changed. What did people think about
Speaker 1: her in Costa Rica?
Speaker 3: I think I've never asked someone that. Who has told me,
Speaker 3: especially a man who has told me Anne's innocent. I've
Speaker 3: never ever heard anyone say Anne was innocent. They say
Speaker 3: she was a black widow. She was just gunning for
Speaker 3: him until he dies so she could have all those
Speaker 3: jewels and property to herself. They were both crooked, but
Speaker 3: she took him out. She wasn't a well liked person.
Speaker 3: I mean, neither of them were well liked, frankly, but
Speaker 3: here the blame went to her. There people convinced she
Speaker 3: kills them. I mean, that's not even a question.
Speaker 1: The story became bigger than Anna and Joan. It had
Speaker 1: a knock on effect on all Americans who had come
Speaker 1: to Costa Rica to settle. All expats were now on trial.
Speaker 3: Americans are so self entitled. They think they own the world.
Speaker 3: They think everything revolves around them. They think they can
Speaker 3: come into this developing country and just do whatever they
Speaker 3: want and no one's gonna put a stop to them.
Speaker 3: And you watch, We're going to put a stop to them.
Speaker 1: Someone else who was on the trial each day was
Speaker 1: Kevin Serrano, a cameraman for a Costa Rican TV news station.
Speaker 1: He was more used to recording sports events, but now
Speaker 1: he'd been put on the trial of the century.
Speaker 5: It's the la mauria bonando being only externo.
Speaker 6: When a foreigner from any country comes to live in
Speaker 6: Pusto Rica, people would normally think this is good because
Speaker 6: they might bring investment or aid and development to the
Speaker 6: communities or whatever. So at first the opinion was these
Speaker 6: are good and nice people who came to support the community.
Speaker 6: But when all this starts to come out, people thought, hmm,
Speaker 6: maybe none of this was what they made it out
Speaker 6: to be.
Speaker 1: And unlike any other trial in Costa Rican history, the
Speaker 1: public could read and watch every twist and turn of
Speaker 1: the story. It became a soap opera and everyone was
Speaker 1: talking about it.
Speaker 6: In most trials, it's requested not to be pressed or
Speaker 6: media present. Understand, Anne's defense did not want the media
Speaker 6: in the courtroom, but since this was a case of
Speaker 6: public interest, all media could be at the trial.
Speaker 1: The speculation could be as fantastic as it was cruel.
Speaker 1: There was miles and miles of newsprint discussing every theory
Speaker 1: under the sun, including one which suggested Anne may not
Speaker 1: have pulled the trigger but paid for the hit on John.
Speaker 1: So this was all swirling around while Anne's lawyers fought
Speaker 1: her conviction. Then, unbelievably, another tragedy was to strike Anne.
Speaker 1: Six months into her sentence, she got some news. Greg,
Speaker 1: her partner who'd been dedicated to the campaign for her release, died.
Speaker 1: It was November sixteenth, twenty fourteen. It's easy and tempting
Speaker 1: to assume Greg's death must be connected to everything else,
Speaker 1: but Greg died from an asthma attack. It was totally
Speaker 1: random and awful. Nevertheless, speculation and conspiracy theories once again flourished.
Speaker 1: Anne was devastated, grieving again, this time for her boyfriend Greg,
Speaker 1: wondering if she would ever get out of prison. But
Speaker 1: then there was a major development. It was nine months
Speaker 1: into her sentence. Anne was in her cell. It was
Speaker 1: a regular day inside as far as she was concerned,
Speaker 1: until a guard appeared out of the blue. He told
Speaker 1: her that her case had been thrown out, there was
Speaker 1: going to be a third trial, and she was to
Speaker 1: be released immediately. She was free to go. Her lawyers
Speaker 1: had been working round the clock to secure a retrial,
Speaker 1: and they had succeeded. A judge had reviewed the case
Speaker 1: and made the decision. She said this to reporters. An
Speaker 1: actor is speaking Anne's words.
Speaker 4: They just told me to get my stuff together and
Speaker 4: I left the prison. I'm really grateful that the appellate
Speaker 4: court made the right to time.
Speaker 1: Even though the prospect of a further trial must have
Speaker 1: been terrible. It was another chance to prove her innocence
Speaker 1: and get out of the country. Carol again had a
Speaker 1: ringside seat.
Speaker 3: Then there was a third trial, which was longer than
Speaker 3: the first two and better attended than the first two.
Speaker 3: It was war to war people, I mean, you couldn't
Speaker 3: get into the courtroom.
Speaker 1: Anne was now not only fighting for her freedom, but
Speaker 1: her life. She knew what prison was like and probably
Speaker 1: knew that if she went back she might not survive
Speaker 1: the terrible conditions. Shortly before the trial, the defense team,
Speaker 1: including Anne's family, moved to a local hotel in Perizelodon
Speaker 1: Hotel zimmer.
Speaker 5: My name is Santiago. I'm from Costa Rica. We live
Speaker 5: in Sanny Sidro.
Speaker 1: That's Santiago, the laid back manager of Hotel Zimma. And
Speaker 1: next to him is his wife Anna. We're sitting outside
Speaker 1: in the shade of a large tree. We have to
Speaker 1: stop our interview at times because the parrots are so loud.
Speaker 1: This is where Anne and her entourage stayed. It's tucked
Speaker 1: away in the back streets of the town, but also
Speaker 1: within walking distance of the court. I asked them to
Speaker 1: describe the moment that Anne Bender arrived at their hotel.
Speaker 5: Everybody wants to meet her or see her, you know,
Speaker 5: the first time, and we were waiting for her, that
Speaker 5: she was coming and she was dying. She said, hello,
Speaker 5: how are you? She says the whole thing, but she
Speaker 5: was kind of tired.
Speaker 1: Along with Anne came her own personal protection.
Speaker 5: She got two guys, armed guys in the main entrance. Yeah,
Speaker 5: well you don't see their arms like undercover, but they
Speaker 5: have big guns.
Speaker 1: And was supported by her family.
Speaker 5: Her father, mother.
Speaker 1: And her brother Kevin. Even doctor Lozano, her psychiatrist, who
Speaker 1: we heard in an earlier chapter, stayed at the hotel
Speaker 1: preparing to give evidence. It was quite a spectacle for
Speaker 1: this quiet town taken over by the international media. Santiago
Speaker 1: took me to the streets to show me where it
Speaker 1: all happened. At the time. Roads were closed in order
Speaker 1: to cope with the huge level of interest in the trial.
Speaker 5: This is the courthouse. Reporters were from that corner to here.
Speaker 1: Reporters all the way along and in.
Speaker 5: That in that I walked too, from there to there
Speaker 5: all the still like yes, just sitting there wait waiting
Speaker 5: for and there were cameras. That one over there was
Speaker 5: closed because it was a lot of people, so it.
Speaker 1: Was it was like a really big moment for the
Speaker 1: whole town.
Speaker 5: And there were guards all over the court over there. Yeah,
Speaker 5: the Howard patrol were there stopping the cars to go
Speaker 5: this way and the other way too.
Speaker 1: That must have been. That's quite a spectacle, isn't it.
Speaker 1: And how long did that go on for?
Speaker 5: That was maybe maybe one week. Every day were they
Speaker 5: were waiting and waiting waiting for results from from the tork.
Speaker 1: It's crazy, isn't it. The couple really felt for their guest.
Speaker 5: She looks devastated every day, you know, she was so sad.
Speaker 5: She was every day dressed in black. She was using the.
Speaker 1: Crashes, using crutches to walk because she was physically weak.
Speaker 1: Santiago and Anna told us that Anne would come back
Speaker 1: from the trial to the hotel and cry. There was
Speaker 1: a bubble of sadness around her, but they felt helpless.
Speaker 1: How could they make her feel better? They couldn't. The
Speaker 1: only relief for Anne would be her freedom.
Speaker 4: We were looking to set up the shelter to live
Speaker 4: a calm and peaceful life here.
Speaker 1: It's May twenty fourteen inside the court and testified again,
Speaker 1: this time in painstaking detail, explaining how John was suicidal.
Speaker 1: She started with his physical health problems, the stroke that
Speaker 1: encouraged them to change their pace of life in two
Speaker 1: thousand and told her story in her own words. An
Speaker 1: actor reads her testimony.
Speaker 4: It just highlighted b us that moving here to stop
Speaker 4: hustling too hard was the best thing to do. John
Speaker 4: had never had a physical problem before. He could work
Speaker 4: twenty two hours a day, but that summer he was
Speaker 4: at a breaking point, and then he really learned that
Speaker 4: it was best to continue with the plan we'd decided.
Speaker 4: So we were looking to set up the shelter to
Speaker 4: live a calm and peaceful life in San Jose.
Speaker 1: She continued to detail their ever worsening health problems, including
Speaker 1: her limes disease.
Speaker 4: So they were about five or six years when we
Speaker 4: were trying to understand what was happening to me physically,
Speaker 4: and in early two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: My disease was quite advanced.
Speaker 4: John got some type of chicken pox and he was
Speaker 4: having trouble with terrible sores. We lost some animals from
Speaker 4: the shelter and it really affected my husband.
Speaker 1: Then there were those gemstones, which many suggested were a
Speaker 1: tax dodge. She explained them away as secure investments during
Speaker 1: a period of financial uncertainty.
Speaker 4: So John decided, with the advice of this man, to
Speaker 4: invest in gyms, and this was something a lot of
Speaker 4: people were doing then, so there was an economic recession
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 1: And she told the court about John's previous suicide attempts.
Speaker 4: I saw him when he tried to commit suicide twice,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm aware of two times. I saw that
Speaker 4: he tried to electrocute himself. That was at the end
Speaker 4: of two thousand and eight, and then in two thousand
Speaker 4: and nine, at the end of November, he tried to
Speaker 4: jump down the elevator.
Speaker 1: That's the elevator at the house, which wasn't enclosed, just
Speaker 1: a platform that went up and down.
Speaker 4: We were dealing with so many things at the same time.
Speaker 4: My symptoms were getting worse, and we're getting information from
Speaker 4: the trustee that there were problems with the money. John
Speaker 4: decided on the advice of the trustee to invest in
Speaker 4: gems and jewels, and so he thought that because the
Speaker 4: trustee said that that we were having cash flow problems,
Speaker 4: and John was really blaming himself for all of it.
Speaker 4: He felt that, and we talked about this every single day.
Speaker 1: He felt that it was his fault.
Speaker 4: John felt like a complete failure, not only when it
Speaker 4: came to investments, but also he was trying to look
Speaker 4: for a way to help me with my illness.
Speaker 1: She explained, how have mental health declined to.
Speaker 4: You know, my type of bipolarity manifests in a more
Speaker 4: typical way, So there are times sometimes years where I
Speaker 4: might not have a single episode at all. And John
Speaker 4: and I were able to find that over the years,
Speaker 4: I could do certain things to stay in a good
Speaker 4: state of mind, like if I slept well and ate well.
Speaker 4: But John is manifested in what's called rapid cycling. He
Speaker 4: was talking about suicide every single day.
Speaker 1: Carol Voo listened to all this with great sadness.
Speaker 3: Well, I feel he died way too young, and he
Speaker 3: had so much more to live for and he was
Speaker 3: doing such great work on the reserve. He felt he
Speaker 3: was gonna find a cure for a len disease from
Speaker 3: which she suffered. He was very much into natural medicine
Speaker 3: and thought the cure for Anne, both her mental problems
Speaker 3: and her physical problems, was right there on the nature reserve.
Speaker 3: It was just a matter of time until he found it.
Speaker 1: And what do you think in the end affected him
Speaker 1: so deep? People, what happened to him.
Speaker 3: I'm only guessing. I'm never I never met him.
Speaker 1: Carol has her own view on what happened, as we
Speaker 1: heard in the last episode, but she doesn't deny that
Speaker 1: John was in a very dark place.
Speaker 3: From what I read about his problems, he just couldn't.
Speaker 3: He couldn't hack it. He couldn't. It's so hard living
Speaker 3: in a foreign country, really, and he just couldn't, couldn't
Speaker 3: keep it up. He was I was going into our
Speaker 3: financial tailspin. Apparently he was losing money. His investments weren't
Speaker 3: working out, and he just couldn't cop And I feel
Speaker 3: very bad for him because it could be any of us.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't have huge investments, but the little
Speaker 3: ones I've have, if I had problems that'd be be curtains.
Speaker 1: But the trial wasn't just about whether John had been depressed.
Speaker 1: That was never disputed. It was about that crime scene.
Speaker 1: Remember we told you about those who believe Anne is
Speaker 1: guilty always look at two pieces of evidence, the ear
Speaker 1: plugs and the wound will This trial was the first
Speaker 1: time the weaknesses in that evidence were properly scrutinized. After
Speaker 1: getting out of prison, facing money problems and connected with
Speaker 1: a team from CBS, A news crew who had hired
Speaker 1: a married forensic duo, Selma and Richard eicklem Boom. In
Speaker 1: a glitzy broadcast, the forensic pair looked at the I'm
Speaker 1: seen and then demonstrated that there could be another explanation
Speaker 1: to how John had died based on the forensics. They
Speaker 1: argued that if Anne had pulled John's arm back, almost
Speaker 1: like a bow and arrow, the gun could have gone
Speaker 1: off at the back of his head and crucially on
Speaker 1: the right hand side. It's all very US television crime show,
Speaker 1: but actually it gave Anne access to experts who ended
Speaker 1: up testifying at her third trial. They said the police
Speaker 1: messed up, that their investigation was sloppy, and the ear
Speaker 1: plugs they could be explained a million ways he could
Speaker 1: have put them in to soften the noise of the jungle,
Speaker 1: or never intended to actually go through with pulling the trigger.
Speaker 1: Doctor Lozano, the psychiatrist, testified this time too, arguing Anne
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to carry out a murder. Anne's
Speaker 1: third trial would last for a week. Would all these
Speaker 1: testimonies be enough? Would Anne get the verdict she longed for.
Speaker 1: Her ninety seven year old grandmother was among the family
Speaker 1: praying that she would be freed. As the judges retired
Speaker 1: for the third time, she waited. One problem facing Anne
Speaker 1: was that her passport had been seized. If she was freed,
Speaker 1: she wouldn't be able to leave. This is where Carol
Speaker 1: stepped into help.
Speaker 3: But I knew that she didn't have a passport, and
Speaker 3: you know, get out of ghostreat go without a passport.
Speaker 3: So talk to the embassy, and the embassy said, relax,
Speaker 3: We're going to get her a replacement passport.
Speaker 1: On the last hour of the last day of the trial,
Speaker 1: someone was deployed to ensure that Anne received her passport
Speaker 1: and secretly gave it to her. Anne kept touching her
Speaker 1: pocket to check it was there. It was her ticket
Speaker 1: to freedom. Then the judges walked in Dan walk free
Speaker 1: or return to prison for twenty two years.
Speaker 3: We recognize we were getting to the end of the
Speaker 3: third trial and no one had any idea whether she
Speaker 3: was going to be found guilty or innocent, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Helen Heaven from Exactly Right Media
Speaker 1: and iHeart podcasts produced by Blanchard House, hosted, written and
Speaker 1: produced by me Becky Milligan. The producer and co writer
Speaker 1: is Poppy Damon. Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmanell,
Speaker 1: and Toby Mattamol. The sound recordistant head of Sound and
Speaker 1: Music is Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer is
Speaker 1: Vulcan Kiseltook. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for Exactly
Speaker 1: Right Media. The executive producers are Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lillie Ladderwig and associate
Speaker 1: producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is
Speaker 1: Rosie Pye. The executive producer and Head of Content at
Speaker 1: Blanchard House is Lawrence Griselle. Listen to Helen Heaven on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.