Pod Insights My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark MFM Presents…Hell in Heaven About this episode In today’s special episode, Karen and Georgia are joined by host and award-winning journalist Becky Milligan to discuss her brand-new investigative series, Hell in Heaven. Brought to you by Exactly Right Media and iHeartPodcasts, produced by Blanchard House, this is the unmissable story of John and Ann Bender—and their true tale of wealth, isolation, and obsession. Young, brilliant, and impossibly rich, they set out to build a vast mansion and wildlife sanctuary in the Costa Rican rainforest. But not everything in paradise is what it seems.
After the interview, you’ll hear the premiere episode of Hell in Heaven, “The House of Secrets.” Then, head to Hell in Heaven’s feed to follow the show and find additional episodes. New episodes drop every Thursday.
See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript 8,750 words · 23 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
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0:36 Georgia Hardstark? The Hulu original series Phony is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ Plus. Sonny's life is pretty great until he wakes up from a car accident to a world that looks exactly like his, with one exception, his mom.
0:48 Karen Kilgariff? Starring five-time Emmy nominee Connie Britton and Sam Nivola, this small town is hiding the mother of all mysteries just beneath the surface.
0:56 Georgia Hardstark? Watch the Hulu original series Phony.
0:58 Karen Kilgariff? Now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
1:02 Georgia Hardstark? Goodbye. Everyone loves the idea of spending an afternoon curled up with a good book.
1:07 Karen Kilgariff? Well, grow up, because it's almost impossible.
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1:13 Karen Kilgariff? Audible has a massive selection of titles to choose from, including This American Life, new books by Michael Connelly, along with classics from Magdalen Christie, and so much more.
1:22 Georgia Hardstark? Whether you want a mystery, a true crime story, or something completely different, there's always something new to listen to.
1:27 Karen Kilgariff? New members can start listening with a 30-day free trial at audible.com/mfm.
1:32 Georgia Hardstark? Audible, stories that speak to you. Goodbye. You know a favorite M-word? Magnesium.
1:38 Karen Kilgariff? Like the kind that's in Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray.
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1:46 Karen Kilgariff? If you need a reset after your day, make Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray part of your nighttime routine.
1:51 Georgia Hardstark? Generously sprays each foot before bed, and you'll be all set. I've actually started doing this, and I'm obsessed with magnesium. It does everything.
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2:01 Georgia Hardstark? Totally. For wellness you can feel, find Dr. Teal's Magnesium Spray online or in your local bath aisle. Goodbye.
2:25 Georgia Hardstark? Hello.
2:26 Karen Kilgariff? We are very excited today because we just released our newest limited series from our partners over at Blanchard House, and it's called Hell in Heaven.
2:34 Georgia Hardstark? It's a true crime story about a rich American couple who escaped to the Costa Rican jungle to build their dream home, complete with armed guards and a bedroom lit by 400 Diphony lamps.
2:45 Karen Kilgariff? But their dream turns into a nightmare as isolation and paranoia leads to a mysterious death.
2:50 Georgia Hardstark? And we're lucky to be talking to the award-winning investigative journalist who tracked this story down.
2:55 Karen Kilgariff? You know her from her 2024 podcast right here on Exactly Right, The Butterfly King. It is Becky Milligan.
3:01 Georgia Hardstark? Hello, Becky.
3:02 Speaker 04 Hi. Hi, Georgia. Hi, Karen. Really nice to be here.
3:06 Karen Kilgariff? Great to see you again. We haven't seen you since The Butterfly King premiere.
3:11 Speaker 04 I know, a bit of time away, but, you know, I've been working away, been off to Costa Rica and doing this story, which has been amazing.
3:20 Karen Kilgariff? How did you find this story originally?
3:22 Speaker 04 Well, it was actually a while back, and I was sort of reading through a few stories. And then a friend actually said, did you hear about this story? I read it, and I thought you might be interested. And then we found much more detail about it, and then we found a book. And we just thought, oh, this is just incredible. It just has everything, and we thought we'd pursue it then and just see what we could do with it.
3:45 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, it's so dramatic when you make the trek to the actual compound, essentially, in Costa Rica, and there are security guards and they're filming you. Was there ever a point where you were afraid for your lives?
3:58 Speaker 04 Well, I'm always a bit of a scaredy cat, you know?
4:01 Georgia Hardstark? Same.
4:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:03 Georgia Hardstark? Same.
4:04 Speaker 04 When I see guns, I just think, let's get out of here. But I was obviously with Poppy Dayman, the producer, and our sound recorder, Dan. And they were really busy sort of chatting and just seeing what was going on. And I was the one who was suddenly saying, listen, guys, there's a guy with a gun. It's actually pointed toward, we've got to get out of here. So, yeah, there were times when I get a bit frightened. I don't think it was actually threatening, but it is a bit scary when you see that.
4:31 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, that's so intense. I love that you're saying you're a bit of a scaredy cat, except for that you're an investigative journalist.
4:39 Karen Kilgariff? The contradiction.
4:41 Speaker 04 Well, not really. I never want to go to really scary places, but I just sort of end up being there. But anyway, I try and avoid it. But this was an amazing jungle. I mean, you know, our couple wanted to escape all the the sort of people and sounds of the city and set up a sort of utopia of paradise with wildlife. But I tell you what, being there in the jungle, it is so noisy. And you have the you'll hear it in the show, these howler monkeys, I'm sure you know them, but they were new to me. And it's like through the jungle howling like a dinosaur. It was just so incredible to be there and see their incredible house.
5:18 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. How much do you think that the either the house, the compound, the or the jungle itself, how much of a role do you think that played in the story? Do you think their story would have played out the way it did had they not, you know, had the circumstances that they did?
5:33 Speaker 04 I think the house is really important because it's kind of central to the story. When when we got there and we got through the jungle and, you know, eventually found this hilltop with what looked like a spaceship on top of it, you know, four stories, it just felt so symbolic and symbolic of the story. And the way they built it, the way that they wanted the animals to interact with the house and the jungle around it and bring it back to its natural state, it feels as though nature sort of played its part, as did the house, almost how they were almost in conflict, but not. So I think the fact that the house was isolated on a hill, there were these wonderful couple in lots of ways
6:14 Speaker 04 who wanted to create something beautiful. I think the house really played a part in it. It just it was sort of just both beautiful, but also isolated and a bit of a threat.
6:27 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah, there's so many good interviews in this podcast. I really love that. There's people really bringing color to the story and real perspective, like people that were there, trying to explain this kind of outrageous and outlandish true crime story. How do you find people like that? Is that just you tracking people down? Do you ever do it in the moment, like when you're on scene?
6:49 Speaker 04 Oh, like all the time. You know what? What was really special about this is you can set up interviews and read loads and all of that and write something and do a few interviews online or whatever. But when you go somewhere. And you're actually sitting down with people, they tell you about, hey, have you spoken to Joe down there? Or or so and so over there, they have a story to tell. And we found that all the time, it just, whatever you fix up, serendipity steps in when you're on the ground. You just, and and it's great because you feel like you're doing the proper job. Because you're actually just knocking on doors and saying, hey, what about this? What about that? And we we did with the characters were just so much fun to meet.
7:33 Speaker 04 And obviously, there there were gaps that people had in the knowledge of the story. And so they filled it with with gossip and with their own theories. And it kind of almost drifts on the air as you're going through the jungle. So, yes, absolutely. And you do, you just stop people in the street, they sort of know the story. So you quickly chat to them and see whether they know enough to be able to add to the story. It it's amazing, really.
7:57 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah, wow. Ultimately, this is a true crime story. It's it's a mysterious death. What do you think it is about those stories, like The Butterfly King as well, that draws you, Becky, to those stories?
8:09 Speaker 04 Well, for me personally, it it's the idea there may be a little mystery. The idea that there are people who are involved in it, who are able to tell you what really happened. And underneath it all, the real story, that there is a human story. And and it's this sort of bigger theme that when you think about John and Anne, it was their their desire to find peace, to find a utopia. And they did this together to get away from people and searching for a place where they could exist with nature. And so I think it just makes you think about, we all want that. You know, we're all there with them. And it it turned into a dreadful tragedy.
8:51 Speaker 04 But there's something that we can all connect with, with every single person we speak to, I hope.
8:56 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
8:56 Speaker 04 But but also, just to what really brought it down to earth, I don't want to say exactly who we spoke to, but not not to give too much away. But we did meet the parents of one of the couple. And what it did, it just brings you straight down to earth at that point. Because it is terrible, terrible grief.
9:13 Georgia Hardstark? Yeah.
9:14 Speaker 04 And a grief that isn't over, and it never will be. And I think that, you know, seeing that couple hold their hands, reach for each other's hands under the table to grip on for dear life when they're talking about the story, it makes you really realise that this is a very human story and I hope told with sensitivity and respect for all their family and friends.
9:37 Karen Kilgariff? Well, I'm sure it is because Becky, you're the best in the business. I mean, it's such an honour to be able to work with you and to be able to, you know, show everybody your work because you're incredible. And this podcast is so good. Everybody at the network that has to listen to it for whatever department, whatever reason, everyone is blown away. You did an amazing job. Can we just ask you one final question, which is, what's the scariest thing you saw in the jungle? Did you see a snake? Did you see a giant spider? Did you ever get fall into quicksand? Anything?
10:10 Speaker 04 Anything at all. I think the scariest thing was we did stop off at this waterfall and we were sitting there and I was, I don't know why, but I always felt I was the sort of mother of everyone there. And they were all climbing up and Poppy was beginning to sort of strip off and whatever. It was very hot. And then I looked over and I saw this shadow, black shadow. And I started to go, oh, my God, it's a lion. It's, I mean, not a lion. I didn't know what it was. But anyway, it was this animal. I was really scared. And I turned to Poppy. She'd seen it. And she said, don't worry, it's just like a cat. And it's like the cat that John had as a pet. It's fine. And then it disappeared, slithered
10:53 Speaker 04 away. So I didn't see a snake. I didn't, I mean, there were really terrible thing, you know, things that could kill you with one bite. But I just, I stayed on the, on the paths religiously.
11:04 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah. Sounds like the smart way to handle the jungle.
11:09 Speaker 04 But thank you very much. I'm so glad you enjoyed it.
11:14 Speaker 04 You know, it was it was an absolute privilege to do.
11:17 Georgia Hardstark? Thank you so much, Becky. Thanks for talking to us today and we're so excited to share the podcast with everyone.
11:22 Karen Kilgariff? Yeah.
11:22 Speaker 04 Thank you so much. It's great to see you guys again.
11:25 Georgia Hardstark? Great to see you. All right, now it's time to listen to the first episode of Hell in Heaven. When you're done, episode two is waiting for you over at the Hell in Heaven feed.
11:34 Karen Kilgariff? And while you're there, please don't forget to like and subscribe and give it a five star review because of course it really helps.
11:39 Georgia Hardstark? New episodes of Hell in Heaven drop every Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
11:46 Karen Kilgariff? Now, please enjoy episode one of Hell in Heaven.
11:49 Speaker 04 Goodbye.
11:58 Speaker 04 January the 7th, 2010. We're outside the house of John and Anne Bender, a young American couple who've built an extravagant home and wildlife refuge in the middle of the Costa Rican rainforest. John made a multimillion dollar fortune on Wall Street. Anne is his bright and glamorous wife.
12:26 Speaker 04 It's now one in the morning. The emergency call came in an hour ago.
12:36 Speaker 04 A shooting. And a casualty.
12:42 Speaker 04 That's the voice of Carlos Mora. He was the ambulance driver who was on the scene that night. I've tracked him down. Now, he's attended hundreds of violent incidents over the years, but this one stands out. He's never experienced anything like it before or since, and he's not alone. All the people I've found while reporting on this story remember it in vivid detail.
13:10 Speaker 04 I'm Becky Milligan. I broke stories for the BBC for almost thirty years, and I've reported on some pretty strange events. But this one is the strangest of all. So, back to that night. Carlos enters the bender's house, and he gets in the elevator. And just like everything else in this house, this is no ordinary elevator. It's a round, open platform that rises up through the building. Carlos grips onto the handrail.
13:47 Speaker 04 He sees each floor as it passes.
13:52 Speaker 04 "The house is incredible," he says.
13:57 Speaker 04 "He's never seen a place like it." "It's like an enormous spaceship." "Inside, it's all stainless steel and shiny black floors, reflective like pools of water." "There's a lot of money here." "Who could own such a house?" he asks himself.
14:18 Speaker 04 "A drug trafficker?"
14:23 Speaker 04 Carlos is anxious. Guards and security are everywhere, armed with heavy caliber weapons. They're speaking to each other in hushed voices. He's been told he has to go up to the fourth floor, the master bedroom. He passes the first floor, the second floor, a vast kitchen,
14:48 Speaker 04 the third floor,
14:52 Speaker 04 the fourth floor, the bedroom.
14:58 Speaker 04 And on the bed, a body, curled up as if asleep.
15:04 Speaker 04 But as Carlos gets closer, he takes in the horror of it all. The gunshot wound at the back of the head. The victim's left arm dangling off the bed. Blood dripping from it, forming a pool on the highly polished marble floor. And near it on the floor, the gun, a semi-automatic.
15:29 Speaker 04 At first, the police will assume this is a suicide. But not for long. And here's why.
15:39 Speaker 04 The gun seems to have dropped from the victim's left hand. Yet the entry wound is on the right side of the head. Not only that, the bullet was fired
15:55 Speaker 04 from behind.
16:04 Speaker 04 From Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts, produced by Blanchard House, this is Hell in Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan.
16:33 Speaker 04 Chapter one, The House of Secrets.
16:42 Speaker 04 Our story begins and ends with a house, built and owned by Anne and John Bender. This place is their dream home.
16:52 Speaker 04 When they first move here, they're both in their 30s. He's made his millions and now he wants to put them to good use, to enjoy them, by creating a wildlife sanctuary. So our couple are young and they're in love, completely in love, devoted. It seems they live only for each other. And all the beloved animals they've rescued. John also has his rare orchids. And Anne has her collection of Tiffany lamps, hundreds of them.
17:24 Speaker 04 So Anne and John have everything they need right here, in their house in the middle of the jungle. A house unlike any other, and which will, in time, be the scene of a terrible tragedy and a mystery.
17:42 Speaker 04 So I land in Costa Rica to investigate this story. And by coincidence, my 18-year-old daughter is already here, working on a conservation project elsewhere in the country. She's been messaging me, telling me all about protecting turtle eggs on pristine beaches, relaxing in camp as monkeys play in the trees, and about how she showers in the open air as hummingbirds hover close by. Paradise. But as I arrive in the country and discover more about this story, about the dark side of life in Costa Rica, the more I start to worry about my daughter, and worry about myself turning into some sort of internet meme,
18:25 Speaker 04 a hysterical, overprotective mother convinced her daughter is about to die. Not only that, I'm not coping too well with the climate either. Gosh, it's quite tiring, isn't it, in this heat?
18:41 Speaker 04 Scotland in autumn is more my thing, and that's a lot cooler than it is here. My producer Poppy and I have driven four hours from the capital, San Jose, a hair-raising drive around hairpin bends with sheer drops on either side. But we're now deep in the rainforest, searching for John and Anne Bender's house. First, through a slight clearing, we come upon the Deamonte Waterfall, which gives this valley its name.
19:12 Speaker 05 Oh, wow, that's it.
19:13 Speaker 04 Yeah. Oh, my goodness.
19:16 Speaker 05 Is that it?
19:17 Speaker 04 It's so high up.
19:22 Speaker 04 Water tumbles from a high ridge down the cliff face and is swallowed up by the forest below. Blue, green, and yellow birds flutter above our heads, and the noise is intense, and strange roars echo in the distance like dinosaurs.
19:42 Speaker 04 Sounds enchanting, but the truth is, we're already on edge. We've been spooked by a phone call we made just before we set out.
19:52 Speaker 06 It's like warm in the daytime, kinda cool at night, crystal clear spring water blowing out of the mountains. Fruits and vegetables grow real easily, nice vegetables, tomatoes, bananas. We never thought we were coming back.
20:04 Speaker 04 That's John Corvik, who knows the area and used to be the bender's neighbour. And John had a warning.
20:11 Speaker 06 There was my wife and I, and that was about it. So you're alone on this giant farm in the deep jungle most of the time. It's a strange thing. It sounds morbid, but a lot of people die off there, and a lot of people go kind of crazy. They lose it, they actually lose it. Struggling with anything in the jungle, you're gonna face your inner demons.
20:37 Speaker 04 John's words really unsettle us.
20:40 Speaker 06 There's folklore about the Diamante waterfall. I'd be damned if all the people that move in and out of there don't go batshit.
20:48 Speaker 06 You know, the hippies have some theory, the vortex of energy that spins off the waterfall. Indians say it's a curse because they were run off their land. Any way you cut it, the families go nuts, they fall apart, people die. I don't know anyone who's lived facing that waterfall that just set up shop and enjoyed this majestic view and just soaked it in. Long term, I really don't. Sometimes I think it's from isolation, you know, cabin fever, they go nuts. You could have cabin fever. My wife asked me, she says, "Are you ever gonna put clothes on again?" I would go three or four days in my rubber boots, you know, I didn't see anyone.
21:27 Speaker 04 It sounds like an exaggeration, that people go mad and lose it. But by the end of our story, you won't think so.
21:36 Speaker 06 Shit, that place is the darkest jungle you've ever seen in your life. You have no clue.
21:47 Speaker 04 We leave the waterfall behind and walk even deeper into the jungle in search of John and Anne Bender's house, which they called Boracayán. Okay, I'm seeing some barbed wire fence, so I think we're getting close. That even looks like cut lawn. It does. Right up the slope there. We see the slopes of the gardens first, and then through the trees and foliage. Oh my god! That's really it. It's just enormous. It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica. It's like four stories with this dome at the top.
22:30 Speaker 04 It's constructed from huge concrete slabs and columns and 50,000 square feet, around the same size as a soccer pitch. And it's round. Imagine that on a jungle hilltop, rising way above the tops of the trees. And you get an idea of what it looks like and how out of place it is. The views are incredible. In the evening, John and Anne would sit and look out across the jungle, enjoying the glorious sunsets, enjoying each other's company. In the daytime, they'd zoom around on their 5,000 acres of land on a quad bike, busying themselves with their wildlife refuge, caring for all the animals they'd saved.
23:13 Speaker 04 A great black hawk, a jaguarundi, which is a wild cat on the verge of extinction. And Anne also had her dog, a German shepherd called Milli. It really is an astonishing place. But being here now, there's a sinister edge to it all. I can see why they loved it. It's completely isolated.
23:39 Speaker 04 But there're gates here, a couple of guards, and there's no entry. There's just no way we can get in. And even at the top, I can see a guard sort of walking the perimeter.
23:55 Speaker 05 I think he is filming.
23:56 Speaker 04 In fact, he was filming us. They're getting a bit tense, all guards.
24:00 Speaker 05 Okay, good to know.
24:01 Speaker 04 We'd asked permission to go inside weeks before and hadn't received a response. But just as we're leaving...
24:09 Speaker 05 Muy bien.
24:11 Speaker 04 A man turns up in fatigues.
24:15 Speaker 05 Orlando, or no? Ah, you're Orlando. We're making a documentary about Anne and John, but it's not possible to go inside, is it? No.
24:23 Speaker 04 He puts his hand up and shakes his head.
24:26 Speaker 05 Well, thanks for your time. Have a good day. Bye. That's the way we go.
24:32 Speaker 04 The house is up for sale, empty. And there's a sadness about it, almost like the structure holds memories of what took place here.
24:41 Speaker 07 Yeah, mi nombre es Valdo. Yo ahorita vivo en Barrio Gordes.
24:46 Speaker 04 Twenty years ago, Azvaldo Roca had been preparing to meet his new boss. He knew nothing about him, apart from his name, John Bender, and that he'd bought up some land in De Amonte Valley. He ended up working for the Benders for 10 years.
25:01 Speaker 07 Si, soy de Pérez El León, nativo de Pérez El León.
25:03 Speaker 04 Azvaldo was grateful for the job, and grateful too to his former boss, also an American.
25:09 Speaker 07 Él se llamaba Jimmy.
25:12 Speaker 04 Jim had sold his farm to the new arrivals, John and Anne, but made sure his young maintenance man wouldn't lose his well-paid job, which were pretty hard to come by in Pérez.
25:22 Speaker 07 A lo que yo entendí cuando el nuevo... I understand there was a clause in the contract with Jim. The previous owner specified that I had to continue working on the property when the sale was made. I stayed to take care of the property until John Bender arrived.
25:38 Speaker 04 Back then, everyone in town was gossiping about the new gringos moving to the valley. Gringos is what Costa Ricans call Americans. Most foreigners are gringos. The locals are called ticos. What was clear was that they were rich gringos. Nobody knew how rich. But then, nobody really knew who this couple were at all, least of all Azvaldo. He remembers the day they arrived very clearly, because he was a bit nervous and wasn't sure what to expect. Before the house was built, the new couple was staying at a place in town.
26:13 Speaker 07 John, cuando llegaron. I remember being surprised when they showed up in the little car. They were mostly reserved people, especially John. He didn't like to interact much with others. He would prefer the mountains and he said something like, "I hate this property. I've been deceived." He never realized that the house was so close to the center of town until they arrived.
26:37 Speaker 07 We didn't realize how young they were. We expected to see an older couple. He was a big man. She was thin and pretty.
26:46 Speaker 04 Benita. That was the word everyone used to describe Ann. And John, at six foot five, was built like an American footballer. A guy who clearly worked out.
26:56 Speaker 08 Hugely muscular, gorgeous, blue eyes, dark hair.
27:04 Speaker 04 Carol Vaughan, an expat and author who moved to the town a few years later, was taken by how glamorous the couple were.
27:12 Speaker 08 Just handsome. Movie star handsome. She was petite, delicate,
27:21 Speaker 08 moved like a ballerina. She reminded me a lot of Audrey Hepburn.
27:26 Speaker 04 Despite his physique, John was a gentle soul. He was kind to all animals, even the tiniest insect. Back home in the US, he'd taken in dozens of stray cats. And he was incredibly smart, good with numbers. Ann, meanwhile, had been the most popular kid at school. No doubt, they were a striking couple. There's a photo of them, taken on their new property. John is standing behind Ann in shorts and a t-shirt, one arm wrapped around her chest, the other around her waist, in a protective way. He towers above her, and Ann, in jeans, is holding on to his arms and leaning back slightly against him. Their dream is taking shape around them.
28:12 Speaker 04 They look happy and relaxed. The perfect couple. It's hard to look at that photo now, knowing everything that would happen.
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28:59 Speaker 00 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable, so over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems: cloud platforms, data pipelines,
29:43 Speaker 00 AI models, software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background, but when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's Annapaola Assis and Access CIO, Giovanni D'Angelo, two people who think about these questions every day. Hear the full conversation at ibm.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.
30:24 Speaker 10 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
30:39 Speaker 11 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
30:50 Speaker 10 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
30:55 Speaker 12 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
31:01 Speaker 10 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
31:26 Speaker 04 John and Anne arrived in Costa Rica with a reported $600 million, an eye-watering fortune, which would in time be bitterly fought over. But that comes later in our story. All anyone knew at this time was that they wanted land, and they had the money to pay for it. Author Carol Vaughan.
31:49 Speaker 08 And when the word got out, people were desperate to make a killing off Americans because it happens a lot. And their vendors found their mailbox just stuffed with people's deeds, saying, here it is, pay me.
32:04 Speaker 04 Is that right?
32:05 Speaker 08 Yeah.
32:05 Speaker 04 Just they were so desperate. They just wanted the money.
32:08 Speaker 08 They wanted the money. Yep. And they didn't want to be the only one in the neighborhood who didn't make a fortune off the gringos. I mean, if Raoul is making $100,000, I should make $100,000. I've got a deed here. Pay me.
32:23 Speaker 04 In total, the Benders bought up 5,000 acres from expats like Jim, locals and small farmers, some of whom had grown coffee on their land for generations. It was in a perfect position. From the top of their hill, they had great views of the jungle, the Dea Monte waterfall and the sea beyond. A romantic setting to watch the famous Costa Rican sunsets turn the sky to a burning red, orange and yellow. This was where they would build their enormous house, which they would christen Boracayan. You're probably wondering what that means. We wondered too. Apparently, it's the name of a local plant.
33:07 Speaker 04 Construction work began. John Bender had a vision for his new property, to create a new way of living unconstrained by normal rules. Building a house on this scale in the middle of the jungle, well, it was a huge undertaking and massively ambitious. But then, John was like that.
33:32 Speaker 13 Hi there.
33:33 Speaker 05 Hello.
33:34 Speaker 13 I was wondering when we'd be here. Come on in.
33:37 Speaker 05 Thank you so much.
33:39 Speaker 04 I met John's parents in Phoenix, Arizona. We'd already talked quite a bit online before I met them in person.
33:45 Speaker 05 You know what's amazing is seeing you on Zoom and now being here.
33:51 Speaker 04 John's mum is a teacher. John's dad is an eminent law professor and worked in the Clinton administration. This was the first time they'd invited journalists to their home to talk about their son. Their love for John is plain to see. They hold hands under the table as they talk about him. But they couldn't really relate to John's life making millions on Wall Street. Money isn't important to them, and they worried about the path he'd chosen. So when John decided to set up the wildlife sanctuary, I get the feeling they were relieved he was leaving the world of high finance behind. Though when John told his dad about the plans for their enormous house,
34:35 Speaker 04 Paul was pretty surprised.
34:37 Speaker 13 Well, he was going to build this high-tech thing in the middle of the jungle, basically. And it seemed to me impossible to do that. And the way he did it was to... Decide where he wanted to put it and then have the people come there and build it. So he had like an army of people building this thing. And what you've seen, what turned out, it has nothing to do with the jungle, but it was exactly what they wanted. I have a lot of pictures that we took down there.
35:08 Speaker 14 Oh, have you?
35:09 Speaker 04 Paul fired up his computer and scrolled through, showing us photos of the house being built. In the photos, the structure was up, but not much else. It was an empty concrete shell.
35:20 Speaker 13 OK, there it is. That's the house.
35:22 Speaker 14 Oh, gosh. We haven't seen...
35:24 Speaker 04 Is that under construction?
35:26 Speaker 13 Yeah.
35:26 Speaker 04 Oh, my goodness! Paul showed us more photos when the new floors had been put in. That granite is, it is like, almost like a mirror, isn't it?
35:34 Speaker 14 Yes.
35:35 Speaker 13 He really liked that.
35:37 Speaker 04 It's obvious that Margy and Paul are so proud of what John achieved. He had a dream, and he made it real.
35:44 Speaker 15 I don't think John ever thought there were limitations to things. If he wanted it to be round, it could be round.
35:50 Speaker 13 What they really wanted to do was, what they did, was find a place that was away from most of the world in a beautiful place, which had a lot of animals and a lot of greenery. They really wanted to be away from the world.
36:04 Speaker 15 They did.
36:05 Speaker 04 The house took a total of four years to build. The Benders moved in before it was finished, as Valdo, the head staffer, stayed at the couple's house in town and watched the jungle retreat take shape.
36:17 Speaker 07 We were there from the beginning. It was a huge building site. We could see the workers on the street, like 150 workers spread all over.
36:30 Speaker 07 We saw the house going up little by little.
36:33 Speaker 04 One of his jobs was to clean the house, and so he can tell us precisely what it was like inside.
36:41 Speaker 07 The fourth floor was all the bedroom with the bed in the middle and some rustic furniture made to order. He didn't like anything lavish.
36:52 Speaker 04 The third floor was empty. John had planned to put in a greenhouse for his orchids, but never got round to it.
36:59 Speaker 07 On the second floor was the kitchen, which was enormous. Four kitchens could fit inside it.
37:07 Speaker 04 It was like no other house in the whole valley, standing on top of the hill, a four-storey round home. It came with huge pools of water, road gutters to prevent flooding. And there was one feature in particular that said this couple had serious money. Because when John and Anne came here, they didn't make that four-hour car journey.
37:30 Speaker 04 They would fly in and out, landing on a helipad below the main entrance.
37:36 Speaker 04 Locals came to call the house "The Dome", because of the shape of the roof which could be seen for miles around, and...
37:43 Speaker 08 You could not make this shit up.
37:45 Speaker 04 There's one other detail about the house which people never fail to mention, including expat Carol Vaughan.
37:52 Speaker 08 The house has no walls.
37:55 Speaker 04 Yes, the house has no walls.
37:58 Speaker 08 There are screens that are pulled down from the ceiling at night that keep bugs and animals out, but during the day it was wide open. Designed by John, with Anne's decorating touch. The house is magnificent.
38:11 Speaker 13 It was open on all sides and you felt that you were really in the jungle. The bathrooms had walls. I think that was a concession that he made to...
38:23 Speaker 13 The inside was just open space. I went, "What are you gonna do with all this space?" I never got the answer to that. I don't think he ever did anything with all that space.
38:32 Speaker 04 Some describe it as looking like an anniversary clock, a shopping mall, or a car park. Not very flattering. But whether you like the design or not, it was an amazing feat. Hundreds of people were employed to build it and paid well. And it changed Osvaldo's hometown for good.
38:49 Speaker 07 As we say, John came to put the town on the map. This was an abandoned place. In 2000, there was not even electricity. When John arrived, he brought life to the place. He brought jobs. And foreigners became interested in buying land. So the economy began to move after being practically abandoned, like many other places here in Costa Rica.
39:12 Speaker 04 When the house was complete, John and Ann threw a party for all the workers and their families. But as Osvaldo says, it was the only party the Benders ever had. The house would never see so much life and light again as John and Ann retreated from the world and their lives became shrouded in darkness.
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40:12 Speaker 00 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable. So over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems: cloud platforms, data pipelines, AI models,
40:57 Speaker 00 software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background. But when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's Ana Paula Assis and acts as CIO Giovanni Doniello, two people who think about these questions every day.
41:28 Speaker 00 Hear the full conversation at ibm.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.
41:37 Speaker 10 Hi, I'm Jenna Ashkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
41:52 Speaker 11 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
42:03 Speaker 10 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
42:08 Speaker 12 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
42:14 Speaker 10 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
42:42 Speaker 04 The house wasn't just a sanctuary for John and Anne, but for animals too, of course.
42:48 Speaker 07 The comisade, we had two large parrots and a parrot with a broken wing, some monkeys, the sloth, of course, and a baby tolomoku.
42:58 Speaker 04 A black creature from the weasel family, which John loved and called Leo. He lived alongside two injured Persian cats which John had adopted. There was the duck and the falcons and the snakes, that's only the beginning. And Anne had Peter the sloth. Was it friendly?
43:16 Speaker 13 Oh yeah, but he slept all the time.
43:20 Speaker 13 So three-toed sloth.
43:22 Speaker 15 A sloth after all, the name has come from this proclivity to sleep all the time.
43:28 Speaker 04 Anne and John loved all animals ever since they were children. As adults, they both said they got on better with animals than with people.
43:36 Speaker 13 John also had a good feeling about animals, just a magician of animals. So we always had a lot of animals and I think both kids really enjoyed them.
43:45 Speaker 04 It was a menagerie. One reason for the absence of walls was to be at one with the jungle. The animals could come and go as they pleased. Sometimes when Anne and John had a bath, parrots would perch beside them and keep them company. They wanted to turn back the clock, restoring the land to its wild state before it was farmed.
44:07 Speaker 15 He was feeding it, he was bringing back the food that the land had had when it was natural and grew its own weeds, if you want to call them that and other things. He was trying to get that back into the soil.
44:20 Speaker 07 Then after three or four years, we did start to see more animals around.
44:26 Speaker 04 As the years went by, John and Anne would become increasingly isolated, holed up alone in their house with no walls. They had few visitors, but early on, before their home was completed, they made an exception for Zach Schwager and his dad Jack, who John had invited to come and see the house. Jack and John were friends.
44:47 Speaker 16 He said, hey, you know, you should come down sometime. So when my son graduated high school and he wanted to take a father-son trip, I said, that sounds like a little bit of an adventure. I said, hey, you want to go to, you know, Costa Rica, to John and Anne Bender's compound?
45:04 Speaker 04 Zach Schwager was just nineteen.
45:06 Speaker 17 My first time kind of like out of the country, people speaking different languages.
45:10 Speaker 04 They were picked up by a land cruiser.
45:12 Speaker 17 And we're driving for what I remember was, was hours. It's hard to describe this part of what it was like to get there because it was like truly out of a video game or a movie. You can't really see much because like you pull in, it's a dirt road, but it kind of leads up and up and up.
45:33 Speaker 16 The roads, you could lose a Jeep in the puddles.
45:36 Speaker 17 And then everything around you is rainforest, just like large, thick, lush trees. I had no idea like this is what it was. Like, yeah, like my dad had undersold this by a million percent. Like we were, we were in a movie set.
45:56 Speaker 04 Then he met their host, who'd taken up the traditional way to cut through the jungle.
46:01 Speaker 17 There's just like this big brute of a guy, uh, kind of like had a good, good, healthy beard and a machete on his waist.
46:09 Speaker 04 Straight off, he loved John, who took them on a tour of his property.
46:13 Speaker 17 He almost had like a skip, but a stomp to his step. You know what I mean? Like he walks like that jungle very confidently.
46:21 Speaker 16 He was proud of what he was doing. He loved the rainforest, you know, so I think a good deal of self satisfaction that, uh, that he was protecting this land.
46:30 Speaker 04 And John and Anne seemed uniquely matched.
46:33 Speaker 17 A couple that doesn't need to ask twice for things. A couple like where John sits down, like she knows he's thirsty type of thing. But like she willingly wants to make sure Jonathan is not a thirsty person. There was a lot of just like warmth and care that came from, from Anne. So we're special. And I'm like, man, this person is just such a sweetheart.
46:51 Speaker 16 He and Anne were very much in love as far as I could tell.
46:54 Speaker 04 Zach remembers the trip vividly, and one conversation in particular illustrated John's fierce intellect. One evening.
47:03 Speaker 17 It's just three dudes kind of like hanging out, shooting the shit. And, and, and this is like maybe like where I felt a little out of my element. Both Jonathan, uh, super intelligent and my father, super intelligent.
47:18 Speaker 04 And then John turned to Zach and said.
47:20 Speaker 17 I don't need to ask like such a random, uh, question, but are you familiar with quantum superposition?
47:26 Speaker 04 Yes, quantum superposition.
47:28 Speaker 17 So John like took my dad deeply through quantum superposition. Basically this idea that like based on, you know, waveforms that electrons can exist in two places at once.
47:43 Speaker 17 He was walking through several experiments, like one where like electrons were shot at like a gold leaf. But that like kind of changed my life in the sense that I was opened up to this whole world of like reality or not reality. And like Jonathan had kind of brought me into this place of where for the first time like I questioned like what's real and what's not real. And nobody had ever done that.
48:08 Speaker 04 For Zach, still in his teens, who'd never been to a foreign country, meeting John on his jungle reserve made a lifelong impression on him.
48:16 Speaker 17 It was like this very weird time where everything was perfect, like the wind was perfect. The temperature was perfect, like the seats weren't uncomfortable, the beer was still cold. And the sky was just this like perfect orange, like and you know, everything was super green. John was like somehow on center stage without like detracting from like this perfection. It was like just one of those moments where like the second that it was happening, you're like, please God, like do not let this end. Like don't, whatever you do, just like do not have this moment stop.
48:54 Speaker 04 But everything would change and the Benders would find themselves becoming further and further divorced from reality. Even then, the signs were there. This might have been a piece of paradise. But in this paradise, Zach noticed one thing that seemed strange, a puncture on the otherwise perfect scene.
49:16 Speaker 17 And all of a sudden, there's guys with guns. And that's at least something my father never said to me is like, there's gonna be men with guns. Like and lots of men with guns. They weren't friendly. They didn't say hi. They weren't like, hey, like I know I'm a random dude with a gun that doesn't speak the same language as you. Don't be frightened. They were just kind of, they were kind of there.
49:36 Speaker 16 Those guys with assault rifles, you know, at the gate and like you would imagine if it was a drug cartel, right? The armed people he had working for them would do these patrols, you know, like round the clock and stuff.
49:47 Speaker 04 Why did they have guns?
49:49 Speaker 17 Yeah, that was my very first question. And it was quickly answered with, uh, we're concerned about poachers.
49:55 Speaker 04 Poaching might explain all those guns, up to a point. Remember John Corvick from earlier, who used to live in the valley? He told us about the poachers and their dogs, who would come at night and cause havoc.
50:08 Speaker 06 Oh, there's poachers everywhere. I used to hunt the poachers. Those poachers are sons of bitches. You can never find them, but you'll find their dogs. And I used to go out with my bulldogs at first, we tried to find them. The poachers would drive me nuts. My dogs would start barking. I could hear them barking up in the hills.
50:23 Speaker 04 If this was just about poaching, John and Anne went to extreme lengths. They put up a barbed wire perimeter fence around their property, and had guards wearing fatigues, patrolling 24/7. Signs reading "Keep out private property" were erected everywhere. To the people in the valley, Costa Ricans, expats, hippies in search of a piece of heaven, the message was clear. And the couple were rarely seen. Occasionally, people would look up and see their helicopter leaving and returning to the Hilltop Reserve. So rumours and conspiracies germinated and began to grow, carried swiftly along the grapevine, whispers about those wealthy Americans,
51:07 Speaker 04 who flew in by helicopter and bought up all the land. And were all those guards really there to scare off poachers? Jessie, their neighbour, asked all those questions.
51:18 Speaker 18 We don't know. We can imagine, but we don't know.
51:22 Speaker 04 What do you imagine?
51:24 Speaker 18 Well, I personally thought he was probably somebody very big in, in the drugs. Personally, you know, obviously they were doing something secret.
51:34 Speaker 04 Boracayán was the perfect place to live in splendid isolation.
51:40 Speaker 04 And that, in the end, was at the root of everything that was to follow.
51:46 Speaker 04 And Jessie is right. The house with no walls was full of secrets. Where did they get their fortune? Why were they so hell-bent on protecting their privacy? Why all those guns?
52:03 Speaker 04 And why would one of them end up dead?
52:15 Speaker 04 You've been listening to Hell in Heaven from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts. Produced by Blanchard House. Hosted, written and produced by me, Becky Milligan. The producer and co-writer is Poppy Damon. Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmanel and Toby Matamol. The sound recordist and head of sound and music is Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer is Vulcan Kizeltug. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilak. For Exactly Right Media, the executive producers are Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lily Ladawig and associate producer Jay Elias.
53:00 Speaker 04 The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pie. The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House is Lawrence Griselle. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
53:29 Speaker 19 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
53:42 Speaker 20 Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.
54:25 Speaker 20 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.
54:28 Speaker 21 Hey folks, it's Matt Altmaix.
54:30 Speaker 22 And Joel Larsgaard from the How To Money Podcast.
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55:04 Speaker 14 You know it's officially holiday time when the whole familia is getting dressed up a la fiesta en la sala. You know what I'm talking about. Fit to the nines for those paparazzi moments by the tree. Así somos. We don't need a fancy location for the party because we are the party. We bring the looks, la comida, el amor, toda la vibra. And matching Old Navy PJs for Christmas morning with the fam? Ya es tradición. Que suenen los cascabeles. This season is all about sala and sleigh with Old Navy. Shop in-store or online at oldnavy.com.
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