312. Murder of the Hotel Heir - Benji Novack

On this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the strange and tragic case of Benji Novack, a millionaire businessman with an obsession for Batman memorabilia. When he’s found brutally murdered in his hotel room, investigators must dig through a long list of suspects to uncover the truth. Links: Netflix Video Every Monday @11am PST, 12pm MST, 2pm EST 1pm CST https://www.netflix.com/murderwithmyhusband Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/dateline-unforgettable/crime-news/narcy-novack-cristobal-veliz-convicted-in-death-of-ben-novack NBCMiami.com - https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/hit-man-sentenced-to-more-than-17-years-in-prison-for-killings-of-florida-millionaire-ben-novack-jr-mother-bernice-novack/1928642/ Justice.gov - https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/nys/pressreleases/December12/NovackVelizVerdictPR.php Wikipedia.com - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Bernice_and_Ben_Novack_Jr. ABCNews.go.com - https://abcnews.go.com/US/fontainebleau-family-murders-woman-charged-mother-laws-killing/story?id=13303941 CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/crazy-love-who-murdered-miami-beach-hotel-heir-benji-novack/ Archives. FBI.gov - https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s.-attorney-charges-narcisa-novack-and-cristobal-veliz-with-the-murders-of-ben-and-bernice-novack PalmBeachPost.com - https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/crime/2012/06/05/a-once-mysterious-letter-surfaces/7462044007/ People.com - https://people.com/crime/ben-novack-jr-murder-wife-on-trial/ NYPost.com - https://nypost.com/2012/06/20/narcy-novak-convicted-in-2009-slaying-of-hotel-heir/ TMCNet.com - https://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/04/09/4118904.htm Murderpedia.org - https://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/04/09/4118904.htm CrimeLibrary.org - https://www.crimelibrary.org/notorious_murders/family/ben-novack-jr/just-there-on-business.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:26Speaker 01

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• 0:46Payton Moreland?

  You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

• 0:52Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm Garrett Moreland.

• 0:53Payton Moreland?

  And he's the husband.

• 0:54Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm the husband.

• 0:55Payton Moreland?

  We have some great news. We have some new merch that has just dropped. And honestly, the design on this one, really good.

• 1:07Garrett Moreland?

  A few new designs. Go and check it out. MWMHshop.com. You can go to our socials. It'll be everywhere, all over Instagram and everything. Yeah, go check them out.

• 1:19Payton Moreland?

  I'm just gonna say my favorite one is the handprint one, which if you go check it out, you'll know what I'm talking about. All right, do you have a 10 seconds for this episode?

• 1:28Garrett Moreland?

  I do have one, but it was kind of related to bagels, so I'm not gonna say it because you guys might be getting sick of bagel talk. But I do have another one. I was thinking about the other day how weird it is that we all just have social media. Like we all just can see each other 24/7. We just make like videos and posts and everyone looks at it. I don't know. It's like one of those like Black Mirror moments. I was just thinking about it and like I cannot imagine what the world's gonna look like 10, 15, 20 years from now. It's kind of a strange concept. I mean, I know for the most part, I I mean, I didn't really grow up with that. I didn't have social media until I was like 16.

• 2:09Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, I had Vegas at Facebook before, but it's just so different now, like because of our phones. It's just a weird concept. I don't know. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:18Payton Moreland?

  Just this fake world that like.

• 2:20Garrett Moreland?

  It's like real, but like it's it's just so digitalized.

• 2:24Payton Moreland?

  It's not really that real, though.

• 2:26Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, to an extent, I guess.

• 2:28Payton Moreland?

  I mean.

• 2:29Garrett Moreland?

  It's like, yeah, but I mean, like, it's just us. Like, it's.

• 2:31Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, I get that.

• 2:32Garrett Moreland?

  We're real.

• 2:33Payton Moreland?

  It's just, I feel like most people actually think social media is the real world and I just don't, I don't think it is.

• 2:40Garrett Moreland?

  That's what you're saying. I mean, honestly, eventually we're all gonna turn into like Ready Player One type status. It's gonna be, love that movie, by the way, one of my favorite movies.

• 2:49Payton Moreland?

  Okay.

• 2:49Garrett Moreland?

  It's gonna be nuts. Oh, my gosh, I have to say real quick.

• 2:54Garrett Moreland?

  Love Burger King. I'm a big Burger King fan. Okay. I lived in Spain for a few years. There wasn't any McDonald's. There was Burger King. Burger King was everywhere. I ate so much Burger King. I'm a big Burger King fan. I'm hearing they're coming back. They're making a comeback on social media, so. Pretty excited about that. I'll leave that. That's my 10 seconds. If you like, if you haven't had Burger King, go and try it. If you don't like Burger King, go and try it again.

• 3:21Payton Moreland?

  Nice.

• 3:23Payton Moreland?

  Ready for the episode or the case?

• 3:26Garrett Moreland?

  Ah, Burger King, if you want to sponsor me, like, ah, you don't have to give me much, just like free food, please. Like, all. All just free food. I'll I'll put a big Burger King bag right here.

• 3:39Payton Moreland?

  When I was like a freshman in high school.

• 3:42Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Payton Moreland?

  I'd have dance right after school, but I danced at a club, so it was different from school. And I car pulled with some girls and we would get in the car and drive from school to dance and barely we would. To in between, we would swing through the Burger King drive through.

• 3:57Garrett Moreland?

  Why don't you have, why don't you try it again? You never told me this. That's a little messed up.

• 4:01Payton Moreland?

  And we would get like

• 4:03Garrett Moreland?

  The chicken nugget.

• 4:04Payton Moreland?

  Fry and a hamburger and we would all split it because we didn't, it's not like we were rolling in money and able to buy fast food every day.

• 4:11Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 4:11Payton Moreland?

  And so we would just get the smallest thing and just split it like pass the hamburger around the car and take a bite and we would be late to dance. Every single time and we always would tell our instructors that we got stuck at a train. Because there was a really like major train intersection that was that we had to cross to get to dance. And every time would be like, oh, sorry, the train.

• 4:32Garrett Moreland?

  It's good though, right?

• 4:34Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, that's just my only experience with Burger King.

• 4:36Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 4:37Payton Moreland?

  And they had fry sauce. In Idaho.

• 4:40Garrett Moreland?

  That's an Idaho Utah thing, babe.

• 4:42Payton Moreland?

  I know, but I was just like, dang, not a lot of fast food joints had fry sauce.

• 4:47Garrett Moreland?

  I could go for a Whopper right now.

• 4:51Payton Moreland?

  Not.

• 4:52Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, well, let's hop into today's case.

• 4:57Payton Moreland?

  Our sources for this episode are oxygen.com, NBC Miami.com, justice.gov, ABC News dot go.com, CBS News dot com, archives dot FBI dot gov, Palm Beach Post dot com, people dot com, New York Post dot com, Drapedia and crime library dot org. All right, we have an heir to a luxury hotel chain, a model for Salvador Dali and an exotic dancer with a pretty woman's story.

• 5:25Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 5:25Payton Moreland?

  Now, what do all of these things have in common?

• 5:28Garrett Moreland?

  Batman.

• 5:29Payton Moreland?

  Their twists and turns in today's episode. One so unimaginable, it feels like it came directly from the pages of a thriller novel. But today's case is not a work of fiction. It is the devastating reality of a family whose legacy was tarnished, whose dirty laundry was aired out publicly to dry, who was betrayed by those closest to them. In a story that even the best fiction novelists couldn't conceive of on their own. So now I want to take you back to the 1960s, where a young Benji Novak is living in Miami Beach, Florida.

• 6:13Payton Moreland?

  More specifically, he's actually living at the prestigious Fontainebleau Hotel. Now, back around this time, Fontainebleau was like the Four Seasons, but better. It was the place to see and be seen, especially in the 1960s in Miami Beach. I mean, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack had stayed there, as did Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy. It appeared in a handful of movies, including the James Bond film Goldfinger. And it eventually even earned a spot on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

• 6:54Payton Moreland?

  But for most people, this hotel was just a stopover point, a vacation destination. But Benji and his family were different because they lived there full-time. And well, they actually owned the place. So we have a little Zack and Cody situation going on here. Benji's dad, Ben Novak Sr., was a real estate investor, but after a few flops in New York City, he moved his family down to South Miami Beach during World War II, built a small hotel that eventually led to his next property, the Fontainebleau, which opened in 1954, just two years after Benji was born. Now, as for Benji's mother, Bernice Novak,

• 7:38Payton Moreland?

  her story was arguably even more interesting. She was a foster child turned model, who had done everything from Coca-Cola campaigns to working with the famous painter Salvador Dali. Now Bernice and Ben Sr. had met in New York back in the late 1940s. And by that point, Ben Sr. was already actually living down in Florida. But with so many frequent trips to the Big Apple, the two of them fell in love. The only problem was Ben Sr. Was actually still married at the time. Now Bernice quickly called things off when she learned that her boyfriend was still married.

• 8:20Payton Moreland?

  But a year or so later, Ben came knocking on her door with a divorce certificate and said, hey, now can we date? And by 1951, the two of them were married. By the 1960s, they were living in the penthouse suite of their new prestigious hotel with their only child Benji, basically living a very glamorous lifestyle. They would get dressed up, head downstairs each evening to wine and dine the famous guests who were coming through. Again, this is everyone from world leaders to famous celebrities.

• 8:53Garrett Moreland?

  Be kind of, that'd be crazy life.

• 8:55Payton Moreland?

  I mean, he literally is London Tipton.

• 8:57Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 8:58Payton Moreland?

  For young Benji, he felt like this was actually a pretty lonely upbringing. He didn't venture out of the hotel much. Most of his meals were made by hotel staff. His friends were limited to the other younger guests that were just passing through the hotel on vacation. It wasn't like a neighborhood where he had consistent neighbors he could play with. Birthday parties were actually often just filled with strangers and children he had never met before. And when he went trick or treating, the family's chauffeur took him alone. And as a way to keep himself company, Benji actually developed a love for the Batman comics and began collecting memorabilia.

• 9:39Payton Moreland?

  To the point where in his later years, he would come to actually have the second largest known Batman collection in the world.

• 9:48Garrett Moreland?

  It's cool.

• 9:49Payton Moreland?

  But over time, the charmed, sheltered lifestyle also made Benji a little particular. Those who knew him said he was a tiny tyrant. He was spoiled. He was kind of difficult to work with. Quality that never really left him, even after that fancy lifestyle came to a screeching halt in the 1970s. Again, he's just still a child. And that is when his dad and his mom filed for divorce. Now, by this point, the hotel had kind of lost a lot of its allure. It really lived a short life. And so the hotel filed for bankruptcy. It was taken away from the Novack by the courts.

• 10:34Payton Moreland?

  And then suddenly Benji and his mom Bernice were now off on their own. But Benji used his father's missteps to fuel his own fire. So when Benji was just around 22 years old, he started his own company that would grow into a lucrative corporation. Now, the one thing Benji had been seeing and studying his whole entire life was the hospitality business, actually luxury hospitality business. So it made sense that he would follow down that path later in life. He created a company that organized hotel conventions all across the country. At one point, his company was even valued at $50 million.

• 11:15Payton Moreland?

  And it was around the same time that Benji found the person he wanted to share his wealth and his life with, an exotic dancer in her early 30s named Narcissa Pacheco, or Narcie. She went by Narcie. Now Narcie was born in Ecuador. She had a daughter of her own, 10-year-old. And while she wasn't exactly the person everyone pictured Benji marrying one day, the two said they fell wildly in love. And by 1991, 35-year-old Benji and 34-year-old Narcie were married. And Narcie quickly took on the role of the established wife. Her daughter, who's named May, was sent off to boarding school as Narcie helped Benji

• 12:00Payton Moreland?

  with his company, going with him on business trips, consulting on different projects. Benji eventually bought them a multimillion-dollar estate and expensive cars. So Narcie was now basically said to live the pretty woman lifestyle. She was kind of taken in. She was getting beautiful furs and flashy jewelry. And as May, her daughter, got older, she also got closer with Benji, her stepfather, seeing him more as a father that she never really had. And after growing up and then eventually having two kids of her own, two boys, May ended up taking on a role at Benji's companies, even helped patch some of the holes she had in her own relationship with her mother.

• 12:44Payton Moreland?

  So things were kind of going well for the family, but the one person who vocally did not approve of Benji's family. Was his own mother, Bernice.

• 12:56Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 12:56Payton Moreland?

  Now, by the year 2009, okay, they've been together, they've grown up a bit. Benji's father had passed away. The hotel had found a new owner, had undergone a $500 million renovation. And 87 year old Bernice was kind of now just living in obscurity. For the past 40 years, she had been residing in a home in Fort Lauderdale amongst the relics of her past. Fancy gowns that she had once wore to presidential inaugurations. A grand piano that was once played by Frank Sinatra. Scrapbooks of photos from her heyday at the hotel they once owned.

• 13:39Payton Moreland?

  And an oil painting of her most treasured possession. Her son Benji sitting on the beach with a scarf around his neck.

• 13:48Garrett Moreland?

  Oh.

• 13:48Payton Moreland?

  Now, as her only child, she and Benji were close and stayed close. Which was why no woman would ever be good enough for Benji in Bernice's eyes.

• 13:59Garrett Moreland?

  You know, it's interesting that, I mean, this still happens today. You hear about all these insane, crazy, like toxic mother-in-law stories.

• 14:07Payton Moreland?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:08Garrett Moreland?

  It's just wild to see it. Like I've watched them on Instagram and on TikTok. Tic Tac, TikTok? My gosh, I'm turning into a boomer. Um, but it's wild to, it's just wild to see them and watch them. Like, there are some crazy mother-in-laws out there.

• 14:24Payton Moreland?

  And there is this stereotype, which I'm saying stereotype because I don't know if there's any like proven statistics on this. But there is this stereotype of like, uh, moms of boys.

• 14:38Garrett Moreland?

  Like a mama's boy?

• 14:39Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, and then them becoming a monster-in-law because like this, they almost have this weird

• 14:45Garrett Moreland?

  Attachment.

• 14:45Payton Moreland?

  Attachment to their son where they don't want a woman to replace them.

• 14:49Garrett Moreland?

  Mm hmm.

• 14:50Payton Moreland?

  I don't want to say it's incestual, but it definitely is a little different than like women with their daughters.

• 14:56Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, for sure.

• 14:56Payton Moreland?

  In a way.

• 14:57Garrett Moreland?

  Uh huh.

• 14:58Payton Moreland?

  At least that's the stereotype, okay?

• 15:01Garrett Moreland?

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• 15:24Payton Moreland?

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• 15:56Garrett Moreland?

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• 16:18Payton Moreland?

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• 17:00Payton Moreland?

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• 17:40Payton Moreland?

  That is greenlight.com/husband. Greenlight.com/husband. Go check it out now. So obviously when he had met Narsi and then they decided to get married, this was hard for Bernice. In her own eyes, she did not want a former exotic dancer, someone who she saw as lower than them to now have this beautiful marriage and get to like, live this beautiful fancy life that she believes her son had built on his own and was now just giving to a girl. So Narsi and Bernice had never gotten along, but as I said, these two stayed married. They raised May.

• 18:22Payton Moreland?

  She ended up having kids. She's now working for Benji. So basically now that Bernice was reaching almost 90 years old, it seemed like she had kind of decided to just shut her mouth and accept that this relationship was real as she's coming to the end of her life. They had been married for 18 years at this point. But on April 6th, 2009, any lingering issues Bernice had became meaningless. Because that day, 90-year-old Bernice was found dead in the laundry room just off of her garage.

• 19:02Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, here we go.

• 19:04Payton Moreland?

  So when police responded, they say, you know, it came from a series of falls she had taken after trying to get out of her car. So Benji took the loss hard, but he kept focused on his business, which was probably a welcome distraction. And in July of that year, he was called to New York to oversee a convention in the town of Rybrook. It's about 30 miles outside of the city. So on July 10th, Benji, Narci and May all flew north to stay at the Hilton in Rybrook, where the convention was being held. It was definitely an all hands on deck situation as the conference was going to host over a thousand people. This was pretty big for their business.

• 19:49Payton Moreland?

  So from the 11th into the 12th of July, Benji worked all night tying up loose ends, working on other projects. And then the convention kind of wrapped up that morning. Now, according to Narci, he had stayed up working until 6:30 a.m. that Sunday morning before then finally crashing. And Narci said around 7:15 a.m. she went downstairs at the hotel to get some breakfast. And this is something hotel security footage did confirm because again, we are now in 2009. She returns to their room about 30 minutes later. And according to her, she walks in to a horrifying scene.

• 20:32Payton Moreland?

  Benji, her husband of 18 years, who had just lost his mom not too long ago, was face down on the floor of the hotel, covered in blood.

• 20:42Garrett Moreland?

  Wait, okay, so the mom died?

• 20:45Payton Moreland?

  Yes.

• 20:46Garrett Moreland?

  And then shortly after, the son died?

• 20:48Payton Moreland?

  Yes, on a work trip with his wife and his wife's daughter, basically his stepdaughter, who also worked for him. At a Hilton, by the way, which is just a little ironic considering he grew up in one of the most infamous hotels.

• 21:03Garrett Moreland?

  So we're at a point where there's like one suspect.

• 21:06Payton Moreland?

  Well, the mom's death was from falls. She wasn't murdered. The police said she fell.

• 21:14Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, okay. So I guess technically we can have two suspects. The son could have killed the mom and then killed himself, or.

• 21:21Payton Moreland?

  Oh, you think the mom was murdered?

• 21:25Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, obviously the mom was murdered.

• 21:27Payton Moreland?

  No, she just died from falling. She was 90 years old.

• 21:30Garrett Moreland?

  It's confirmed she died from falling?

• 21:32Payton Moreland?

  Yes, like, police found her dead and then said she died from a series of falls. She was 90 years old. That's very common. Have you seen Life Alert?

• 21:40Garrett Moreland?

  Yes, I've seen Life Alert.

• 21:42Payton Moreland?

  Why do you think they have that?

• 21:43Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, but I just, I just find it suspicious that we're doing an episode about.

• 21:49Payton Moreland?

  Murder?

• 21:49Garrett Moreland?

  A murder and the mom just fell down the stairs and died?

• 21:52Payton Moreland?

  Not down the stairs. Where'd you get the stairs from?

• 21:55Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know. I'm just saying, you said she fell.

• 21:58Payton Moreland?

  She fell while getting out of her car and trying to walk into her house.

• 22:00Garrett Moreland?

  That's even worse. There's no way. Okay, so wait, hold on. I need the clarification. Was she for sure, like, they claimed it like an accident, like she fell and died?

• 22:09Payton Moreland?

  Yes. Okay, so she dies on April 6.

• 22:13Garrett Moreland?

  And it just so happened that the son died a couple of weeks later?

• 22:15Payton Moreland?

  Not a couple of weeks, July 10.

• 22:17Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, so a couple of months?

• 22:18Payton Moreland?

  Yes.

• 22:19Garrett Moreland?

  See, that's suspicious.

• 22:20Payton Moreland?

  And a Hilton.

• 22:21Garrett Moreland?

  That's suspicious. I'm not saying, I mean, I guess if they ruled it an accident, whatever. It's just. The True Crime Podcast, a little suspicious.

• 22:29Payton Moreland?

  For me, it's just like, his mom dies in this house that she's lived in forever after. Her marriage ending, getting kicked out of this infamous hotel. She's surrounded by relics of what used to be, like. In her, that's where she, you know, she peaked. She peaked when she lived in this house and, or when she lived in this hotel. They ran it and met all these famous people and then she left. And then, you know, a couple of months later, he dies at a Hilton. It's just the whole, like, hotel thing to me.

• 22:58Garrett Moreland?

  Wrong with Hiltons. Hiltons are great.

• 22:59Payton Moreland?

  No, it's the, it's just the theme of hotels.

• 23:02Garrett Moreland?

  Dying in a hotel?

• 23:02Payton Moreland?

  Like, he's raised at hotels. She dies surrounded by this dream life at a hotel.

• 23:08Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I get that.

• 23:08Payton Moreland?

  And then he goes to a Hilton because his entire company is based off of hotels.

• 23:12Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:13Payton Moreland?

  He's at a Hilton with his stepdaughter and his wife. And, okay, let me just keep going because not only is he, like, dead. Okay, so it's that morning, remember, he worked the whole weekend. They all had. He'd stayed up till 6:30 a.m. She goes down, eats breakfast. We see that on camera. She comes back up just 30 minutes later. Okay?

• 23:30Garrett Moreland?

  A continental breakfast.

• 23:32Payton Moreland?

  Yes, walks into their hotel room. Benji is face down on the floor. Okay, he's covered in blood. His head.

• 23:41Payton Moreland?

  Is covered in duct tape.

• 23:43Garrett Moreland?

  What the?

• 23:45Payton Moreland?

  His arms are taped behind his back.

• 23:49Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, my God.

• 23:50Payton Moreland?

  And his legs are basically taped, wrapped together below his knees.

• 23:55Garrett Moreland?

  That's insane. His arms are cut off. His head is cut. That's nuts.

• 23:58Payton Moreland?

  So Narcy is like, calls the police who arrive a little before 8 a.m. And they discovered that the scene was actually far more gruesome than Narcy had really mentioned on the phone. Like she calls and says, my, you know, my husband, he's dead. But when they show up, Benji is not, okay, he's duct taped, but he's hogtied.

• 24:22Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 24:22Payton Moreland?

  On this floor, right? He also has been bludgeoned so badly. Twenty of his ribs are cracked.

• 24:30Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 24:32Payton Moreland?

  His mouth is taped shut so tightly and violently, like he choked.

• 24:37Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 24:38Payton Moreland?

  And even worse, his eyeballs.

• 24:41Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, no. Nope.

• 24:43Payton Moreland?

  Had been gouged out of his head.

• 24:45Garrett Moreland?

  This is insane. This is not normal. I mean, none of this is normal, but this is, this is next.

• 24:51Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Garrett Moreland?

  This is crazy.

• 24:53Payton Moreland?

  Right. So because of the bloodstains that were on the bed, police believed he was actually attacked in his sleep. Like someone had snuck up on him in this room and hit him multiple times before he either fell or they moved him to the floor.

• 25:09Garrett Moreland?

  And no one heard this?

• 25:10Payton Moreland?

  Not that, like, not that they know of immediately at this point.

• 25:14Garrett Moreland?

  We know how thin hotel walls are.

• 25:17Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, I've had some bad experiences.

• 25:19Garrett Moreland?

  You're telling me no one's heard this?

• 25:21Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, this is like a pretty brutal attack. Like even if he was attacked in his sleep.

• 25:25Garrett Moreland?

  This is nuts.

• 25:27Payton Moreland?

  It feels insane. So police also think this was too complicated a job for one person. They think this was like a hit.

• 25:36Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, I'm gonna let you keep going. There's cameras everywhere. There's gotta be footage.

• 25:39Payton Moreland?

  But they can't tell at first whether this was a robbery or not, mainly because 53-year-old Benji's Rolex is still there, lying in a pool of blood near him. However, a gold bracelet with diamonds that Benji never took off, like his signature bracelet, was missing.

• 25:58Payton Moreland?

  Now, police realize whenever you're dealing with a victim that's kind of this high profile that has this much wealth, that a lot of people knew he was here at this convention, you have a lot of potential suspects. In fact, the hotel had thousands of people staying there for a convention Benji had planned, meaning a lot of people knew where to find him that morning. But the convention was over that day. So people were waking up, this is 8 a.m., people are gonna be waking up, checking out and taking off to head home, which meant police had to work fast because their suspects could leave. And one of the early leads they look into comes from Narcie,

• 26:39Payton Moreland?

  who actually mentions to police Benji's Batman collection. And I don't know if they're like, does he have anything of value or anything, but somehow this gets brought up, which includes, get this, an actual functioning replica of the 1960s Batmobile and four warehouses full of memorabilia, estimated at a total of over $1 million.

• 27:05Garrett Moreland?

  Okay. A lot of money, but I'm not gonna lie, I thought it was gonna be like 10, 20 million or something crazy.

• 27:11Payton Moreland?

  Well, this is what she says. She's like, "The only thing I can think is, he's dealt with some shady people when it came to buying and selling Batman memorabilia. Apparently, there was one person he was dealing with who even came to their house in Fort Lauderdale and got upset when they were like negotiating prices over a comic book."

• 27:31Garrett Moreland?

  Ah, this isn't the lead, it's something else.

• 27:33Payton Moreland?

  And she's like, "It also wasn't unusual for my husband to have amounts, like, large amounts of cash when he would meet these people to buy memorabilia. He once agreed to pay $43,000 for just a single comic book." So she's like, "Maybe someone knew that, you know, he was into this stuff, that he did carry large amounts of cash on him." Wanted to rob him, or maybe he had been planning to meet someone, you know, to do one of these exchanges. So the police keep Narcis statement in mind, but they learned that Benji's convention company operates in cash as well. According to colleagues, he often kept large sums of money hidden in hotel rooms in case he needed it during the conferences for something.

• 28:19Payton Moreland?

  That weekend in particular, he had a hundred and $10,000 taken out of company funds for incidentals. And I don't know if this was like a company card before a company card became as like often used as it is now. So it was like they would just pull a chunk of cash for a convention and be like, if we have any company like expenses, we'll just pull from this cash instead of using a company card.

• 28:45Garrett Moreland?

  That's a good question. I wouldn't know. I would say that's not normal, but I could totally be wrong on that.

• 28:49Payton Moreland?

  Maybe they just didn't want taxes.

• 28:51Garrett Moreland?

  That just seems crazy. That much cash seems not normal because you can write checks.

• 28:57Payton Moreland?

  Right.

• 28:58Garrett Moreland?

  But like, that just doesn't, that, that seems insane.

• 29:02Payton Moreland?

  Either way, after Benji's death, a majority of that cash is missing, but whether that was like stolen or spent, we don't know. Plus, as we heard earlier, Benji wasn't exactly the easiest person to deal with. A lot of the qualities and habits he had made earlier in life really stuck with him. And because of that, Benji had made quite a few enemies in business. And all of this to say, this was going to be a pretty long list of potential suspects and motives. So the police would have to scratch people off one by one.

• 29:34Garrett Moreland?

  But it's a hotel. There's a billion cameras. There's no way that this can be that complicated.

• 29:41Payton Moreland?

  Maybe cameras in the elevator, but might not be in the like hallways.

• 29:45Garrett Moreland?

  For sure. I feel like. I feel like there has to be, right? We're gonna find out in a second.

• 29:51Payton Moreland?

  Police also learn early on, like pretty early on in the investigation from a tip while talking to people in Benji's life, that he didn't just love to like, collect Batman memorabilia as his hobby. He actually also had a hobby of stepping outside of his marriage as well.

• 30:10Garrett Moreland?

  I would not consider that a hobby.

• 30:12Payton Moreland?

  So it's no secret, Benji was a bit of a party animal. And through that, he had met several women over the years that he had been intimate with. This is something that Narcy always suspected and eventually confirmed. The two had always stayed together through this habit he had. But it did make Narcy jealous, paranoid over the years. However, when Narcy tells police something about Benji's sexual preferences, it sets off alarm bells for them. And maybe this is why she wasn't as like descriptive on the 911 call because she tells them, oh, no, he, um, he was into bondage, like bondage games. He liked to be tied up.

• 30:58Payton Moreland?

  And since Benji was found with his hands and legs bound, his mouth covering his tape, police are wondering, okay, does this have something to do with that side of his life? Is that why we found him like this?

• 31:12Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, his eyes are gouged out, so I'm not sure about that one.

• 31:17Payton Moreland?

  So.

• 31:18Garrett Moreland?

  I guess, right? Like part of it?

• 31:20Payton Moreland?

  I mean, like, if you know he's into this and this is how he's found, obviously that feels like a connection.

• 31:25Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I get that.

• 31:26Payton Moreland?

  Uh, this is basically what brings police to learn about a woman named Rebecca Bliss. This was a porn actress that Benji had been seeing since the previous year, 2008. But this wasn't just some fun on the side for Benji. Supposedly, the two of them had fallen in love. Eventually, Benji even moved Rebecca from Miami, where she was living, to be closer to his current home in Fort Lauderdale. But in early 2009, Nancy caught wind of Rebecca and Benji's relationship. And according to Rebecca, Narcy actually called her one day and threatened her, saying, if she couldn't have Benji, then nobody could.

• 32:10Payton Moreland?

  Narcy offered Rebecca $10,000 to end the affair with her husband.

• 32:15Payton Moreland?

  But after speaking with Rebecca, police realized it wasn't her that had the motive to kill Benji. The two were in love. She's not really gaining anything by losing him. And they learned when they talked to her that Benji had even mentioned divorcing his wife for her. Like, he was like, we're gonna run away. So instead, when police learn about all this, the person they feel with the real motive was Narcie. And the more the police start to look at Narcie, who was seen on camera eating, what was she eating?

• 32:44Garrett Moreland?

  Peanuts?

• 32:46Payton Moreland?

  For breakfast? I think she definitely used one of those waffle makers.

• 32:50Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, you're asking me? Okay. I don't know. Do you have an answer? Or are you just asking?

• 32:54Payton Moreland?

  Well, what do you eat at a Hotel Continental breakfast?

• 32:57Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know, but is it?

• 32:59Payton Moreland?

  No, I'm just trying to imagine what she was eating.

• 33:02Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 33:02Payton Moreland?

  While her husband was being hogtied.

• 33:04Garrett Moreland?

  Sorry, I don't know. I was sorry, I was confused there.

• 33:06Payton Moreland?

  Maybe she got the little cereal boxes?

• 33:08Garrett Moreland?

  You like left me on a cliffhanger there. So let's keep this.

• 33:11Payton Moreland?

  Sorry.

• 33:12Garrett Moreland?

  Keep this rolling.

• 33:13Payton Moreland?

  So the more police look at Narcie, the more distrustful she begins to seem.

• 33:18Garrett Moreland?

  Narcie the narcissist.

• 33:20Payton Moreland?

  In fact, that's not what I said.

• 33:23Garrett Moreland?

  What?

• 33:23Payton Moreland?

  That's not what I said.

• 33:24Garrett Moreland?

  It's what I said.

• 33:25Payton Moreland?

  Okay.

• 33:28Garrett Moreland?

  I said it.

• 33:32Payton Moreland?

  Who are you? I am.

• 33:35Garrett Moreland?

  I am. Is he I?

• 33:38Garrett Moreland?

  Is that what it is? What he says?

• 33:39Payton Moreland?

  Like, who you think you are?

• 33:41Garrett Moreland?

  Who you think you are? I am. That's what he says. Yeah. That's so good.

• 33:46Payton Moreland?

  Okay, we need to get, we need to lock in. We need to lock in.

• 33:49Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, keep going.

• 33:50Payton Moreland?

  This is not normal. I used to think a camera or video doorbell was home security. And then I realized those can only record a break in. They literally can't stop one. And that is the difference with SimpliSafe. When an intruder steps onto your property, SimpliSafe's AI-powered cameras detect the threat and alert a live US-based agent who can then intervene to stop them before they even get into your door. Because it's not my house or valuables that I'm even worried about. It's a stranger getting anywhere close to the people I love. And I'm obviously taking this way. More seriously now, which I already did, but now more than ever with a baby on the way. Like I said, unlike traditional security cameras that only alert you after a break in,

• 34:34Payton Moreland?

  Simply Safe is built to stop it before it starts and they have so many different options. If you haven't got on and checked it out, just do it, guys. If you've been waiting for a sign to get some security, this is it. Join the more than 6 million people who entrust Simply Safe with their home security. Right now, save 60% off with professional monitoring when you visit simplysafe.com/husband. That is an amazing code, guys. 60% off. That is simplysafe.com/husband. And when you order, again, just please let them know Murder With My Husband sent you. Write it in at the checkout survey. It just lets them know we sent you and it helps support the show. Simply Safe, ahead of crime and in real time.

• 35:19Payton Moreland?

  Guys, I'm not sure if I have talked about this, but I have been put on an extremely restrictive diet while being pregnant and you know what has helped me so much? Hungry Root. I know, I know. You knew that was coming. It is so nice to be able to still shop, but get on and put in my preferences, put exactly what I'm looking for, pick out recipes that fit my dietary restrictions. I love Hungry Root. We've actually been using them since like, I think 2022 was when I first started using them. That was before they were even a sponsor of the show. Okay, if you've never checked it out, you're interested in online grocery delivery

• 36:01Payton Moreland?

  that has quality products. I'm talking healthier alternatives. They're very transparent with what is in the ingredients. You can trust that what you're getting from Hungry Root is top notch. It completely changes the way of shopping and also for me has really helped ease my mind when it comes to this new diet. So you're gonna love Hungry Root as much as I do. For a limited time, you can get 40% off your first order, plus get a free item in every box for life. Go to hungryroot.com/husband and use code HUSBAND for that, you guys. That is hungryroot.com/husband, code HUSBAND to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life.

• 36:44Payton Moreland?

  So in fact, the suspicion around Narcie started almost the second police had arrived at the crime scene. Because when Narcie called 911, she told the operator that she thought her husband had died in their hotel room from a heart attack. So police show up, they're like, okay. And when Narcie and her daughter, May, went to the medical examiner's office later to like officially identify Benji's body, May told police she was a little worried about her mother's cold response. May said, you know, I was over throwing up in the trash can and my mother was just sitting there with no emotion at all.

• 37:22Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, that would, that would be horrible.

• 37:24Payton Moreland?

  Narcie told investigators repeatedly that she had nothing to do with her husband's murder. And at one point, she even said she wished that she had been there so she could have just died with him. But during her first interview with the police, she's acting pretty strange. They interviewed Narcie for nearly 12 hours and during that time, she refused to take a break. She didn't drink water. She didn't take a bathroom break. She didn't even get a cup of coffee. She sat there all night stiff as a board insisting over and over that she was innocent. But the evidence wasn't exactly matching up those claims. For starters, the door to the Novak's hotel room showed zero signs of a break in or forced entry.

• 38:06Payton Moreland?

  So if someone had gone in and somehow done this in the 30 minutes she was downstairs making her waffle, they didn't, they used a card, like they used a key card to get in.

• 38:16Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I mean, I, I think she's probably innocent with, in the fact that she didn't commit the murder, but she definitely hired somebody to do it.

• 38:27Payton Moreland?

  And you think he was murdered before she went down? She went down to do her alibi or you think it happened while she was down there?

• 38:34Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, one of those, probably while she was down there, but I'm not sure.

• 38:38Payton Moreland?

  We know that these hotel key cards actually register when a guest opens the door to their room, not when they leave. Still, the key card showed there was no activity on either Benji or Narcie's keys between midnight the evening before and 7:45 a.m. when Narcie said she returned from breakfast and found Benji dead, meaning that door wasn't opened between that time, at least not until she came back from beck, from breakfast and used the unlock. Uh, someone either was already inside the room from the night before or Someone let the attacker in, maybe Benji. And remember, it was obvious to the police, though, that Benji seemed to have been attacked while he was asleep. So they don't believe he got up and let the attacker in.

• 39:22Payton Moreland?

  Which means the attacker was hiding in the closet, or Narcy let the attacker in.

• 39:26Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Payton Moreland?

  So the police build a timeline from other witnesses. One worker at the hotel says they last spoke to Benji on the phone around 6:54 that morning to say there was a problem with overcrowding for breakfast. So the hotel is like, no, we know he was alive at least at 6:54 because we talked to him on the phone. And then around 7:17, Narcy is seen on that security footage in the hotel dining room. So not in the elevator or the hallway, just in the dining room. And then at 7:40, she's returning to the room on security footage as well. So if Narcy let someone in, it was likely between 6:54, after he hung up from talking to the hotel staff,

• 40:09Payton Moreland?

  and 7:17 a.m. when she left, well, when she was eating her breakfast. So unless she let them in earlier without Benji's knowledge, and then they just hid out in the room all night. So the day after the murder, police asked Narcy to undergo a polygraph test. It doesn't come back in her favor, it shows signs of deception. Still, it's not enough to charge her with a crime. So they keep digging into Narcy and Benji's past. And they find some pretty eventful moments. Before Narcy and Benji even tied the knot back in 1991, Narcy was already worried about Benji's infidelity. To the point where she had called Benji and threatened to burn down his house if he didn't stop fooling around with other women.

• 40:53Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, valid, right?

• 40:55Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Garrett Moreland?

  Like valid.

• 40:56Payton Moreland?

  But also don't marry him. If this is a habit, if this is something he just loves to do.

• 41:01Garrett Moreland?

  But valid.

• 41:02Payton Moreland?

  You're signing up for some.

• 41:04Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, it was before they got married?

• 41:05Payton Moreland?

  Yes.

• 41:05Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, okay.

• 41:06Payton Moreland?

  You know, you're signing up for some heartbreak here, but also valid to be like, don't.

• 41:11Garrett Moreland?

  Think the best, you know?

• 41:12Payton Moreland?

  Right. So after they get married, Benji had threatened to divorce Narcy on at least one occasion. But in 2002, things got really wild when Benji found himself the victim of a home invasion. He was tied up for 24 hours as burglars stole around $350,000 worth of cash and items from his house.

• 41:35Garrett Moreland?

  This isn't the first time.

• 41:36Payton Moreland?

  This first time, he was bound pretty similar to when he was found dead. He was gagged, his feet and hands were tied. Now, after the burglars released him, Benji called a friend, said, hey, I just was robbed and tied up. And I'm not calling the police because I'm pretty sure that Narcy orchestrated this entire thing.

• 41:59Garrett Moreland?

  Oh my gosh.

• 42:00Payton Moreland?

  He said, I'm pretty sure he's, she's fed up with me cheating. And instead of leaving, she wants to prove a point. Now, shockingly, Benji never presses charges, but he did file for divorce a few days later. But then eventually he rescinded the divorce and the two stayed married for another seven years, up until the day of Benji's death.

• 42:23Garrett Moreland?

  Wow.

• 42:23Payton Moreland?

  When police asked Benji's friends, okay, if this is their history, like, why did he stay with Narcy? Like, we're wondering why she stayed, but why did he stay? And they were like, well, Benji really loved her. Like despite all of these affairs he's having, he really did love her. And ultimately, he didn't want to let her go. He wanted their marriage. So let's just say, when police are uncovering all of this, they realize none of this is looking good for Narcy. And her 30-ish year old daughter, May, knows that as well. In fact, she's so convinced that her mother was involved, she actually agrees to work with the police in any way she can. She passes a polygraph so the police feel they can trust her.

• 43:06Payton Moreland?

  She gives them a lot of intimate details about the history of Narcy and Benji's relationship. This is kind of how police end up finding so much out about them. But then three days after the murder, the unthinkable happens. Narcy and May returned to Florida. Narcy settles back into her waterfront home she'd shared with Benji. And one afternoon, May comes over to collect her stuff from the house. Cause at this point, their relationship is fractured again. And she's like, I want nothing to do with my mother. But while she's there, May goes into Benji's home office to see if there's any evidence in there against her mother that she could give to police.

• 43:47Payton Moreland?

  And according to May, that is when Narcy bursts in and comes after her with a crowbar, chases her own daughter around the house, calling her a traitor and trying to attack her. Now, when a friend is called to the house, they arrive to May screaming at her own mother, "You murdered Benji," after which Narcy whacks May with the crowbar on her arm, leaving her with a huge giant bruise. And the friend is like, "Okay, everyone calm down." Now, the police know that Narcy looks basically as guilty as it gets, but everything they kind of have on her is circumstantial. So the following day, on July 16th, the Fort Lauderdale police do what May couldn't.

• 44:32Payton Moreland?

  They get a search warrant for the estate and look for anything that might implicate Nancy, or anyone else for that matter. They seize security footage from the house, paperwork, documents, computers, bills, day planners. And interestingly enough, they seize five rolls of duct tape. But the biggest break comes six days later.

• 44:53Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, Narcy.

• 44:56Payton Moreland?

  When the police receive an anonymous letter that was written in Spanish. Translated in English, it says, in part.

• 45:04Garrett Moreland?

  You're not gonna read it in Spanish for us?

• 45:05Payton Moreland?

  Mm-mm. Okay, it says, in part, quote, "This crime, without a doubt, was committed by the wife of Mr. Novak and her brother." Remember how you said that you thought she hired someone to do it? Okay. The letter goes on to say that Narcy's brother, Cristobal, it's spelled, literally, it sounds like it should be Crystal Ball.

• 45:30Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, you pronounced it right. It was an accent over the O. Cristobal.

• 45:35Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, Cristobal Valise hired two hitmen to kill Benji, so Narcy could inherit her husband's $10 million estate. I mean, as far as like, two peas in a pod criminals like Bonnie and Clyde, Narcy and Crystal Ball is quite the name. You could go infamous with that. So the police pay a little visit to Cristobal, who is living in Philadelphia and working as a bus driver at the time. He lets them into his home, saying he knows absolutely nothing about his brother-in-law's murder, but is happy to talk. As the police sit down at his kitchen table, they see something.

• 46:15Payton Moreland?

  The table's covered with these Western Union receipts for wire transfers, but the wire transfers are not to him, they're from him to at least two other people. One of them was a man named Alejandro Garcia in Miami, who had received $500 from Cristobal after Benji's death. So the police searched their databases for Alejandro Garcia, and they find he has a record and he has only one eye. So it is going to make him easier to spot.

• 46:49Garrett Moreland?

  I wonder if he were a patch?

• 46:51Payton Moreland?

  So with that, they start looking at surveillance footage from the hotel the weekend Benji was killed. They're looking for someone with one eyeball on this surveillance footage.

• 47:02Garrett Moreland?

  That shouldn't be too hard.

• 47:04Payton Moreland?

  Exactly, that's why I said, easy to find. Sure enough, there's Garcia at the hotel on the Friday that Benji and Nancy arrived in Rybrook, New York. So this random dude is at the hotel, and they've traced him all the way through her brother's receipts. But he's not alone, he's actually with another man. One police eventually identify as Joel Gonzalez, also from South Florida. Now, all of this takes a bit of time. So when police finally tracked down Garcia and Gonzalez for questioning, it's November 2009, it's been four months since Benji was murdered. Now, all the while, Narcy's been selling off Benji's Batman memorabilia

• 47:46Payton Moreland?

  and other valuables, one by one, to amass her own little fortune, while she still lives in his house. But now, with these two potential hitmen in an interrogation room, a lot of the lingering questions about this case start to unravel. At first, Garcia says he's never even been to New York, or left the state of Florida for that matter, which police know is a lie. He eventually tells the police he doesn't want to talk because he's scared for his family, that the people who had hired him in this case are very dangerous. And after some negotiation with the two, they reach a deal in exchange for their testimony against Narcy and Cristobal. And with that, they agree to talk, and here's what they say.

• 48:28Payton Moreland?

  Narsi had offered to pay these two men she had met through her brother $15,000 and fly them up to New York to murder her husband. It was Narsi who let them into their hotel room that July morning, right after Benji fell asleep. They came up on either side of him with a set of weights and began hitting him while he slept.

• 48:47Garrett Moreland?

  Oh my gosh.

• 48:48Payton Moreland?

  They then moved him to the floor, taped him up, and meanwhile, Narsi not only watched the entire thing, but they say she directed it as well. She's the one.

• 48:59Garrett Moreland?

  She's insane.

• 49:00Payton Moreland?

  She's the one who told them to gouge out Benji's eyes. And they're like, we don't actually know why, we just did what she said. I mean, she was paying us.

• 49:08Garrett Moreland?

  Holy crap.

• 49:10Payton Moreland?

  But then she handed them a pillow to muffle her husband's screams and headed down to the lobby to get breakfast and create an alibi for herself. But the most shocking part about all of this, and Garrett caught on to this a lot sooner than he thought, than I thought you would, I was hoping to leave this as a twist. Benji was not the only target. The two men said Narsi had actually paid them to kill someone else before. Benji's mother.

• 49:37Garrett Moreland?

  Yep.

• 49:38Payton Moreland?

  Bernice Novak.

• 49:39Garrett Moreland?

  So I was right.

• 49:40Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. I wanted it to be a twist.

• 49:42Garrett Moreland?

  You get, you, you gaslit me.

• 49:44Payton Moreland?

  I don't know how you figured that out so fast. I don't know how you figured that it was two hitmen.

• 49:48Garrett Moreland?

  You just gaslit me for 40 minutes. You lied to me. I, I believed you after you told me that.

• 49:54Payton Moreland?

  I had to. You would know where it was going.

• 49:57Garrett Moreland?

  Actually, you gaslit the entire audience. That's crazy. You tricked me.

• 50:01Payton Moreland?

  Those who knew Bernice had always suspected something else had happened.

• 50:03Garrett Moreland?

  That's insane. Narsi's nuts.

• 50:05Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Garrett Moreland?

  She's nuts.

• 50:08Payton Moreland?

  There was blood inside her car as well as smears of blood on the walls.

• 50:12Garrett Moreland?

  Lock her up or get rid of her.

• 50:15Payton Moreland?

  Plus, a neighbor of hers, a former Miami Dolphins football player, said he noticed something odd in the weeks before Bernice's death. Strange men had kind of been lurking around her home, almost casing the place. And one time, the neighbor approached them to ask what they were doing, and they just ran off. So then, two months after that, Bernice's tragic series of falls happens and she dies. We know that was no accident. So by July of 2010, a year after Benji's murder, there was finally enough to arrest Narsi Novak and her brother, Chris Stoball, and then they would have the two actual hitmen testify against them at court for a lower deal.

• 50:56Payton Moreland?

  And it was revealed around this time that the author of that anonymous letter, the Spanish one to police was actually their own sister. So Narcy and Cristobal's own sister turned them into the police. They were tried together in 2012 with their hired hitmen testifying against them as star witnesses. The prosecution said Narcy was basically afraid that Benji was gonna leave her for Rebecca. She just found out about that and because of their prenuptial agreement, she would only walk away with $65,000. But if she killed Bernice and Benji so he couldn't run away with his lover, she would then inherit the bulk of his estate. However, the defense kind of does their thing, calls into question all of the things.

• 51:41Payton Moreland?

  But in the end Narcy and Cristobal were both convicted of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, domestic violence, stalking, money laundering and witness tampering. They were each given life in prison without the possibility of parole.

• 51:53Garrett Moreland?

  What about the, I'm curious about, yeah.

• 51:56Payton Moreland?

  Garcia and Gonzalez?

• 51:57Garrett Moreland?

  Correct.

• 51:58Payton Moreland?

  Because of his deal, he was given 17 and a half years behind bars, Garcia. Now Gonzalez was only given 10 years in prison for his cooperation. This is because of something called the Slayer Rule in Florida. Narcy was disqualified from inheriting a dime of Benji Novak's estate, even though like on paper she would inherit it because everyone else is dead.

• 52:20Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 52:21Payton Moreland?

  So instead, all of his money went to her daughter, May, and her two sons.

• 52:26Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, I feel so bad for the daughter too. Oh my gosh.

• 52:28Payton Moreland?

  This is bittersweet because while Benji may have made some enemies along the way, the one person who really adored him and looked up to him her whole life was May. I mean, Benji had kind of become her, her father.

• 52:40Garrett Moreland?

  Also, I feel bad for the mom. The mom that died?

• 52:44Payton Moreland?

  Bernice.

• 52:45Garrett Moreland?

  Like maybe she was right. Maybe she knew that Narcy was bad this whole time.

• 52:52Payton Moreland?

  And I mean, at the end of the day, Bernice dies, Benji dies.

• 52:59Garrett Moreland?

  Nuts.

• 52:59Payton Moreland?

  May has her two sons, but like she's lost her mom, her uncle.

• 53:04Garrett Moreland?

  Her grandmother.

• 53:05Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. So it's like, she's kind of lost family as well because of her mom and uncle's choices.

• 53:11Garrett Moreland?

  Yep.

• 53:11Payton Moreland?

  And that is the murder, the absolutely insane murder of Benji Novak. It actually is devastating that he. Beat these odds, built this entire fortune, you know, had loved this daughter just for his wife.

• 53:29Garrett Moreland?

  What is wrong with people? It's just crazy. Also, she's just a lunatic. The fact that she watched and directed it.

• 53:36Payton Moreland?

  I just.

• 53:37Garrett Moreland?

  Absolute lunatic.

• 53:38Payton Moreland?

  Loki, I think she hated him because of all of his affairs. But like I said back to the beginning, if this had been an issue since day one.

• 53:46Garrett Moreland?

  Look, you just don't kill people. It's bottom line.

• 53:47Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, you just gotta get out.

• 53:49Garrett Moreland?

  Bottom line is you don't kill people. Yeah. She could have left. He wanted to divorce her.

• 53:52Payton Moreland?

  Only $65,000.

• 53:54Garrett Moreland?

  Beats life in prison.

• 53:55Payton Moreland?

  Agreed. All right, you guys, that is our episode this week and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.

• 54:01Garrett Moreland?

  I hate it.

• 54:02Payton Moreland?

  Goodbye.

• 54:12Payton Moreland?

  Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross.