52: Millions of Dollars, Escorts, Drugs & Murder: The Insane Tardio-Monson Case

In 2002, the bodies of Michael Tardio and his friend were discovered inside a burning Mercedes SUV in Studio City, California, both men shot multiple times in the chest. Investigators initially wondered if his killing was connected to organized crime, but as they started digging into his secret life, they found themselves pulled into a world of Hollywood celebrities, Playboy, wealthy businessmen, and dangerous connections. . If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.⭐SponsorsHers WL: Visit http://forhers.com/10tolife to get a personalized, affordable care that gets you..👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources 48 Hours | CBS News | City Clerk of Los Angeles | Daily Mail | Find a Grave | Haldane Amazing News | Hollywood Interrupted | Los Angeles Times | Mob Museum | People | Rolling Stone | Sportskeeda | The Cinemaholic | Wikipedia | Yahoo News••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

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• 1:17Speaker 04

  Firefighters and cops descend on this normally sleepy neighborhood.

• 1:24Speaker 04

  And where the firefighters extinguished the blades and they got a closer look, what they saw shocked them.

• 1:32Speaker 04

  Two young men, their bodies riddled with bullets.

• 1:39Speaker 05

  The killer or killers tried to burn the vehicle.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  It's not the kind of place that normally that you're going to find two people murder on the street.

• 1:51Annie Elise?

  It was Labor Day weekend 2002, and for first responders, that usually means a pretty busy night. More people are off work. People are drinking. They're partying. They're at the beach. They're on boats. You know, like I said, they're just raging. They're drinking a lot. So emergency calls tend to spike. So when police officers and firefighters in North Hollywood were dispatched around 1:40 a.m. on September 2, it seemed like just another routine call. They went out to the 11600 block of Woodbridge Avenue, trying to see what was going on and why this call came in. And when they arrived, they found what appeared to be a Mercedes car completely engulfed in flames.

• 2:35Annie Elise?

  So firefighters immediately got to work, hoping that they were dealing with nothing more than a vehicle fire and not some sort of tragic accident where somebody was inside. But as the flames were finally extinguished, they made a discovery that nobody was expecting. Because the truth was, there were two bodies inside that car. And by the time the fire was out and these victims were found, there was nothing that these first responders could do. And it became very clear, very quickly, that this fire, this crazy car fire, is not what ultimately took their lives. And what nobody was expecting in this case is just how quickly it would spiral and how much was about to be exposed

• 3:19Annie Elise?

  with so many twists and so many turns along the way. Hey, guys, I'm Annie Elise. This is 10 to Life. Let's jump right in.

• 3:40Annie Elise?

  The two victims inside the car were later identified as 35-year-old Michael Tardio and 31-year-old Christopher Monson. The two of them had been shot to death. Now, this scene was shocking for several reasons. The first was where it happened. Because like I mentioned earlier, this was in North Hollywood. It was a very quiet, upscale neighborhood. It certainly was not an area where you would expect investigators to find a crime scene like this one. And on top of that, neither Michael nor Christopher lived in this area. So now, to find two men who had been executed via gunshots, their remains then burned and just left there in the car for someone to eventually discover, it was a lot of information for these investigators to unpack.

• 4:25Annie Elise?

  And then came the murder itself. I mean, these gunshot wounds determined that each man had been shot from behind at close range, meaning full-on execution style. Michael's autopsy report would later show that the fatal shot for him entered behind his right ear. And it was done at such a close range that it produced, quote, "a tattooing of gunpowder." The exact estimate from the gun muzzle to skin was around 12 to 24 inches. Would you think about that? For my video viewers, this tablet right here in front of me is 12 inches. If I hold this up right now and put it right next to my head and imagine a weapon on the other side of it, that is in extremely close range. Now, the position of their bodies

• 5:09Annie Elise?

  inside this Mercedes was also something that the investigators were paying very close attention to, which I'm going to try to do my absolute best to describe it in a way that makes sense for my audio-only listeners. But if you're watching on YouTube, I also am going to put up a mock-up on the screen just so that you can get a better idea of how they were found. And as always, my podcast listeners, you can hop on over to YouTube after the episode if you want to see that visual as well. So both men were found in the front passenger seat of the vehicle. However, they weren't just sitting side by side. So try to imagine this. The seat itself was reclined. Christopher was sitting up straight, or about as straight as a deceased body can be. I'm sure it was leaned over to some degree, but you get what I mean.

• 5:54Annie Elise?

  And for the most part, Christopher was sitting in the seat pretty normal. Michael, however, could not have been lying more abnormally. He was lying face down with his legs up in the air, almost draped over Christopher. He was slumped over Christopher's left knee with his face and head pointing down toward the bottom of the passenger door. His legs were also in almost a V formation around Christopher's upper body. One leg was over to the right side of Christopher, while the other was on the left side, curving a little bit behind the driver's side seat. So, long story short, Michael was essentially upside down on top of Christopher. And again, that may not be the exact best description I can give,

• 6:39Annie Elise?

  but hopefully, the photo on screen gives you a little bit of a better idea. Now, what's interesting about their actual causes of death, which were, like I said, gunshot wounds, is that nobody in the neighborhood actually reported hearing gunshots. Not prior to them being found and not after the fact when investigators were interviewing people who lived nearby to see if they could gather any potential witnesses. And each man had more than one gunshot wound. So that is multiple different times and different opportunities that these neighbors nearby would have had the opportunity to at least hear one of them. Yet, they didn't. Inside the vehicle, the investigators weren't able to pull any helpful evidence, unfortunately. No unknown fingerprints, nothing ultra alarming.

• 7:23Annie Elise?

  I mean, just nothing. Just based on their experience and knowledge with so many different types of crimes, the investigators couldn't help but wonder if they were looking at something that was maybe drug-related or even gang-related. Now, the fact that Michael and Christopher had been executed at such close range, likely somewhere else, since nobody heard it, then driven to that location, then the vehicle being lit on fire to get rid of any evidence, and the fact that there was really no evidence at all left behind, I mean, it definitely did seem like this perpetrator or perpetrators had done some sketchy stuff like this in the past and were well-trained and knew how to operate. But at that point, it was just an initial hunch for them. There was no concrete evidence of that,

• 8:08Annie Elise?

  nothing proving that that was what happened. This was far from an open-and-shut case. And honestly, things only became more complicated once investigators started digging into the backgrounds of both of these men. Because instead of getting answers, they uncovered even more questions. For this to potentially be a drug deal gone wrong or even gang-related, Michael and Christopher really didn't fit the stereotype that you would imagine. And that was throwing the investigators off a little bit. They were like, okay, well, then why them? Like, who are these guys? As we know, a lot of people in the Los Angeles area have a backstory. People come from all over the world with big, huge dreams and aspirations, and they come to LA to try and make it. And these two men, they were no different.

• 8:52Annie Elise?

  Michael was an aspiring model from New York, just trying to find his way. He and his wife, Kelsey, had moved to the LA area in 1998 with the purpose of Michael booking some gigs here and there and then hopefully finding a space in the modeling world. Which, on top of being a husband, he was also a father. Michael and Kelsey had two young kids, a five-year-old and a three-year-old. Now, Christopher was a good friend of Michael's. He and his father had opened up a self-storage business that was doing pretty well. But despite how successful it was, it wasn't really Christopher's dream or passion. See, he wanted to become an actor. Both men also really enjoyed motorcycles. They had a lot in common. As I said, they were good friends.

• 9:35Annie Elise?

  And despite Christopher's bachelor-type lifestyle while Michael was married and a father, their friendship really flourished because they had so much in common. Now, the notable thing about both of these men is they seemed like they were pretty straight and narrow. I mean, on the outside looking in, they looked like they were just very even-keeled, cut from the same cloth, like, again, on the right path. Nothing alarming. They stayed out of trouble. They didn't have any sort of criminal background. They were kind of just like, you know, run-of-the-mill, basic men.

• 10:10Annie Elise?

  But that's the reality of a place like Hollywood. You can be a genuinely good person, but you can still end up getting mixed up with the wrong people. Now, Michael's modeling career definitely hadn't taken off yet. It was only something that he did part-time and he was hoping to grow. And that's how he found himself with a second job as a doorman at a club in Hollywood called The Garden of Eden. At the time, this club was very well-known by the rich and the famous. It's where all your favorite singers, actors, models would all go. They'd all party all night long until the sun comes up and it would just be a Hollywood rager. It was a prestigious club, too. No regular person was at Garden of Eden. I mean, not without the name or the money to get you in.

• 10:53Annie Elise?

  Every night was a new group of Hollywood's biggest stars and a slew of paparazzi outside, trying to just be the first ones to break news about the newest celebrity couple seen together, or couples sneaking around and cheating when they shouldn't be, or someone getting the infamous underwear shots. I mean, you name it. Which overall, it might sound like a lot of fun and, you know, glitz and glam and all of those things. But it was also a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of money. Sometimes, dirty money. One of the club's frequent visitors was a woman by the name of Sandy Bentley. Now, all these years later, the name Sandy Bentley may not mean much to the average person, but it really sure did back in the late 90s and early 2000s.

• 11:38Annie Elise?

  And that's because Sandy and her twin sister Mandy were former Playboy cover models. They were also the girlfriends of Hugh Hefner. And everyone, both women and men alike, they knew their names during this era.

• 11:50Speaker 07

  Since its first issue with Marilyn Monroe, many of the world's most beautiful women have been featured on the pages of Playboy magazine, including the latest cover girls right here, Sandy and Mandy Bentley. Please welcome the Bentley twins and their boyfriend, the founder of Playboy magazine, Mr. Hugh Hefner.

• 12:17Annie Elise?

  They had gone from their quiet, sheltered lives in Illinois to being the girl that every guy wanted and every girl wanted to be. In 1999 and 2000, Hugh was also seen at every big Hollywood event with each twin on one of his arms. That was, of course, until there was a falling out and the relationship fizzled out. But even after the relationship with Hugh ended, the girls were still well-known. So The Garden of Eden was exactly the type of place where Sandy and Mandy would be seen at, even after their time with Hugh Hefner. Then, sometime in 2002, Sandy met Michael at the club and a relationship sparked between the two of them. However, they had to keep things pretty low-profile because, as you know, Michael had been married.

• 13:03Annie Elise?

  He was going through a separation at the time, but he was technically still married. And I'm not sure if Michael was still married when they first met, but either way, in the very beginning stages of their relationship, everything was pretty secretive. And when some of his friends found out, they were kind of surprised because they were living totally different lifestyles and seemed like a very odd match. Michael's reputation was that he was a really nice, quiet, down-to-earth guy. He kept things pretty laid back. While Sandy, on the other hand, she had her own reputation. I mean, when you're known for being Hugh Hefner's girlfriend and a Playboy model, it's easy for a certain type of reputation to follow you, right? The biggest reputation, though, was that she was a gold digger,

• 13:48Annie Elise?

  which is such a kind of misogynistic, antiquated term, I'll be honest with you. But a lot of sources that cover this case, they really did love to harp on this detail. And I will get into more of that a little bit later. The moral of the story is Sandy surrounded herself with men. Not only men with money, but also men with power. And Michael, he was doing just fine for himself. I mean, he wasn't where he wanted to be with his modeling career, but overall, he had a shit together. Even so, he was still the doorman at a club, which there's absolutely no problem with that. And doormen actually make pretty lucrative careers. And if you're an aspiring actor in that time or aspiring model, he may have been going to that club and working at that club with the hopes of being discovered

• 14:32Annie Elise?

  by one of the power players coming in. I mean, he was practically the face of the club, being the one who worked the door. And with famous clientele, he was probably, I would imagine, strategically trying to use it to level up his Hollywood network. So now, fast forward to Michael's death. And even though their relationship was still pretty fresh at the time that Michael died, a lot of people felt like it was the real deal, that they really cared about each other. Maybe even Sandy being more into the relationship than Michael was. So when investigators learned that Michael and Sandy had been secretly dating, it definitely caught their attention. But not because she was a Playboy model or any of that stuff. I mentioned earlier that at first, investigators wondered if this was some sort of gang-related

• 15:16Annie Elise?

  or drug-related killing. And even though it seemed like a huge stretch, Michael dating Sandy? It made it seem like maybe it wasn't that big of a stretch after all. And here's why. You know how some people will joke around and say that a certain person is always at the scene of a crime? And they mean it kind of figuratively, but not literally? Well, that's kind of how Sandy was. She wasn't literally at the scene of any crimes, but boy, oh, boy, was she always close by. Sandy's relationships with Hugh and Michael are pretty well-known, largely because of Hugh's fame and fortune and because of Michael's murder case and the fact that his murder case is still being talked about all these years later.

• 15:58Annie Elise?

  But what a lot of people don't realize is that there were other men in Sandy's life, too. And let's just say, they weren't exactly known for staying out of trouble. Before Sandy and her sister Mandy got their big break with Playboy, they were just two girls from Illinois trying to find a way into the spotlight however they could. However, Los Angeles wasn't actually the first stop on Sandy's journey to fame. In 1996, she moved from Illinois to Las Vegas. She didn't have much of a plan. She just figured, you know, what better place to get noticed than Sin City? So, her first job there was at a very famous gentleman's club called The Crazy Horse. And you probably have heard of The Crazy Horse.

• 16:43Annie Elise?

  It's relatively iconic. A lot of notorious people have worked there, Jenna Jameson. There's somebody else, I want to say Pam Anderson, but I don't think that's right. But you might be thinking, okay, it's just another gentleman's club in Las Vegas if you haven't heard of it. There must be countless of places like that. But The Crazy Horse definitely was not just another club. It had a reputation. And part of the reputation was not only some of the most beautiful women there and it being the most iconic strip joint in all of Vegas, but it was also a very well-known hangout spot for members of the mob.

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• 18:06Annie Elise?

  One of the club's most prominent regulars was a man by the name of Fat Herbie, better known as Herbert Blitstein, a made man in the mob and the lieutenant for Chicago's outfit boss, Tony the Ant Spilotro. Now, that name might sound familiar to some of you, but if it doesn't, I'm going to give you just like a really quick 20-second biography so that you can understand the kind of power that Fat Herbie had, being Tony's right-hand man. And think of it kind of like The Sopranos, if you're familiar with that. Tony wasn't some behind-the-scenes, shadowy figure like you'd expect a mob boss to be. He was animated, he loved the limelight, and he played a pretty prominent role getting Vegas on the map throughout the 1970s.

• 18:50Annie Elise?

  In fact, the movie Casino and the character Nikki, it's based on his life story. So during his time in Vegas, Tony eventually recruited Fat Herbie to leave Chicago and to move to Vegas. It didn't take long for Fat Herbie to start getting noticed out there either. I mean, after all, he was 300 pounds and he only wore custom designer clothing. But either way, Fat Herbie was not a great guy. He had done countless years in prison for racketeering, illegal gambling, multiple jewelry heists with his fellow members of this infamous hole-in-the-wall gang. But every time that he would get released, he would get right back into business. He'd go right back to The Crazy Horse. And that brings us back to Sandy.

• 19:32Annie Elise?

  The first time he laid eyes on Sandy at the club, he was hooked. And the two of them immediately ended up dating. He supported her dreams of making a name for herself, even paying for a breast augmentation to help boost her career, even if she wasn't exactly sure what she was going to do after the club. But he just wanted to help catapult her to fame. Now, I don't know how much Sandy knew of his extracurricular activities, but I'd be willing to bet that she had a pretty good idea of the things that he was doing during their short-lived relationship. Eventually, Sandy started making enough money to get out of Vegas. And when her sister Mandy visited, they both decided they were going to pack their bags, move to LA, and that's how they ended up in the Playboy mansion with Hugh Hefner.

• 20:18Annie Elise?

  Which, interestingly enough, though, it all circles back to Garden of Eden, the nightclub. Because just like when Sandy first moved to Vegas, she and Mandy arrived in LA without much of a plan. The difference this time was that they were determined to make it work. So they somehow managed to get into The Garden of Eden, knowing that it was the kind of place where aspiring models, actors, and people hoping to have their big break in the entertainment industry would go there hoping to be seen. If they wanted to get noticed by the right people, that's exactly where they needed to be. And that's exactly where Hugh Hefner met them for the first time. Which, that chance encounter, it ended up changing the course of both of their lives, eventually leading to Playboy covers, living at the mansion,

• 21:03Annie Elise?

  and just having this stardom that so many women dreamt of having during that era.

• 21:10Annie Elise?

  Their rise to fame, it was fast and it was furious, but it was everything that they ever wanted to. Mandy seemed incredibly satisfied with this new life that they were living. But Sandy, Sandy started to have bigger ambitions. Even though Sandy pretty much had everything that she wanted during her relationship with Hugh, she wasn't exactly convinced that this was it for her. So her eyes began to wander and they eventually landed on a new prospect. And his name was Mark Yagala. Now, while Sandy was living at the Playboy Mansion, she started dating Mark. Which, being one of Hugh's girlfriends, it came with a lot of perks. I mean, there was publicity, fame, and opportunities that most people could only dream about.

• 21:55Annie Elise?

  But it also came with a very strict set of rules. Hugh could have as many girlfriends as he wanted, but each of those women, they were expected to be completely loyal to him. And if they weren't, there were no second chances. If you broke the rules, your bags would be packed and they would be waiting for you by the time you got back to the mansion. So Sandy knew exactly how things worked, but when she met Mark, she didn't care about these rules anymore. She wanted to date him. She was infatuated with him. I mean, call it being in love, call it wearing rose-colored glasses, or call it whatever the hell you want. But Sandy didn't seem to care about what this new relationship could do to her career. Because there were things about Mark that, for her, it just made her willing to risk it all.

• 22:40Annie Elise?

  Now, for one, Mark had money, and he had a lot of it. Money that he used to build an entire fortune at an incredibly young age. Get this, when he was just 13 years old, he spent hours at the local library, reading the Wall Street Journal, and teaching himself everything that he could possibly be taught about the stock market. So while he was still in high school, he made his first $100,000 trading stocks. By the time he was 19 years old, he had made his first million dollars. And from there, his wealth just continued to grow. Now, Mark has described himself as kind of like a nerd, growing up. According to him, he didn't have many friends, he especially didn't have much luck with women.

• 23:25Annie Elise?

  But after becoming wealthy, he realized that money, that will open a lot of doors. As he saw it, with enough money, you could buy your way into almost any social circle you wanted. And with money, you could also pay for female companionship. So for years, that's how most of Mark's interactions with women happened. Eventually, though, he met a woman named Michelle Braun. And Michelle had made quite a name for herself in Hollywood, but probably not for the reasons that you would expect. To those with money who yearned for a woman in their bed, Michelle was known as the Sex Queen of LA. Not because she herself was having sex with these wealthy men, but because she was the one arranging it.

• 24:09Annie Elise?

  She was a madam, as she called herself. Think Heidi Fleiss, think whomever is a good example. I don't even know who like a new age madam would be, because they all do everything on social media, pretty much. But she would curate the women, she would get paid, and the women would go out and give these men companionship. So Michelle created this inner circle of women who were willing to do sex work with high-paying clients. Now, what made her different from other escort and sex work services was that the girls that she hooked these guys up with weren't nobodies. They were people in Hollywood who were highly sought after. They were playmates, porn stars, actresses. They were beautiful, and they were already wanted by countless men.

• 24:53Annie Elise?

  And for the right price, they could be bought. So Michelle understood the fantasy that Playboy had created. During its peak, countless men looked at those magazines and they saw Hugh Hefner as this type of god. Someone who had the lifestyle they wanted, a mansion, wealth, fame, a revolving door of much younger, beautiful women by his side. She also knew, through her Hollywood connections, that Hugh was reportedly giving the women who were living at the Playboy Mansion an allowance of about $1,000 a week. Which, don't get me wrong, that is more than some people make in a month. And back then, 26 years ago, certainly worth a lot of money then, too. But for the money that was coming into Playboy at the time,

• 25:37Annie Elise?

  you would expect that that number would be quite a bit higher. So that's when she decided to put together this business model. She would give these wealthy men a night with the most beautiful women in the world to do whatever they wanted, but in exchange, they would have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars. Anything for the companionship that they wanted. Depending on the buyer and the woman that they wanted to be with, one night with one of her girls could cost you anywhere from 5,000 to 50 grand a night. Now, Michelle claimed that she never actually discussed the sexual relationships that these girls and the buyers would be having. Not wanting to make herself, you know, sound too much like a pimp. She claimed that she merely was the one doing the introductions,

• 26:21Annie Elise?

  and that whatever happened after that was none of her business. Except, it definitely was, because she was running an undercover business. So Mark was one of Michelle's earliest and most loyal clients. He was no longer a stranger to sneaking around with former and past playmates, and he was ready to get down to business. Now, exactly how Mark met Sandy, that is a little bit muddy. Some say that the two of them were introduced to each other at a Cher concert, and that they clicked pretty much immediately. Others say that Sandy was one of Michelle's girls, and at one point, that's how she met Mark. So Mark would have known who she was, she would have been on his radar, and that possibly he even hired her. But regardless of how they met,

• 27:05Annie Elise?

  Sandy was different from the other girls that Mark had been paying to spend his time with. She wasn't just someone he wanted company with for the night, someone to share his bed. He fell for her, and he pretty much was in love with her from the moment that they met. Which, in hindsight, Mark has said that he doesn't think that Sandy ever loved him, despite him being head over heels. But at the time, he actually saw a future with her, and he wanted to build a life together. The only problem was that Sandy was still technically one of Hugh's girlfriends. And at the time, she was still living in the mansion. So that relationship between the two of them, it was kept a secret for a very long time. In the meantime, Mark was showering Sandy with money, gifts,

• 27:50Annie Elise?

  anything that was gonna grab her attention, expensive, shiny things, anything that would keep her around. And remember how I said that the majority of the playmates got around four grand a month in allowance from Hugh Hefner? Well, Mark, on the other hand, he was giving Sandy $100,000 a month. And that was on top of buying her anything and everything that she wanted. This was now just her personal allowance that she could use for whatever she wanted when they weren't together. And over the course of their 13-month relationship, Mark estimated that he probably spent around $6 million on gifts alone for Sandy. And not little gifts either.

• 28:33Annie Elise?

  I'm talking a watch worth 500 grand, a $1.7 million home in Las Vegas, countless luxury cars, jewelry, highly sought-after jewels. That was probably the most important part, the expensive jewelry. Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, anything that was big, shiny, and had plenty of diamonds in it. That's what Sandy wanted. She wanted to drip in jewels, head to toe. And Mark never hesitated to get it for her. Money was no object, and even though their relationship was still a secret, he didn't care. He loved Sandy, just as much as she loved his credit card.

• 29:13Annie Elise?

  Public credit card bills show that some months, the bills would get up to $700,000. And most of that would all be directed toward Sandy. Whether it was for lavish trips or material things, I mean, the point is, that 700 grand, it was mainly for Sandy, not for himself. So eventually, being in this circle within Hollywood, Hugh Hefner got wind of the secret relationship. And Sandy and Mandy's bags were packed when she returned from a weekend with Mark. I don't know how Mandy got involved in all of it, but because of what Sandy did, she had the same consequences. The only difference was that Sandy had it made now, and she moved right into the arms of Mark and the house that he bought for her in Vegas.

• 29:57Annie Elise?

  And their relationship at this point, it no longer was a secret. And Mark really believed that they would be together forever. He continued to spend more and more money on her, believing that they were gonna get married, they were gonna spend the rest of their lives together. So Mark wanted to get something really special to celebrate. So he surprised Sandy with his most lavish gift yet. A white, gold, and ruby necklace. But this necklace, it was no ordinary necklace. It was $250,000. And it was the exact replica of the necklace from Sandy's favorite movie, Pretty Woman. You know, the one, the in the jewelry box that clamps her hand. She's like giddy, the whole thing.

• 30:41Annie Elise?

  So this was by far Sandy's favorite gift. And I'm not gonna lie, pretty iconic move for Mark. I mean, not many people can pull that off. So now you probably are understanding why I said that jewelry was the most important gifts to Sandy. Because we aren't talking of little diamond studs or cubic zirconian rings or tennis bracelets. We're talking entire custom-made pieces. Heavy-duty jewels, highly sought-after jewels. Sandy had gone from making $4,000 a month to wearing a necklace that was worth five times her yearly salary. And it just happened overnight. So at this point, everything seemed perfect. Mark was excited for their future, though his friends told him in private that they didn't approve of Sandy.

• 31:26Annie Elise?

  And they thought that she was only there for the money. And sure enough, then their relationship hit a pretty big rough patch. A really rough patch. Because on November 18th, 2000, Mark was arrested. Now, what for, you may ask? Well, he was embezzling from clients. He was running a huge Ponzi scheme. And basically, his entire fortune all consisted of his clients' money, not his. So Sandy, yeah, was out there living the high life. And Mark's clients were essentially funding it. Now, I know I may have gotten to this part pretty fast. So for context, Mark's downfall, it pretty much began when he wrote a check to a brokerage firm

• 32:10Annie Elise?

  for $7 million that he owed them. Then the check bounced, and that was a huge red flag. So after that, law enforcement learned that it was one place after another that Mark owed money to. And this is where true colors really start to shine through. Because instead of sticking with Mark through all these court proceedings, Sandy bailed. She was out of there. Pretty much as soon as Mark was arrested, she broke up with him. She told the investigators working on his case that she had no idea that he was scamming so many people. And she never got into any trouble regarding Mark's cases. And look, I'm gonna draw a new age parallel just for some of you who may watch Bravo. And it's not exact. And look, I love Erica Jane, so don't come for me.

• 32:52Annie Elise?

  But if you watch The Housewives of Beverly Hills, it is a very similar story, okay? In the sense, I actually think that Erica Jane did work at The Crazy Horse, if I'm not mistaken. No, did she? No, maybe I'm making that up. I think I'm making that up. I know she was a hostess. I can't remember. Maybe, no, maybe she did, whatever. But she married her very famous attorney, you know, the Aaron Brockovich attorney. And I do believe that they were in love. And I think that she did love him. But then, as we know, he was funding her lifestyle. And he was using a lot of his clients' money to do that. And then he now went to trial for it over the last few years. She has gotten a lot of blowback from it. She's distanced herself from him. She claims she had no idea the truth of that. Who really knows?

• 33:35Annie Elise?

  But it is very similar when you look at like the skeleton of the foundation of it, right? So, you know, tale as old as time, if you will. So on Valentine's Day in 2002, Mark pleaded guilty to securities fraud violations. And he was sentenced to five years and five months in federal prison. He had essentially lost everything. The girl, the investors, the money, and now his freedom. And on top of his prison time, he was ordered to pay $32 million in restitution. Meanwhile, though, Sandy moved on, which is exactly how Michael and Christopher came into the mix of things.

• 34:15Annie Elise?

  Which you might be wondering or asking, you know, Annie, what does any of Sandy's background have to do with them? Well, how, what, how does this all tie together? Well, you know the saying, birds of a feather flock together? And even though Sandy was never in any trouble with law enforcement for any of Mark's scams, law enforcement still kept a very close eye on her. And now that Sandy's new boyfriend and his best friend had just been murdered? There were questions for Sandy. Could it really be a coincidence that Michael and Christopher had met a brutal and very sketchy death after being involved with Sandy? A woman who had surrounded herself with men in all sorts of different positions of power?

• 34:57Annie Elise?

  Who certainly were not afraid of a little bit of jail time?

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• 35:45Annie Elise?

  I know I said it earlier, but I feel like I really have to highlight the fact that neither Michael or Christopher had ever done anything criminal in their past. They were just regular guys trying to make a living, trying to achieve their dreams. Michael was nothing like the mobster or the Ponzi scheme guy. Nothing like the boyfriends that Sandy had had in the past. So could any of Sandy's exes had it out for Michael simply because he was the new guy? And he was taking the woman they loved and wanted and, you know, missed so dearly? Then making in turn Christopher just someone who was there at the wrong place, wrong time? Well, here's where those theories get difficult. Starting off with Sandy's mobster ex-boyfriend, Fat Herbie.

• 36:30Annie Elise?

  I mean, the fact that he was in the mob business alone, it could have held its own weight. However, their relationship wasn't fresh. They only dated for about a year. And that was back in 1996 and 1997. And we are in the early 2000s now. So a relationship from five years prior by the time Michael and Christopher were killed? I mean, sure, anything is possible. I've covered cases where people haven't been together for the last 10 years, yet they still have an ax to grind and they end up going on to do something to their ex or their ex's new partner. But here's the thing. Sandy and Fat Herbie's relationship didn't end because they stopped seeing eye to eye or because it fizzled out. Fat Herbie was actually killed back in 1997.

• 37:12Annie Elise?

  He was found dead at his home in Las Vegas with one bullet straight through his skull. It was ultimately chalked up to organized crime within the mob. And because he had made so many enemies over the course of the years. And that was years before Sandy ever got with Michael, before she even got with Hugh Hefner. So being dead, that's a pretty good alibi to a crime, right? So investigators ruled out that there was no possible connection there. Which, I have to say, was sort of a bummer because it definitely would have made sense. And it would have gone back to their initial theories of this being some sort of sketchy, organized crime-type situation, given the evidence that they had to work with. But that meant that it only left her other ex-boyfriend, Mark.

• 37:55Annie Elise?

  And even though Mark wasn't a mobster and he was not arrested for any violent crimes, it definitely would make sense why he would want to harm Michael, if not Sandy herself. She had left him high and dry in the dust, proving to him that his friends were right all along. She never loved him. She loved the money. She loved the jewelry. She loved the perks. But here's the issue with the theory of Mark potentially being involved. He had an ironclad alibi because he was in federal prison at the time of the murders. I mean, could he have hired someone to kill Michael and Christopher? Technically speaking, maybe, yes. But also, let's not forget that at this point, he didn't have the money to do that. Especially the kind of money that it would take to put a hit out on someone.

• 38:39Annie Elise?

  It's also worth noting that even if he didn't have any money left, I would bet that nobody would be willing to work with a guy who was very well-known to have scammed his own friends and clientele. Like, who's to say that he's gonna pay you, Mr. Hitman? It's just not a smart business move, even if the business isn't smart because it's murder. But there was still one common denominator to everything here. Sandy, the girl who was always, figuratively, at the scene of the crime. So they decided to look into Sandy and Sandy alone. Not Sandy and her sketchy ex-boyfriends, just Sandy. The investigators learned that shortly before and even after Michael's death, Sandy was going through it.

• 39:20Annie Elise?

  Not because her boyfriend had just been murdered, something that shockingly wasn't a first for her. But rather because she was sinking financially. For a short period of time after Mark's arrest, Sandy was still living the high life. She still had everything that Mark had given her, including her Las Vegas mansion. The only difference was now she was single. Or at least she was single before she got with Michael. But you get what I mean in all of this. She was doing fine. She had money, she had jewelry, she had a house. However, when the courts wanted Mark to start paying all of that $32 million in restitution? That's when it started crumbling. And I'm sure that he had a lot of different assets that were tied into a lot of different things. But a lot of his money and the money that he had scammed his clients out of,

• 40:05Annie Elise?

  it was tied to Sandy's belongings. At first, the courts just ordered Sandy to hand everything over, which that did not go over very well. As if she had some kind of option and that they were just asking her if she wanted to hand everything over. But Sandy refused. And the source described her refusal as, quote, "adamantly and with vitriol." So it wasn't just the fancy cars and jewelry. They were in the process of also kicking Sandy out of her house, the Las Vegas mansion. A judge ordered that not only did Sandy need to be physically out of the house, but that the entire contents of the house needed to stay. So basically, all the jewelry, all the furniture, all the expensive clothing, the furs, and pretty much anything and everything that Mark bought Sandy

• 40:50Annie Elise?

  or anything that she moved into the house on her own, that was now the court's property. So at this point, Sandy was backed into a corner. Unlike when Hugh Hefner kicked her out, she didn't have another millionaire boyfriend to turn to this time. She had Michael. He had been recently separated from his wife, but he had two kids and he was probably working for, I don't know, a little over minimum wage at the club. Also, her fame had already started to fizzle out. She did some minor TV show appearances here and there on Sex and the City, Two and a Half Men, but it's not like she was loaded on her own and that all these men were still dying to date her or anything like that.

• 41:33Annie Elise?

  So needless to say, going from spending almost a million dollars a month to now potentially being homeless, carless, and diamondless, that was not something that Sandy was willing to allow to become her reality. So she packed up what little things she had and she left the Las Vegas home. The investigators thought that maybe she had finally decided to cooperate and make things easier on herself. But when they went to the property and they started doing an inventory on all of the items that she was required to leave behind, something wasn't right. There were multiple different pieces of jewelry that were not in the house. Pieces like that $250,000 Pretty Woman replica necklace.

• 42:16Annie Elise?

  Also, a diamond ring that was invoiced at half a million dollars and a lot of other very expensive and valuable jewels. And in total, there seemed to be around a million dollars' worth of jewelry missing. But when the investigators went to Sandy and asked her about it, she played coy, acting like she had no idea what they were talking about. I mean, yes, she knew the jewelry they were referring to, but she said she didn't have any idea where it was. So she told them, you know, "Hey, it must have been lost or stolen," which, you know, I could see someone losing a costume cocktail ring or a Pandora bracelet, which, no offense, not to come for Pandora, I think their bracelets are great. But Sandy loved that necklace.

• 42:59Annie Elise?

  So I find it very difficult to believe that she wouldn't have known where it was. Now timeline-wise, here is where things get interesting, because Michael and Christopher, they were murdered pretty shortly after Sandy's jewelry went missing. The investigators had at one point thought that the missing jewels and the double homicide were two completely different cases. But now they were wondering if maybe somehow they were connected. Since Sandy had been less than cooperative with both the missing jewels and the double homicide cases, the investigators were gonna have to go down other avenues if they wanted to get anywhere with either one of them. So they ultimately decided to start talking to regulars at the nightclub Garden of Eden.

• 43:41Annie Elise?

  I mean, after all, it was where Sandy and Michael met, but it was also where Michael spent a good majority of his time. So people had to have some sort of information to give them. They kept a low profile, they interviewed a few people, they asked if Michael seemed off before his murder, or if there was anything out of the ordinary going on, even just rumors within the club scene. And what some of the patrons had to share was pretty interesting. Usually, Michael had been one to just stay in his own lane. He did his job, he greeted the regulars, and that was pretty much it. But recently, he had been talking to some of the patrons more and more. Half of it was rumors, but half of it was firsthand experience.

• 44:22Annie Elise?

  And apparently, Michael had been going around to some of the regulars who he knew, without a doubt, had a lot of money, I mean, we're talking multi-multi-millionaires, and it seemed like he was kind of like putting some feelers out to them. If anybody was interested in buying jewelry off-market, rare diamonds to be exact. So that, right away, caught the investigators' attention, because Sandy had "lost," quote-unquote "lost," around a million dollars' worth of diamonds. And then suddenly, her boyfriend, who was never in the business of jewels, was asking around, trying to, you know, solicit potential buyers? I mean, that's a pretty big coincidence. Apparently, though, nobody at the club seemed very interested.

• 45:06Annie Elise?

  Yeah, these people had money, but even if they had the kind of money to buy millions of dollars' worth of diamonds, they probably would buy them new, verified, not secondhand. Not to mention, Michael didn't come to them with the diamonds in hand to show them, it was more so just asking them, like, hypothetically speaking, "Would you be interested, or do you know anybody interested who would want to buy these insane jewels?" At this point, the detectives were more confident than ever that Sandy's missing jewels might just be the motive for Michael and Christopher's murders. But witness accounts from patrons at the club, who were likely intoxicated, and rumors at the club, those alone were not going to solve the case. And then, the investigators talked with a woman named Linda Kim.

• 45:50Annie Elise?

  Like a lot of other people in this story, Linda had her fair share of time spent with law enforcement and government agencies. Just a few years prior, in 2000, she had gotten into a boatload of trouble with the South Korean government. Linda was an international armed weapons broker. She was caught bribing South Korean military officers and defense officials to obtain classified information. The classified information were things like data about the Air Force's missile purchases, and also electronic warfare equipment. She was also caught having an affair with the South Korean Defense Minister at the time, that all in an effort to influence weapons acquisitions. So, she was well-known in South Korea.

• 46:32Annie Elise?

  However, she had fled to America, and in 2002, she owned a hotel in LA. Now while Linda was pretty notorious for that whole scandal, she was also known to be an avid jewelry collector. And although she was a pretty busy woman, she, in her free time, found herself very often at the VIP section at the Garden of Eden. So Michael came directly to her at the hotel that she owned, telling her that he had the deal of a lifetime for her. All these precious diamonds in exchange for 1 million in cash. And as we know, Linda was a businesswoman. She was someone who knew her way around, and she even admitted that it was a good deal

• 47:14Annie Elise?

  for how much those diamonds should have actually been worth versus the asking price. So Linda said that she actually went back and forth on the offer. She could keep them, knowing that she had gotten a killer deal for it, or, on the flip side, it would definitely make her a lot of money if she decided to ever sell them in the future, I mean, that was for sure. But she was smart, and not only business smart, but street smart as well. Ultimately, she declined because she was trying to keep a low profile after all, and she felt like this whole situation was just a little too fishy. I mean, like I said earlier, Michael was a regular guy. He wasn't one of these sketchy business owners around town who were known for doing deals like this all the time. And she knew his face from the club, and knew that he had worked there, but it still set off some alarms.

• 47:59Annie Elise?

  Which I keep highlighting the fact that he was a doorman, and I want to reiterate that that doesn't mean that he was any less of a person, or that he was looked down on, it's just that when it came to these types of affluent people, people who made names for themselves, who would be screwing anyone over in order to get what they wanted, they were way out of their league here, and Michael was way in over his head here. Linda knew that those diamonds definitely were not his diamonds, which likely meant that they were stolen. And then, if she bought them, and if everything got tracked back down to her, that meant that she would be in even more trouble, and she was already coming off of that huge scandal in South Korea. So Linda's story gave the investigators confirmation on one thing, though, with all of this.

• 48:43Annie Elise?

  Michael was trying to sell the missing items from Sandy's jewelry collection. The same collection that the courts were trying to seize. But there was still one underlying question that needed to be answered. Had Michael gone behind Sandy's back, making her believe that he was dedicated to the relationship just long enough to steal something that would then have him and his kids set for life if he sold it? Sandy had screwed over so many people, was he now screwing Sandy over?

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• 49:57Annie Elise?

  I mean, that theory was a possibility, that Michael had used Sandy for her jewelry, but to put it bluntly, the detectives just didn't know if he had it in him, which then left the biggest question. Was this a mutual effort? Was Sandy convincing her new boyfriend to pawn off her diamonds so that she could still live at least a fraction of the lifestyle that she was used to? Maybe even give him a kickback? I mean, I'm sure that there was something in it for him as well, but when the investigators tried to talk to Sandy, she was just as uncooperative as she had always been. The one thing she did say, though, was that they were not trying to sell her diamonds under the table, and that whoever they had gotten that information from, they were essentially full of shit. They were lying.

• 50:42Annie Elise?

  However, the investigators had proof that what Sandy was saying was a lie, and that she was just trying to protect herself. A private investigator had actually been the final one to put everything together. The rumors of Michael going around and asking for high-paying clients, the missing jewelry, everything. The PI ended up coming forward with photos from a surveillance camera that was up at Sandy's Las Vegas mansion. That was either known or unknown to her, I have no idea, but on that camera was none other than Sandy herself and Michael. Now, timeline-wise, this was after Sandy had been kicked out of the house and when she was ordered to hand everything over. So even though it had once been her house, she and Michael were now caught breaking into it.

• 51:26Annie Elise?

  And while, of course, they weren't just carrying, you know, half a million dollars' worth of jewelry in their hands, the detectives could take a pretty solid guess as to why they were there. So with this new piece of evidence, that Sandy was, in fact, at least involved in some way, they brought her in for questioning. And this time, they were not going to let her off the hook so easily. They presented her with the evidence they had that proved that she was likely lying, and they even told her that she was probably going to go to jail and that she wasn't going to fit in in jail because of her lifestyle. And I guess that is what ultimately made her cave, the threat of like, "Look, you're going to jail and you're not going to fit in there. People are tough there. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. You're not going to be able to wash your hair as often.

• 52:10Annie Elise?

  You're not going to have access to what you're, right, you know, you are used to having access to. It's going to be rough." And that's what eventually made her finally cave. She admitted that she and Michael had gone to her old place, taken as much jewelry as possible, and then had very specific plans for it. She claimed, keyword "claimed," that Michael had come up with the idea to sell the jewelry. That way, she had something that she could live off of, since, quite literally, everything had been taken from her after Mark's arrest. Sandy said that Michael set off to go find a buyer, but they knew that they could both get in big trouble if they ever got caught. So it wasn't like he was just going to take it to a local pawn shop or do things on the up and up.

• 52:55Annie Elise?

  He wanted to do this right. So instead, he did exactly what people thought. He used his job at the Garden of Eden to scope out wealthy clients. And according to Sandy, she claimed that Michael did eventually find a buyer named Mr. Big. And when Michael went to meet with him to do the exchange, he never came back. Now, a really interesting detail that Sandy shared was that despite the buyer being from the club and knowing Michael's job there, Michael tried to upscale his appearance during the transaction. I guess maybe to prove to the buyer that they were equals, in a sense, even though they both knew that that wasn't true. But Michael wanted to put on a show, so he rented the Mercedes car that he drove that

• 53:40Annie Elise?

  night, wanting to drive a more high-priced vehicle to give the illusion of wealth. He even tried to hire a random stunt man from Hollywood to act as his bodyguard, and I don't really mean to be his actual bodyguard, but to act it out, but again, just to give this grandiose illusion, money, status, things that come with it. Apparently, Sandy said that Michael even bought a cash counter just for this deal alone, which when the detectives heard this, they kind of shook their heads. One of the lead detectives was even quoted saying, "Like the guy you're going to sell this stuff to is just going to sit in the car while you feed money through the cash machine to count it." I think Michael just either was a victim of too much television or too much reading.

• 54:23Annie Elise?

  And then, the stunt guy ended up declining this side hustle gig, which is where then his best friend, Christopher, got involved. Unfortunately, Christopher had just been collateral damage in this entire thing. Being Michael's best friend, he was just essentially doing what friends do. He was tagging along, going along with the ride, trying to just be a friend to him. Sandy said that he knew about everything that they were going to do that night, and he didn't want Michael getting into any trouble alone. He truly thought that having someone else there would protect them from anything bad happening. And I think the fact that Michael had done all of these things in advance, it really showed that he did have some level of hesitation about the deal.

• 55:06Annie Elise?

  But there was also something else that proved, in my opinion, that he was worried about the deal going sour. Earlier that same day that he and Christopher were set to meet with Mr. Big, Michael went back to Linda Kim. He went back to her hotel and he re-approached her about buying the jewelry, and this time, she said that he acted differently. He seemed more rattled, more desperate for her to accept the deal, more so than the first time that he had stopped by. But again, Linda felt like this whole thing was off from the very start. More than that, though, she said that she sensed that this jewelry had been overwhelming him and had this overwhelming bad energy, and she just didn't want to bring that negative energy into her life. So she declined for a second time.

• 55:51Annie Elise?

  And Linda had no idea at the time that she had been so right about Michael's desperate attempt at finding a buyer, any other buyer than Mr. Big. Which that says a lot about what Mr. Big's reputation may have been, since Linda wasn't exactly known to be the most innocent person in the world either, but it seems like Michael was more intimidated and scared of him than he was this arms dealer, right? Sandy then told the detectives that Michael and Christopher headed for the deal at 9:30 PM. They had all of the jewelry cleaned, polished, super shiny, just looking flawless and gorgeous. They had their cash counter, their rented Mercedes, and they were on their way. So they first met with Mr. Big at a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, so that they could

• 56:36Annie Elise?

  go over the final details of the deal. Then, Mr. Big told them to follow him up into the Hollywood Hills. At around 11:30 PM, Michael called Sandy, giving her an update on the general location of where they were headed, though they didn't know exactly where they were going, or where Mr. Big was leading them, they were just following along, they didn't know if it was a house, a warehouse, the side of the road, they had no idea. And that was the last time that Sandy ever spoke to Michael. Half of what Sandy confessed was the exact theory that they had come up with, that they had been illegally selling her jewelry for cash, yes, but the other half was pretty groundbreaking. You see, even when the detectives were theorizing what could have happened, they weren't necessarily

• 57:21Annie Elise?

  thinking that it was a deal gone wrong. They were thinking more so that Michael wasn't a professional at this kind of shady, underground activity, and that he had screwed up by letting way too many people know what he was in possession of, and that he had that jewelry. Meaning that maybe someone who wasn't even supposed to be at the transaction that night intercepted the jewelry there, killed him, Mr. Big fled, and then they got the jewelry. Which, in reality, who knows how many people he approached at Garden of Eden, let alone what they would be capable of doing? All it would take would be one person willing to get their hands dirty to pull off a jewelry heist all on their own. I mean, greed, it certainly does not discriminate, especially in a place like Hollywood.

• 58:05Annie Elise?

  And not to go off topic here, but if you have followed my episodes during the Diddy trial, that kind of really unlocked just how sketchy Hollywood can be under all the glitz and glam and red carpet events. Personally, I immediately thought of Kid Cudi's testimony during Diddy's trial, when he said that one day, he came home and Diddy and his men were just inside his home waiting for him, despite the cameras, despite the security systems he had up all over his property, and that was to someone who also had influence and money. So all to say, the fact that Sandy was now confessing that Michael had found a buyer and was meeting up with the buyer that night, it really changed things. Keep in mind, though, this conversation with Sandy happened months after Michael and Christopher's deaths.

• 58:48Annie Elise?

  So for months, Sandy was keeping this secret to herself, denying any involvement and any theories that the detectives had come up with, all in order to keep herself as far as possible from law enforcement and any potential fallout. So the detectives were like, "Okay, thank God you confessed to all of that. Who was the buyer?" But that was the problem. Sandy didn't know. Even though she hadn't been the most honest with them during this entire investigation, this was something that she claimed really was truly the truth. There was technically a name for the buyer, but it wasn't their real name. All Sandy knew was that Mr. Big was a nickname for this guy who frequented the Garden of Eden.

• 59:30Annie Elise?

  Apparently, Michael knew that this guy had a lot of money, that he was always showing up to the club flaunting his fancy and expensive sports cars, and when Michael asked if the deal was something he would be interested in, he said yes. Now, when I first heard about this buyer, I was kind of like, "Okay, well, can't they just interview everyone who went to the club around that time and say, 'Hey, who's Mr. Big?'" But it doesn't seem like this was his actual street name or anything like that. Michael was someone who apparently gave people nicknames as he was the doorman, seeing people come in and out, though the Mr. Big name, it was likely made up by Michael himself, not even realizing that by not giving his true name out there, he would be hindering his own murder investigation. Before Sandy finished her interview with the investigators, she told them that there

• 1:00:15Annie Elise?

  was one more thing that might help them track down Mr. Big. It wasn't a name, but it was a phone number. Apparently, Michael had given Sandy this phone number before meeting with Mr. Big, and even told her that if anything went south, call this number. So it took some digging to figure out who this number was traced back to, but investigators eventually were able to learn that the phone number belonged to a man named Michael Jacobs. Now let's pause really quick because we have two Michaels in this story now. So from this point on, I'm just going to refer to the shady Michael by his last name Jacobs to avoid any confusion. So their original thought was that maybe he could help them.

• 1:00:56Annie Elise?

  But Jacobs was not the kind of guy who would willingly help investigators at all, if you know what I mean. He was a convicted felon, a guy known for scheming, lying, and protecting only himself. And on the night of the murders, cellphone data shows that calls were made multiple times between Michael and Jacobs. Cellphone data from Jacobs' phone also shows that it pinged in the area where Michael, Christopher, and Mr. Big all met on Sunset Boulevard earlier that evening. So based on what little information they had to work with, the investigators came up with a new theory. They didn't believe that Jacobs was Mr. Big, which that's a huge detail to note right off the bat. Because instead, they thought that Jacobs was more of a middleman,

• 1:01:41Annie Elise?

  introducing Mr. Big to Michael and initiating the deal and then taking off. But even that is just a theory. The detectives ended up interviewing Jacobs multiple times after the murders, but never really got anywhere. Every time Jacobs denied having anything to do with it, denied even being the middleman. So it was clear that even if he knew more than he was leading on, he was not going to share it. And Jacobs even went as far as telling the detectives that he sleeps like a baby at night. So if the investigator's theory is true, it's yet just another piece of information that shows how in over his head Michael truly was, trusting Jacobs enough to believe that if something ever happened to him, Jacobs would come forward with the truth.

• 1:02:25Annie Elise?

  This case happened in 2002, well over 20 years ago. And to this day, it's pretty much where things left off. The investigators are more than confident that Jacobs holds the key and the answers to this case in being solved. But the only reason they haven't gotten him to cooperate is that they don't have enough evidence or proof that he really did anything that night. There's not enough to press any sort of charges. And clearly, whoever Mr. Big truly is, whether it's Jacobs or not, he isn't afraid to make people go missing or come up dead. And if Jacobs isn't Mr. Big, it means he does know him on a either truly personal level or an acquaintance level, which either way, it makes sense why he wouldn't want to burn that bridge and rat him out.

• 1:03:08Annie Elise?

  Especially when the detectives don't have anything over his head essentially to bribe him into telling the truth. Even if the investigators have a short list of potential identities for Mr. Big, they haven't shared it yet, and I doubt that they ever will. Since all they know is that their suspect has a lot of money and power, even if they had a potential real lead on this guy, they probably wouldn't give that up. In 2011, the investigators raised the reward to $75,000 for anyone with any information. However, that reward has gone untouched. The one person who seemed to get away from this completely unscathed was Sandy. She managed to be involved with multiple different shady individuals in her younger years,

• 1:03:52Annie Elise?

  did some illegal stuff of her own, like selling the jewelry, not to mention lying to the detectives about the murder case for months. Yet somehow, she still came out fine. She was never charged with anything and she just moved on with her life. Much more privately than she did at the height of her fame, though, I will say that. Meanwhile, Michael and Christopher's loved ones are still searching for the answers that they never received. And they've basically lost all hope in any sort of justice. Now there's a part of me that wonders if Sandy knows more about Michael and Christopher's deaths. Maybe she's too scared to get back involved in that world, who knows? Maybe she's content knowing that she got out of the situation alive and is out of jail. But I don't know.

• 1:04:36Annie Elise?

  Mark had given her credit for her cunning mind, calling her an educated gold digger. So there's a part of me that wonders if everything that she has done since the murders has also been very educated and calculated, all to make sure that she comes out on top. Even if it means evading law enforcement and keeping some secrets to herself. I don't know, I'm curious to know what you guys think. Do you think Jacobs is Mr. Big? Do you think Sandy knows more? What do you make of it? It feels like a movie gone wrong, right? It doesn't even feel real, but you, I mean, you're talking Playboy models, jewelry heists, murder. It's wild. Curious to know what you think.

• 1:05:18Annie Elise?

  Thank you so much for tuning into another episode of 10 to Life with me, Annie Elise. Don't forget, subscribe, like the video, share the link to this video on your social media, follow the podcast, all the things. And I will be back with you next Tuesday with an all new case. Until then, stay safe. Bye.

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