My Daughters (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

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[2] In early 1982, the biggest news by far in Minauqua, Wisconsin, was a series of bank robberies that had all 3 ,300 residents looking over their shoulders and clutching their wallets any time they stepped foot into one of their local banks.

[3] But when Minauqua police got a frantic 911 call from Park City Credit Union, on the evening of April 28th, what they would find inside was far worse than a robbery.

[4] Even though police would quickly put together a picture of what transpired inside of that bank, it would take another 34 years for law enforcement to finally get to the bottom of one of the most infamous crimes in Wisconsin history.

[5] But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week.

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

[9] I'm Dan Tibertsky.

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

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

[12] What's the answer?

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

[14] Hysterical.

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[17] 33 -year -old Barbara Mendez looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of her.

[18] Rolling the pen under her fingers across the kitchen table, Barbara wished that writing or talking about her feelings was as easy for her as it was to make a delicious dinner or to embroider a piece of clothing or fine cloth.

[19] But it was coming up on Valentine's Day, 1982, and Barbara had decided that this year she was going to give her two daughters not just cards and chocolates, but a letter that told them how much she loved them.

[20] Both the girls were at or close to the point where they were becoming teenagers.

[21] Dawn was 13, and Christy was 11.

[22] And more and more, Barbara could feel them beginning to pull away from their parents.

[23] Not that the girls had ever given Barbara or her husband Robin, known to everyone by his nickname Bob, any trouble, and the pulling away that Barb sensed now was not rebellious or painful.

[24] The girls were just growing up, and Barb knew from her own.

[25] own childhood, and now her perspective as a mom, at the time all of them were spending together now in their modest but cozy house tucked away among the woods, would not last forever.

[26] Taking a deep breath, Barb stopped rolling the pen, she picked it up, she pressed the point carefully onto the paper, and she began to write.

[27] She opened with, My Daughters.

[28] Five sentences later, and Barb was finished.

[29] Relaxing her grip on the pen, she read over what she had written.

[30] Then she put her pen down, she folded the letter, and slipped it into its envelope.

[31] But before getting up from the table and getting started on her to -do list of household, church, and work tasks that never seemed to end, Barb turned toward the window and looked out at the cold and snowy Wisconsin winter.

[32] She and Bob had lived in Manacqua, a town with 3 ,300 residents and only three traffic lights, ever since their marriage, almost exactly 14 years ago on March 2nd, 1962.

[33] But even though it was so small, Manacua was still bigger than the town where Barb had done most of her growing up.

[34] Not long after she'd been born, more than 200 miles to the south, in the bustling county seat of Manitowoc, Barb's parents had moved their family up to Boulder Junction, a tiny town of fewer than 500 people.

[35] Even if Barb's father, an aircraft mechanic who had served in the Navy during World War II, and her mother, who had stayed home to take care of Barb and her three sisters, had not been fairly conservative and religious people, Boulder Junction was so small that Barb might not even have heard about a lot of the cultural, political, and technological changes of the 1960s that started just a few years before Barb and Bob had gotten married.

[36] So, while other young couples in other parts of the country might be experimenting with sex, drugs, and rock and roll music, Barb and Bob had settled here in Managua, and their three -bedroom house located just a half mile away from Sleepy Route 70 and the family -owned upholstery business where Bob worked.

[37] And for Barb, who was quiet and shy, suited her just fine, because Barb had never really needed that much anyway to make her feel grateful and blessed.

[38] Staring now at the snow -covered pine trees outside, Barb thought ahead to the arrival of spring and summer, and how she and her girls had always made the most of those two magical seasons, going out together to pick the berries that Barb would make into jars of fruit jellies and preserves, and enjoying the lakes that Managua was famous for in this part of the Northwoods.

[39] And always, as the girls got older, Barb had made a point, of welcoming her daughter's friends for playdates and sleepovers and doing everything she could to make sure that Manaqua felt less like a small town that people couldn't wait to leave and more like the storybook version of Little House on the Prairie where childhood was wholesome, fun, and safe.

[40] In fact, the biggest transformation in the social lives of Barb and Bob Mendez and their two kids had happened three years earlier, and it had nothing to do with popular culture and trends and everything to do with the family's spiritual life.

[41] That was when Barb and Bob, along with a handful of other passionate believers in a conservative Christian denomination called Assemblies of God, had helped found a church of their own.

[42] Located about eight miles west of the Mendez House, the new church had very quickly become the center of the family's social as well as spiritual life.

[43] Barb had become a Sunday school teacher, and Bob, who was more outgoing than his wife, was one of the church's youth group leaders.

[44] For all the Menendez's, church was where they formed their closest friendships.

[45] That's where Barb's older daughter, Dawn, could spend time with her best friend Jody, whose father was one of Bob's best friends.

[46] Barb's best friend was also a very active member of the church.

[47] Sherry Anderson, whose husband, Wendell, was the pastor, was as close to a confidant as the very private and reserved Barb Mendez had.

[48] It had been with Sherry's support and encouragement that Barb had picked up a part -time job starting about a year ago, working as a teller at the Park City Credit Union, which was located roughly halfway between the Mendez Home and the Assemblies of God Church.

[49] And suddenly, with that job, everything Barb could have wanted was within a 10 -mile radius of where she sat right now, the church where she worshipped, the bank where she worked, and the family business where Bob worked installing carpets and upholstery.

[50] Every member of her family had become well known in this community.

[51] Bob outriding his motorcycle to work with his toolkit strapped on the back, the girls going off to school each day, and Barb herself, whose friendly manner, and shy but beautiful smile, had made her a favorite among the members of Park City Credit Union.

[52] But right now, as Barb continued to stare out the window of her kitchen, the Valentine's Day letter in its envelope on the table in front of her, she wondered exactly when and how her life seemed to have slipped out of its perfect frame.

[53] There were the recent bank robberies in the area, practically unbelievable in a town that hadn't seen a murder since 1935, and very few violent crimes of any type, and Barb had to admit that even though only one of those robberies was still unsolved, she felt scared every time she saw a customer in the bank who behaved in any way that struck her as out of the ordinary.

[54] But Barb also knew that her real trouble lay much closer to home.

[55] In fact, she worried that it lay right inside one of her favorite places on earth, the Assemblies of God Church.

[56] And lately, when she entered the worship area that meant so much to her and that had been her place of comfort and strength, Barb was now finding excuses to slip away so she could sit by herself in one of the meeting rooms, doing her best to hold back tears.

[57] Two and a half months later, on Wednesday, April 28, 1982, Barb packed the family car in the lot right behind the part City Credit Union located on Highway 51 in the city of Managua.

[58] It was a clear sunny day, cold in the morning, but by afternoon, the temperature was supposed to double.

[59] As Barb closed the driver's side door of the car and headed for the bank, she was glad that after the long Wisconsin winter, it was finally starting to warm up.

[60] But despite the spring weather and sunshine, when Barb walked inside into the work area of the credit union, she had to force herself to smile, as she said good morning to her boss, credit union manager Helen Gray, because the last two days had been hard for Barbara.

[61] Two days earlier, on Monday the 26th, there had been an embarrassing incident at the Bible study meeting that Barb and Bob had gone to at a church member's home.

[62] And on the very next day, Tuesday, April 27th, Barb had a long phone conversation with her friend Sherry, the church pastor's wife.

[63] Barb could not bring herself to tell Sherry the real secret that weighed so heavily on Barb these days, but Barb did manage to reassure her friend that soon Barb would be taking steps to resolve the problem, and when that was done, Barb would be feeling much better.

[64] After ending that phone call, Barb had turned her attention to making dinner.

[65] But even though the Mexican food Barb had prepared, Bob's favorite, had gotten rave reviews, the evening had left Barb feeling tired, and she was still tired this morning as she counted the bills in her drawer and took her position behind the customer service counter.

[66] Then, as Helen walked across the lobby to open the bank doors for business, Barb gave herself a mental shake.

[67] Making sure her white blouse was neatly tucked into her dark skirt, Barb squared her shoulders as the first customer stepped up to her station.

[68] But by midday, Barb's workload had unexpectedly doubled.

[69] Helen, the bank manager, had started to feel sick, and by 1 p .m., she felt so bad that she and Barb had decided that Helen should just go home and let Barb finish out the day and close the bank on her own.

[70] About four hours after Helen had left, Barb was helping the last customer of the day, one of the members of the credit union's own board of directors who was there to convert $55 in change into dollar bills.

[71] Even if Barb hadn't been alone for half of her shift, that Wednesday still would have felt like an unusually stressful day.

[72] Because that afternoon, Barb had had a scary interaction with a customer named Thomas Bow, who kicked up a fuss when she told him that because he wasn't a member of the credit union, she could not cash the check he had handed to her.

[73] When he came back a second time after filling out a membership card and Barb did cash the check, his irritability and the argument he got into with his brother, who was with him, made Barb wish she was not alone behind the counter.

[74] All she'd been able to think about were the two recent bank robberies in the area and the fact that the suspect in one of those robberies was still on the loose.

[75] Chatting now about that encounter with the credit union board member, Barb relaxed a little as she rolled the last of the coins into its paper sleeve, handed over the dollar bills in exchange, and then walked her final customer to the door.

[76] As she watched the man cross the parking lot and get into his car and wave back at her, Barb felt a rush of relief that it was finally 5 o 'clock, and her workday was almost over.

[77] And after locking the door behind her, Barb headed back to the office to start entering that day's transaction into the balance sheet.

[78] But Barb hardly had time to sit down, catch her breath, and pull up the credit union balance sheet to make her first few entries when she heard a knock on the front door of the building.

[79] Startled, Barb dropped her pencil and looked up.

[80] But the entrance to the bank wasn't visible from the desk where she was sitting, and the only way to see who was there knocking was to get up and walk past the service counter and out into the lobby and waiting area.

[81] Barb looked at the time.

[82] The bank had been closed for almost 15 minutes, but even as Barb was deciding whether she should go to the door and see who it was, or, still thinking about the recent bank robberies, call the police, she heard the knock again.

[83] And this time, she thought she could make out a voice she recognized.

[84] Taking her hand away from the telephone on her desk, Barb waited a few seconds for her heart to stop racing.

[85] Then the 33 -year -old wife and mother of two stood up, made a wide loop around the counter, and headed for the front door.

[86] A little over two and a half hours later, at close to 8 p .m. that night, the first police and emergency medical vehicles were pulling up in the parking lot outside the City Park Credit Union, sirens on and lights flashing.

[87] There to meet them was the credit union manager, Helen Gray, who had placed the 911 call to the Managua Police Department a few minutes earlier at 7 .43 p .m. Still in a state of shock, Helen walked into the credit union with police officer Norm McMahon, and led him behind the service counter to a space between one of the staff desks and the bank safe located behind the desk and against the side wall of the bank.

[88] Sprawled inside of that space, police found the brutally beaten body of Barbara Mendez.

[89] And even as Helen and the police officer stepped back to let medical technicians check for signs of life, it was clear that Barbara was dead.

[90] Her wavy shoulder -length brown hair was matted with blood, and the left side of her skull, face and ear showed cuts and drag marks from whatever weapon had been used to kill her.

[91] From the position of her body, it looked like Barb's attacker had struck her from behind, and at some point during or after the attack, the murderer had rolled her body over so she was lying across her left arm, while her right arm, the fingers curled upward in a loose fist, was stretched out along her right side.

[92] Blood from Barbara's injuries had spread out in a wide pool around her head, too much to be fully absorbed by the thick carpet underneath her.

[93] The cash drawer at the counter where Barb had worked that day was open, and a total of what would turn out to be $2 ,700 was missing.

[94] The Monacoa Police Department may not have investigated a homicide in almost 50 years, but Officer McMahon's training kicked in right away.

[95] After giving directions to secure the crime scene and get crime scene text to the bank as soon as possible, one of Officer McMahon's first calls was to Barbara's husband, Bob.

[96] Bob, who had called the manager of the credit union earlier that evening at 7 .15 after Barb had failed to show up at church for the 7 p .m. Wednesday service.

[97] Even though Barb had called him earlier that day to say that she would be working late, she had also told Bob that she'd be home in time to pick up the girls and join him at church for the 7 p .m. service.

[98] Figuring that Helen's home was closer to the bank than the church was, Bob had asked the manager of the credit union if she would make the one and a half mile trip to Park City Credit Union to check on Barb.

[99] Already feeling guilty that she had left Barb alone to close up the bank that evening, Helen immediately hopped into her car with her daughter and did what Bob asked her to do.

[100] And just 27 minutes later, Helen had made her gruesome discovery and with shaking hands she had dialed 911.

[101] But even as police were setting up a perimeter of yellow crime scene tape around the bank and arranging for Bob to identify his wife's body, investigators from both the Manawqua Police Department and the Oneida County Sheriff's Department, which had also responded to the emergency call, had already put together two possible theories that would explain the crime scene and Barb's murder.

[102] The first theory was that Barb had been the tragic victim of a bank robbery gone wrong.

[103] That theory fit neatly with the fact that there had been a recent rash of robberies in the area that the perpetrator in one of the robberies was still at large and that approximately $2 ,700 was missing from Barb's cash drawer.

[104] The second theory was that the motive for the murder was personal and that Barb's attacker had made off with the money so it would look like a robbery.

[105] This theory that Barbara knew her attacker would explain why there was no sign of forced entry into the credit union why the assailant had not taken any of the $17 ,000 in cash that was sitting in plain sight inside the open safe just a few feet away from Barb's body, and why Barb's attacker was apparently able to walk right up behind her and strike her on the back of the head.

[106] Over the next two months, officers from the Minacqua and nearby Rhinelander police departments, along with the deputies from the Sheriff's Department, had a total of 10 investigators working more than 12 hours a day on the Barbara Mendez homicide.

[107] With other officers also donating their off -duty time to help, law enforcement would interview more than 100 witnesses, as well as follow -up on a barrage of tips and rumors.

[108] They had questioned people who had transacted business at the credit union that day, as well as shoppers and store owners at the business center near the bank.

[109] They had combed the wooded areas along Highway 51, where the credit union was located, looking for a murder weapon they did not find, and they had collected as much physical evidence from the crime scene as possible without coming up with any blood samples or fingerprints that would lead them to a possible killer.

[110] But despite the hours that law enforcement had poured into this investigation, by mid -May, six weeks after Barb's death, police investigating both theories of the crime had hit one dead end after another.

[111] As the husband of the victim, Bob Mendez was automatically at the top of the suspect list.

[112] But Bob was also among the first suspects that police had to cross off their list.

[113] From the time Bob arrived home from work at Lakeland upholstery at about 5 p .m. until sometime after 8 p .m. when he arrived at the Park City Credit Union, Bob could account for all his actions and whereabouts.

[114] Bob's alibi was confirmed three days later when they followed up their initial interviews with Bob and Barb's daughters, Don and Christy, with long interviews at the police station where they took down the family member's formal statements.

[115] both Dawn and Christy, who had gotten home from school on the day of their mother's murder at about 4 .20 p .m., had seen their dad come home about a half hour later, just before 5 p .m. Just after 5, their dad had passed along a phone message from their mom, telling them she'd be home by 6 .15 or 6 .30.

[116] And since dad would be riding his motorcycle to church that evening, Barb would drive the girls to the 7 p .m. service with her.

[117] After that phone call, Bob and the girls had a quick dinner of tacos.

[118] Dawn's best friend Jody had also spoken to Bob around 515 or 530 when she telephoned the Mendez house and Bob had answered the phone.

[119] After that, Bob had showered, dressed, and then hopped on his 1979 Honda CX 5 ,000 motorcycle and left for church, where church members would see him at about 6 .20 p .m. But aside from confirming that Bob did not leave the church again until he got the call from police that Barb was dead, members of the Assemblies of God Church just did not seem that eager to share information about each other's lives and church politics or gossip with police.

[120] And Barb's funeral service, which was held on the same day that Christy, Don, and Bob were all formally interviewed, did not offer any clues about Barb's personal life either.

[121] As a few police officers watched from their seats in the back of the church, 300 mourners filled into the sanctuary of the Assemblies of God on Town Line Road.

[122] Pastor Wendell Anderson described Barb as, quote, a woman who had committed her life to the Lord, end quote, before reading some of Barb's favorite verses from the Bible.

[123] The next day, the local newspaper would quote, one of Barb's friends and fellow church members, as saying that Barbara's death, quote, did not fit her life in any way, end quote.

[124] And then, this friend summed up the fear that had gripped the entire town of Manacqua in the wake of Barb's murder, the first homicide the sleepy town had seen since 19, quote, it's all just horrible, end quote.

[125] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

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

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

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

[129] What happens next?

[130] Depends on who you ask.

[131] Was it a crime of passion?

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

[133] This was clearly an intentional act.

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

[135] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

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

[137] Everyone had an opinion.

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

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

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

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

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

[143] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good.

[144] You are a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious.

[145] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[146] We just launched a brand new, strange, dark, and mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

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[149] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

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[151] Meanwhile, as the Minauqua Police Department started focusing its efforts on finding suspects, who may have had a personal motive for killing Barb, the Oneida County Sheriff's Department was focusing more and more on the theory that Barb was a victim of a robbery gone wrong.

[152] And for them, suspect number one was Thomas Bose, the argumentative man who had visited the Park City Credit Union two times on April 28th, the day of Barb's murder.

[153] Because, as police soon discovered, Thomas had a prior criminal conviction from five years earlier for committing a robbery without a weapon.

[154] And when Thomas Bose's wife, Judith started changing her story about her husband's activities and whereabouts on the day of Barb's murder, police zeroed in on the man, at least one officer, privately described as more of a, quote, goof than a danger to society.

[155] But, like all the other leads police had uncovered in the case, the Thomas Bow's lead would dry up nine months after Barb's murder in the end of January 1983 when Thomas passed a lie detector test.

[156] And meanwhile, other leads involving other robbery suspects would also hit a dead end.

[157] But by the fall of 1982, three months, months before Thomas Bowes was crossed off the suspect list, residents of Managua were all talking about a different crime that had just been reported in their local newspapers.

[158] And like Barb's death, this crime also involved a member of the Assemblies of God Church on Township Road, the same church that Bob and Barb had helped found three years earlier.

[159] In October 1982, six months after Barb's murder, the church was rocked by an allegation that one of its members had been sexually assaulting a 14 -year -old girl.

[160] The charge resulted in the perpetrator being sentenced to four years of probation, but the scandal also had the effect of breathing new life into the stalled investigation into Barb's murder.

[161] Law enforcement had no evidence that linked the two crimes, but officers decided to take another run at interviewing church members about what might have been going on in the church at or around the time that Barb was killed.

[162] They also re -interviewed Bob.

[163] Barb's husband had raised eyebrows when he'd started dating a new girlfriend earlier that fall, but when police re -interviewed him in October, nothing about his alibi or about the statements his daughters had made to police six months earlier had changed at all.

[164] And by the spring of 1984, two years after Barb had been murdered, the investigation into her death once more stuttered to a halt, and the key players in the drama were all starting to move on with their lives.

[165] On March 10th of 1984, Bob had remarried and his new wife had moved into the Mendez house, where she would do her best to fill the terrible hole that Barb's death two years earlier had left in the lives of Barb and Bob's daughters, Dawn and Christy.

[166] Meanwhile, the sex abuse scandal at the Assemblies of God Church would fade from the headline, the $5 ,500 reward for information leading to a conviction in the murder case of Barb Mendez would go unclaimed, and contributions to an educational fund for Don and Christie would slow to a trickle.

[167] The only other progress in the investigation would be DNA tests that cleared rather than convicted one remaining suspect in the rash of robberies that had occurred near the time of Barb's death, along with a visit to the police from a Manacua resident who dropped off a particular tool.

[168] that they thought might match the type of weapon that had been used to beat Barbara Mendes to death.

[169] So this tool that was dropped off was an example of what the murder weapon could have been, not the actual murder weapon.

[170] Investigators established the Minauqua residence alibi.

[171] They took a picture of the tool, made a note, and filed the information away inside a case file that now included thousands of pages.

[172] And if it hadn't been for the sheer persistence and determination of Barbara's own daughters, that huge case file might never have been opened again.

[173] Because, in the course of getting on with their own adult lives, both Christy and Don had joined forces and become determined not to rest until they had discovered who had killed their mother.

[174] Starting back in 2002, 20 years after Barbara was murdered, Dawn, now 33 years old, and Christy, now 31 years old, began a relentless campaign aimed at getting police to reopen the investigation into their mother's death.

[175] That included writing a letter in 2016 to the producers of the true crime television show titled Cold Justice, asking them to take a look into the unsolved murder of their mother.

[176] And in February of 2017, the two women finally got the response they had been pleading for.

[177] 35 years after Barb's murder, and almost a year, after dropping that letter off in the mail, the cold justice team of investigators accepted the challenge.

[178] And one year after that, police, with the help of the investigators from cold justice, finally closed in on a murderer who had eluded them for more than three decades.

[179] When the arrest came on February 6, 2018, nearly 36 years after Dawn and Christy first learned that their mother was dead, it was the result of an intense two -week -long partnership between cold justice and the Oneida County Sheriff's Office.

[180] During those two weeks, the team of investigators reviewed the entire case file on the murder of Barbara Mendez from beginning to end.

[181] And after hiring a forensic weapons expert to help identify what instrument was used to kill Barb and talking again with three key witnesses, as well as Barb's old church friend Sherry Anderson, wife of church pastor Wendell Anderson, police uncovered the truth about one of the most infamous.

[182] murders that has ever occurred in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.

[183] Based on that investigation, here is a reconstruction of what happened to Barbara Mendez on April 28, 1982.

[184] By the time 33 -year -old Barbara Mendez had closed and locked the door of the Park City Credit Union on that Wednesday evening in late April, she was physically and emotionally exhausted.

[185] She'd been thinking over the events of the last several days and about the concerns she had shared with her friend Sherry when they talked by phone just the night before.

[186] But Barbara had not told Sherry everything.

[187] And even now, knowing what Barb did, Barb wasn't sure that Sherry or anyone else at the church would really be able to understand the decision that Barb felt like she had to make.

[188] Walking back to her desk, Barb sat down and started making her first entries into that day's bank transaction record.

[189] The quicker she could get this done, the sooner she would be home with her two daughters, and the sooner they would all be at the 7 p .m. church service, where Barb could talk again to her friend Sherry.

[190] Ten minutes later, the sudden and unexpected knock on the front door of the bank made Barb jump.

[191] Her first thought was that it might be a bank robber, and Barb felt her heart start to hammer in her chest.

[192] But as soon as Barb heard the voice that was calling to her from outside the bank, she stopped reaching for the phone to call police.

[193] This was a voice that Barb recognized, and this was a conversation that Barb knew she could no longer avoid having.

[194] Taking a deep breath, Barb pushed her chair back, stood up, and began walking towards the door.

[195] For Barb's killer, as well as for Barb, this was a moment of decision.

[196] And standing now in the shadow of the entryway to the credit union, the killer listened first to the silence inside, and then to the sound of footsteps, and then to the key turning in the lock.

[197] A moment later, and the killer was inside.

[198] The killer reached out a hand, but Barb moved away.

[199] Turning, she walked back over to her desk.

[200] She had read the Bible, she knew what the scriptures had to say about the kind of relationship she had observed, and the kind of person who got involved in that sort of relationship.

[201] Their conversation did not last long.

[202] The killer had denied everything, but Barb had spent weeks watching and listening, and Barb could no longer stand by and let this relationship go on.

[203] The killer stood in front of her and bowed, their head.

[204] Barb reached down and picked up the bills she had collected out of the cash drawers.

[205] Signalling that the visit was now over, Barb turned her back and took three steps in the direction of the open safe.

[206] All she wanted now was to end this encounter, to finish her work, and to get home to her kids.

[207] But the killer could not let that happen.

[208] As soon as Barb had turned toward the safe, the killer reached into their coat pocket to pull out the metal pry bar they had hidden there.

[209] The flat end of the tool fit comfortably in their hand.

[210] At the other end of the shaft, the claw tip bent at an angle, giving the tool the same overall shape as a short -flat crowbar with flat, sharp, beveled ends.

[211] Quietly, the killer took a single long step toward Barb's back.

[212] Once they were just within striking distance, the killer raised the pry bar high over their left shoulder and then brought it down with terrible force against the back left side of Barb's skull.

[213] Once Barb had collapsed to the floor, the killer stepped over to her body.

[214] Grabbing her right arm, the killer rolled Barb onto her side so her left arm was stretched underneath her chest.

[215] Tightening their grip on the pry bar, the killer bent down and began beating Barb's head and the left side of her face, dragging the curved end of the bar again and again through her hair and skin, making ragged cuts and scratches across her cheek and tearing away part of her left ear.

[216] The autopsy that would be performed on Barb's body the next day, Thursday, April 29th, would catalog a total of at least 17 blows to Barbara's head, all resulting in extensive skull fractures.

[217] The total absence of any defensive wounds suggested that the attack took Barb completely by surprise, and the first blow was so disabling that Barb never even had a chance to fight back or protect herself in any way.

[218] Now, looking down at Barb's body, the killer rested their palms against their knees.

[219] The pry bar in the fingers of one hand glistened red in the single overhead light.

[220] Waiting to catch their breath, the killer watched as the pool of blood under Barb's head widened across the carpet.

[221] And then, standing up, the killer set about making the murder look like the scene of a robbery gone wrong.

[222] In a few fast movements, the killer had grabbed a deposit bag from Barbara's desk that contained about $2 ,700 in that day's transactions, leaving Barbara's cash drawer behind the service counter open and empty.

[223] Pausing just long enough to make sure they were not leaving anything behind that could reveal their identity, the killer walked to the front entrance with the pry bar and bag of cash, and then making sure not to leave any fingerprints, the killer slipped out of the Park City Credit Union.

[224] Glancing at their watch, the killer was surprised to find that the entire encounter with Barb, ending with her death, had taken fewer than 10 minutes.

[225] Still, it was the critical window of time, part of maybe 30 minutes that police would come up with as the time the murder was committed, and the killer knew they had to find a way to place themselves during this half -hour period far away from the credit union.

[226] But the killer wasn't worried.

[227] After all, teenagers did not really pay very close attention to what time it was, and the killer knew it would be easy to manipulate and coach the people closest to him into providing him with the perfect alibi.

[228] A few minutes later, just after 5 .30 p .m., Bob Mendez, Barbara's husband, and Killer, arrived back at the family home on Hill Northdale Road.

[229] The bloody pry bar that he had just used 15 minutes earlier to murder his wife was securely locked in the toolbox on the back of his Honda CX -5 ,000 motorcycle.

[230] And by the morning of May 1st, three days after Barb's death, the most important pieces of Bob's plan to cover up for his crime fell neatly into place.

[231] When investigators brought Bob and his two daughters down to the police station that morning to give their formal statements about where they were and what they were doing on the evening that Barbara was murdered, the only times that the two devastated teenagers could seem to remember about exactly where their father was between 4 .55 and 6 .45 on the night of their mother's murder were the times that their father had told them.

[232] Yes, Don and Christy told investigators, their father had been home before 5 p .m. Yes, he had stayed at the house until close to 6 p .m. when he had left on his motorcycle to drive to church.

[233] And Bob still had one more important witness that he could also count on for helping him create a watertight alibi.

[234] And that person was his daughter Dawn's best friend, 14 -year -old Jody, the teenager that Bob had been sexually abusing for almost an entire year, the teenager that Bob had promised to marry as soon as he could end his marriage to Barb.

[235] It would turn out that Robin Bob Mendez was not at all the good Christian and the fine husband and devoted father he pretended to be.

[236] And by February of 1982, when his wife, Barb Mendes sat down to write a Valentine's Day letter to her two daughters, Barb had already begun to put together the true picture of who her husband was.

[237] Not only did Barb know that her marriage was in trouble, she had also begun to suspect that her husband was involved in an inappropriate relationship with a girl who was just barely 14 years old.

[238] And not only was this girl close friends with their own daughters, Jody was also the daughter of Bob's own best friend, as well as a member of Bob's youth group at the Assemblies of God Church on Township Road.

[239] By the spring of 1982, rumors and whispers had begun to swirl inside the church about the amount of time and attention that Bob was lavishing on Jody.

[240] And members also noticed that Bob and Barb Mendez no longer sat together at church services.

[241] And on one occasion, they had arrived in separate cars at a Bible study meeting at a member's home, with Barb looking and acting so visibly upset that everyone in the group had felt extremely uncomfortable and embarrassed.

[242] By late April, Barb had begun to confide to her friend Sherry that she was worried about the relationship between Bob and Jody, and that Barb had decided she needed to confront her husband.

[243] If he did not stop all contact with Jody and start working on his marriage, Barb had decided she was going to take her daughters and leave Bob and go stay with her own parents who now lived out in Colorado.

[244] But Barb never had the chance to put that plan into effect and to help rescue a vulnerable teenage girl from an abusive relationship with Barb's husband.

[245] Instead, on April 28th, Bob, the only person, aside from the bank manager, who knew Barb would be closing the credit union alone that evening, showed up after finishing his work at Lakeland upholstery at the Park City Credit Union.

[246] Armed with the pry bar he used almost every day and carried with him in his toolbox, Bob knocked on the locked door of the bank and called out to Barb, telling her that he needed and wanted to talk.

[247] And just a few minutes after opening the door to Bob, Barb had been beaten to death by her husband of 14 years.

[248] After Barb's murder, Jody, who had also been coached and manipulated by Bob, joined with his daughters in giving him a fake alibi.

[249] It wouldn't be until six months later when police investigated allegations that Bob was sexually abusing Jody, that Jody broke down and told police that she had been lying when she said that she had talked to Bob on the Mendez House phone at about 5 p .m. on the night that Barb was killed.

[250] But laws and public perception regarding sexual abuse were a lot different in 1982 than they are today, and police were skeptical about Jody's corrected testimony.

[251] And even though Bob pled no contest to the charges and was convicted of sexual assault on a minor, he was only sentenced to three years of probation.

[252] Meanwhile, 14 -year -old Jody was savaged in the the press, and by her own father, for being a temptress and a slut and an adulterer.

[253] But even though Bob's now public relationship with Jody gave him a motive for wanting his wife Barb dead, he still had the perfect alibi, the one provided by his deeply traumatized daughters, Christy and Dawn.

[254] It wasn't until 2002 when the daughters were in their early 30s and started looking back over their childhood, and in particular their father's behavior after their mother was murdered, that they began to realize how obviously and completely they had been coached, manipulated, brainwashed, and used by their own father.

[255] The man who never even purchased a headstone for his dead wife, and who never once took his kids to see her grave.

[256] The man who had been seen by two different witnesses leaving the credit union on his motorcycle during the window of time in which the murder was committed, the man who suddenly had enough cash right after that murder to buy himself an expensive new motorcycle and who painted his motorcycle helmet a different color, the man who failed a lie detector test five weeks after the murder of his wife, the man who not only sexually assaulted their own good friend Jody, but who would later go to prison for eight years for sexually abusing a five -year -old girl, and the man whose own brother would go to the Oneida County Sheriff's Department in 2002 and suggest that the murder weapon they were looking for might be a pry bar, one of the tools that his brother, Bob Mendez, used so often at work that Bob took it with him everywhere in his portable toolkit.

[257] But it wouldn't be until 2017 when investigators from the TV series Cold Justice teamed up with the Oneida County Sheriff's Department that law enforcement was finally able to break Bob Mendez's perfect alibi.

[258] Not only did they now have the testimony of Bob's own daughters that the alibi was fabricated, they were also able to track down and interview Jody, the survivor of Bob's sexual abuse.

[259] Now, a successful adult in a happy marriage, Jody had gone on to work in law enforcement and to be a voice for other victims of crime and abuse.

[260] And this time, investigators believed her testimony that she had not spoken to Bob at his home during the critical window of time when police believed Barb had been murdered.

[261] On February 6, 2018, Robin Bob Mendez was arrested in the police.

[262] parking lot of a Manacqua Walmart store and charged with the first -degree murder of his wife, Barbara Mendez.

[263] On July 23rd, 2019, Bob Mendez was sentenced to life in prison.

[264] Because he was sentenced under guidelines in force at the time of the crime, 1982, he will be eligible for parole in 2039 at the age of 91.

[265] Included in the documents that Don and Christie had sent to the producers of Cold Justice, when they asked the show's investigators to take on the unsolved murder of their mother, was the Valentine's Day letter that Barbara had written to her daughters 35 years earlier.

[266] Barb's friends and family now believe that by mid -February, 1982, six weeks before Barb was bludgeoned to death by her husband, Barb had begun to suspect Bob of sexual abuse and that Barb herself may have felt that dark events were about to unfold in their lives.

[267] This is the Valentine's Day message that Barb wrote to 11 -year -old Christy and 13 -year -old Dawn with all of that in mind.

[268] My daughters.

[269] Sometimes mothers don't always take the time to tell their daughters just how much they are loved and appreciated.

[270] Our lives can go by so fast and we will have missed so much together.

[271] So on this Valentine's Day, I want to tell you how much I love you.

[272] You are so special to me as daughters.

[273] Have a nice Valentine's Day and every day.

[274] I love you, your mother.

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

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[286] So that's going to do it.

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[292] And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondry .com slash survey.

[293] I'm Dan Tversky.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[301] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[302] Well, you were holding something back.

[303] Intentionally.

[304] Yeah, yeah.

[305] Well, yeah.

[306] Yeah, well, yeah.

[307] It's not physical.

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

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

[310] Or is it something else entirely?

[311] Something's wrong here.

[312] Something's not right.

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

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

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

[316] You can binge all episodes of Histerical early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[317] Thank you.