Chapter 5: The Motive

Previously, on Beyond All Repair…

Rick Buckner: Her head was beaten in with, we determined later fireplace tongs. 

Linda Dilliard: If you knew her, you just can't imagine that anybody could do that to her. 

Rick Buckner: I mean, she was a housewife.

Richard Johnson: Instead of finding the person that might of killed my wife, they’re looking at me.

Rick Buckner: I mean, what are we looking at? Is it some kind of a robbery gone bad? Is it a burglary in the house? 

Linda Dilliard: And that's where that $10,000 stash comes in.  

Kelli Osler: What we are asking the court to consider this evidence for is motive in the hom– homicide.

It’s February of 2003 — one year after Marlyne’s murder, and roughly one month BEFORE the trial of her alleged murderer would begin.

Therese Lavallee: Your Honor, I'd like to address the very last thing that Ms. Osler said to start my argument…

We’re hearing… a hearing. Another one of those pre-trial hearings, where the prosecution and defense are legally duking it out over what evidence should and should not be allowed to be presented to the jury. Sophia’s defense attorney, Therese Lavallee, has a few things she definitely wants to keep OUT.

Therese Lavallee: I wanna keep this jury focused on the murder. This whole trial is about the murder. It is not about Sophia Johnson's past bad acts. 

Bad. Acts. Remember that metaphor for Sophia’s life — all those boxes that need to be unpacked? We’ve got a big one in this episode…

Therese Lavallee: if you allow the state to parade in what they want to do, it's going to change the whole focus of the jury from the murder. Onto her bad acts. They're gonna be trying a case within a case, and it's mud-slinging.

Therese is arguing that Sophia’s “bad acts” or previous misdeeds are unrelated to the murder. It would be wrong to equate them. But if the jury knows about these bad acts, they won’t be able to UN-know about them, and it’ll color their perspective of Sophia in a way that’ll make her trial… less fair. The prosecution sees it differently.

Kelli Osler: The defense is arguing that this is very prejudicial and that we are attempting to heap on a mini fraud trial on the defendant in the middle of her murder trial. 

This is the deputy prosecuting attorney for the case, Kelli Osler. And what the defense is calling mud-slinging, Osler might call… a connecting of the dots.

Kelli Osler:  The jury should be allowed to hear the amount of the debt in order to get a full picture of exactly how desperate she was and how willing she was to kill in order to get that money she was looking for.  

“In order to get that money she was looking for.” Money, the prosecution says, is why Sophia killed Marlyne Johnson. In the months and years leading up to the murder, Sophia was in undeniably serious financial trouble.

At least some of which was caused by bad — and maybe desperate — acts.

Sophia Johnson: There are a hundred different choices I could have made differently. I wish I had made better choices. I wish I can go back to my young self and say, please put it back. 

But was Sophia desperate enough to commit murder?

Sophia Johnson: Don't do it. It's not worth it. The far-reaching consequences will not be worth this now

I'm Amory Sivertson. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair.

Chapter Five: The Motive.

We’re gonna unpack the “Bad Acts” box TOGETHER… and try to understand how Sophia ended up in a desperate enough state of debt that some people believe she may have killed to get out of it.

I wanna start in the Fall of 2000. Sophia had been in Vancouver, Washington for a couple years at this point. She was married to a fellow Jehovah’s Witness — and she had a job as the office manager for a telecommunications company, County Communications. She liked talking to the people who came into the store. One person in particular…

Sophia Johnson: Brad came in one day and I commented to my boss, the owner, I said, gosh, he is such an attractive man. 

Brad Johnson. With his brown eyes, almost-fluffy hair, square chin and cool confidence.

Sophia Johnson: He seemed very playful and very funny, and I really liked that. 

Sophia’s boss happened to be good friends with Brad. But he was also a Jehovah’s Witness and knew she was married. So Sophia and Brad struck up an over-the-counter, under-the-radar flirtation. And then, one afternoon, he called her.

Sophia Johnson: Brad said, um, I was just wondering, I'm going out tonight with some friends, I wanted to know if you'd like to join me. And I jokingly said, you know, you're one of my favorite people, but I'm still gonna have to say no. And he said, why, do you have to wash your hair ? And I started laughing . I'm like, yep, that's it. 

Sophia was like, “Haven’t you seen my wedding ring?”

Sophia Johnson: He said, yeah, but sometimes girls wear that just to keep creeps away. And I said, yeah, not in this case. I said, so it's not really a rain check, it's, I can't do this. And then I called him two days later to say, I can't stop thinking about you. How about that date? 

That first date was in September of 2000. The timing will become important. But for now, the still-married Sophia is swoonin’ for Brad.

Sophia Johnson: I felt so giddy by the fact that this guy was interested in me, that this guy who I thought was so hot, was interested in me.

Just a few months later, Brad invited Sophia to spend Christmas with him and his parents, Marlyne and Richard Johnson. This was Sophia’s first time meeting them.

Sophia Johnson: And they have a really nice house and it's on a good piece of property and it's an A-frame house that has glass all around it. It's all windows on that main level. And it's really beautiful. 

Now how’d Sophia get away with celebrating arguably the biggest holiday with another man’s family? Well, Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t celebrate holidays… or birthdays. So a holiday celebrating Jesus’ birthday? No THANK you!

Still, it was complicated…

Sophia Johnson: And the dad opens the door, super nice, I'm thinking to myself, God, are my wedding rings in my pocket or is like, do I have them on? I felt like a creep. 

So who was this guy that Sophia was willing to feel like a creep to be with?

 Amory Sivertson: Hey Brad, how's it going? 

Brad Johnson: Oh, not bad. Another peachy day. 

Amory Sivertson: Another peachy day? 

Brad Johnson: Yep.

Brad, like his dad, didn’t want to go on the record when I first reached out to him. But a full year and a half later, he finally agreed.

Brad Johnson: Uhhhh… yeah. 

Brad and I talked for more than THREE HOURS that night. I’ll share some of what I’ve learned — both from him, and from the case file.

Brad was 33 when he met Sophia, and 12 years her senior.

Brad Johnson: I loved Sophia. I admit it. I, I, I found her very attractive. And, you know, I was fat and happy at that time. 

Ah, the fat-and-happy early days of a relationship. Indulging in each other. But also, just getting to know one another. Sophia learned that Brad was divorced. And that he also worked for a telecommunications company — a competitor of the one she worked for, the one his good friend owned… and they sold a lot of the same equipment: flip phones, palm pilots. You know, early 2000s stuff. But sometime before that, Brad worked for the FBI.

Brad Johnson: We did some bugging and wiretapping. I have relationships with all of the sheriff's departments and I did camera work, alarm systems. I did telephones, I did their 911 dispatch consoles. So a lot of places will have me put up covert cameras, you know, like a camera that looks like a pencil sharpener, or a camera that looks like a clock. And then you can't see the camera unless you know what you're looking for.

Sometimes, you can’t see the thing that’s right in front of you, unless you know what you’re looking for. There’s a lot Brad says he didn’t see about Sophia. But there also might be something that no one saw about BOTH of them.

Sophia Johnson: The embezzlement started in, and I hate to ask you this, what year did I marry Brad? Was it 2001? It was, right?

RIGHT. Sophia and Brad got married in September of 2001 – almost a year to the day from their first date. But the embezzlement Sophia is referencing started just a couple months after that first date. And it started with a bad act against HER, Sophia says.

Sophia Johnson: So I worked in the office, like I told you at County Communications. I did their office manager work, but then I started moving mostly into sales because I really liked it. 

Sales was where the money was. The commission on a single cell phone was more than 5 times Sophia’s hourly office manager rate, she says. And one day, she sold one of those cell phones to a guy who was opening a branch of his business in the area and would need a lot more phones and two-way radios and the like. Oh, we got you, Sophia told him. County Communications can get you all set up! Cha-CHING. The sale was made, Sophia’s boss did all the paperwork, and she… was looking forward to a hefty commission payout.

But when Sophia went to log the sale in the company’s computer system the next day, she didn’t see her name credited on the paperwork…

Sophia Johnson: All of it showed Jim as the person collecting all of the commission.

Jim O’Donohue. Her boss.

Sophia Johnson: And I thought, what the hell? Bullshit. No way. You never would've gotten this guy without me. He came in here, he came to our store because I told him about you. There's no way. 

According to Sophia, Jim was basically like, “I made the sale.” And she was like, buuuuut the sale never would have HAPPENED without me!

Sophia Johnson: He refused to give me the commission on that. He disagreed entirely. And we're talking thousands of dollars. So I started taking money. And I know this is wrong. I make no excuses for it. But instead of pursuing this fight with Jim, I started stealing money from the company that would equal that money from the commissions

At first, Sophia says she was pocketing cash from customer sales rather than putting it in the register. But she didn’t stop with the money she missed out on from that one deal.

Sophia Johnson: I went on a rampage. I felt wronged, I felt cheated, and it felt slimy. And of course I went ahead and in turn did the exact same thing. I was wrong. I cheated him and I became slimy. 

Weeks went by, and no one seemed to notice the missing money... so Sophia kept going. She started writing checks, and forging the co-owner of County Communications’ signature.

Sophia Johnson: Like I was out of control. I made a bad situation a hundred times worse.

It would be NINE MONTHS before her boss, Jim, realized what was going on. He confronted Sophia, but he also spoke to his good friend, Brad, who was now Sophia’s fiance.

Sophia Johnson: We sat down in the middle of this driveway and we were talking for probably a good hour, and basically he says, I believe Sophia is stealing from me. I don't think you should marry her. And he was very plain, and at that point I had gotten Sophia pregnant. 

Brad was supposed to marry Sophia — the now-mother of his unborn child — a month from when this conversation with Jim happened. He didn’t want to believe what his friend was telling him, but also Jim didn’t make it easy to believe him, Brad says.

Amory Sivertson: Do you remember what amount he told you at the time?  

Brad Johnson: I think it's an obscene amount, for the size of his business, I think it's an obscene amount. $400,000. 

$400,000… is a LOT of money for Sophia to have potentially stolen from County Communications. But investigators weren’t able to PROVE that much had been taken… or even close to it.  

In the end, the amount of money that was documented to have been stolen by Sophia? $71,283. And 82 cents.

By the time Marlyne Johnson was murdered in January of 2002, about six months after Sophia’s boss confronted her, the embezzlement investigation was still ongoing.

Rick Buckner: We had gotten information from the Washougal Police Department that they were doing an investigation into County Communications in which Sophia had embezzled a large amount of money. 

Detective Rick Buckner didn’t know about the embezzlement when he was first questioning Sophia.

Rick Buckner: And they did call and say, you know, just FYI, Sophia Johnson's a suspect in one of our cases too. 

This… was intriguing intel, considering Rick was investigating the murder of Sophia’s mother-in-law.

Rick Buckner: We're looking at, you know, who would've, you know, benefited from this? 

He was asking himself that simple question that lacked a simple answer: WHY would anyone kill Marlyne?

Rick Buckner: The only evidence that we had was that Sophia Johnson had mentioned to somebody that she was looking for a stash of money that her mother Marlyne had

That SOMEBODY, of course, was Sophia’s brother… Sean.

Sean Correia: She said that Marlyne had $10,000 stashed in some, uh, place in her house.

Tom Duffy: Sean, do you recall Sophia ever discussing in your presence what would happen if Marlyne and Richard Johnson died? 

Sea Correia: Uh, yes. 

Tom Duffy: What did she say in that regard? 

Sean Correia: That her and Brad would get a house.

The detectives knew from early interviews with Sean that Marlyne may have had money in the house. But now, with knowledge of a separate investigation into Sophia for stealing someone else’s money, and  a LOT of it, Sean’s story… was starting to sound more believable. Motive-worthy, maybe.

Rick Buckner: She was looking for money. That was her big motivation right there. 

But let’s think this through.

By the time of the murder, Sophia knows she’s in serious financial trouble. Her former boss has gone to the police about the embezzlement. It’s unclear what the full consequences of that will be. Meanwhile, there miiiiight be a stash of cash at her mother-in-law’s house. Maybe $10,000, as Sean said? Well that’s a fraction of what Sophia owed her employer. Hardly an amount to kill someone over… though NO amount is, obviously. So… say it’s a robbery-gone-wrong. If, as Sean said, he and Sophia were in the house when Marlyne came home, couldn’t they have just snuck out another door when they heard the garage opening? Or heck, even just stayed put. Sophia went over to Marlyne’s house all the time. She and Brad had a key to their house! Even if she had rounded a corner of the house and run smack dab into Marlyne, couldn’t she have just said, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. My brother just really needed the money from the coat I left here, but we couldn’t find it, so we were JUST on our way out!”...?

Or, let’s say Sophia was after an inheritance, as Detective Buckner posited to me in a follow-up phone call.

Rick Buckner: If anything were to happen to Richard or to Marlyne, who inherits it? Brad Johnson. Who's married to Brad? Sophia Johnson.

Maybe, like Sean said on the stand, Sophia wanted a house from her in-laws.

Sophia Johnson: And they have a really nice house and it's on a good piece of property…

Or maybe she was hoping for some life insurance money? Which she would only get through her marriage to Brad… but heck, if Sophia owes her boss tens of thousands of dollars… couldn’t Brad, her husband, have been feeling the weight of that too? And on THAT note… is it really possible that Brad didn’t know Sophia was bringing home thousands of dollars of stolen money at the time?

Amory Sivertson: Did Sophia ever, you know, admit to you that she had taken money from County Communications in any amount? 

Brad Johnson: Nope. Never admitted it.

Sophia Johnson: He knew that I was taking money. He knew cuz he was cashing it. 

More… in a minute.

It’s January 14, 2002 — four days after Brad Johnson’s mother was found bludgeoned to death, and hours after his wife was arrested for her murder. The detectives on the case are fleshing out their money-themed motive after learning about tens of thousands of dollars Sophia had stolen from her employer the year before, mostly by forging checks. But there’s an eyebrow-raising detail: Some of those stolen checks… were made out to BRAD JOHNSON. About a dozen of them, according to Brad himself… who told detectives they ranged from several hundred to several thousand dollars each. 

Sophia Johnson: When he took the first check, he never asked why this check was made out to him. And when the second check and the third check came, there was no question. It was, okay, I'll put this in the bank. 

Brad may have never asked why his name was on the checks, according to Sophia. But the detectives sure did. His response? He… didn’t… know.

“It’s goofy the way that the money is getting to your account,” one of the detectives said.

But goofy enough to make him a suspect in his own mother’s murder investigation?

Rick Buckner: Yes. 

Detective Buckner again.

Amory Sivertson: Do you feel like Brad told you the whole story? 

Rick Buckner: No. Nobody ever tells me the whole story. 

Brad wasn’t a suspect for long. Because… while Buckner may have never gotten the whole story from him, Brad didn’t factor AT ALL into the story he DID have for the day of the murder. The one Sean told him… which focused solely on Sophia. So the inconclusiveness around Brad’s involvement in the embezzlement? You can file that under that casually haunting statement we heard from Buckner in the last episode…

Rick Buckner: I mean, there was little things in the investigation that we could never really pin down. 

I’m not sure I got the full story from Brad either, if this response regarding Sophia’s County Communications checks is any indication.

Brad Johnson: I'm going to plead dumbness because I don't remember her, I don't remember her ever bringing home a paycheck and I don't remember her ever not bringing home a paycheck.

Or maybe Brad really didn’t see the thing that was right in front of him.

Brad Johnson: I was in the middle of the storm and I didn't pick up on it. 

Shane Correia: Isn't his name on these accounts too?

Shane, Sophia’s youngest brother… the lawyer… he doesn’t buy it.

Shane Correia: He's just saying, hey officer, I know all of these specifics. I didn't stop it and it was her.

After reading through the case file and wrapping his head around the timelines for both Sophia and Brad’s relationship AND the embezzlement, a couple things stand out to Shane.

She doesn't start embezzling until after she meets Brad. The fact that he still marries her after like it's comes out that she's, uh, embezzling. 

This is true, as far as we know. Sophia and Brad start dating in September of 2000. The embezzlement isn’t documented to have started until November of that year. Maybe Brad put Sophia up to it? He did know the business… and Sophia’s boss… REALLY well.

And then, there’s this: months after Sophia supposedly stopped stealing from County Communications, she continued to write large checks. BAD checks, in fact, between various bank accounts of hers and Brad’s. Including one for $20,000. Brad claimed not to know about this, BUT…

Shane Correia: There's no erasing him from those pictures, depositing the checks.

In the case file are bank surveillance photos… of Brad in his car at a drive-up ATM… And there’s a letter from a bank teller confirming that they have a check for $20,000 AND video footage of Brad and Sophia. The teller also wrote that Brad, quote, “seemed suspicious,” and says the bank took down his license plate number and a description of his car. What Shane sees in all of this… is a lack of accountability when it comes to Brad.

Shane Correia: And you, the five foot, four, six month pregnant woman. Two people who are committing this financial crime. You're the one we're gonna take down for this brutal murder.

Let’s go back to that pre-trial hearing we were… hearing… earlier. The one in which Sophia’s lawyer said THIS about including Sophia’s bad-act-induced-debt in her murder trial…

Therese Lavallee: It’s mud-slinging!

And the deputy prosecuting attorney argued, “No, no, it’s CONTEXT”...

Kelli Osler: The jury should be allowed to hear the amount of the debt.

Well the judge said…

Judge: I think that a pattern of living beyond your financial means is a pattern that is part of, probably part of the motive in this case. As the desperation increases, then so do the desperate acts.

And so, come the start of the actual trial, the State of Washington vs. Sophia Johnson, the lead prosecutor Tom Duffy…

Tom Duffy: Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the jury…

He was able to survey up a BUFFET of financial issues Sophia was staring down at the time of the murder… that, collectively, he claimed… explained why she killed Marlyne.

Tom Duffy: The motive for this act was greed. 

Now, desperate acts, as the judge said, and greedy ones… are NOT the same thing. And it might not be one or the other in this case. But if I were a prosecutor trying to convince a jury that someone was wicked enough to commit murder, I know which narrative I’m going with.

One of these greedy acts, Duffy said, involved two of the most significant people in Sophia’s life.

Tom Duffy: State would call Michael Schoepflin. 

Michael Schoepflin is Sophia’s first husband, the Jehovah’s Witness she had moved across the country with, and then divorced a few years later. On the day of Marlyne’s murder, Michael gave Sophia a call around 8am.

Tom Duffy: And what was the purpose of your contact with Sophia that morning?

Michael Schoepflin: I had some problems with some bills and I needed to get, um, a certain bank situation corrected as soon as possible.

The audio is… NOT terrific. VHS tapes, man. But stick with him. Because what Michael would go on to say… is that his ex-wife Sophia’s name… was still on his bank account. And for a reason unknown to him, the account had been suddenly overdrawn.

Tom Duffy: And when you spoke to Sophia that morning, what did she indicate was her intention?

Michael Schoepflin: I talked to her for just a few seconds and then she said that she would, she assured me that she would call me right back. 

Tom Duffy: Did she call you back? 

Michael Schoepflin: No, sir.

Michael wasn’t the only one trying to get a hold of Sophia that day. Enter VIP number two: Sophia’s mother Grace, who said she had stopped by her house around 1 o’clock. MINUTES after Marlyne is believed to have been killed. Sophia’s lawyer asked Grace about this visit when she was on the stand.

Therese Lavallee: What did you do when you got to your daughter's house? 

Grace Correia: I knocked on the door. I knocked lightly on the door and I stayed there. A couple of seconds and then I went away. 

Grace knocks. Lightly. No answer. Remember, Sophia says she was at home at this time, listening to music. Loudly.

Therese Lavallee: Was it a pleasant reason for which you were trying to contact your daughter, or was it a matter that was of somewhat serious concern? 

Grace Correia: It was a serious concern. 

Therese Lavallee: And it had to do with your bank account, correct? Grace Correia: Yes. 

Despite being divorced from Michael and estranged from her mother, Sophia’s name was still on BOTH of their bank accounts. Which meant that if Michael’s account was overdrawn, the bank could just pull funds from Grace’s account to cover the deficit. And it DID. Grace’s balance… was zero. So on this day of all days… Sophia’s mother and her ex-husband were both trying to reach her with urgent money problems that Sophia, the prosecution asserted, had created. Buffet dish #1? Done.

Dish #2: A few days later, at Marlyne’s funeral, money was, supposedly, still on Sophia’s mind.

Tom Duffy: Did you have any conversations with the defendant after the funeral that you have a distinct memory of? 

Dean Cole: Well, after the formal funeral arrangements were finished and everybody adjourned and filed into the lobby.

This is Dean Cole, Marlyne’s brother. Another witness for the prosecution.

Dean Cole: Sophia was there and came up to me at some point in the lobby there and said, uh, well, you know, uh, tomorrow we're gonna get to go down and read the will. Marlyne's will is gonna be read tomorrow. And it, it just, uh, struck me as, you know, uh, entirely inappropriate at a funeral to be talking about somebody's will. But that was the comment that was made to me.

So there was the embezzlement. The overdrawn bank accounts. The alleged inappropriate inquiry into Marlyne’s will. And, for a final dish, documents discovered at Sophia and Brad’s house…

Shane Correia: …which indicated that Sophia had obtained credit cards in the name of Brad Johnson. 

Shane is reading an affidavit by Detective Rick Buckner, describing a police search a few days after the murder. Buckner and his team found a number of credit card statements under various names, all of which showed past-due balances… AND, this summary said, all of which were linked to Sophia. But Shane… once again, has questions. And more theories.

Shane Correia: That’s weird. What documents would indicate that a credit card that was obtained in Brad Johnson's name, which was found in the house of Brad Johnson, was obtained by Sophia? Because maybe Brad was in financial trouble prior to meeting Sophia. Maybe that's what actually was the motivation for inducing this 22 year old girl into embezzling from her employer.

Brad has denied any participation in the embezzlement. Any witting participation, at least. And Shane, of course, will forever be Sophia’s brother FIRST. The one who credits her for raising and PROTECTING him. Giving him a foundation that would help him persevere through his own period of desperation, all the way to a law degree. So it’s clearly hard for him to square that sister with the one who, at best, stole tens of thousands of dollars, and at worst, committed murder. And it’s NOT hard for him to be skeptical of Brad when he denies any knowledge of the severity of the couple’s financial troubles.

Brad Johnson: One of the things that I found out after the murder is that my wife had not been paying the bills like she was saying. So she was hiding things. 

Amory Sivertson: She was in charge of the bills in the house?

Brad Johnson: Yes, she was. 

Sophia Johnson: That is simply not accurate. 

Sophia… has told me Brad managed their money. Or mismanaged it, she would say.

Sophia Johnson: The credit cards and all the other debt that Brad and I had, Brad had before I even met Brad.

Sophia says she had complained to her mother-in-law about Brad’s spending habits in particular.

Sophia Johnson: Because I was heartsick over it. He was out spending money hand over fist.

So Brad is either a dishonest super-spender, or he’s the guy in his mid thirties who handed over his finances to a new love in her early 20s, only to have her TANK them and commit a serious financial crime while he… was none the wiser? Shane, who himself is in his mid thirties now… doesn’t buy it. AGAIN. And doesn’t understand why more wasn’t made of this point during Sophia’s trial.

Shane Correia: 22-year-old girl approached by a 35-year-old man, competitor of a business, sees an emotional anger, exploits it, not saying that that's what happened, but that's what it looks like to me.

No matter who was actually in-the-know in Sophia and Brad’s marriage, there was one more rude awakening with regards to the couple’s finances. Here’s Shane, reading from Detective Buckner’s affidavit again.

Shane Correia: I also noticed that the city of Vancouver had sent Sophia and Brad a disconnect notice for their water due to the bill being past due. 

In the days leading up to Marlyne’s murder, Brad and Sophia were tens of thousands of dollars in debt. They had the embezzlement hanging over them. They had a baby due in just a few months. And now, their water was about to be shut off.

Sophia Johnson: What is happening here?

Brad Johnson: The tornado just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Shane Correia: Yeah. This is the walls closing in, man. Like you start messing with people's food, water, shelter, and a person who's desperate. That's reality hitting. 

A reality that looks… increasingly desperate.

Sophia Johnson: My primary concern was making sure this money was paid back and that this baby that I'm pregnant with would be okay.

Whether the “bad acts” we’ve learned about were motivated by revenge, greed, desperation, or some combination… embezzlement? Alleged credit card fraud? — these crimes cannot be equated with murder. But still… I was unsettled. Maybe you are, too. Sophia is someone capable of deceit. But deceit turned… deadly? And were these acts committed by Sophia alone? Sophia with Brad’s knowledge? Sophia AND Brad? In the end, it didn’t matter.  Only Sophia was on trial for Marlyne Johnson’s murder. And the jury… now had a LOT more to consider in making its decision.

Judge: I have been handed the verdict forms by, uh, the jury. 

That’s next time.

Beyond All Repair is a production of WBUR, Boston’s NPR, and ZSP Media.

It’s written and reported by me, and this episode was co-written with producer extraordinaire, Sofie Kodner.

Mix and sound design by Matt Reed and production manager of WBUR Podcasts, Paul Vaitkus. Original scoring by Paul Vaitkus and Matt Reed

Theme and credits music by me.

Our managing producers are Samata Joshi for WBUR and Liz Stiles of ZSP. Our editors and executive producers are Ben Brock Johnson of WBUR and Zac Stuart-Pontier of ZSP Media.

If you have questions about the case, the people at the center of this story, or anything else about this series, we want to hear ‘em. Email [email protected]. Voice memo or written message, you do you: [email protected].

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