Rendezvous in Capistrano (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] One night in November of 1999, a deputy was driving along a remote mountain road in Southern California when he spotted a car pulled off to the side of the road up ahead.

[3] Now, this car's engine was still running, and the passenger side door was clearly wide open, but there didn't appear to be anyone inside the car.

[4] Now, this was a very remote road, so the deputy assumed the driver must be having some sort of car trouble because otherwise why would they stop here?

[5] So the deputy pulled over, hopped out of his cruiser, and began walking towards this car to see if he could help.

[6] But before the deputy reached the car, he noticed something dangling out of the passenger side door.

[7] The deputy reflexively put his hand on his holster and walked slowly the last few feet up to the car.

[8] And when he finally actually got to see inside of this car, he just froze.

[9] It looked like a set from a horror movie, except this was not fake.

[10] 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.

[11] So, if that's of interest to you, the next time the Amazon Music Follow button is fast asleep, slowly pull the blankets off their feet, exposing them to attack by monsters.

[12] Okay, let's get into today's story.

[13] I'm Dan Tversky.

[14] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York.

[15] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[16] What's the answer?

[17] And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

[18] Hysterical.

[19] A new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[20] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondery Plus.

[21] On the morning of November 19, 1999, Carolyn Stahl had an extra bright smile on her face as she saw her patients at her eye clinic in Long Beach, California.

[22] Sure, it was another busy and hectic Friday, but it was also Carolyn's 44th birthday, and her husband Ken was going to take her out to dinner the next night to celebrate.

[23] In many ways, Carolyn and Ken Stahl were a classic Orange County power couple.

[24] She was an optometrist, and he was an anesthesiologist at a nearby hospital.

[25] They lived in a condo in a gated community, and Carolyn's interior design talents had made their home the envy of all their friends.

[26] And with no children at home, Carolyn and Ken liked to spend their money on things like expensive clothes, travel, and extravagant hobbies, like Ken's antique sword collection.

[27] But even with all that wealth, Carolyn had always remained down to earth.

[28] She was sweet to her friends, and she remembered their birthdays and other special occasions with cards and gifts.

[29] She talked to her mother back in her native Michigan at least twice a week, and she was planning a trip back home for the holidays to see her.

[30] And Carolyn took special care of Ken and always made sure he had whatever he needed.

[31] Carolyn even picked out the seeds from Ken's watermelon because she knew he couldn't stand them.

[32] Carolyn remained in a great mood that day as she gave eye exams to one patient after another, and it was the first time in a while she'd felt like everything was going well in her life because she and her 57 -year -old husband, Ken, had been through a lot that year.

[33] Ken had been having heart problems, and a few months earlier, he had undergone an eight -hour operation to restore proper blood flow.

[34] The surgery had left Ken feeling weak and depleted for months in a way Carolyn had never seen before.

[35] Carolyn knew that bad hearts ran in Ken's family.

[36] His father had died from a heart attack, so she really didn't take her time with her husband for granted.

[37] And recently, Ken had finally started feeling much better, and he told Carolyn how excited he was to go out with her for her birthday.

[38] And so Carolyn was so excited.

[39] Ken planned to take them to a Mexican restaurant in the pretty town of San Juan Capistrano, and then after dinner, they'd go on a romantic stroll near the historic Spanish, Spanish mission in the area, and Carolyn thought this was a perfect way to celebrate her birthday and to celebrate a new start for the couple.

[40] The following day, Saturday, November 20th, Ken was busy getting ready for his and Carolyn's big night out, and he really wanted everything to go perfectly.

[41] If Carolyn was sweet and sociable, Ken was intense and ambitious.

[42] He always felt like he was following in his father's footsteps and not quite measuring up.

[43] Ken was the only son of a prominent anesthesiologist who had once owned.

[44] owned a hospital and made the news all the time.

[45] By comparison, Ken had only managed to get himself appointed to an obscure medical board, and he never seemed to fly quite as high as his father.

[46] Ken was really close to his mother, but he suspected that even she thought his career was less impressive than his fathers had been.

[47] Ken also had this growing sense that he was running out of time.

[48] He worked out like a maniac to stay fit, and routinely went on 25 -mile hikes and day -long bike rides.

[49] He was naturally athletic and had gone to college on a football scholarship, but Ken knew he had very likely inherited his father's heart problems, and so he was unlikely to live to a ripe old age.

[50] But this really only served to make Ken more driven to succeed in the time that he had.

[51] But on that particular Saturday, as Ken got ready, he actually found himself feeling quite relaxed.

[52] And when Carolyn walked into the room he was in wearing a pretty red dress and seemingly all the golden diamonds she owned, Ken just, stared and smiled.

[53] Ken finished getting ready, then took his wife's hand, and they walked outside together.

[54] They got into Ken's car, pulled out of their gated community, and set off on the 25 -mile drive to San Juan Capistrano for their big birthday dinner date.

[55] At 10 p .m. that night, Deputy Tony Castillo of the Orange County Sheriff's Department was in his cruiser, out on his usual rounds.

[56] Deputy Castillo eased off the gas when he noticed a Silver Dodge Stratus car pulled over in the breakdown lane on a rural highway outside of San Juan Capistrano.

[57] It was pitch black and there wasn't much traffic.

[58] Castillo figured there wasn't a reason for anyone to stop right there unless they were having car trouble, so he decided he would walk over and see if they needed any help.

[59] Castillo pulled his cruiser in behind the car.

[60] He could see that the car's engine was still running and the high beam lights were on and the passenger side door was wide open.

[61] Just ahead of the car on the side of the road, Castillo saw a pole with an emergency phone box attached to it.

[62] He thought maybe the passenger in this car had jumped out of the car after it pulled over to go use that call box to call for help because maybe their car had broken down.

[63] But then Castillo noticed a woman's bare foot sticking out of that open passenger door and he knew right then something had to be wrong.

[64] Castillo radioed to let dispatch know what he'd found and that he was now going to go investigate.

[65] Then Castillo got out of the cruiser, put his right hand on his holster and began walking towards the back of the dodge.

[66] Castillo's footsteps on the gravel were the only sound.

[67] Castillo saw what looked like a smear of blood on the back passenger side door, but he went around to the driver's side and he saw right away the front window was smashed, and Castillo saw a scene of pure horror inside the car.

[68] A man was slumped over in the driver's seat, still wearing a seat belt, and a woman who had been in the passenger seat was sprawled across the front seat basically on the driver with her head on the man's lap.

[69] Both of them had been shot multiple times and they were drenched in blood and when Castillo checked both of them for a pulse, he found they had none.

[70] They were both dead.

[71] Castillo rushed back to his cruiser and he radioed dispatch to tell them that he had just walked up on two apparent homicide victims out on Ortega Highway.

[72] Then Castillo ran the plates on the Dodge Stratis and the vehicle came back as being registered to Ten and Carolyn Stahl.

[73] And while he couldn't know for sure quite yet, Castillo was reasonably certain that those were the two victims.

[74] After getting Castillo's message, the sheriff's office assigned two veteran detectives, Joe Homs and James McDonald, to lead the potential murder investigation.

[75] They arrived on the lonely stretch of road on Ortega Highway at about 1 a .m. The area was already alive, with crime scene technicians and sheriff's deputies, gathering up evidence, photographing the victims, and just, trying to make sense of the baffling scene.

[76] The deputies who were already at the scene informed detectives Homs and McDonald that the victims were indeed Ken and Carolyn stall.

[77] And based on the scene in the car, the deputies believed that Ken had been shot first and then Carolyn.

[78] Detective Homs looked closely at the two bodies inside the car and he thought the deputies were probably right.

[79] He thanked them for their help and then did an initial search of the car and the surrounding area.

[80] And honestly, Homs was kind of impressed by how little physical evidence had been left behind at the scene.

[81] There were no footprints, no fingerprints, no skid marks, no bullet casings, and no weapon.

[82] Whoever did this had been very thorough, leaving law enforcement with almost nothing to work with.

[83] But then, Homs and McDonald did an extensive examination of the bloody interior of the car, and they began to discover some clues.

[84] Carolyn was covered in expensive jewelry, and the only piece that was missing was a single earring that had fallen on the ground.

[85] Likewise, Ken had plenty of cash and credit cards in his wallet, but nothing of value had been taken, so this didn't look like a robbery.

[86] The two detectives saw that both victims had been shot multiple times from outside the car.

[87] One bullet had gone through the driver's side door and the others through the open window.

[88] So this could not be a traditional murder suicide either.

[89] Somebody else had fired eight to 12 bullets into Carolyn and Ken and then left them for dead.

[90] Tohams and McDonald, this honestly looked like a mob hit, and the shootings had a depressing familiarity to McDonald.

[91] In his years as a detective, he had investigated multiple murders on this highway, Ortega Highway.

[92] There was the farmhand who was found buried in a shallow grave, and the dead man in the trunk of an abandoned car.

[93] McDonald's sometimes thought that Ortega Highway was pretty much just a place for killers to dispose of bodies.

[94] But he just couldn't begin to understand how two middle -aged, very successful doctors from a wealthy gated community could wind up slaughtered in this desolate place.

[95] Word that Carolyn and Ken had been gunned down on a rural mountain road near San Juan Capistrano immediately dominated the news.

[96] The seemingly random quality of the shooting sent a shiver across the whole region of Southern California where Carolyn and Ken lived, and it left Ken and Carolyn's family and friends almost speechless.

[97] No one could imagine somebody hating the couple of people.

[98] couple so much that they needed to kill them.

[99] The owner of the eye care clinic where Carolyn practiced joked that Carolyn was so kind they deliberately gave her the grumpiest patients because she could always cheer them up.

[100] And Ken's colleagues spoke equally highly of him.

[101] A doctor who had served on a state board with Ken said that he was revered by other doctors for his wise medical judgment.

[102] And friends also pointed out that the couple worked all the time, often six days a week.

[103] Ken provided anesthesia for surgeries at multiple medical facilities, so he had a complex, unpredictable schedule.

[104] And Carolyn was so devoted to her practice that she had previously canceled vacation plans to avoid inconveniencing her colleagues.

[105] So their friends wondered when they would even have time to have made enemies.

[106] And early on, investigators struggled with the same question.

[107] On December 4th, so two weeks after the murders, hundreds of mourners crowded into St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Huntington Beach, California.

[108] They cried together, they comforted each other, and they celebrated Carolyn and Ken's lives.

[109] Ken's 87 -year -old mother made her way to the front of the crowd.

[110] She said she had always braced herself for the possibility that her son might die young because of his bad heart, but nothing had prepared her for her son's violent end.

[111] Then she broke down in tears and said all she wanted to do was hold her son one more time.

[112] In the days following the funeral, Detective's McDonald and Homs still didn't have much encouraging news for Ken and Carolyn's families, but their investigative team was still very busy.

[113] At a separate memorial service held for Ken by his colleagues, deputies had asked all the attendees to sign in in a guest book.

[114] They wanted to know who was there, and they wanted to compare handwriting samples to documents they had collected from where Ken and Carolyn lived and worked to see if they could find anything connecting Ken's colleagues to the killings.

[115] But after a few weeks into the investigation, Homs and McDonald still didn't have a suspect in mind, but they were getting a better picture of the killer.

[116] The autopsy confirmed that both Carolyn and Ken had been killed by multiple gunshots sometime between the hours of 8 .30 p .m. and 10 p .m., so not long before Deputy Castillo had found the car.

[117] Also, a separate ballistics analysis found that all the gunshots came from a single gun.

[118] Most likely a 357 magnum revolver.

[119] That gave Homs and McDonald a couple of key pieces of information.

[120] First, Ken and Carolyn were most likely murdered by a single gunman.

[121] And second, the killer was cold and collected.

[122] They had fired at least eight shots from a revolver that held only six bullets, meaning the shooter had to stop in the middle of the murders, reload their weapon, and start firing again.

[123] Those reports forced Homs and McDonald to think about the last minutes of Carolyn's life.

[124] Her husband was dead and she was all alone in a cold, dark, strange place.

[125] Meanwhile, her killer was casually reloading their gun so they could shoot more bullets into her.

[126] I mean, this was a truly awful way to go.

[127] And that information pushed the detectives to dig even deeper into Carolyn and Ken's lives in the hope they would find something that would lead them to the killer.

[128] And in doing this deep dive, Homs and McDonald soon discovered that Carolyn and Ken's 14 -year marriage was not nearly as perfect as some of their grieving friends and relatives had thought.

[129] Some of the couple's loved ones had come forward and told the detectives that Carolyn and Ken had problems, a lot of problems.

[130] Carolyn's sister Linda actually reached out and asked to meet with the detectives.

[131] She said she didn't want to speak ill of the dead, but she really needed them to know the truth.

[132] And so, on a cool December day, Linda arrived at the sheriff's station, and she followed Holmes and McDonald into a small, comfortable office.

[133] And within a few seconds of sitting down, Linda went on an absolute tirade about her brother -in -law, Ken. She told the detectives that Ken had a history of cheating that began way before he even met Carolyn.

[134] Ken's first marriage had ended because Ken had an affair.

[135] Then Ken had married the woman he had the affair with, but that marriage also fell apart within just three months.

[136] Linda said her sister Carolyn was well aware of Ken's romantic history when she had moved in with him back in 1984.

[137] But Carolyn was determined to make a better man of him, and after they had been living together for a year, Carolyn gave Ken an ultimatum, marry her, or the relationship would be over.

[138] Ken had told friends he never wanted to get married again, but he reluctantly gave in to Carolyn's demand.

[139] Linda said their marriage actually seemed to go pretty smoothly for a while.

[140] Carolyn was close with Ken's mother and she was also close with Ken's son from his first marriage and with two doctors' incomes they made a ton of money and so their future looked quite bright.

[141] Suddenly Linda trailed off and just stopped talking.

[142] The detectives asked her if she needed a break or if they could get her anything, but she said she did want to keep going, she needed to get this all out.

[143] Then Linda took a deep breath and composed herself and told the detectives that things had taken a really bad turn for her sister about five years earlier.

[144] She said Carolyn had come home from visiting family in Michigan, and she found a woman she didn't know eating fast food on the couch in her living room.

[145] The woman was just as surprised as Carolyn, and she fled the house immediately, but Ken had admitted he was romantically involved with that woman.

[146] Linda said she had hoped her sister would just leave Ken right then and there, but she didn't.

[147] Instead of demanding a divorce, Carolyn had demanded marriage counseling.

[148] But even with marriage counseling, Ken's behavior didn't change.

[149] he had at least three more affairs that Linda said she was aware of, and she said his address book was still full of women's names and phone numbers.

[150] Linda clutched the arms of her chair tight, and she fought back tears while she talked about her sister.

[151] But she took a deep breath and continued her story.

[152] She told the detectives that she had been so angry at Ken that she finally confronted him about his chronic cheating and about how much he was hurting her sister.

[153] One of the detectives asked how Ken responded to that, and Linda gave a slight laugh and sure, her head, and then she said, Ken had just shrugged his shoulders and told her that, you know, he was the person he was and Carolyn just had to accept that.

[154] Finally, Linda told the detectives that Carolyn went to great lengths to hide the ugly truth about her marriage.

[155] Carolyn was always very careful to give the impression of marital bliss to friends and co -workers.

[156] She would even buy herself her own Christmas presents, she would wrap them and put tags on them that said they were from Ken, even though obviously they were not, and she would put them under the tree and so that when friends and family came over, they would see how good Ken was being to his wife.

[157] And Ken just played along with this for the sake of appearances.

[158] Linda said one of the reasons Carolyn was buying all these gifts for herself is because she believed buying nice things for herself made her happy.

[159] She called it retail therapy.

[160] But Linda knew her sister better than anybody, and she knew no matter what Carolyn did, no matter what she bought, no matter how nice it was, nothing could change the fact that Ken had totally broken her heart.

[161] The detectives shared a look.

[162] Linda's retail therapy comment had just potentially cleared up a question they'd had for weeks.

[163] When they had searched Carolyn and Ken's home right after the murders, they found nearly $30 ,000 in brand new women's clothing and accessories.

[164] A lot of it was actually still wrapped in plastic with the price tags still attached.

[165] That had really confused the detectives at the time, but now it kind of made sense.

[166] The detectives thanked Linda for all her help, and then they walked her out of the station.

[167] McDonald and Holmes hadn't let on in front of her, but Linda's revelations about Ken and Carolyn's troubled relationship opened up a world of potential murder suspects.

[168] Did a former girlfriend take revenge on Ken for leaving her?

[169] Or did a jealous husband of one of the women that Ken had an affair with lash out?

[170] There was even a chance that Ken had been the lone target of one of those jilted lovers or angry husbands, and Carolyn had just happened to be with him at the time of the murder.

[171] With this new information, the detectives now wanted to dig in to all of Ken's communications with all the women he was potentially having affairs with.

[172] Like most doctors in the 1990s, Ken carried a pager, which is a small electronic device that buzzes and gives a phone number to call when somebody needs you.

[173] The detectives got Ken's pager, and they contacted every phone number on it.

[174] This at least allowed them to reconstruct key parts of Ken's last day.

[175] The detectives found a fellow anesthesiologist who p .m. who p .m. on the night of the murder.

[176] This other anesthesiologist had hoped that Ken could cover for him at a surgery the next morning.

[177] The doctor said Ken sounded normal when they talked and that Ken was out celebrating his wife's birthday.

[178] So McDonald and Homs reasoned that whatever happened to the couple that night probably caught them completely by surprise.

[179] McDonald also came across a Mexican immigrant named Adriana Vasco who had paged Ken on the morning of the murders.

[180] She explained that she had become friends with Ken several years earlier when she worked in the office at the National Pain Institute where he was a part -time anesthesiologist.

[181] Adriana said that Ken had agreed to get her desktop computer repaired and she had paged him to find out how the repairs were going.

[182] McDonald was immediately suspicious of this.

[183] He couldn't understand why a busy doctor would be volunteering to report.

[184] pair computers on the side.

[185] The detective asked Adriana flat out if she was having an affair with Ken, but she denied it.

[186] Adriana insisted that Ken was just a very generous guy.

[187] He had helped her out financially numerous times over the years.

[188] The call with Adriana lasted only five minutes, but McDonald came away from it with the distinct sense that he had just been lied to.

[189] But he had no evidence to back up his gut feeling, so he let it drop, at least for the moment.

[190] Over the coming days, McDonald and Homs repeatedly asked Ken's family and friends what they knew about Adriana Vasco.

[191] The detectives got nothing but blank stares.

[192] None of the friends or family had ever heard of her.

[193] Then in late December, a woman contacted the detectives and admitted right at the start that she'd had an affair with Ken in the mid -1990s.

[194] And when she heard about the murders, she'd recalled a conversation she'd had with Ken back then.

[195] She said Ken had complained that he was being blackmailed by someone close to him and that he was not in control of his own life.

[196] The woman's story was chilling and blackmail was not out of the realm of possibility.

[197] After all, Ken had had multiple affairs and most people assumed he was rich because he was a doctor.

[198] But the detectives had also discovered that Ken's health issues had caused him to miss months of work in the past, that had led to some financial strain and had forced Ken and Carolyn to move out of their $700 ,000 home into the comfortable but much more modest.

[199] condo, where they had lived at the time of their deaths.

[200] The detectives also knew Carolyn had spent at least $30 ,000 on clothes and jewelry for herself.

[201] So now, Homs and McDonald wondered if the murder simply came down to money.

[202] Maybe Ken couldn't pay someone who was blackmailing him, so they killed him and his wife.

[203] But as 1999 came to an end, the detectives still had no major suspects.

[204] They had followed a bunch of different leads, but so far nothing had paid off.

[205] However, both detectives had a strong feeling that cracking this case would begin with one of the women Ken had an affair with, and they thought that woman could be Adriana Vasco.

[206] Both detectives were confident she knew a lot more than she had told them, so it was time to have another conversation.

[207] I'm Dan Tversky.

[208] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[209] I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad.

[210] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[211] She's like, I can't.

[212] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[213] It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

[214] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low.

[215] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[216] Well, you were holding something back intentionally.

[217] Yeah, well, yeah.

[218] No, it's hysteria.

[219] It's all in your head.

[220] It's not physical.

[221] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[222] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem?

[223] Or is it something else entirely?

[224] Something's wrong here.

[225] Something's not right.

[226] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[227] A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[228] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[229] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[230] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[231] She had been under the influence and she left him there.

[232] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[233] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[234] What happens next?

[235] Depends on who you ask.

[236] Was it a crime of passion?

[237] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[238] This was clearly an intentional act.

[239] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[240] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[241] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[242] Everyone had an opinion.

[243] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[244] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[245] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[246] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[247] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[248] On February 29th, 2000, so over three months after the murders, detectives McDonald and Homs met Adriana Vasco at her friend's house in Anaheim, California.

[249] Adriana was little, she was barely five feet tall and she was quite thin, she was 33 years old, and a single mother of two young kids.

[250] Over coffee at her kitchen table, Adriana told the detectives how she had become friends with Ken, a man who seemed to live in a completely different world than she did.

[251] She explained that Ken had noticed her walking with a limp when they were both working at the National Pain Institute.

[252] Ken had offered to inject pain medication into her back to correct the limp, but he told her it would be an ongoing procedure.

[253] At the kitchen table, Adriana took a sip of her coffee and then a smile came across her face.

[254] She said she had agreed to the procedure, and as the pain injections continued, the two of them started getting a bit closer.

[255] Adriana said she had even begun calling him Ken instead of Dr. Stahl, and Ken had clearly taken a growing interest in Adriana's life.

[256] Then when Adriana had split with her husband, Ken paid for her and her son to go live in a motel.

[257] When Adriana's car had broken down, Ken gave her money to buy a new one, a white Mazda.

[258] So Adriana told the detectives it became normal for her to turn to Ken for help because he was always so kind to her.

[259] And Adriana said that in return, she became a shoulder for Ken to cry on.

[260] He opened up to her about his unhappiness.

[261] He told her he hated the Orange County doctor's life.

[262] He thought it was totally phony.

[263] He said he had a lot more fun when he went to the beer and barbecue chicken restaurant, which was down the street from Adriana's apartment.

[264] Ken had even told Adriana at one point that she was his only real friend.

[265] Detective's McDonald and Homs sat on the edge of their seats, wanting to ask Adriana again if she was actually romantically involved with Ken. but they held their tongues and just let her talk.

[266] Adriana continued and said that Ken's marriage had been empty for years.

[267] He complained about his wife's looks and her weight, and he said they mostly slept in separate bedrooms.

[268] Then Adriana began to cry.

[269] She apologized and said she was still in shock over Ken's death.

[270] She said when she found out he died, it was like her whole world had just collapsed.

[271] Ken was like her hero.

[272] Finally, after Adriana wiped the tears from her face, She looked across the table at the detectives, and she admitted that she had had an affair with Ken. And Ken's wife, Carolyn, knew about it.

[273] She told the detectives that about three and a half years earlier, she had received a phone call from Ken, but the moment she answered, Ken quickly handed the phone off to his wife Carolyn, and Carolyn's message to Adriana was blunt.

[274] Stay away from my husband.

[275] Adriana said she broke off the affair soon after getting that phone call.

[276] She knew Ken would never divorce his wife and she didn't want to get hurt.

[277] But she and Ken had remained friends even when Adriana found a new romantic partner and even had a daughter with him.

[278] In fact, Adriana said that Ken would sometimes go out to dinner with Adriana's new guy.

[279] Also, Adriana said after they split up, Ken never tried to have sex with her again.

[280] And she told the detectives that she really believed that Ken and Carolyn had genuinely started to work on their marriage at the time they got killed.

[281] And when she had spoken to Ken on the day he was killed, Adriana said he sounded happier than he had in months.

[282] McDonald and Homs had more questions for Adriana, but the coffees were long since cold and it was after 5 p .m., so they thanked her for a time, and they headed for the door.

[283] By the summer of 2000, the sensational double murder that had once gotten so much media attention was increasingly in danger of going cold.

[284] McDonald and Homs had come away from their interview with Adriana, convinced that her grief over Ken's death was actually sincere.

[285] She was probably lying about the length of their affair, but the detectives couldn't see why Adriana would want Ken dead.

[286] He had been a ready source of money and support to her for years.

[287] So the hope that one of Ken's lovers would lead them to the truth about the murders began to fade, and the detectives hadn't found any evidence that Ken had been blackmailed by anybody.

[288] Homs and McDonald continued to pursue every possible lead, and they re -interviewed anyone who seemed to be remotely connected to the case, But their investigation stalled.

[289] In the fall of 2000, about 10 months after the murders, McDonald and Homs were reassigned to another unit, and two new detectives, Brian Heaney and Phil Villalobos, took over Carolyn and Ken's murder case.

[290] Initially, the two new detectives felt totally overwhelmed.

[291] Villa Lobos had only been a homicide detective for two weeks, and Heaney's experience was mostly just in narcotics.

[292] But as they began to dig through the huge case file, they realized that their predecessors, McDonald and Homs, were likely overwhelmed too.

[293] But something caught Detective Villalobos's eye as he reviewed Ken's cell phone records from the day of his death.

[294] Ken had called the same number four times, and the calls were to the same person who had paged Ken on the morning of the murders, Adriana Vasco.

[295] So Villalobos and Heaney quickly decided to pick up where the previous detectives had left off, and they turned their focus to Adriana.

[296] And at 8 p .m. on October 11th, almost 11 months after the murders, Adriana arrived at the sheriff station for another interview, but this time she was not eager to help.

[297] Adriana insisted that on the day of Ken's murder, she had only contacted him to talk about those computer repairs and that the conversation was so innocuous that she couldn't even remember anything else they talked about.

[298] The two detectives pressed Adriana hard to get her to say more.

[299] Villalobos even asked her straight out, who killed Ken. But Adriana broke into tears and said she had no idea and genuinely could not remember anything substantive from their last conversation.

[300] The detectives would question Adriana really aggressively for several hours until finally it was clear she just didn't have anything else to say.

[301] So they let her go.

[302] But the detectives were not quite finished with Adriana.

[303] After she left, the detectives rushed outside after her and hopped in their car and followed her.

[304] After driving for several minutes, Adriana arrived at a house where the father of one of her children was waiting for her.

[305] Adriana and this man had split up, but they remained close for the sake of their daughter.

[306] The detectives watched Adriana with this man from a distance, and they began to develop a new theory.

[307] Maybe Adriana did have nothing to do with Ken's death, but maybe this man who she was with, the father of her daughter, had gotten jealous of her affair with Ken, and maybe he lashed out.

[308] And so now maybe Adriana was doing everything she could to protect him, really just so her young daughter would not be without her father.

[309] Villalobos and Hini waited for Adriana to leave, and then after she had, they hopped out of their car, walked up to the front door, knocked, and then when the man came to the door, they led him to the front yard to question him.

[310] And to the detective's surprise, this man was completely open and asked how he could help.

[311] Villalobos told him that he was convinced someone close to Adriana had killed Ken and Carolyn Stahl but the detectives didn't know who.

[312] The man said that made sense to him and he understood why they would want to question him but then this man said something that sent Villalobos Sinhini reeling.

[313] He told them that he had nothing to do with Carolyn and Ken's murders but he had a pretty good idea of who probably killed them.

[314] Villa Lobos just stared at him and then asked him outright wait, okay, who's the killer?

[315] And the man would say one word, Tony.

[316] The detectives were caught off guard.

[317] In all those files from nearly a year -long investigation, the name Tony had never once come up.

[318] Now they had someone telling them a guy named Tony was probably the killer they had been looking for.

[319] The detectives followed up with a bunch more questions about who this Tony person was, and they would learn that Tony was Adriana's current boyfriend, and he was a handyman at her apartment building.

[320] He also had a long criminal rap sheet, he had a temper, and he loved guns.

[321] A few days later, Detective Heaney was waiting in an unmarked car outside the hospital where Adriana worked.

[322] Investigators had been trying to track down Adriana's boyfriend, Tony, but the man seemed to have disappeared.

[323] So Heaney wanted Adriana to help them find him.

[324] Eventually, Adriana walked outside still dressed in her scrubs, and right away Heaney rushed up to her and caught her completely by surprise.

[325] He asked her point blank if she would take a polygraph test right now.

[326] He said the test was all set up at the local police station right around the corner.

[327] All she had to do was come with him.

[328] Adriana was clearly shocked and pretty angry with Heaney for surprising her like this, but she did go with him to the police station.

[329] During the polygraph test, Adriana faced round after round of very difficult questions from Heaney and Villalobos, and Adriana held her ground, denying any knowledge of the murders.

[330] But then, Heaney hit her with a surprise question.

[331] He asked if Tony was the killer.

[332] She tried to deny knowing Tony, but it was already too late.

[333] The detectives knew he was her boyfriend and that she was lying to them.

[334] So Heaney began asking rapid -fire questions about Tony.

[335] Where was he?

[336] Did he know Ken?

[337] But Adriana collected herself, and she insisted she had no answers for them.

[338] But the detectives were convinced Adriana was now the key to unlocking this case, and too many people had been working for too long on this investigation to let this opportunity slip away.

[339] And it turned out the detectives had one more surprise for Adriana.

[340] There was an outstanding warrant for her arrest for driving with a suspended license, and they were going to use that to lock her up for the night.

[341] Adriana begged to be allowed to go home to her kids, but the detectives handcuffed her and led her to a cell.

[342] Now they just had to find Tony.

[343] Even after being locked up, Adriana did not tell the detectives where her boyfriend Tony was, but her phone bill showed that she had repeatedly called a number in Greenville, North Carolina over the past couple of days, and Detective Villa Lobos had a hunch that those were calls to Tony.

[344] Villa Lobos sent a picture of Tony to local police in Greenville, and right away, an officer in Greenville contacted him and said he recognized Tony.

[345] He told Villa Lobos that Tony actually went by the name Dennis Godley in Greenville, but the local cops just called him The Weasel because he was so good at eluding arrest.

[346] However, the officer in Greenville said he would still be able to lead Villa Lobos and his partner right to Tony.

[347] So detectives Villalobos and Hini headed right to the airport and took a flight from California to North Carolina.

[348] And while they were there, they did meet and interview Tony.

[349] However, he was totally uncooperative.

[350] He claimed that he had never been close to Adriana and that he had absolutely no role in the death of Ken and Carolyn Stall.

[351] The detectives flew home feeling frustrated and with almost no new information, but their plan with Adriana had worked.

[352] After spending the night in jail and worrying she would not get to go home to her kids, she was now finally ready to tell the detectives everything she knew about Tony and everything she knew about Ken and Carolyn's murders.

[353] And by the time Adriana was finished talking, detectives Villalobos and Hini were ready to make arrests in a case that had now gone on for almost a year.

[354] Based on Adriana's jail cell interview and evidence collected by both teams of detectives throughout the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what police belief happened to Carolyn and Ken Stahl out on Ortega Highway on November 20th, 1999.

[355] On that November day, the killer sat in the passenger seat of a parked car not far from the restaurant in San Juan Capistrano, where Ken and Carolyn were celebrating Carolyn's birthday.

[356] The killer calmly loaded their 357 Magnum and made small talk with the driver.

[357] But the driver wasn't listening.

[358] They had their eyes focused on the road right outside of the restaurant.

[359] Then the driver suddenly told the killer to be quiet.

[360] Ken's Dodge Stratis had just pulled out onto the road.

[361] The driver waited to let Ken's car get a little further away.

[362] Then the driver started their car, pulled out onto the road, and followed Ken. The driver tracked Ken onto Ortega Highway.

[363] The highway was dark and oddly quiet.

[364] The driver gripped the steering wheel tight and closed in on Ken. Meanwhile, the killer just kept talking like nothing out of the ordinary was even happening.

[365] Then at some point, Ken's car pulled off the highway into the breakdown lane near an emergency phone box.

[366] The driver told the killer it was time to act.

[367] Then the driver hit the gas, raced by Ken's car, and then did a U -turn into the breakdown lane.

[368] The driver's headlights were now shining directly into Ken's windshield.

[369] The driver put the car in park, and then the killer casually stepped out of the car.

[370] The killer walked right up to the driver's side window and tapped on the glass, and Ken rolled the window down.

[371] Ken was about to say something when the killer casually raised the 357 Magnum and fired.

[372] The bullet hit Ken behind the left ear and exited through his right eye.

[373] Carolyn began to scream from the passenger seat and tried to undo her seat belt, but she was in shock and her hands were shaking and so she couldn't get free.

[374] The killer then fired another shot into Ken and this time the bullet shredded his aorta, the body's main artery.

[375] And so blood sprayed all over the car and Ken slumped over, dead.

[376] Carolyn finally got her seatbelt off, but by this point the killer stuck his gun through the open driver's side window and fired multiple shots point blank at Carolyn hitting Carolyn in the chest.

[377] Carolyn screamed again and blood began to pour down her shirt, but she was still alive.

[378] So the killer aimed the gun at her and fired again, but they were out of bullets.

[379] So as Carolyn is sitting there slowly dying and screaming and looking at her dead husband, the killer walked back to the other car, they opened up the passenger side door, shouted something at the driver, and then grabbed extra ammunition from a bag on the floor.

[380] Then the killer calmly reloaded their gun and then turned back and began walking towards Ken's car again.

[381] By this point, the killer saw the passenger side door of the Dodge Stratus was now open.

[382] Carolyn tumbled out of the car and one of her earrings fell to the ground.

[383] She was covered in blood and struggling to breathe, but she managed to brace herself against the back door of the car and stay on her feet.

[384] Carolyn looked around for any kind of escape route, but then she heard something behind her.

[385] She turned and saw the killer walking towards her with their gun raised.

[386] There was nowhere to go.

[387] In a last desperate attempt to save herself, Carolyn dove back inside the car head first.

[388] One of her red shoes fell off as she struggled to pull herself across the front seat of the car over the body of her dead husband.

[389] She was trying to get to the driver's side so that maybe she could speed away and save herself.

[390] But the killer just walked to the open passenger door, aimed their gun at the back of Carolyn's head, and fired off two more shots.

[391] Carolyn fell over dead in Ken's lap.

[392] The killer leaned in to make sure both Ken and Carolyn were dead.

[393] then they did a thorough sweep of the car and the road around it to make sure they picked up any stray evidence, like bullet casings.

[394] Finally, when the killer was satisfied, they walked back to the white Mazda that was still parked with its lights shining directly into Ken's car.

[395] Then the killer got back into the Mazda and looked over at the driver.

[396] And the driver was shaking and horrified.

[397] The killer told the driver to calm down and just get out of here.

[398] But the driver shouted at the killer that they were not supposed to kill Ken. The driver said she loved Ken, and Ken was actually the one who had paid them to murder his wife.

[399] It would turn out, Adriana was the driver, and her boyfriend, Tony, had indeed pulled the trigger and killed Carolyn and Ken. But Ken had actually been the one who set the entire thing in motion.

[400] It turned out, Ken had wanted his wife dead for a long time.

[401] He wanted to be free to have relationships with lots of women without any repercussions, and just to live his life however he wanted.

[402] But Ken felt like he was reliant on Carolyn.

[403] She took care of him and she made a lot of money.

[404] So if his health issues kept him from working again, he would still be able to live well because of Carolyn.

[405] Ken went so far as to tell some people that Carolyn had control of his life and it was like he was being blackmailed just to stay in the marriage, even though that was just not true.

[406] But finally, Ken told Adriana that he had just had enough and he asked her to help him murder his wife.

[407] Adriana said her boyfriend Tony would be perfect for the job.

[408] He was good with guns and calm in any situation.

[409] So Ken paid Adriana and Tony $30 ,000 to carry out a hit on Carolyn.

[410] And Ken and Adriana hammered out all of the details, including the exact location on Ortega Highway, where Ken would pull over and the murder would go down.

[411] On the day of the murder, Ken had contacted Adriana multiple times to let her know when he and Carolyn were heading.

[412] to the restaurant and then when they arrived and then also when they were leaving and adriana and Tony had been waiting nearby to follow him to the spot they'd agreed on but when it came time to actually do the job tony took things into his own hands he didn't trust ken and he didn't want the middle -aged doctor around to pin the whole thing on him so tony decided to just kill ken too caroline was truly just an innocent victim her husband had plotted against her and had even tried to paint her as some kind of blackmailing monster.

[413] But Carolyn's friends and family knew that despite all of Ken's cheating, Carolyn still loved him and she still believed they could repair their marriage.

[414] But Ken had no intention of doing that.

[415] At trial, Adriana insisted that she tried to talk Ken out of going through with the shooting and that she ultimately only went along with it because she was afraid of Tony.

[416] But ultimately, a jury would convict her of masterminding the entire murder plot and sentenced her to life in prison without parole.

[417] As for Tony, he would ultimately plead guilty to the murders in exchange for a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

[418] And Tony would insist to the very end that Adriana was the one who shot Carolyn, not him.

[419] Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

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[423] So, that's going to do it.

[424] I really appreciate your support.

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