A Lie to Die For (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00Today, I'm going to tell three stories about people who tried really hard to be something that they were not. And not only do they get caught, but they also face just extreme repercussions. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right place because that's all we do and we upload two, three, even four times every week. So if that's of interest to you, the next time the follow button is really excited to see a newly released movie? Go to the movie with them, but the instant it starts, spoil it for them.

0:36Okay, let's get into our first story called Safe House.

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1:38Almost a century later, SNHU offers over 200 degree programs online. There are no set class times, so learning fits around your schedule, and courses are career-focused to help strengthen your skills. But the best part of the story? SNHU's online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the entire country. This could be your next chapter. Visit snhu.edu slash Mr. Ballin today. Around 1 a.m. on December 3rd, 1999, a 67-year-old billionaire banker named Edmund Safra sat up in bed inside of his penthouse apartment in the country of Monaco. Edmund's wife, Lily Safra, didn't sleep in the same bedroom as him, in part because Edmund, he had a lot of medical issues, and he needed to get medication throughout the night, and so Lily was sleeping down the hallway in a separate bedroom.

2:28And in fact, right now, the reason Edmund was awake was to get his medication. His overnight nurse had come into the bedroom to give it to him. So Edmund had Parkinson's disease, which is a serious nervous system disorder that causes movement problems, amongst other things. And as a result, he required around-the-clock care. But money was no object to Edmund. I mean, he's a billionaire. So he had hired four doctors and eight nurses to work exclusively for him. And actually, about a month earlier, he'd convinced all of these medical providers to move with him and his wife from New York City to this enormous, luxurious apartment in Monaco.

3:08There were tons of police, the crime rate was very low, and the building he was in in particular was known to have extremely high security, which was very important to Edmund because, you know, he's one of the richest people in the world, and so he knew he was a prime target for robbers. Plus, he was more vulnerable now than ever since his disease made it pretty difficult to move around without help, and he just knew he would not be able to defend himself if somebody broke in. And so by moving to Monaco, Edmund really felt like he had heightened his security tenfold. But remember, money's not an issue for Edmund, and so once he was in Monaco, he actually continued taking further measures to really ensure his house was as safe as possible.

3:53He'd replaced all the doors in this apartment with heavy reinforced steel, and the windows had been fitted with this very expensive, thick bulletproof glass and also steel shutters that were literally impossible to open from the outside. He'd also hired a 25-person security detail made up of highly trained intelligence officers. I mean, even one of his night nurses, Ted Marr, who was actually the guy coming in right now to give him medication, was a former Green Beret, Army Special Forces. And so with all these people and all these measures in place, Edmund really felt secure. He felt like, you know what?

4:31I'm safe. And so now Edmund took his nightly pills, and then after he swallowed them, Edmund closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep, content in knowing that, just like every night, at least now in Monaco, he was as safe as he could be. However, just a few hours later, Edmund woke up again, but now to the sound of an alarm blaring across his apartment, and he smelled smoke. He opened his eyes, and he saw one of his other nurses, a woman named Vivian Tarente running over to his bed. And Ted, the Green Beret, was standing in the doorway behind her and he was clutching his stomach, which was soaked in blood.

5:06And so Edmund's frantic. He's asking what's going on. But Vivian, she's very calm and she helps Edmund sit up. And she told him calmly but urgently that right now they have to go into his bathroom and wait because there's an intruder in the house. And when he heard this, it's like Edmund's mind went blank with panic. I mean, this was literally his worst fear. It's the thing he had spent so much money and put so much energy into mitigating against. How could this be happening? But he really didn't have any time to freak out or ask any questions before Vivian had hoisted him up onto her shoulder and carried him into his nearby enormous bathroom, where she gently put him down, and then she shut the door and locked it with her in there with him.

5:49And then as soon as they got settled, Edmund, he turned to Vivian, and he's like, what is going on? what happened? What do you mean there's an intruder? And Vivian said she didn't really know, but from what she had heard from the staff and from Ted is that someone somehow broke into this apartment and they set a fire and they also stabbed Ted repeatedly and they didn't know if they were even still on the premises. Like the staff was in overdrive trying to find them and getting in touch with police. And so for right now, we just need to stay put, we're safe in the bathroom and we just need to wait.

6:21And so Edmund, I mean, at this point, he was much calmer being behind a locked door and he's with Vivian and he knows he's got dozens of staff that are on the case here. You know, so he's, he's worried, but he's thinking, okay, like this is going to be handled. Like I'm safe. My, my staff is on it. Everything's going to be fine. The next morning, a man named Daniel Surdet, who was the general prosecutor of Monaco, stepped through the burnt ruins of Edmund's bedroom while a forensics team scoured the apartment for evidence. Edmund and his nurse Vivian were both dead inside the bathroom. They had died of smoke inhalation waiting to be saved.

7:00The other overnight nurse, Ted Marr, the Green Beret, he had been stabbed several times in the stomach and leg and was in very serious condition, but he was in the hospital recovering. The only person who had somehow miraculously escaped without any injury, who had been on the same floor as Edmund and Vivian and Ted, was Edmund's wife, Lily. She claimed during the entire incident, she had been hiding in the house's safe room. And so at this point, the case was actually feeling pretty open and shut to General Prosecutor Sardet. Lily, who was now set to inherit$3 billion now that Edmund had died, was the obvious suspect.

7:41But what Serdette couldn't figure out was how Lily might have committed this crime. I mean, she really couldn't have been the actual killer. I mean, the overnight nurse, Ted Marr, is like this big former Green Beret who's actively looking for security threats. And there was just no way that Lily, who was just very physically small and frail and she's 64 years old, could have overpowered and stabbed him repeatedly. It just seems sort of improbable. But, you know, maybe she hired someone to come in here and kill her husband. However, if she hired someone, they had managed to get in and out without ever showing up on any of the security cameras trained on the doors of the apartment.

8:22And Surdette, by this point, had checked every room in this apartment. And all the windows had been closed. And the outside steel shutters were locked. And so he felt like, there's something missing here. But he didn't know what it was. Surdet would spend the next few days interviewing all of Edmund's household staff and family and business associates, but the information he got only made Surdet more confused. Everyone who worked for Edmund really seemed to love him. He was a definitely strange person who was clearly very paranoid about his safety, but he paid his staff exceptionally well and treated them really well too.

9:00So there didn't seem to be any clear kind of revenge motive from any of them, and also, critically, no one who worked for him benefited financially from his death. In fact, if he died, it was quite bad for virtually all of them. They loved their jobs, they're paid well, they'd be out of a job. Edmund's family all pointed the finger at his wife, Lily, saying that in addition to the circumstantial evidence that she's like the one who was untouched by this intruder, she also, in recent times, had become more and more controlling as his illness had progressed. And I mean, she also obviously had this big financial motive to have him killed.

9:40She's going to inherit$3 billion. However, Surdette, at least to this point, had not found any evidence that connected Lily to committing a crime here. Like, there were no money transfers or secretive phone calls or meetings that would suggest Lily had hired someone to murder her husband. And so far, the forensic evidence from the crime scene itself was no help. This was 1999, so things like DNA took a whole lot longer to test. But beyond that, I mean, the crime scene technicians, they hadn't even found any fingerprints yet. And so Surdette, he's thinking what he really needs right now is an eyewitness other than Lily.

10:21He needs to talk to Ted. And three days after the tragedy, Surdet got his wish. Ted was in rough shape from the stabbing, but he was now healthy enough to be interviewed. So on December 6th, Surdet stepped into Ted's hospital room, took a seat by his bedside, and asked him what happened. But Ted, he just closed his eyes, he took a deep breath, and he said he was really sorry. It would turn out that Surdet wasn't actually missing a critical fact. He just wasn't understanding what the facts he had meant. He knew that Edmund was extremely paranoid and desperate to fortify his apartment against anyone who might hurt him.

11:02And he also knew that Edmund's employees all loved him. But what Surdet didn't understand was that these two things were ultimately what resulted in Edmund's death, along with the death of Vivian Tarente, and the wounding of Ted Marr. So everyone who worked for Edmund knew how obsessed he was with safety, including Ted. And Ted loved Edmund, he really did, and he wanted to work for him forever. And he thought that if he could just prove that he, Ted, could protect Edmund from his greatest fears, that Edmund would not only keep him around, but he might promote him and trust him even more deeply.

11:42So, Ted decided to stage a break-in. He stabbed himself, and then he set a fire in a trash can. And then he ran and showed Vivian, the other nurse, his wounds and pointed out the fire and said he'd been attacked and he was going to go get help. And his plan was he would make himself look like the hero who'd fended off intruders to save Edmund. But what Ted had not accounted for was that the steel doors that Edmund had put in the apartment were so secure that literally nobody could get through them, even the firefighters. And so the fire that Ted set, it got worse and worse. And by the time the firefighters actually got inside, Edmund and Vivian had suffocated.

12:28And so Ted, he lied about what happened that night. And ultimately, he got people killed. and he also lied about his background. He wasn't even a Green Beret. He just pretended to be. And so in the end, he was found guilty of arson and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

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16:20Our next story is called The Wedding Photos.

16:28On the afternoon of November 8, 2002, a 22-year-old woman named Chan Ching-yan smiled in front of a camera at a photo studio in Hong Kong. She was wearing this beautiful wedding dress and a white veil, and she was holding this glorious bouquet of flowers. In Hong Kong, a lot of couples would get these formal wedding portraits taken both together and solo in the weeks or months before the actual ceremony. And so that's what was going on here. And today, Chan had also brought along her best friend, Fen to help make sure they got the very best shots. And so now, as Chen was posing, she looked past the camera and she saw Fen standing by the back wall with this huge, encouraging smile on her face, you know, telling her, like, keep it up, you look amazing.

17:13And so the photographer pressed the shutter button and the camera flashed. And at that moment, Chen just felt this amazing rush of excitement, like she knew that she was doing the right thing and couldn't wait to start this new chapter in her life. However, a month and a half later, on the morning of December 25th, one of Chan's neighbors was walking up to his apartment building when he noticed there was a young woman lying on the sidewalk just up ahead. When he got close enough, he saw there was this huge pool of blood all around her. And then when he got even closer, he saw that there was no saving this girl that her head was like caved in.

17:53She was dead. And so the neighbor, who's in complete shock, kind of staggered to his feet and he was about to go call police when suddenly he heard a scream coming from above him and he only had a second to jump out of the way as a man came hurtling down, who was the one screaming, and smashed into the ground and died right next to this girl. 20 minutes later, Detective Peng with the Hong Kong police force looked down at the two dead bodies on the sidewalk. Just behind him, the neighbor who had witnessed this whole thing was trying to frantically explain what he had seen. That he had found this woman and then the man had just sort of fallen immediately after and smashed into the ground.

18:35It all just happened so fast he didn't even know what to do. Detective Peng could tell the man was frantic and he told the guy to just calm down, take a deep breath. And then once he had, once he had calmed down, Pung asked him, do you have any idea which window, which apartment building up here the man could have fallen from? Like when you looked up, did you see him come out of a particular apartment? The very shaken up man, he nodded and then looked up at the building and he pointed. And when Pung looked at what he was pointing at, he saw there was a window that was actually partially open up on the eighth floor, and even from down on the sidewalk, Peng could see there was blood smeared on the windowpane.

19:14Detective Peng summoned the building's landlord to let him into the building, and then once he was inside, he led a team of investigators up to the eighth floor, and they stopped in the hallway outside of the door of the apartment that had the bloody window. By this point, the victims on the sidewalk had actually been identified. The girl was Chen Cheng Yun, who lived in this apartment on the eighth floor. And the man was her boyfriend, a guy named Pan Wai Ying. Now, obviously, Detective Peng knew that both these victims had, you know, fallen to their death, that they died from smashing into the ground.

19:48But what the detective wasn't sure of was, had they both jumped? Or had maybe one of them been pushed? Or maybe both got pushed? Like, was there a third person who pushed them both? He didn't know. But Peng hoped when he went in the apartment, he might be able to get some clue into what led to the victims falling from this apartment. And so the landlord, he opened up the eighth floor apartment door, and Detective Peng and his team, they stepped inside, and immediately they are met with a scene of just absolute chaos. The furniture in the living room was all overturned and pushed all over the place like there had been some big struggle here.

20:27And then Peng walked through the room down the hallway into the bedroom and forced that door open. And in there, there was bloody handprints all over the walls and over near that open window they saw from the street, which they presumed is where the victims fell out or were pushed out. And then the bed was totally soaked with blood. And so clearly there has been some sort of violent attack that took place in here before the bodies wound up on the street outside. But it wasn't clear if it was the couple attacking each other, or if there was like some third person involved who by now has fled the scene.

21:04And as Detective Pung continued surveying the bedroom, just looking around, something lying on the floor near the bed caught his attention. There was a bloody hammer. And so Pung, he's having like a visceral reaction to imagining that being involved in this attack, and he goes over and he kneels down to pick it up. And as he did, he noticed something else that was lying on the ground right next to it. And when he saw it, it just immediately made him feel sad. It was a photo album lying open to a portrait of this young bride. It was Chan, and she was wearing her wedding dress. Peng pulled on a pair of gloves, and he picked up the album, and he began flipping through it.

21:44And as he did, he just started to feel like something was weird about this album, like the pictures just seemed off. And as he kept flipping, he realized what it was that he was picking up on. So the album was full of all these beautiful wedding photos of this smiling young bride, but there were no pictures of the groom. The following day, Detective Peng stepped into an interrogation room, bringing with him that photo album from the crime scene. In the room was Chan's best friend, Fen, who it would turn out was present at the time a lot of these photos were taken. And Fen was sitting at the table, and she was shaking, and she was looking down at the floor.

22:26She was clearly very upset. So this case had taken another very weird turn. So it was odd for a bride to take wedding photos alone without her partner in any of the photos like this album seemed to represent. But when Detective Pong had talked to the families of both the victims, he'd learned something even more surprising. Chan and Pan, the victims, the the boyfriend and girlfriend out on the sidewalk, they weren't engaged and they had no plans to get married. And so this wedding album, which had initially seemed so sad to Detective Pung, now just seemed really bizarre. And he wondered if maybe Chan had been living a double life and was secretly engaged to somebody else.

23:12And he figured if anybody might know the truth about this, it would be Chan's best friend, Fenn. And so now Detective Pung sat down across from Fenn, and he opened up the photo album, and he asked Fenn if she knew anything about these photos. And Fenn immediately burst into tears and nodded and said yes. And so Detective Pung, he encouraged Fenn to, you know, tell me the story. Like, what do you mean? What do you know? And Fenn, she was so upset, and she could barely speak, but eventually she composed herself. and she just said, there is no groom. He doesn't exist. It would turn out Chan's relationship with her boyfriend Pan was very real, but it was on the rocks.

23:56And so Chan had invented a fake second boyfriend to pressure her real boyfriend Pan into committing to her. And so she had gone out and gotten these professional photos taken of herself in a wedding gown. And then she showed the photos to Pan. She showed him that album that was found at the crime scene. And she told him that another man had proposed to her and she had said yes. Now, Chan's hope, at least according to Fenn, was that Pan, when he heard this, would beg Chan to call off the wedding and to marry him. But instead, Pan had flown into this insane, jealous rage and attacked Chan with a hammer before pushing her out the window to her death.

24:42And then seconds later, when Pan realized what he'd just done, he'd been so overcome with guilt that he jumped out too.