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by a truck? Call Colombo Law. Hello,

1:02

campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the

1:04

true crime campfire. We're your

1:06

camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney.

1:09

And we're here to tell you a true

1:11

story that is way stranger than fiction. We're

1:13

roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime

1:15

campfire. The

1:22

Leonard Cohen saying, all I ever

1:24

learned from love was how to shoot somebody who

1:27

outdrew you. Which should

1:29

certainly strike a chord with followers of true

1:31

crime. We've seen time

1:33

and time again how, after a bitter breakup,

1:35

a person can go to extraordinary lengths to

1:37

get their own back. Whether

1:39

the wrongs they've suffered are real or exist

1:41

entirely in their own heads. This

1:44

is Touched by an Angel, the murder

1:47

of Fred Jablon. So

2:00

campers, for this one we're in Richmond,

2:02

Virginia, October 30th, 2004, just after 6.30 in

2:07

the morning. The pretty suburban

2:09

street of Hearthclough Lane was all decorated

2:11

for Halloween, the pumpkins on the porches

2:13

and bed sheet ghosts hanging from tree

2:15

branches. Not many people

2:17

were up and about yet, but that was about to

2:20

change real quick. Three

2:22

gunshots cracked through the quiet fall air.

2:25

All down the street, people startled awake.

2:27

Dogs started barking. Bob

2:29

and Doreen McArdle were already awake but still

2:31

in bed, but the shots sounded real close

2:33

and Bob jumped out of bed and hurried

2:35

to the window, which looked out onto the

2:38

street. He saw someone running

2:40

fast across his lawn, although it was too dark

2:42

out to make out any details of the figure.

2:45

Doreen called 911. The

2:47

dispatcher asked if they were sure they hadn't

2:50

just heard a car backfiring, but Bob was

2:52

an ex-marine. He knew what gunshots sounded like.

2:55

The dispatcher told them a squad car was on

2:57

the way, but the police weren't super worried yet.

3:00

It wasn't that unusual for reports of shots

3:02

fired to lead nowhere, especially out near the

3:04

edge of town like Hearthclough Lane was. There

3:07

were some woods and a creek close by, and

3:09

sometimes people would go in there and do target

3:11

practice or duck hunt. Going

3:13

hunting close to a subdivision at O'Dark 30

3:16

in the morning would be really rude and

3:18

at least misdemeanor-level illegal, but you know, sometimes

3:20

people are dicks. The

3:23

squad car was there in minutes, crawling

3:25

slowly down the street and shining flashlights

3:27

onto the lawns and driveways, throwing creepy

3:29

shadows up against the houses from the

3:31

Halloween decorations. The car

3:33

stopped at Bob and Doreen's house so an officer

3:36

could come to the door and hear their report

3:38

first-hand, then the cops went back to their slow

3:40

circuit around the neighborhood. At

3:42

7 a.m., they stopped to talk to Bob again,

3:44

telling him they couldn't find anything amiss, but he

3:47

should call them again if he spotted anything weird

3:49

once it got light. Bob

3:51

said he would. He and Doreen were going to take

3:53

the dog out anyway as soon as dawn broke. In

3:56

The slowly lightening day, they walked past the

3:58

house of their neighbor. Fred, Jablon and

4:01

or he noticed what looked like a

4:03

pile of clothes line crumpled on the

4:05

driveway the side Fred's black Ford Explorer.

4:08

He better check and see what that is.

4:10

She told Bob her heart already thinking. What?

4:12

It was was for a javelin. Dressed.

4:15

In navy blue sweats, his face

4:17

and hands shockingly pale. He.

4:19

Looked dead. Ball. Called

4:21

back to Doreen, who already had her cell phone

4:23

in her hands and she dialed Nine One One

4:25

for the second time. That morning. We.

4:28

Found fro Jablon or neighbor in his driveway.

4:30

she said it looks like he said. He

4:33

was despite the efforts paramedics to

4:35

revive them. They. Found a

4:38

gunshot wound in his back right away. his

4:40

sweatshirt soaked with blood around it. Neighbors.

4:43

That told police Fred had three kids and they had

4:45

no idea if they were safe for where the shooter

4:47

might be. A Swat team quietly

4:49

cleared the health, waking up each of Fred's

4:52

kids in turn and escorting them out to

4:54

an ambulance. His. Oldest kid, fifteen

4:56

year old Jocelyn was the first one they

4:58

woke up. Make. Sure my brother,

5:00

sister, and dad get out she told the officer

5:02

who guided her out of the house. They.

5:05

Found nothing suspicious inside. No sign of

5:07

a break in. Feds, Morning

5:09

coffee was still warm in the pot. This.

5:12

Didn't look like a burglary gone wrong

5:14

or anything like that. It looked

5:16

like a cold, deliberate killing. Fred.

5:19

Jablon was a guy you could set your

5:22

watch by. He liked his routines. Every

5:24

morning. At around the same time, he'd start a

5:26

pot of coffee than go pick up his newspaper

5:28

in the driveway. If the shooter

5:30

new his habits, Fred would have made an

5:32

easy target. Just. Crouched behind a bush

5:34

till he turned around the corner of the house and

5:36

had his back to you. and he'd be hard to

5:38

miss. But who would want

5:41

to kill for a javelin? He was

5:43

a quiet kind of nerdy guy and devoted

5:45

dad and a professor at the University of

5:47

Richmond. Well liked by boat, as neighbors and

5:50

his students. He. Was the kind of

5:52

guy who sent have had an enemy in the world. But.

5:54

It didn't take long for the police to learn

5:57

that that was definitely not the case. With.

5:59

and just few hours of Fred's death, they

6:01

got in touch with his brother Michael in

6:03

Northern Virginia. Michael sat

6:05

in shocked silence for a few moments

6:08

and said, Have you considered my brother's

6:10

ex-wife as a suspect? When

6:12

a colleague and friend of Fred's at the University

6:15

of Richmond heard about his death, she immediately said,

6:17

Oh my God, Piper killed him. Fred

6:21

Jablun was born in 1952 in New York

6:23

City, a bright kid who'd wanted to be

6:25

a scientist since he was barely old enough

6:27

to walk. His parents, like

6:29

a lot of people who'd been through the Great

6:31

Depression, lived modest lives, but every

6:33

month their mom would take Fred and his brother Michael out

6:36

to see a Broadway show. Fred

6:38

was an academic star, and

6:40

in 1977 he got his PhD

6:43

in Organizational Communication, which is

6:45

one of those fields that from the outside

6:47

might seem about as interesting as watching paint

6:49

dry, but you know, the people

6:51

who are into it are really into it. And

6:55

Fred was definitely into it. It was a

6:57

brand new field at the time and Fred was a

6:59

rising star. He was meticulous and

7:01

smart and he had a real talent for

7:03

recognizing patterns. In

7:05

1977, he landed a teaching gig at

7:08

the University of Texas in Austin, where

7:10

Fred quickly made friends. He

7:12

never had trouble with that. He was

7:14

quiet, but funny too, and people liked him

7:16

a lot. In his

7:18

mid-twenties, he was already mostly bald and he

7:20

wore a truly awful toupee just to please

7:23

his mother. Oh, bless

7:25

his heart. Yeah, moms are weird about their

7:27

kids' hair, right? Like, my mom freaked out

7:29

when my brother shaved his head. Like, it

7:31

was way disproportionate. Like, calm down. God,

7:34

it's his head. One

7:37

night, Fred drove himself to the ER for

7:39

an emergency appendectomy, and at some point during

7:42

the toupee fell off and got lost. And

7:44

to everybody's relief, except for his mom,

7:46

I guess, he never replaced it. About

7:50

three years into his time at UT,

7:52

28-year-old Fred met a 21-year-old senior by

7:54

the name of Piper Roundtree. Piper

7:57

was bright and real pretty, kind of

7:59

pixie-looking. and she liked to hang out and

8:01

talk with her professors after class. If

8:04

you knew Fred and Piper, you probably would never think

8:06

to set them up with each other. Calm

8:08

and careful Fred and free spirit Piper. But

8:11

that opposite's attracting is no bullshit. And

8:15

there was major chemistry between them from day one.

8:19

It didn't take them long to start dating, though they

8:21

had to be sneaky about it for the first

8:23

few months till Piper graduated. Piper

8:26

was dreamy and artistic, always rescuing stray

8:28

animals to keep his pets. A

8:31

hippie, basically. I mean, it was still the

8:33

70s. And in my experience, about

8:35

80% of the seriously, like,

8:37

crunchy granola people you meet, once you

8:39

scratch the surface, you find out they're

8:41

wound tighter than a bear trap. I

8:44

think this has been true of literally

8:46

every, like, crunchy person I've ever known.

8:49

Not always wound up, like, in a

8:51

bad way, like, sometimes they're just balls

8:53

of anxiety, but like, it's gonna be

8:55

something. In my experience, I'm sure there

8:57

are exceptions, but yeah. And

8:59

with Piper, we mean wound up like

9:01

an angry little chihuahua. Yeah,

9:03

our girl had a wild temper and

9:05

she had a hair trigger on it. Even

9:09

if they struck everybody as kind of an

9:11

odd couple, Fred and Piper were happy together.

9:13

At least, at first. Two

9:15

years after they started dating, they got married. Not

9:18

everybody was happy about it. Piper's

9:20

older sister Tina thought from the start that

9:23

Fred wasn't good enough for Piper. Oh,

9:25

Tina. Y'all are gonna

9:27

love Miss Tina. Oh, boy. Yeah. You're

9:32

gonna feel some strong emotion toward Miss

9:34

Tina. Her

9:38

and Piper's dad had been a surgeon in the Air Force

9:40

and his military career had taken the family all

9:42

over the world. Piper was born

9:45

in Japan while he was stationed there. Their

9:47

dad retired to Texas when Piper was still little

9:49

and she'd never remember much of him, except that

9:51

he drank too much and sometimes got mean. And

9:54

then he had a stroke, which made him even meaner. He

9:57

soon moved away and out of Piper's life. So

10:00

Piper's mom was busy, and a good chunk of

10:03

the parenting duties fell onto Tina, eight years older

10:05

than Piper, but as close to her as a

10:07

twin. Piper and I are

10:09

soul sisters. Tina would later tell 48 hours. We're

10:12

incomplete without each other. Oh

10:15

boy. Piper was

10:17

a high flyer in high school, a

10:19

star academically and athletically, and because she

10:21

was cute and gregarious, she was popular

10:23

too. Tina, who was

10:25

intense and frankly, kind of scary,

10:27

never was. She said

10:29

she admired Piper's popularity, but you don't have

10:31

to squint too hard to see some jealousy

10:33

there too. When teenage

10:35

Piper would go to the park and hang

10:37

out with her friends to smoke and drink,

10:40

Tina would tag along in her 20s by

10:42

this point and graduated from college, but finally

10:44

getting to hang out with the cool kids,

10:46

which is just, ooh, so cool. You

10:49

know, y'all, did y'all ever know those like 20

10:51

something, like those people that were like in their

10:53

mid to late 20s and would hang out with the

10:56

high school kids? Like avoid

10:58

those people. Those people

11:00

are to be avoided,

11:02

at least in my experience, especially the dudes,

11:04

but like, even though, like even a woman

11:06

doing that like that, it's just weird. I mean,

11:08

you were hanging out with people 10 years younger than you.

11:12

Young Piper also picked up a reputation as

11:14

being kind of weird. When

11:17

a friend walked away from bad car wreck without

11:19

a scratch, Piper told her, you had an angel

11:21

on your shoulder looking after you, which

11:24

is the kind of thing somebody might say

11:26

in that situation. Nothing too out there about

11:28

that, but no, no, Piper insisted she meant

11:30

it literally. There were angels all

11:32

over the place, changing the world, trying to

11:34

guide us all. You just had to listen

11:36

for them. She listened to angels

11:38

all the time. She always had crystals

11:40

in her pockets, connections to the spiritual realm that

11:42

she was always ready to pull out if a

11:45

friend had a headache or sprained wrist. Now look,

11:47

I have friends who are into mystical stuff and

11:49

it's actually really lovely to me when they do

11:51

spells for me or give me crystals, especially if

11:53

they hand me, if you Tylenol too, you know,

11:55

if it's a headache or whatever, but you know,

11:58

no shade if you're into that stuff. In Piper's

12:00

case, I get the feeling that it's

12:02

not genuine. It feels to

12:04

me, having read the book and also

12:06

seen her in interviews, it just feels

12:08

performative with her. Just one

12:10

more way for her to cast herself as

12:12

the quirky, cute as a button, little main

12:15

character in any situation she finds herself in.

12:18

Oh yeah, she's a pick me to her

12:20

core. The angel thing was absolutely an effort

12:22

to make other people's problems about her. Right,

12:25

exactly. Like, oh well I talked to my

12:27

angels and I asked them to protect you,

12:29

so they did. Remember Terry Hoffman

12:31

from the cult of Conscious Development? She said

12:33

the same thing. Yep. Initially,

12:36

Piper brought some happy chaos into Fred's life,

12:39

adopting a cat, a bunny, a bird, and

12:41

two ferrets that she'd walk around on leashes,

12:43

which must have been adorbs. She

12:46

even talked him into visiting a nude beach on

12:48

Lake Travis, which I imagine for Fred was a

12:50

big deal. After

12:53

their marriage, Fred learned a couple things about

12:55

Piper that were surprises, but they didn't make

12:57

him love her any less. One

12:59

was that Piper had been diagnosed

13:01

with and medicated for ADHD, and

13:03

the other was that Piper's wayfish

13:05

shape was largely down to bulimia

13:07

that she'd suffered from for years. Was

13:10

nothing that changed how he felt about Piper, it

13:12

was just a little weird that she'd waited till

13:14

after the wedding to share, since they'd already been

13:16

living together for a while. After

13:18

graduation, Piper went to law school, with Fred

13:21

paying her tuition. Piper

13:23

was very smart, if not quite up to

13:25

the genius reputation she had in her family.

13:28

But she'd never been so much about

13:30

the perspiration side of getting an education,

13:32

and struggled through law school, barely graduating.

13:35

She landed a cool job at the Hays County

13:37

District Attorney's Office, but that lasted less than a

13:39

year. She'd say later she

13:41

hadn't felt like herself in the job. One

13:44

time she'd been negotiating a plea deal, and the guy had

13:46

taken out a gun and put it on the table between

13:48

them. Which does not sound very

13:50

likely to me, like if we have any

13:53

campers who happen to be habitual criminals in

13:55

Texas, try that out for us, tell us

13:57

how it goes. Yeah,

14:00

don't do that, I'm kidding, but I

14:02

do suspect that story is pure bullshit, like

14:04

most of what comes out of Piper's mouth.

14:07

Fred certainly remembered things differently. According

14:10

to him, Piper just got straight-up fired

14:12

for doing a shitty job. Four

14:15

years into the marriage, Piper and Fred were

14:17

trying to start a family, which would normally

14:19

be a fairly private, intimate thing, but not

14:22

with Piper, who several times called up Fred's

14:24

assistants at UT to tell him, tell Fred

14:26

he has to come home right now, I'm

14:28

ovulating. That's

14:31

so funny, especially knowing how kind of

14:33

like taciturn Fred was, he must have been so

14:35

embarrassed. Their daughter

14:37

Jocelyn came into the world, and Piper's temper

14:39

moved onto even more of a hair trigger.

14:43

Almost without fail, the first words out of her

14:45

mouth when she called the assistants at Fred's office

14:47

were, You tell Fred, as in, for

14:49

example, You tell Fred I just fired the maid

14:52

and he needs to come home right now, and

14:54

then hang up. A

14:57

lot of maids were fired, sometimes the same day

14:59

they were hired. Just

15:01

as many quit, because Piper was a nightmare

15:03

to work for. The

15:05

assistants translated these calls into slips of

15:08

paper with, Please call home, written on

15:10

them, which went into Fred's mailbox. If

15:13

Piper sounded especially furious, they'd add, Now, and underline

15:15

it, so Fred had a clue of what to

15:17

expect. Sometimes

15:19

Piper would call ten or more times a day.

15:23

People at Fred's job started to think she

15:25

was crazy, and they wondered why someone like

15:27

Fred, who was rational to the point of

15:29

seeming half Vulcan, would be with her. Why

15:32

somebody as lively as Piper would be with a staid

15:34

guy like Fred was becoming less of a mystery to

15:37

the people around them. Only

15:39

somebody as patient as him would put up with her

15:41

bullshit. Piper

15:43

briefly landed on her feet with her law career

15:45

when she got a job at the Texas Association

15:47

of School Boards and did well. But

15:50

within a year, she did ship for a higher paying job

15:52

at a law firm working in the same field. She

15:55

bragged about her salary and swanky office and how she could

15:57

send an assistant out just to get her a cup of

15:59

tea. coffee. And

16:02

she got fired with an ear. This

16:05

was right in the middle of Piper's second

16:07

pregnancy and she'd tell anyone who would listen

16:09

that they'd fired her because she was pregnant,

16:11

which is illegal. Anyway,

16:14

Fred would later tell people that, again, she'd been

16:17

fired for doing shitty work and not much of

16:19

it. Fred and

16:21

Piper's son Paxton was born and afterwards Piper

16:23

spent weeks in bed weighed down by a

16:25

bad case of postpartum depression. Our

16:28

main source for this case is Catherine

16:30

Casey's book Die, My Love and she

16:32

actually interviewed Piper for it. Talking about

16:34

her postpartum depression, Piper told her, I

16:37

didn't want to get out of bed. It

16:39

got worse with each pregnancy. It's like everything

16:41

goes gray. Everything feels dull. While

16:45

she was depressed, Piper withdrew thousands of

16:47

dollars from her retirement account and got herself a

16:49

boob job. She grudgingly told Fred

16:51

about it just two days before the surgery.

16:54

I mean, she had to, I guess. It was either

16:56

that or disappear for a couple of weeks on

16:58

gas item. What do you mean, honey?

17:00

They've always been this big. I

17:04

vote for that. And

17:06

you know, we do not have an issue with the

17:08

boob job, by the way. If that helps lift you

17:10

out of a depression, knock yourself out. But as you're

17:13

about to see, Piper had a

17:15

bad habit of spending gobs of money on stuff

17:17

and then not telling Fred unless she absolutely had

17:19

to. So that's why we bring that up. Piper

17:22

had another job shortly after this and surprise, surprise,

17:24

they kicked her to the curb after the first

17:27

year. Then she got pregnant

17:29

again. With a growing family and

17:31

Piper unable to keep a job, Fred started to worry

17:33

about money. A lot. His

17:36

teaching gig at the University of Texas just wasn't

17:38

going to cut it and so he started taking

17:40

on some consulting work. But

17:42

Piper complained that he was away from home

17:45

too often, so Fred started looking into making

17:47

a more radical change and finding an entirely

17:49

new job. He really was a

17:51

star in his field and it didn't take long for him

17:53

to be offered a position at the University of Richmond.

17:56

There were some negatives. For one, the opportunity

17:58

was all the way up. up in Virginia.

18:01

This would be tough for Piper, who was close to her

18:03

family. And Fred would

18:05

be teaching undergraduates rather than the grad students

18:07

he currently worked with. The positives,

18:10

though, were hard to ignore. There

18:12

would be a tenured position at double his

18:14

current salary. That was too good to

18:16

pass up. So

18:18

the young Jadlin family packed their lives into a

18:21

moving van and headed north. Not

18:23

everyone was happy for them. Piper's

18:25

sister Tina was furious. I

18:29

never forgave Fred from moving Piper so far

18:31

away, she said. What right

18:33

did he have to take her and the children away

18:35

from her family? Oh, for

18:38

God's sake. This, remember,

18:40

is her grown-ass sister she's talking

18:42

about. And also, he wouldn't

18:44

have had to take the job if she'd been able to hold

18:46

down a damn job of her own. But sure,

18:48

Tina, go off. Ah,

18:51

Tina's the worst. So

18:53

in 1994, Fred and Piper moved into

18:55

a beautiful five bedroom house in the

18:57

suburbs of Richmond's West End, and

18:59

Fred started off on his new academic career. They

19:02

were in an enviable position, a big house

19:05

in a gorgeous neighborhood, an SUV

19:07

and a minivan in the driveway, two great

19:09

kids and a third, Callie, on the way.

19:12

And Fred had a good job with tenure. Piper,

19:16

with her Texas cowboy boots and tight jeans and

19:18

all her woo-woo ways, didn't really fit in with

19:20

the West End crowd, and she was happy not

19:22

to. She called the other women in

19:24

the neighborhood the Stepford Wives. Not

19:27

that making fun of them made Piper any less

19:29

likely to ask for favors, particularly when it came

19:31

to looking after her kids. Having

19:33

turned her legal career into a flaming

19:35

dumpster, Piper tried to develop a new

19:37

identity as Super Mom. Her

19:40

kids were her life, she'd declare. She

19:42

called herself Momia. wanted

20:00

to go hunting for frogs in the creek or

20:02

get some Disney scenes painted in their rooms, Piper

20:04

was all in. That stuff was fun.

20:07

It was the actual taking care of them part

20:09

she had trouble with. One

20:12

night, Piper was playing bunko with some of the

20:14

Stepford wives in the neighborhood and said they should

20:16

start a babysitting circle, which some of them said

20:18

might be a good idea, but that was as

20:21

far as the conversation went. And then the next

20:23

morning, one of these ladies answered the doorbell and

20:25

there was Piper holding little Callie by the hand

20:27

trying to drop her off for babysitting. This

20:30

became such a common occurrence that neighbors started peeking

20:33

out the curtains before they'd answer the door and

20:35

if it was Piper, they just pretend not to

20:37

be home, just belly crawling across

20:40

the living room. Everybody be

20:42

quiet, it's Piper. Piper

20:45

did become good friends, at least initially,

20:47

with Melody Foster, who owned the house

20:49

behind theirs. Melody's daughter was

20:51

Paxton's age and like Piper, Melody was an

20:54

attorney. The two families got along

20:56

so well that Fred cut a gate into the

20:58

fence so everybody could move freely back and forth.

21:01

Piper was always popping in, often with a

21:03

glass of wine in her hand, and Melody

21:05

got a front row seat for super moms

21:07

super parenting. Once,

21:09

when Melody looked out and saw a three-year-old

21:11

Callie just wandering around outside, Piper just said,

21:14

oh, I do it all the time, she's

21:16

fine. Okay,

21:19

well, she's three, but that's

21:21

cool. Another time, the

21:24

school nurse called to tell Melody she had to

21:26

come pick up her sick daughter. Oh, just

21:28

don't get her, Piper said, that's what I do.

21:32

Sure, girl, who cares if she gives six other

21:34

kids a stomach flu, right? Fuck

21:37

off. Sometimes, if she

21:39

was feeling down, Piper would simply lock the kids

21:41

out of the house and go to bed, which

21:43

I imagine for a millennial child might be an

21:45

upsetting experience. Because

21:48

unlike the generation that came before, y'all

21:50

weren't used to that. Our parents

21:52

would just kick us out and be like, come home

21:54

when it gets dark, I guess, because we have to

21:56

let you do No.

22:00

Nine These kids Late nineties. kids at the

22:03

upset. Through the front of. It's.

22:05

Terribly irresponsible. I get that.

22:08

By Ninety Ninety Eight, it wasn't unusual for

22:10

a nine year olds iceland to come out

22:12

onto the porch to ask her mom who

22:15

was working her way through a bottle of

22:17

wine what see Josselin, age nine should make

22:19

for dinner. Paper.

22:21

Was always dropping off her kids for Melody

22:23

to look after or if melodies higher nanny

22:25

for the nanny to look after. Without.

22:28

Any extra money that obviously is the

22:30

kind of thing you have to a

22:32

ask about first and be offered of

22:34

for can pay for neither of which

22:36

was paper style. She. And

22:39

Fred had their own nannies who just

22:41

like the maids back an awesome came

22:43

and went at a bewildering rate. Either

22:45

Piper fired him or they quit. Because.

22:47

She was awful to work for, so

22:49

one way or another, super mom. Piper went

22:52

to great lengths to avoid the actual

22:54

care giving part of parenting. She

22:56

soon as a look further for care than

22:58

neighbor. Melody hybrid been fun and exciting at

23:01

first, but Melty was getting tired of her

23:03

demands and her complete inability to read social

23:05

cues that it was time to us, you

23:07

know, leave Melodies started pulling her car into

23:09

the garage and like the rest of the

23:11

neighbors, just pretending to not be home when

23:14

Piper came around. Fred.

23:16

And Pipers marriage was not doing great at

23:18

this point. Fred's. Career was going

23:20

well, but it was hard work and he was spending

23:22

less and less time at home. Piper.

23:25

Who needed attention like most of us need

23:27

oxygen? Was not happy. And they started

23:29

seeing a marriage counselor. And

23:31

if she wasn't getting attention from Fred,

23:34

Piper would get it somewhere else. They.

23:36

Join the local swim and tennis club for

23:38

three hundred dollars a year. A place where

23:40

a lot of the neighborhood families would hang

23:43

out in the summer and Piper like to

23:45

strut around in a thong bathing suit that

23:47

showed her whole entire as so often that

23:49

other members complained. You know,

23:51

some families have teenage sons who are already

23:53

spending too much time in the bathroom with

23:55

the door locked up? Okay, Other

23:58

people have to get in their brain. So

24:04

you know, joining a tennis club is

24:06

already pretty busy. But Piper, without telling

24:08

Fred of course, went ahead and joined

24:10

a Snooty or Rain Tree Club as

24:12

well. His dues were a much steeper

24:14

hundred and thirty five dollars a month

24:16

see Ranger. He had daycare and Piper

24:18

could drop the kids off their while.

24:20

She went off to scurry around the

24:22

tennis courts, most often playing against hot

24:24

younger men Shoe soon, leaving the kids

24:26

for much longer than the maximum allowed

24:28

three hours, and despite the rule the

24:31

parents had to stay on the grounds,

24:33

she was nowhere. To be seen. Ah,

24:36

Whatever. Could this attractive, self

24:38

absorbed woman who feels neglected by her

24:40

husband be doing. Most.

24:44

Of the hot tennis player, that reentry was

24:46

what she was doing before settling into a

24:48

semi series affair with a boy toy in

24:51

his early twenties. He.

24:53

Was her first choice. Piper.

24:55

Had flirted with her Gp so much that he

24:57

made it a requirement that a female nurse always

25:00

be an examination with them. That paper wouldn't

25:02

try anything. First. Of

25:04

all, going to the doctor is like

25:06

already embarrassing right? Like Authority Like it's

25:08

a level of like I am like I

25:10

am Ill. The are

25:13

gonna look impassively at my body

25:15

with it's Isis just. Imagine like

25:17

they they've set. A rule

25:19

for used to the doctors is because

25:21

the doctors are uncomfortable. I would they

25:23

would. never to methods again. never smell. As.

25:26

Their marriage slowly fell apart. Paper and

25:29

Fred both started showing the less great

25:31

size of their personalities. Paper.

25:33

Became more impulsive and self absorbed. and

25:35

Fred, who always had something of Mr.

25:38

Spock and a soul, became colder and

25:40

more rigid. Friends. Notice that

25:42

they hardly ever touched each other. Fred.

25:44

Withdrawing affection and attention from Piper was only

25:46

gonna make things worse, of course, but it

25:48

wasn't going to work anyway. They. Were

25:50

to to fundamentally different for things to work

25:52

out well. People. like to say

25:55

opposites attract a that's true the for a

25:57

lot of people after the novelty wears off

25:59

the me thing they attract is divorce. Piper

26:04

started seeing a therapist who changed her ADHD

26:07

medication and gave her a prescription for Prozac.

26:09

And shortly after that, when one of her

26:11

friends started bitching about her husband over coffee,

26:13

Piper told her, you should

26:15

put Pete on Prozac. I've got Fred taking

26:18

it because I think he's depressed. He doesn't

26:20

know. I've been slipping in this coffee. Oh,

26:23

wow. Yeah, what better way to show concern for the

26:25

man you love than by slipping in the Mickey. I

26:29

don't even think this is the first time that

26:31

somebody did this in one of our cases. Oh,

26:33

no, this has come up a couple times. You're

26:35

right. And it's like always like, they're meds. And

26:37

it's like, bitch, take your meds. I

26:40

know. Fred

26:43

was just an NPC in Piper's life. She thought

26:45

of him more as a pet than a partner.

26:48

Petner? According to the

26:51

term, petner. Piper's

26:55

love affair flamed out when she found out that

26:57

her boy toy boyfriend was banging one of her

26:59

friends on the side. I'd

27:03

say she got a taste of her own medicine, but I am 100%

27:05

sure that Piper is not

27:07

familiar with the concept of irony. And

27:11

newly single, you know, except for her husband,

27:14

Piper started focusing on her legal

27:16

career again. The problem was,

27:19

she wasn't licensed to practice in Virginia. If

27:21

she'd done it soon after they moved to Richmond, she

27:24

could have applied to the state bar, but she hadn't

27:26

bothered and that window had closed. The

27:28

only way Piper could legally practice in Virginia

27:30

was under another attorney's supervision or if she

27:33

passed the Virginia bar exam. But

27:35

Piper wasn't about to let a little thing like the law

27:37

get in the way of her legal career. She

27:40

took on clients anyway, but because she was

27:42

terrible at her job, one client

27:44

complained to the bar who told Piper to knock

27:47

it the fuck off. Piper

27:49

appealed that the state should still grant her

27:51

a license based on her Texas qualifications, despite

27:53

her having missed the window to apply for

27:55

that. And you know, it probably

27:57

shouldn't matter that she dropped off her

27:59

appeal. to the board office while wearing a gold

28:01

bikini, but I'm guessing it didn't help. Like,

28:05

I don't want to judge anybody by appearance,

28:07

but I feel like

28:10

there's some decorum needed in that situation.

28:12

But I don't know, maybe if she'd

28:14

fully committed to cosplaying Princess Leia

28:16

with this old bikini, it would

28:18

have been better. I don't know, get some extensions,

28:23

some chains, I don't know, could have

28:25

helped. But

28:27

of course her appeal was denied that Piper would

28:29

have to pass the bar exam, which

28:31

she didn't, despite said getting her into

28:33

a review course at the University of Richmond Law

28:35

School and despite her bragging to her fellow students

28:38

about her few months as a prosecutor in Texas.

28:41

She sat in the back of the class doodling in a

28:43

sketchbook. She was a Piper motherfucking

28:46

round tree, a family genius after

28:48

all. Surely she could coast

28:50

through the bar exam like she'd coasted through

28:52

high school. That

29:01

could easily make it her blinking. That

29:20

could make a huge for

29:23

a lot. Thank you. Webpen bags.

29:56

And not only at her follow-up appointments. Not

29:59

long after they met. Dr. Jim and Piper

30:01

started screwing. And sometimes when paper

30:03

would take the kids out hiking or on

30:05

picnics, she'd bring a new boyfriend along. Later.

30:09

When Fred found out about the affair, he

30:11

was both furious and ten a bewildered. Unlike

30:14

her tennis club jocks, Doctor Davao was

30:16

then and balding and in fact look

30:18

just like Fred. The. Guy could

30:20

be my brother Fred would say but for

30:22

now Fred was in the dark. An arranged

30:24

to Christmas trip to the family to Disney

30:26

World. Piper. Didn't want to go.

30:29

Disney. World was so crass. A

30:31

place for the unsophisticated masses. About

30:34

which one get over your damn self and to

30:36

your kids are eleven, eight and five years old

30:38

and will love it and remember it for the

30:41

results of their lives. of. The.

30:43

Piper was determined to not have any fun.

30:46

In fact, when Christmas came around, she took

30:48

off with little Cali down to Texas to

30:50

stay with her sister. Tier, which I'm sure

30:52

was super fun for Cali. A: Who wants to

30:54

go to Disney Rights? Your brother and sister are

30:56

meeting Mickey Mouse with your dad that you get

30:59

to spend the holidays with. Your weird aren't

31:01

Instead, that's just as good, right? Seen

31:04

his goofy and. Tina

31:08

was a piece of work. She was

31:10

taller than fiber and serious and intense.

31:13

Like paper, she was smart and. Unlike

31:15

Piper, had something to show for it Her

31:18

own medical practice as a nurse practitioner. For.

31:20

All her professional success though her personal

31:22

life was a dumpster fire. Her first

31:25

husband was an attorney and just two

31:27

months after they got divorced Tina with

31:29

married again. Married

31:31

again after two minutes. To.

31:33

Use and gynecologists doctor prefer.

31:36

And those doctor had walked out on his

31:38

own thirty four year marriage at the same

31:40

time. And while I'm sure it's a seasonally

31:43

just coincidence, you show me a couple who

31:45

hook up right after they both get divorced

31:47

and I'm gonna go ahead and assume they

31:49

been bang and like a said house during

31:51

a hurricane. Okay, and obviously we can't draw

31:53

a straight line. Here of cause and effect.

31:56

But. Not long after, Doctor Prayer left his wife

31:58

very very sadly. she took her on. There's

32:01

an rig apparently saw cause for blame

32:03

though, and he sued his dad. The

32:06

Tina who enjoyed psychoanalyzing people despite

32:08

a complete lack of training to

32:10

do so. Road Rick a letter.

32:13

It's. Like you're all stuck at three years old.

32:15

Someone takes your toy away and you either

32:17

hit the kid back or just withdraw from

32:19

the big mean thing that took your toy

32:21

away. Took. Your toy

32:24

away. This guy just lost his mother.

32:27

Teases. You know she was smirking so much when

32:29

she wrote that I can see I can envision her

32:31

face and like. It's just. Sometimes.

32:35

There's. No deep, meaningful reason why people

32:37

don't like you. Sometimes.

32:40

It's because you're an inflamed asshole.

32:42

Yeah, I think we know which one it is here. The.

32:46

Lawsuit didn't go anywhere because Rick

32:48

also took his own life. Seen.

32:51

As marriage, the doctor Braver didn't last

32:53

long, ending in an acrimonious divorce after

32:55

just a few years. So.

32:58

Far Tina had married an attorney and a doctor,

33:00

so you might be forgiven for thinking she had

33:02

a mental rule that said your bank account has

33:04

to be At Least install The Go On this

33:06

ride. And she certainly kept

33:08

that pattern going With has been number three:

33:10

Grant Heat Sig, a millionaire with his own

33:12

oil company. He. And Sina had

33:14

dated for a while then broke up and then

33:17

seen a came back into his life when he

33:19

was diagnosed with a brain tumor and didn't have

33:21

long to live. In. October

33:23

Nineteen, Ninety Nine Just a week after

33:25

he'd had brain surgery, Chino whisked him

33:27

up to Vegas for a surprise wedding

33:29

she'd set up. And

33:31

you're a little life advice. Don't.

33:34

Have something that can be described as a

33:36

surprise wedding. If one of the people be

33:38

in surprise is the bride or groom. But.

33:42

Grant said yes, probably thinking what a

33:44

lot of their mutual friends were thinking,

33:46

that Tina as a nurse was just

33:48

what Grant needed. someone kind to look

33:51

after him for his difficult, you know,

33:53

final months of life. But that one?

33:55

What happened. Tina. immediately

33:57

father ran off onto a series of

33:59

paid caregivers and barely spent any time

34:02

with him. Grant was

34:04

no pushover and figured out Tina was

34:06

just after his cash. Six

34:08

months after the marriage in Vegas he filed for

34:10

an annulment. Instead

34:13

of Grant's millions Tina left the marriage with

34:15

50 grand in a gym membership. Grant

34:17

died six months after the marriage ended right around

34:20

the time Piper and Callie came down to visit.

34:23

After Christmas Fred flew down to Texas and

34:25

made Piper an offer. If she

34:27

would try to make the marriage work

34:30

he'd start looking for a new job down in Texas

34:32

so Piper could be close to her family again. Piper

34:35

agreed but her heart wasn't in it. She

34:38

wasn't back in Virginia for long before she moved out

34:40

of the house on Hearthglow Lane to stay with a

34:43

girlfriend who was going through divorce. Everyone

34:45

who knew Piper could see she was wound even

34:48

tighter than usual while twitchy and brittle. Part

34:50

of that was probably medicinal. When

34:53

she was over at her neighbor Mel's one

34:55

time Piper took a couple of Adderall. She

34:57

had a prescription but that wasn't what she

34:59

was taking. These are Jocelyn's she told Mel.

35:02

Have you ever tried Adderall? They're great. Yeah

35:05

and your daughter needs them dumbass.

35:09

Yeah she would take her own and then she would take her

35:11

daughter's like so she could use twice as much I guess. Awful.

35:16

Piper got weirder and weirder. She took Jocelyn

35:18

for an appointment with Dr. Gable then took all

35:20

three kids and checked into a hotel where she

35:22

immediately started fretting that Fred would call the cops

35:24

on her and they'd kick in the door in

35:27

any minute. She canceled an appointment with

35:29

her therapist because she was sure Fred would have the

35:31

cops waiting for her there. And

35:33

then she went to a magistrate's office to file

35:35

a restraining order and an arrest warrant against Fred

35:37

for domestic violence. This was

35:39

completely bogus. We said it before

35:42

but it's important to say it again. The vast

35:44

majority of domestic abuse allegations are honest.

35:47

We see false accusations a lot on our show

35:49

but that's because we talk about awful people.

35:52

These people are not the norm. These

35:54

are assholes. Let's just be frank. They're

35:56

dicks. So

35:58

Fred was arrested at work at the University of Richmond

36:01

and marched out to a squad car by two cops in

36:03

front of his students and colleagues. I'm

36:05

guessing that was one of the worst moments of his

36:07

life. When he

36:09

was released, he wasn't allowed to go home because

36:12

of their straining order, so he moved into a

36:14

motel near campus. Whatever

36:16

slim hopes he had had of rescuing their

36:18

marriage were dead now. Fred

36:20

hired an attorney and asked for temporary custody

36:22

of the kids, arguing they weren't safe with

36:24

Piper, and the judge agreed. When

36:27

Piper found out, she had him arrested

36:29

again on another fake domestic violence charge.

36:33

While he was waiting to be released, Piper had

36:35

movers come to the house to take the best

36:37

pieces of furniture to a townhouse she'd rented. She

36:40

also took a piano, a set of pearls, and

36:42

a wedding ring that had all belonged to Fred's

36:44

mother. As an attorney,

36:46

she probably should have anticipated what happened next.

36:48

With Piper moving out, Fred

36:50

filed for divorce on grounds of

36:53

desertion. Well, she was a shitty attorney,

36:55

remember. Yeah, maybe this was a surprise

36:57

to her. The

36:59

divorce was contentious, especially when Fred found

37:02

out about Piper's affair with Dr. Gable

37:04

and realized he could add adultery to

37:06

his case. The domestic violence charges against

37:08

Fred had been dropped after Piper didn't

37:10

bother to show up for a hearing,

37:13

and Fred's attorneys though used those false

37:15

charges against Piper. Piper

37:18

didn't help herself out much either. She kept

37:20

breaking into the house on Hearthglow Lane and

37:22

taking stuff when Fred was out. The

37:25

house was still equally in her name, so

37:27

police couldn't really do anything, but it bolstered

37:29

Fred's argument that Piper was erratic and couldn't

37:31

be trusted with the kids. She

37:34

was also careless with her email lists, accidentally

37:36

ceasing Fred on replies to friends about how

37:39

to listen to angels. She

37:41

even ceased nine-year-old Paxton on an email

37:43

about an idea she'd had for a

37:45

video game joystick that doubled his sex

37:47

toy. Oh, for God's sake.

37:49

I mean, I'm not saying it's not

37:51

a great idea. It's obviously a great

37:53

idea, but just don't send it to

37:55

your child, Piper. You absolute

37:58

dingleberry. Also, if Piper's

38:00

listening to her angels at this point,

38:02

she should stop. Because I don't

38:04

think the angels are sending Piper their best people.

38:07

She's got like Chris Angel. That's

38:12

Piper's Angel. The

38:14

widely shared emails also gave everybody a

38:17

front row seat to Piper's disintegrating relationship

38:19

with Dr. Gable, which quickly went from

38:21

Piper gushing that he was the one

38:23

to complaining that he was trying to

38:25

reconnect with his wife. I

38:27

don't know if the Gables ever worked things out. I

38:29

mean, he should consider himself lucky his wife was even

38:31

giving him the time of day at this point. But

38:33

Dr. Jim was out of Piper's life in short order.

38:37

When she was deposed in court, Piper

38:39

came across as a loon and

38:41

a bizarre fantasist. She had qualifications

38:43

as a master chef and a

38:45

mineralogist. She was a master diver

38:47

who had trained Navy SEALs bitch.

38:49

What? She's

38:51

pulling this shit out of her ass. She

38:54

had a qualification as a bard from Cambridge

38:56

University and was working on getting one as

38:58

a druid, which makes me think that there

39:00

has to be like two different Cambridge universities,

39:02

right? Like one in England and one founded

39:04

by Gary Gygax. I

39:09

think she just assumed that England

39:12

was just actually a magical realm.

39:14

I mean, I like, like I

39:16

could just see it her brain. She's like, well, all

39:18

these fantasy characters speak in British accents.

39:21

So yeah, it's basically just middle earth.

39:23

Middle earth. She's

39:26

like, she's like, she steps off the plane in London

39:28

and she's like, we're all the hobbits. Dragons.

39:34

My angels told me there would be dragons. We

39:38

keep telling you Piper, that guy is Chris

39:40

Angel. He's just, he's just trying to recruit

39:42

you for his new magic show. Stop listening to

39:44

him. He's just hanging around her and she just

39:46

thinks. Look

39:49

at his eyeliner. It's so perfect.

39:51

He can levitate. Are you kidding me?

39:54

I know, right? He's a magic man,

39:56

mama. And here's one

39:58

for our attorney list. Is

40:01

it a good sign when a judge tells

40:03

your lawyer, your client's credibility is an issue?

40:05

Because I have three columns of things here

40:07

that she told me at different times that

40:09

are not consistent? Because I don't think that's

40:11

a good sign, probably. The

40:15

custody decision came down in March 2002. Piper

40:19

and Fred would share joint legal custody of

40:21

all three kids, but Fred would have permanent

40:23

physical custody. Just

40:25

days after the decision, Piper

40:27

emailed friends, family and neighbors

40:29

what she described as a

40:31

court report called Jablens Psychological

40:33

Profile. This was a 42

40:36

page character assassination by amateur psychologist

40:39

Tina, who lied about her credentials

40:41

for doing it. She

40:43

described Fred as angry and violent, a controlling

40:46

narcissist who beat his kids and had driven

40:48

his daughter to the brink of suicide. Fred

40:51

was Jewish, Jews Tina said had

40:53

a persecution complex. Divorced

40:57

court chain emails with a sprinkle

41:00

of anti-Semitism. Really,

41:02

truly fantastic

41:04

work from the psychosisters. Some of their best.

41:07

Yeah, and this backfired spectacularly.

41:10

The next time they were in front

41:12

of a judge with this email taking

41:14

center stage, Piper's visitations were severely cut

41:16

and Fred was granted sole custody of

41:19

their kids. The judge

41:21

also went ahead and divorced them, then and there.

41:24

Piper was furious. When

41:26

people asked how she had lost custody, she

41:28

didn't own up to any of her own

41:31

behavior, but insisted Fred had manipulated the court

41:33

and judges, making on like Fred's PhD in

41:35

communication, let him control minds like Professor X.

41:39

For Piper, no custody also meant no

41:41

child support. Even without passing

41:43

the bar, she could certainly have found work

41:45

in Richmond. There was, for example, great demand

41:47

for paralegal work, which she was more than

41:50

qualified to do, but Piper didn't really like

41:52

the whole working thing. And within

41:54

a month, she'd packed up a U-Haul and

41:56

headed down to Texas to stay with sister

41:58

slash sick event Tina in Houston. Tina

42:01

was used to bossing people around, especially

42:03

her little sister. While

42:06

Piper was still on the road, Tina had

42:08

gotten in touch with an attorney friend of

42:10

hers, Marty McVeigh, and talked him into renting

42:12

out an unused office to Piper so she

42:14

could kickstart her career in Texas. McVeigh

42:16

gave her minor cases he didn't have time

42:18

for, in return for a percentage of her

42:21

fees. Still, before long,

42:23

every time McVeigh asked for the $500

42:25

rent, Piper would just breezily say, I

42:28

don't have it. Sorry.

42:31

He would have kicked her out, but his girlfriend

42:33

talked him into cutting Piper some slack because she'd

42:35

had a rough time. Everyone

42:38

in Houston, of course, only heard Piper and

42:40

Tina's version of her divorce. She

42:42

might not have been able to pay rent,

42:45

but Piper always had designer suits or fancy

42:47

cowboy boots, and she and Tina frequently went

42:49

out to she-she restaurants and bars where Piper

42:51

would spend all night flirting, hopping from one

42:53

guy's lap to another like a little bee

42:56

gathering pollen from the flowers. She

42:58

was certainly having too much fun down in

43:00

Houston to bother going back to Virginia for

43:02

the hearing on her financial settlement with Fred.

43:05

With Piper gone, Fred showed the judge a

43:07

letter she'd written, bragging that she was sure

43:10

to be working for a big law firm

43:12

within weeks. Oh great,

43:14

the judge said, and ordered her to start paying Fred $900

43:16

a month in child sports.

43:19

Dope. Dope. Ooh,

43:22

fuck around and find out. Oopsie

43:24

daisy. Piper

43:26

tried to declare bankruptcy to delay making

43:28

payments, but the case was dismissed when she didn't

43:30

bother showing up for a hearing. Oh

43:32

my god. Again. Are

43:35

we starting to see how she lost all her lawyer jobs?

43:40

She just shows up to court when she feels like it. Yeah.

43:44

Things were getting tight for her financially, and

43:46

they didn't improve when Marty McVey finally booted

43:48

her ass from his office. Piper

43:51

hadn't been paying him anything from cases he'd

43:53

referred to her, and had even taken on

43:55

clients in his name, getting them to pay

43:57

deposits, and then just forgot about him. Oh

44:00

jeez Louise. Time

44:02

passed and from the outside it seemed like both

44:05

Fred and Piper were moving on. They

44:07

were both dating new people and Piper had landed

44:09

a job working out mineral rights for

44:11

oil companies. Fred said

44:13

he thought Piper, a 44 year old woman,

44:16

had finally started to mature.

44:20

But Piper was not moving on. She

44:22

was instead moving toward a point where she'd get

44:24

everything she wanted. She was

44:26

doing alright but she'd certainly be doing better without

44:28

that $900 child support payment

44:31

every month. Not to mention the

44:33

$200,000 life insurance policy Fred had.

44:35

Of course, which Piper was still

44:37

the beneficiary. People. If

44:40

you break up with someone, change your damn insurance

44:42

policy. Please, I'm begging you. Just

44:45

add it to the list of, you know, figure out which

44:47

DVDs belong to who, figure

44:49

out like who owns the couch, and

44:51

also change your insurance policy. I swear to God. Piper's

44:56

sister Tina had a new boyfriend and she'd

44:58

finally broken the gold digger pattern with this

45:00

one. Mac McClanahan

45:02

was a DJ, an aging rocker who was

45:04

into music and computers. I mean we all

45:06

have phases right? In

45:09

October of 2004 he mentioned to Piper

45:11

that he was going over to a gun range and

45:13

she said it sounded like fun and she'd like to

45:15

come too. So after work they

45:17

stopped at Tina's where Mac was staying to pick

45:19

up his gun. They drove to

45:22

the range where they rented a .22 pistol for Piper

45:24

to shoot. Mac

45:26

showed her how to aim and operate the gun and

45:28

they blasted away at the targets for a while before

45:30

Piper disappeared and came back with a heavier .38 caliber

45:32

revolver. Mac

45:35

assumed she'd gone and rented it but the range

45:37

records would later show that wasn't the case. This

45:40

was her own gun. Mac

45:42

showed her how to shoot it. She had real good aim.

45:45

Fred Jablun, medical examiners would later determine,

45:47

had most likely been killed with a

45:49

.38 caliber round. In

45:52

that last week of October 2004 there

45:54

was something that initially irritated Mac but

45:57

seemed a little sinister later on. Over

46:00

and over, Piper and Tina would play Katie

46:02

Lang's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. It's

46:05

a great song, but if you play anything on

46:07

repeat, it's gonna drive somebody bonkers. But

46:10

the Roundtree Girls couldn't get enough of it. What

46:13

stuck in Max's mind were the lines, "...maybe

46:15

there's a God above, but all that I've ever

46:18

learned from love was how to shoot somebody who

46:20

outdrew ya." At

46:22

Hobby Airport in Houston, the morning before Fred

46:25

Jablun was murdered, a blonde woman checked

46:27

into the Southwest Airlines flight to Virginia

46:30

using ID that named her as Tina Roundtree.

46:33

When investigators spoke to her a couple days

46:35

later, the ticket agent recalled the interaction because

46:37

she remembered thinking the woman's name was cute.

46:41

The name wasn't the only cute thing. I

46:44

remember this, she told investigators. She

46:46

was really a cute woman, nicely dressed.

46:48

I'm not a lesbian, but she was

46:50

really attractive. And she was wearing a blonde

46:52

wig. Okay. Tina

46:55

was blonde. Piper's natural

46:57

color, which she had now, was brunette.

47:01

When investigators showed the ticket agent a picture of

47:03

Piper, though, she had no doubts. That

47:05

her. She also told

47:07

him that the purported Tina, actually Piper in

47:09

an unconvincing wig, had checked a gun, a

47:11

.38 caliber revolver. When

47:15

she landed in Norfolk, Virginia, Piper tried

47:17

and failed to be inconspicuous. It

47:20

was warm out, but she had on a hat,

47:22

a coat, and a scarf, as well as sunglasses,

47:24

like a spy from a cartoon. Trying

47:27

to be sneaky, she went away from the

47:29

airport before hiring a car, which landed her

47:31

at Eagle Rentals on North Military Highway. Piper

47:34

was the only white woman they'd rented to

47:36

in weeks, so they remembered her vividly. And

47:39

the only vehicle they had available was

47:41

a big maroon Windstar minivan, so Operation

47:43

Inconspicuous was going just great. Piper

47:47

drove to Richmond and checked in at the

47:50

Homestead Suites, just a few miles from her

47:52

old house on Hearthglow Lane. She

47:54

used Tina's ID to check in, but then, in a

47:56

move that would successfully slow down investigators just a little

47:58

bit, she was a little bit scared. asked

48:00

for the name on the registration to be

48:03

changed to Geraldine Smith. This

48:05

wasn't the first time the desk manager had had a

48:07

woman asked to change a registration. Often

48:09

it was done by women trying to escape

48:11

abusive spouses and partners. So she made

48:14

the change. That

48:16

afternoon Piper called her son Paxton. When

48:19

he asked where she was, she said she was

48:21

in Texas, driving home from Galveston. She

48:23

called the house later on and spoke to her daughter

48:25

Callie. Both kids had no doubt

48:27

at all that it was their mom on the phone

48:30

and not, for example, weird Aunt Tina. In

48:33

the early darkness of Saturday morning, Piper ambushed

48:35

her ex-husband Fred as he went to pick

48:37

up his morning paper and shot him dead

48:39

and ran away. Did

48:41

she speak to him first? Did he have

48:44

any idea what was happening? We'll probably

48:46

never know. Then

48:48

Piper either started or continued drinking.

48:51

A little while later, a clerk at a

48:53

convenience store remembered Piper in a long blonde

48:55

wig complaining that she couldn't get money out

48:57

of the ATM. Her breath

48:59

reeked of liquor. She

49:02

checked out of the homestead suites and drove

49:04

back to Norfolk to return her rental car

49:06

where she again managed to make an impression.

49:08

The guy working there remembered her well enough

49:10

to recognize a photograph and would tell investigators

49:12

she was a nice lady, attractive. Piper

49:16

flew back to Texas. The

49:18

detectives in Richmond had been working fast, and while

49:20

Piper was in the air, they found out that

49:22

a Tina roundtree was on her way back to

49:25

Houston. They had local police

49:27

go to the airport to try and intercept her

49:29

so they could nail down who was actually on

49:31

the flight, but they couldn't pick Piper out of

49:33

all the exiting passengers. Later

49:36

on, Piper went to a bar close to

49:38

Tina's house called the Under the Volcano and

49:40

had a grand old time with everybody dressed

49:42

up for Halloween. So

49:44

what was going on here? Was

49:47

Piper really trying to set up her sister to

49:49

take the fall for Fred's murder? Probably

49:51

not. Tina had a rock solid

49:54

alibi for the time of Fred's murder. In

49:56

fact, you could almost say that Tina's

49:58

alibi was suspiciously stupid. She'd

50:01

called up an old boyfriend out of the blue, an

50:03

oil exec who'd make for an excellent witness.

50:06

They'd gone out for dinner and Tina'd spent the night

50:08

at his place. In the morning,

50:10

she'd gone to work, where tons of people saw her. There

50:13

was no way she could have been in Virginia to shoot

50:15

Fred. Piper might have

50:17

been a terrible attorney, but she knew perfectly

50:19

well what reasonable doubt was. If

50:22

she could just sow some confusion about who had

50:24

actually been on that Southwest flight to Virginia, maybe

50:26

she could wriggle out of future trouble. The

50:29

Saturday night trip to Under the Volcano was also

50:31

part of the plan. Piper and

50:33

Tina went back there later in the week, asking

50:36

if anybody remembered seeing Piper there on Friday night.

50:39

I got a call from Virginia police, she

50:41

said. My ex-boyfriend I lived with four years

50:43

ago was stabbed to death on Saturday morning.

50:45

They want to know where I was. Piper

50:48

was nothing if not memorable, and she was

50:51

rolling the dice that a patron might misremember

50:53

seeing her on Saturday with Friday. Sure

50:56

enough, one guy, Kevin O'Keefe, thought he remembered

50:58

Piper from Friday night. He gave

51:00

her his phone number so the police could call him if they had

51:02

to. Then Tina walked up, put

51:05

her hand on Piper's shoulder, and said, Piper,

51:08

we need to talk outside right now. It's

51:10

about my period. It's

51:13

about my period.

51:17

Oh, good job. Way

51:19

to be subtle. It's so weird.

51:21

It's almost like you'd expect some

51:23

clueless male screenwriter to have a

51:26

woman say to get another woman

51:28

alone for a private conversation, like

51:30

in a comedy or something. So

51:33

bad. That's women

51:36

for you, always yapping about

51:38

our periods to each other. Operation

51:41

inconspicuous. See? God. She

51:46

was dressed like she was going on

51:48

a snow expedition driving a giant

51:51

purple car. And

51:54

a blonde wig from Party City. Now

51:57

she's like, come, sister. discuss

52:01

our menses.

52:06

The two women left

52:08

poor confused Kevin but

52:10

came back half an

52:13

hour later with a

52:15

notary, trying to get him to sign

52:17

a statement. Here

52:19

we brought this notion of like it's so

52:22

weird, the most inconsiguous

52:24

operation that was ever

52:26

ever operated. We

52:31

were outside discussing menstruation and

52:33

this person happened to pass by who's a

52:37

notary. Wouldn't you know? Anyway,

52:41

Kevin, bless him, refused

52:43

and good for him. When

52:45

the bar checked the receipts it would turn out

52:47

he hadn't been there on Friday night at

52:49

all, only Saturday. One

52:52

thing Piper hadn't thought of because she was

52:54

apparently completely oblivious to the possibility was that

52:57

police could track cell phone use. The

52:59

records put Piper's phone all over Richmond

53:02

in the hours around Fred's death and

53:04

when Piper tried to claim that didn't prove

53:06

she'd been there just her phone, which she'd

53:08

lost days ago, well there

53:11

were those calls on Friday to Paxton and

53:13

Callie, both made from Richmond. The

53:16

kids of course knew their mom's voice. All

53:19

her running around had left investigators with a

53:21

lot of legwork to do but when they

53:23

put together all the phone records and eyewitness

53:25

testimony it was clear they had a solid

53:27

case against Piper Roundtree for the murder of

53:29

Fred Jablun. There was an emergency custody

53:32

hearing on November 8th. The

53:34

Jablun kids had been staying with Fred's brother

53:36

Michael and his wife. Fred's will

53:39

indicated that he wanted that to be the permanent

53:41

solution but Piper of course would

53:43

contest that and she'd have to

53:45

show up in Virginia to do so. In

53:47

court. Her cryptonite

53:50

showing up in court. It

53:54

was a bad day for Piper all around. The

53:56

judge ruled the kids were safest right where they

53:58

were till the criminal investigation concluded, and

54:01

as Piper drove away, the police boxed in

54:03

her car and put the old habeas grabbous on her

54:05

at gunpoint. For all

54:07

of Piper's efforts, it was pretty clear at trial

54:09

that her goose was cooked, though

54:11

cell phone records just weren't going away.

54:14

Piper threw out increasingly weird alternate theories.

54:16

Fred's new girlfriend had killed him, his

54:18

brother had killed him, Fred was a

54:21

big time weed dealer and competitors had

54:23

killed him, the University of Richmond had

54:25

killed him to cover up a scandal. That's

54:28

the funniest one. That's so good.

54:30

It's just, wow. I've

54:33

worked in academia. No,

54:37

no, they would, they would not.

54:40

The University of Richmond, by the way, is a

54:42

liberal arts college with just 4000 students, not really

54:44

the kind of place likely to have hit men on

54:46

the payroll. The

54:48

defense's best bet was probably some kind

54:51

of diminished capacity argument because Piper was

54:53

clearly a few crystals short of a

54:55

chandelier. But for that, she'd have

54:57

to admit she did it, and Piper was not

55:01

having that. The

55:03

jury reached a verdict in what might be

55:05

a TCC record, less than an hour.

55:08

Most, you know, most of the observers in the

55:10

courtroom were still out to lunch when the jury

55:13

came back. Piper

55:15

Roundtree was found guilty of first degree murder.

55:18

But the verdict clearly didn't shock Piper back

55:20

to reality. At her sentencing hearing,

55:23

she stated that Fred had felony convictions in

55:25

three states, the kind of nonsensical lie that's

55:27

pretty easy for a court to check up

55:29

on. Piper was sentenced to

55:31

life in prison. She's had two parole hearings so far

55:33

in 2020 and 2023, and

55:36

gotten a big nope both

55:38

times. She's 63 years old.

55:42

Tina Roundtree was arrested on the same day

55:44

as Piper and charged with evidence tampering for

55:46

helping Piper ditch her wig and computer. She

55:49

got a plea deal that gave her nine months

55:51

community service and let her keep her license to

55:53

practice medicine. Prosecutors have said

55:55

they don't think she knew anything about the murder,

55:57

which I suspect just means they know they'd never

55:59

be. be able to convict her of anything. Yeah,

56:02

I think she knew exactly what Piper was

56:04

doing. I think she helped her plan it,

56:06

just my opinion. And several members of Piper's

56:08

jury told 48 hours they think

56:10

the same thing. Tina died in 2020.

56:15

So that was a wild one, right campers?

56:17

You know, we'll have another one for you

56:19

next week. But for now, lock your doors,

56:21

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56:24

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