The View From Above (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

0:00On a crisp fall morning in 2007, a small airplane took flight over the forested town of Graham, Washington. The pilot was a detective with the Pierce County Sheriff's Department, and he was flying a somewhat unusual mission. He wasn't looking for a lost person or chasing a fleeing suspect. Instead, he was circling the sky above the scene of a double murder case that had him and his whole department stumped. The detective had run out of ideas on the ground, so he decided to take flight. Plus, he always thought better in the air, and he figured, you know, while he was up there, he would literally get a new perspective on his evidence this way.

0:35He eventually circled over the house where the homicides took place, and then also began to kind of loosely circle the neighborhood. And that's when he noticed something. It was something that he wouldn't have noticed on the ground, but from up here, it was incredibly obvious. With a rush of adrenaline, he turned his plane around and headed back toward the airfield. He now had a real hunch, And if it was right, that means he just solved the case. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

1:11So if that's of interest to you, please tell the follow button you want to show them something funny, then put a mirror directly in front of them. Okay, let's get into today's story.

1:41Appliance breakdowns happen and repair expenses add up. Help protect your wallet with an American Home Shield warranty. AHS can help fix major appliances and home systems no matter how old. And if they can't repair the covered item, they'll replace it. Plus, as a benefit to select plans, you can video chat with a live repair expert. American Home Shield. Don't worry, be warranty. Get 20 % off any plan at ahs.com slash MrBallin and see promo details. See ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions. Suffering from dry, tired, irritated eyes? Don't let dry eyes win.

2:21Use Sustain Pro. It hydrates, restores, and protects dry eyes for up to 12 hours. Sustain Pro. Triple Action Dry Eye Relief.

2:34On a Sunday morning in October of 2007, 30-year-old Brian Mock stood just inches away from his TV set, anxiously watching the Seattle Seahawks football team line up on the goal line about to run a play. His living room was filled with friends who'd come over to watch the game as well, and who were there to eat the eggs and bacon and biscuits and gravy that he'd cooked. On TV, the quarterback suddenly threw the ball to the wide receiver, but the pass was intercepted and the living room erupted in boos and groans. Brian turned and kissed his 28-year-old wife, Beverly, anyway. Win or lose, Brian and Bev were still diehard Seahawk fans and in fact were actually season ticket holders.

3:12And when the Seahawks were playing on the East Coast during away games like today, they would always invite their friends over for a breakfast watch party because the games would start on the East Coast at 1 p.m. Eastern, and then on the West Coast where they were, that would be 10 a.m., hence the breakfast watch party. Brian and Bev loved hosting their friends. It was exactly what they had imagined doing when they bought this house a year earlier. The couple had gotten married about 18 months ago, and so they still were very much in their honeymoon phase. They lived in this modest ranch-style home with a nice front porch on the rural outskirts of Graham.

3:44They had five acres of land with breathtaking views of Mount Rainier out back. The neighborhood was sparsely populated. There was only one house close by with plenty of wide open space in between. Their closest neighbors lived in a trailer across a field behind their house. It was perfect for the couple. They were both very outdoorsy, not really cut out for typical office jobs and that kind of life. On their days off, they loved doing things like taking scenic rides on their motorcycles or kayaking in the Puget Sound. But no hobby trumped the pure joy of watching their beloved Seahawks play. The first half of the game came to an end, and Brian walked out of the living room and into the kitchen, where he topped off his cup of coffee.

4:24As he stood there drinking it, he noticed the kitchen trash was full, so he put his coffee down and grabbed the bag to take it outside. Brian walked to the bins out back and tossed the bag of trash inside, then turned to walk back into the house. As he did, he heard a car rumbling down the road. He looked up to see his neighbor, Daniel, sitting in the passenger seat, and the two men exchanged a quick wave. Daniel and his wife were the ones who lived in that trailer across the field, and like most of the residents around here, they enjoyed the quiet and mostly kept to themselves. But they were perfectly friendly.

4:57But just then, from inside the house, Brian heard somebody yelling angrily. Instantly, he knew it had to be his friend, Randy Holmes, and as he thought that, he felt a pit form in his stomach. Randy was clearly slurring his words, which was not out of character. He was only invited to this party because he was cousins with one of Brian's close friends. He could be okay, but he was young, just 21 years old and a very heavy drinker. This was not the first time he'd come over and gotten belligerent. Bev also was not fond of Randy. And she and Brian also knew that Randy had actually been in trouble with the law before.

5:31They just didn't know the specifics. But Brian did still let him come over for parties so as not to make things awkward with his cousin. So Brian picked up his pace and ran inside to see what was going on. In the living room, the mood was obviously tense. Randy was standing in the middle of the floor, yelling at no one in particular. Everybody else was giving him a wide berth, trying not to provoke him further. When Randy got like this, it was impossible to reason with him. Randy pointed at Brian's friend, Justin, and shouted drunk nonsense like he was deliberately trying to start a fight with him.

6:04Brian stepped forward, putting himself between Randy and the other party guests, and he told them to chill out. But that only set Randy off. Randy stumbled toward Brian, cursing and swaying on his unsteady feet until they were chest to chest. Then Randy shoved Brian. Not hard, though, since he was too drunk to put any real power behind it. Besides, Brian was a big guy, and he wasn't exactly easily moved. In fact, if anything, the shove just sort of knocked Randy off balance. And Brian seized the opportunity to grab him by the arms and literally drag him across the living room to the front door.

6:37And when they got to the front door, Randy just kept on shouting and Brian had to physically push him outside into the yard, and then he told Randy to just go home. Randy kept on cussing and yelling at Brian, but he also seemed to realize that he was physically outmatched here. He spit on the lawn and then gathered himself and ambled back to his car. Brian watched him weave his way off the property and drive down the street toward his own home, music blasting out of his car windows. The moment Randy was out of sight, Brian exhaled, his body full of adrenaline. He'd seen Randy pretty bad, but never that combative before, and it sort of unnerved him.

7:14He shook his head, wondering what set Randy off in the first place. Brian turned and walked back inside. The second half was about to start, and he hoped the Seahawks would start playing a bit better and maybe take his mind off what had just happened. That evening, Bev felt exhausted as she and Brian picked up after the party. She didn't have the stamina to fully clean the whole house, but she at least wanted to get all the beer cans and booze bottles into a recycling bin, maybe do a few dishes before bed. She told Brian she'd put on some music while they tidied up, and then she went to go grab her phone, which she had left in the kitchen all day charging.

7:49But when she got to the charger, The charger was still plugged into the wall, but her phone was gone. She called for Brian, asking if he had seen it, but he leaned his head into the kitchen and said no, not since earlier, when it was charging right there on the counter. So he offered to help her find it. But as they began to tear apart the living room looking for her phone, a sinking feeling settled in Beverly's stomach. Randy had been in the kitchen a few minutes before his drunken outburst. Bev sighed and turned to Brian and asked him if Randy had used their bathroom while he was over. Brian shrugged and said, yeah, at least once or twice.

8:23I mean, he was here for a few hours. Bev sighed again. She was willing to bet that Randy very likely had been casing their new house while he wandered down the hallway to the toilet. You know, maybe he was taking things. She told Brian he better go check his hunting equipment. Then she ran into the bedroom and flipped open her jewelry box. And thankfully, nothing was missing. But Brian soon appeared in the doorway, very pale in the face, and said one of his guns was gone. And so now it became very clear that, you know, Randy had probably taken the gun, taken her phone, and who knows what else.

8:55Bev asked if maybe they should just call the police. She was already scared of Randy, but now knowing that he very likely also stole from them, including a firearm, I mean, what's to say he wasn't planning to retaliate after Brian threw him out of their house? But Brian said, no, we can't do that. Randy was a live wire. It was probably best not to confront him, especially not with police. Besides, everybody at the party was drinking. You know, maybe the gun and the phone were just misplaced. They should just finish cleaning the house in the morning, and very likely, everything would turn up then.

9:29Six weeks later, on the evening of Friday, November 16th, Brian packed up some of his hunting equipment so he'd be ready for the morning. Then he went to brush his teeth before bed. He had plans to go hunting before sunrise with his friend Justin White and wanted to get to bed early so he'd be well-rested. Brian and Bev still hadn't found Bev's phone or Brian's gun that disappeared during that party. At this point, they were both certain that Randy had stolen both items, but they weren't sure how to get their stuff back without involving the police or making things awkward with Randy's cousin.

10:00So they had agreed to wait a bit longer and just see if Randy tried to return the items with some kind of flimsy excuse. In the meantime, Bev was okay without her phone and Brian had other guns. So, Brian crawled into bed, and soon his wife joined him. And in just a few minutes, they were both fast asleep.

10:22New Lancome Absolute Longevity MD. Backed by 20 years of research and five patents, the formulas combine MitoPure, the number one selling longevity supplement, with Lancome's exclusive skincare compounds. It's designed and clinically measured to work on two levels. The visible signs of aging, like elasticity and the look of fine lines, and the invisible ones, like the rate of surface cell renewal happening within the skin. Start your visible biological age reversal at lancome.com slash longevitymd. At DSW, we ask the important questions, like what shoes are you going to wear? Whether you're prepping for wedding season, festival season, or just planning the ultimate vacay, the right shoes can make or break an RSVP.

11:07So own the moment. You've got big plans, and we've got just the shoes at the perfect price, of course. Get ready to get ready with Designer Shoe Warehouse. Head to your DSW store or DSW.com today and let us surprise you. And now the next chapter of the Serta Counting Sheep. Hey, Uncle Number One, why aren't we counted anymore? Let me tell you a story. Long ago, Serta invented the perfect sleeper mattress. Oh, no. Oh, yes. It says the all-new Serta Perfect Sleeper with the Q4 support system has four-in-one perfectly interlinked coils that help relieve aches and back pain for perfect sleep night after night.

11:46We'll never get counted again. Uh, nope. Serta, we make the world's best mattress.

12:01Around 5 a.m. the following morning, Brian's friend, Justin, pulled his SUV into Brian and Bev's driveway, ready to pick up Brian for a morning of hunting. However, the house was completely dark. Justin couldn't see any lights on inside. For a moment, Justin did just idle there in the driveway waiting, taking the last few swigs out of his tumbler of coffee. But he'd been up for a while already, so he was wide awake and pretty anxious to get to their hunting spot. He thought about going up to the door to knock, but he knew if he did that, he very likely would wake up Beverly, since, I mean, it was the weekend and it's 5am, so she very likely was asleep.

12:37So instead, Justin just let his headlights shine in through the front windows, figuring that if Brian was awake by now, he would see the light and come outside. But after about five minutes of that, when still Brian had not come outside, Justin decided this was a lost cause, and he pulled out of the driveway. He figured his friend must still be asleep, so Justin decided he would go hunting alone that day. He drove to the woods on the outskirts of Graham, and as he did, he kept checking his phone. He figured Brian would wake up any second, feel bad, and ask him to turn around and come pick him up.

13:11But the call never came. And then when Justin actually got to the hunting spot and was walking around out in the woods, he kept checking his phone, but still there was nothing. And then once the sun began to creep over the tree line, Justin started to get worried. By this point, Brian definitely should have been up, and it was weird that he hadn't called Justin to at least apologize for missing the trip. Finally, after a few hours of unsuccessful hunting, Justin walked back to his car and just called Brian, but there was no answer. At this point, something in his gut told him to go back to Brian's house to check on his friend one more time.

13:47Justin pulled into Brian and Bev's driveway for the second time that morning, and it looked like the house had not changed at all. You know, no lights were on, the cars were in the same spot, it was all the same. And so Justin hopped out of his SUV and headed to the porch to ring the doorbell. But when he got to the top step, he looked down and noticed that one of the wooden panels on the door looked like it had been kicked in. He hadn't noticed this earlier, but it had been dark out, so maybe he hadn't seen it. And then Justin heard something coming from inside the house. He peered through one of the windows into the living room, and he realized the noise was coming from their TV set.

14:21And he saw us something else too. It sort of looked like a pile of blankets on the floor. This was strange. Bev and Brian were always very neat and tidy, and so it was unlike them to leave blankets strewn around. So Justin squinted, trying to get a better look, and as he did, he realized he was not looking at a pile of blankets. In a panic, Justin ran for the door and tried it, but it was locked, so he rushed to his SUV, grabbed his phone, and called 911.

14:52Moments later, a Pierce County Sheriff's Department deputy was driving through Graham in his patrol car when a call from dispatch came over the radio. They requested assistance for a possible injured person at a house on 70th Avenue East. This deputy happened to be in the area, so he said he would go check it out. It took him less than 10 minutes to get to the address. As he pulled up, he saw a man standing in the driveway next to an SUV rubbing his hands together. The man seemed very nervous and began to approach the deputy's car. The man introduced himself as Justin and began kind of stumbling over his words as he recounted that morning.

15:28He said he pulled up to the house and it was dark, and then he circled back after a fruitless hunting trip, and his voice shook when he explained what he saw when he came back, that he could actually see somebody lying on the floor inside the house. The deputy told Justin to stay put and not to follow him into the house. Then the deputy placed a hand on the holster of his gun and crept up the front stairs. He knocked on the front door, eyeing the broken wood panel that Justin had mentioned. When there was no response, the deputy pushed the door open and stepped inside the house. Immediately, he saw a long trail of blood that led from the front door into the living room.

16:04This was clearly way too much blood to just be somebody's simple injury. I mean, this very likely had to be a crime scene. The deputy grabbed his radio and called the sheriff's department for backup. Then he unholstered his gun and began moving slowly, following the blood trail into the living room. The trail led the deputy to a bloody sheet lying on the floor. An arm and a leg protruded from underneath the sheet. The deputy looked at the outline of the lumpy mass underneath the sheet and saw it was clearly too big to just be one person. He knew he was looking at two bodies dead on the floor. Now, the deputy knew, obviously, this was going to command his attention at some point, but for now, he needed to search the house and make sure there wasn't anybody here, like the perpetrator or perpetrators.

16:50And so with his gun drawn, he searched the whole house. And when he was satisfied that the house was indeed empty, he made his way back to the driveway to wait for backup. He also wanted to get more information from Justin. However, when the deputy got outside, he was surprised to find that the driveway was empty. Justin White was gone.

17:14About 10 minutes later, Detective Sergeant Ben Benson pulled up outside of Brian and Beverly Mock's house. Benson was a 23-year veteran of the force and the lead investigator. He arrived on the scene with one of his team members, Detective Jason Tate. The two detectives climbed out of their car, and Benson gave Tate a very encouraging nod. Tate had just made detective a few months ago, and this would be his first major homicide case. Benson surveyed the neighborhood, or what he could see of it, given how dispersed it was. He told Tate to take a walk around to get the lay of the land and then start trying to reach the victim's family.

17:49Tate nodded and headed down the street. Meanwhile, Benson headed up the driveway to Brian and Beverly's home. A police team was already making the perimeter of the house with yellow caution tape. Benson dipped under the tape and a deputy came down the driveway to meet him. The deputy told him that he was the one who responded to the 911 call. He motioned to the open front door and said that Brian and Beverly Mock's bodies were inside. Benson headed for the door, and the deputy followed. He told Benson about Justin White, the friend who had called 911 and then disappeared while the deputy was investigating the house.

18:21He said it just felt weird. Justin had seemed so concerned about his friend's well-being, but then didn't stick around to see if they were actually okay. Benson thanked the deputy. It was a good lead, one he had every intention of pursuing after he assessed the crime scene. Inside the house, a forensics team was already busy collecting evidence. Benson pulled on a pair of disposable gloves as he followed the trail of blood from the front door to the two bodies piled in the living room. There, he knelt down and lifted up the edge of the sheet that was covering them, and he was met with a grisly scene.

18:53Brian was face down on the ground, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Bev was on top of him, but completely naked, and they had both clearly been shot repeatedly in the head. So it was no wonder the floor around the bodies was completely soaked in blood. There were pools of blood, smudges, and smears. It looked like someone did a poor job of trying to clean up. And when they couldn't sop up the mess, they just sort of covered the crime scene with a few blankets. Benson looked down at the trail of blood, which clearly had been created when the killer dragged Brian or Beverly from the front door into the living room.

19:26But the trail sort of looked strange. The blood was streaked with these long, thin lines. He couldn't imagine what had caused them. Benson moved around the living room looking for clues. Forensics had already found an imprint of a shoe in the pool of blood beneath the sheet, right by Brian's body. But otherwise, there were no footprints in the house. As Benson walked through the house, he began to notice blood smears in odd places, like on light switches, and there was a bloody smear on the door jamb leading into the bedroom. It looked like the killer tried to clean up the scene, but then ended up making a bigger mess in the process.

19:59And yet, for all the carnage, nothing else in the house was amiss. None of the drawers had been ripped from the dresser, the jewelry box looked untouched, there were plenty of valuables just lying around the house still. I mean, this clearly was not a burglary gone wrong. The killer had enough time to wander around and get blood smears everywhere, but apparently had no interest in stealing anything. Benson circled back to the living room, where forensics was still dusting and photographing the scene. He looked over at the kicked-in front door. The killer clearly was not let into the home, which meant they were either a stranger to Brian and Beverly, or someone they didn't want to let inside.

20:37All things considered, Benson's money was on the latter scenario. Someone that Brian and Beverly knew, but didn't trust, who showed up at their house, kicked down the door, and killed them. And given that Beverly was naked, Benson also had to consider the possibility that she was sexually assaulted as well. There was a lot of anger in this murder. It felt personal. But the question was, who wanted Brian and Bev dead?

21:07An hour later, Detective Benson pulled his car up to the house of Justin White. The house looked quiet, and Justin's SUV was in the driveway, so he appeared to be home. Benson walked up to the front door and knocked, and a moment later, Justin opened the door, looking pale. And his first question was, you know, are Bev and Brian okay? Benson paused for a moment, and then told Justin that he likely already knew the answer to that question. Justin just sort of swallowed hard, but didn't respond. So Benson asked him why he fled the scene so quickly after the deputy arrived. Justin's voice trembled as he explained that he just couldn't stay there, not after what he'd seen or what he thought he'd seen on the floor inside the house.

21:50Brian was one of his best friends. He couldn't believe that something could happen to him. And then once the deputy showed up, it all just seemed too real. He just couldn't handle it. And so he panicked and drove off. He said he regretted leaving, but he just couldn't seem to turn the car around. Benson listened to this skeptically. On one hand, it was suspicious that Justin essentially fled the scene. But on the other hand, Benson knew that in high-stress situations, people did weird things, and sometimes they made themselves look really guilty out of just fear or panic. In Benson's experience, the best way to find the truth was to look for physical evidence that either corroborated or contradicted the stories they told.