Jack Irwin

Jack Irwin was a 71-year-old Korean War veteran who lived a quiet, isolated life in a cabin on Mount Baldy, California. In 1999, he befriended Marcia Johnson and Judy Gellert, a couple interested in buying his cabin. The women quickly became close to Jack, eventually moved in with him, and gained access to his finances through a trust that would transfer his assets to them after his death. On September 13, 1999, Jack disappeared after Marcia claimed she dropped him at a train station with $5,000 and a change of clothes for a spontaneous trip to Seattle. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Jack Irwin. His neighbors and longtime friend Sandy Bailey immediately doubted the story, especially after Marcia and Judy stopped cooperating with investigators and began using Jack's money. The investigation eventually revealed that Marcia had made repeated withdrawals from Jack's accounts, bought vehicles, sold his property, and helped collect insurance money after his Mount Baldy cabin was destroyed in an arson fire. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:48Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 526 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson, and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm doing good. How about you?

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Doing great.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:01Speaker 00

  I'm having a little throat issue that I gotta work through, but hopefully we can make it through this episode.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I hope so.

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Seth Kelly.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Hey, Seth.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  Stacy Martinez.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  What's going on, Martinez?

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Shirley Bernier jumped out to our highest level.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  Thanks, Shirley.

• 2:18Speaker 00

  Or Bernier. I'm still not sure which one it is. Kate.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Just Kate.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Sharon McPherson.

• 2:24Speaker 01

  Hey, Sharon.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  V.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Uh, what's going on, V?

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Jamie Silk.

• 2:28Speaker 01

  Uh, thanks, Jamie.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  And last but not least, Linda Clyne.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Ah, love that, Linda.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, appreciate the new support. And then if we go back into the vault.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  This week, we selected Kaylee Kelly.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Kaylee Kelly. Look at that.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Thank you for that.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  So we have an episode out right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved, where we're talking about a Michigan lawyer named Peter Kinsler. In 1976, he was shot in the head outside of his home. 50 years later, his murder remains unsolved, but authorities recently announced, Gibbs, that they have some very promising new leads.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  I'm loving this.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think this is one that may end up being solved sooner than later. And then next Thursday's TCAT is on Carlisha Freeland Gaither. I mean, she was 22 years old. She was abducted one night in Philadelphia. But Carlisha survived.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  She's one tough cookie.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, through bravery, intelligence, compassion. She also had some helpful witnesses who assisted with the investigation, leading to her rescue three days later. So it's a little bit of a different type of episode for us. But, you know, the person who abducted her was a very bad individual.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Involved in other crimes as well.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  But I would love to meet her and shake her hand.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I can't say enough amazing things about her.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:00Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 4:04Speaker 01

  I am.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  We're talking about Jack Irwin. Jack Irwin was a lonely retiree who lived in a cabin on Mount Baldy in California. In early 1999, he befriended Marcia Johnson and Judy Gellert, a couple who were interested in buying his home a month after signing a trust that gave the women full access to his assets in the event of his death. Jack disappeared.

• 4:32Speaker 01

  Uh-oh, that's not good.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  No. I think we know who the first suspects are gonna be, right?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Jack Irwin was a Korean War veteran. At the time of his death in 1999, he was 71 years old and living out his retirement in this cabin in Mount Baldy, which has been my nickname for a number of years now.

• 4:57Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say, uh, do they know that many people call you Mount Baldy?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  They do now. Jack purchased his cabin in 1981, according to the LA Times. No one was quite sure where he lived before that, but he was born in the Midwest. There was talk that Jack had a, either a cousin or a sister with whom he had a falling out years earlier over a home he owned in West Covina, California. So obviously, the information on Jack's early life is a little sparse.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  But Jack never married, and he mostly kept to himself.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  Kind of like a loner.

• 5:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe. In a detailed 2005 article on this case, LA Weekly reported that Jack suffered from dystonia, a progressive neurological disorder that affected his fingers, foot, and his vocal cords.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Never heard of that before.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  I have never heard of that either. But it was said that it was hard for Jack to make friends because of his disability, which made speaking difficult for him. It was hard for strangers to understand or hear him when he talked. It was also difficult for Jack to walk. When Jack did talk about his disability, which was rare, he said different things to different people. For example, he told neighbors Bob and Jean Walker he was injured by a hand grenade in Korea. LA Weekly reported that Jack was wounded while working on a helicopter medevac team in Korea. He was smoking a cigarette and saw what he thought was a football

• 6:37Speaker 00

  flying over a tent. He woke up in the hospital in Japan and discovered he'd been injured by a hand grenade. And then Jack was discharged from the Army after this. But Jack told his neighbors Tom and Sandy Bailey that his disability started after he returned from Korea. So it's kind of strange, right?

• 6:59Speaker 01

  It is.

• 7:00Speaker 00

  If you really were injured by a hand grenade, that seems like the story you would want to tell because, you know, it's kind of heroic. You were injured in the line of service.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Not sure why he would want to change that up. But it's also been reported that Jack struggled with depression and once told Tom Bailey there were times he wanted to die. I get it. You know, a lot of people struggle with depression. You know, this dystonia that he had, it sounds like it was pretty debilitating.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:39Speaker 00

  I'm sure it was not easy.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I'm sure added to his depression.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Sources reported that before the war, Jack was active. He enjoyed racing cars, motorcycles, and speedboats. And then after coming home from the Army, he withdrew and didn't leave home unless it was necessary.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  So it sounds like the war messed him up.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Well, it changes a lot of people.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Has changed a lot of people throughout the years. Jack went to the grocery store, made trips to the VA hospital, and went to the Mount Baldy Post Office to pay bills. Neighbor Bob Walker told the LA Times, he didn't trust a soul. He was really protective of himself. He didn't have much to say about his life or his family or anything, but he was a very sweet guy. Jack's cabin was simple, but he kept it in immaculate condition, according to neighbors. And he slept on an old Army cup. He had no stereo, no TV, but he read voraciously. And he bought his clothing from thrift stores.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  So he's a reader like me?

• 8:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. I know you're a voracious reader.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  He also is giving off a little bit of some Jack Reacher vibes.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  He is, isn't he?

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Because you know, Reacher likes to buy his clothes from thrift stores. Jack was said to be extremely frugal and never even came close to spending the $722 disability check he received every month.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Liking this guy.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  He sounds very similar to you. You are frugal. I'll use that word rather than some of the other words I've used to describe you in the past. But, you know, let's, let's talk about this. $722 a month, even in the 90s. That doesn't seem like a ton to live on.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  No. I mean, you're not going to get all the extra stuff you want when you go out to the grocery.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  But it sounds like he didn't want the extra stuff.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  No, he didn't. It was like he was very careful in what he spent.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think he was. But despite his Spartan lifestyle, Jack had a significant amount of money in savings. Or maybe because of it, in some ways. At the time of his disappearance, he was worth around $250,000 due to a real estate investment, per the LA Weekly. Jack kept about $10,000 in cash around his house and often carried a wallet full of cash. And I do think in some ways, you know, that's been a generational thing. Obviously, it's been a, an era thing as well, right? In times past, when you didn't have debit cards and you didn't have this, this, and this,

• 10:41Speaker 00

  people carried a lot more cash. But even when those came out, you know, when I was pretty much exclusively using a debit card, my grandfather still paid everything with cash.

• 10:53Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  He didn't trust anything but cash, I guess.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Oh, that's how my dad was.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Tom and Sandy Bailey were the closest thing Jack had to family. Sandy worked at the Mount Baldy Post Office, so she saw him regularly when he came in to get money orders to pay bills. Also, it sounds like, you know, he probably didn't have a traditional bank account.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe not.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  I don't know. Exactly what he had, but he's, he's, you know, most people who are using strictly money orders to pay their bills, that means they don't have a checking account. Sandy told the LA Times that she adopted Jack over the years. She invited him over for meals and took him books. That's, that's awesome.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Get some free meals, some free books.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, just people being nice.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  I like that, man.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  I do too. I love it. Jack's heating in his cabin broke down every year and she always offered him a place to stay. You know, just good people, I think.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  Good neighbor right there.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  According to LA Weekly, Jack's cabin got so cold on winter nights that the water froze in the toilet bowl.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Now that's a problem.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  It seems very cold. Although Jack could afford to buy propane, he believed the propane man cheated him and refused to have his tank filled out of principle. Now, I understand principle.

• 12:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  I also understand freezing to death. And, you know, when I want to use the restroom, I'd like to be able to flush my toilet.

• 12:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think everybody would.

• 12:33Speaker 00

  And not have to go on a solid block of ice. First of all, you might accidentally freeze something that

• 12:42Speaker 01

  Oh, that's true.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Might be very vital to you.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:45Speaker 00

  If you sit down on the ode to toilet.

• 12:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just think, um, there's times to be frugal and there's times not to be.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because even as frugal as you are, you wouldn't go to this length. Jack accepted Sandy's offer one winter and spent two months in their home. And when her son was born in 1987, Sandy named Jack the Godfather. So they were pretty close. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Jack brought her son gifts every year on his birthday, but he still kept mostly to himself and only accepted her dinner invites on rare occasions. In January, 1999, Jack decided he'd had enough of the harsh winters and decided to sell his cabin. He got in his car and drove down the mountain to Upland where he bought a four-bedroom house

• 13:38Speaker 00

  on a cul-de-sac. He paid a hundred and $60,000 cap.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Ah, see, all that frugality paid off.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  It did, but it sounded like he was done living like the Unabomber and he wanted to live like, uh, most people in society.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:58Speaker 00

  That month, Jack met Marcia Johnson and Judy Gellert, a couple who were interested in buying his cabin. The women agreed on a sale price of $48,000 to be paid directly to Jack over 10 years in monthly installments.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  Little land contract deal.

• 14:16Speaker 00

  It sounds like it. Jack offered to let them have his washer, dryer and fridge. At first, Marsha didn't want it, but when she looked inside the fridge and saw that it contained nothing but peanut butter and Rice Krispies, she felt bad for Jack. It was later that Marsha admitted, I began to wonder how I could use him in my life. And that's such a strange thought.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  I think for most people, right? Most of us don't look at someone and just naturally ask the question, how can I use this person?

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  How can I use them to get what I want? But there are some people who do that.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Very bad individuals out there.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  Jack welcomed Marsha and Judy's company. They cooked for him, they cleaned for him, and there seemed to be a strong friendship forming between the three. And I do think this is a guy who, you know, was lonely, right? So to have these two women in his life, he probably really enjoyed that.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:23Speaker 00

  The company.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, the intention.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Marsha worked as a computer programmer and Judy worked as a substance abuse counselor in prisons. She had recently been transferred from San Diego to the California Institution for Women in China. Now, it has been reported that Marsha had a long history of mental illness. According to court records, Marsha suffered a nervous breakdown at the age of 10. She was sexually abused by her next door neighbor at the age of 13. She said her family was mentally sick and her mother never talked to her. She never said she loved me. She also showed me naked to my father.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Okay, very strange.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  Uh, well, I don't know if strange encapsulates it.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Correctly. This is, this family is jacked up.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 16:21Speaker 00

  Now, she went through some terrible things here. Sexual abuse at a very young age. She had a nervous breakdown at a very young age. You gotta wonder though, how much of that came from this family environment?

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Probably a lot.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Sounds like she wasn't maybe just abused by the next door neighbor.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  That's what I'm thinking. Marcia claimed that her father beat her, her grandfather tried to rape her, and a violent ex-boyfriend almost killed her.

• 16:53Speaker 01

  I mean, why would you even want to be around men after all that?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know how you could trust any men, right? Going through those types of things at, at a fairly early age.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  I mean, and those are the men that, you know, you should always have the most trust in, right? Your dad, your granddad.

• 17:17Speaker 00

  Should be looking out for you the most, that's for sure.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Your boyfriend.

• 17:21Speaker 00

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• 18:05Speaker 00

  Those sweaters are perfect. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. So you're paying for high quality, not brand markup. And it's not just clothing. Quince brings that same approach to everything they make. I love their bedding. They even have kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was true crime all the time. It's the best way to support the show. Marsha dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

• 18:50Speaker 00

  She began lying, stealing and turned to drugs and alcohol. She admitted, I became very hateful as a child and then I just never grew out of it. In her late teens, Marsha began dating women. In her mid twenties, Marsha began experimenting with suicide, per the LA Weekly. That's, that's how they wrote it. They said she began cutting her wrists and trying to shoot herself in the head. However, Marsha said the bullet went somewhere else. In 1985, shortly before her 25th birthday and after two more incidents where she tried

• 19:33Speaker 00

  to end her life, Marsha ended up at San Diego Mental Health Services.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Well, hopefully she got some help there.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, according to a nurse's report, Marsha and a friend got drunk and decided they would drive off a cliff, but as they were contemplating this, they were arrested.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  It's kind of like that movie with, uh,

• 19:55Speaker 00

  I know you were going to talk about that. What's it called? Thelma and Louise?

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Thelma and Louise.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know that I've ever seen that. I think Brad Pitt was in that. It was one of his first, uh,

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, he'd jump up and down on the bed or something.

• 20:07Speaker 00

  Kind of big roles or not even a big role, one of his first roles.

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  But there's no doubt, right? That she was going through a lot from a mental health standpoint. I think it's pretty easy to see what a lot of this, you know, where it came from. She had a very jacked up childhood. I don't think there's any two ways about it. Marsha tried to end her life in jail and was taken to a psychiatric facility. Now Judy Gellert had a very different background from Marsha. She grew up on a farm in Indiana, earned a degree in physical education and got married. She got divorced after seven years and became dependent on drugs and alcohol.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  When she decided to get sober, she volunteered to work at Steppingstone, a drug treatment center in San Diego. And then she was later hired as a counselor. And you know who makes great counselors? People who've gone through it.

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Cause they actually know what those individuals or counseling feel.

• 21:13Speaker 00

  And what they're going through.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:16Speaker 00

  Cause they've been through it themselves.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  They can relate.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  And it was here that she met Marsha in the late 1980s. Judy and Marsha were together for 10 years, but their relationship wasn't always happy. Judy once wrote in a journal that she and Marsha tended to fight, disagree and picket each other over small things. Marsha sometimes worked as a waitress and graduated from a computer programming institute in 1998, but her mental health made it difficult for her to keep a steady job. In late 1998, both Judy and Marsha declared bankruptcy. To save money, they lived in a motorhome and moved around different RV parks.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  In December of that year, they were living at a small campground southwest of Mount Baldy Village in an area known as Cal Saddle. Campground owner Ron Curtis let them stay for free in exchange for watching over the grounds and collecting fees from campers. But it was a lonely place with extremely cold winters. In January of 1999, Judy and Marsha decided they needed a permanent home. They stopped by the Mount Baldy Community Bulletin Board and that's where they saw the real estate listing for Jack's cabin. Jack's new neighbors in Upland were Susan Hegemeyer and Doug Hopkins. They thought Jack was funny, friendly, and extremely neat.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  Susan became wary when Judy and Marcia moved in with Jack in the summer of 1999. Neighbors noticed that the women had a close bond with Jack. According to Jack's old neighbor, Tom Bailey, per the LA Times, they befriended him. They must have figured out how to appeal to whatever side of him would come out. Psychologically, he was happy. He was up about being around the girls.

• 23:11Speaker 01

  Sure, he was enjoying it.

• 23:13Speaker 00

  Before Judy and Marcia moved in, Jack owned one cup, one bowl, one fork, and one spoon. His living room furniture consisted of an easy chair and a tray table.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 23:28Speaker 00

  Man, that's a bachelor life if I've ever heard of one.

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 23:32Speaker 00

  It also sounds to me very reminiscent of Ben Affleck's character in The Accountant.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Well, that's true, too.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  Remember that? He used the same plate, the same spoon and fork, and then he would just wash.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Pretty simple that way.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  But after Judy and Marcia moved in, Jack began spending in rapid succession. He bought appliances, a television, living room furniture, and paintings. Marcia and Judy took Jack to a pride parade in San Diego, which was his first trip in years. So I think what friends and neighbors are seeing is a pretty substantial change in Jack.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  I mean, this guy who I think people called frugal was now spending money like crazy.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 00

  When he had never done so in his life.

• 24:24Speaker 01

  He's also getting out and about, you know?

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. Susan and Doug noticed that they could rarely talk to Jack without the girls. As Jack called them hovering in the background, Marcia and Judy called Jack dad.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Well, it sounds like they were all getting close.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  But Jack was still in contact with his old friend, Sandy Bailey. The last time they spoke, Jack complained that Marcia and Judy had taken over his home. He said, when I go out, the girls change things around. I'm not in control of my own house.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  That'd be a little frustrating, right? If you leave for the day, come back, and now your favorite chairs moved and they got their favorite love seat here. And maybe they change some of the pictures around and you're like, hey.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  Maybe even some of the pictures.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And those two.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  But let's face it, we know that they talked him into buying all this stuff.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  Right? There's no doubt about it. A guy this frugal just doesn't change without some prompting. But now we're getting a sense that maybe everything wasn't going as well as some people thought. This relationship. Neighbors also once heard Marcia and Jack yelling at each other at the top of their lungs. On August 17th, 1999, Jack, Marcia, and Judy signed the Jack Irwin Trust. The document gave Marcia and Judy the title to Jack's property in the event he died. That month, Jack spotted his neighbor Susan outside and called her over to ask her opinion on something.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  He said he put all his assets into a trust and put the girls' names on it. She asked him if he was crazy. And Jack replied, well, we're family now. If I die, they get everything I have. And if they die, I get everything they have. The problem with that situation is they got Jack squat.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 26:27Speaker 00

  And he's got quite a bit. Now, I'm sure he wasn't thinking that this is gonna give them a motive to want to see him dead.

• 26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, because if he's out of the picture, it's all theirs now.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  But that's because they had built up this, we're all family type theme.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Right? They had him feeling good. We're all family, you know, my family's not gonna hurt me.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  Definitely a good way to manipulate somebody.

• 26:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. You have to look at these people as manipulative. Jack disappeared just a month later. He was last seen on September 13th, 1999. That month, Susan Hegemeyer realized she hadn't seen Jack in a while. She couldn't ask Judy and Marcia where he was because they'd gone back to Mount Baldy. The next time Marcia came down to Upland to check the mail at Jack's house, Susan asked her where Jack was. Marcia said he had gone to Seattle to see the Space Needle. It was apparently a spontaneous decision he made after seeing a travel program on TV.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  The next morning, Jack took $5,000 from the bank and packed a change of clothes in a paper bag. He asked Marcia to drop him off at the MetroLink station so he could go to Seattle. But Susan found this story hard to believe, and I can understand why.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:59Speaker 00

  First of all, Jack was not what you would call a spontaneous guy, I don't think.

• 28:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 28:05Speaker 00

  Also, he was pretty frugal. Now, would he pack his clothes in a paper bag? Maybe.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think he would.

• 28:13Speaker 00

  But would he spend $5,000 to go to Seattle? Not the guy that Susan knew, I don't think. But it does appear, at least in some ways, Jack had changed, right? Since Marcia and Judy came into his life. On October 3rd, Doug Hopkins told Judy and Marcia to report Jack missing, or he would. So Marcia subsequently reported Jack missing to the Upland Police. She said that on September 13th, she gave Jack a ride to the Upland MetroLink station. Jack's disappearance was first investigated as a missing persons case by Upland Police.

• 28:55Speaker 00

  He was going to Los Angeles to catch a train to Seattle to visit the city. He left with a paper bag containing $5,000 and a change of clothes.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Just carry that money in that paper bag.

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, he, you know, it's much the way that you travel. I find it very odd, but when we go to Crime Con, you just got your Piggly Wiggly bag there with your change of clothes and maybe a wad of cash.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  You don't need all that fancy stuff, man. And I love the Piggly Wiggly.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  It's just not the quietest suitcase. Let's just put it that way.

• 29:33Speaker 00

  When Detective Steve Fokes came to the neighborhood to ask a few questions, Susan Hegemeyer confronted him with her suspicions about Jack's trip to Seattle. Fokes said Jack was a grown man and could go where he wanted, but Susan insisted he didn't go anywhere. Now, I get it from the detective standpoint. This guy's 70 some years old.

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  He has the right to go wherever he wants.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  No doubt about it. But I also understand it from, you know, Susan's perspective. This is not a world traveler. This guy doesn't leave his living room with his one chair and his TV tray.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, all of a sudden, he's gonna be a big time traveler?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  It just doesn't make sense, right? At least to the people who know him. Sandy Bailey was also worried because Jack had stopped returning her calls in September. When Marcia came to the Mount Baldy Post Office, she asked if everything was okay with Jack. Sandy didn't believe Marcia's story, that Jack had gone on vacation. She called the Upland Police, who referred her to Detective Fokes. Fokes didn't seem concerned and dismissed foul play. He believed Marcia and Judy's story. But Sandy took matters into her own hands and put up missing posters of Jack all over Mount Baldy Village.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  LA Times reported that eventually Marcia and Judy got lawyers and stopped cooperating with detectives.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  Which is their right. They can do that.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  It is. Now, where'd they get the money for these lawyers? That might be a question I would ask. Cause they didn't seem to have much.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  True.

• 31:24Speaker 00

  Right? In the way of assets, money. In the fall of 1999, Marcia contacted a real estate agent about selling Jack's Upland home. The real estate agent cited concerns about where Jack would live when he returned and refused to sell, but offered to help rent the home out. Marcia grudgingly accepted. Man, that's a great point. How are you gonna sell this guy's house? Where's he gonna live when he comes back from his quote unquote, Seattle vacation?

• 31:59Speaker 01

  That's true. He's gonna need a place to call home.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  But my thought is also, I mean, is it telling? How bad that these two women want to get their hands on, you know, his money? A large part of it would, you know, would come from the sale of this home.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Well, they're definitely money hungry.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, it seems that way for sure. Sandy Bailey continued leaving messages on the answering machine in Jack's Upland home, asking if he had returned and reminding him she expected him to come to Thanksgiving dinner. Sandy told LA Weekly, I knew Jack was dead. I did it just to aggravate Marcia. A month later, Marcia returned to the post office and threatened to sue Sandy for slander, for spreading rumors. Marcia added, and don't think I don't have the money to do it. I have more money than anyone on Mount Baldy.

• 32:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Putting that out there.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  But where'd you get the money from?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  You were living in a motorhome at a campground.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  On August 11th, 2000, Jack's old cabin on Mount Baldy caught fire. Firefighters rushed to the scene and saw that all the doors and windows had been locked and the water supply shut off. The fire destroyed the inside of the cabin and caused the roof to cave in. Marcia and Judy responded to the scene and Marcia immediately tried to blame Jack's neighbors, telling one neighbor, they started the fire because they hate us because we're lesbians. Jack's neighbor, Mary Lou Young, told the sheriff, he should check for bones underneath the cabin because she had a feeling Jack never went on a trip. No bones were found and the fire was declared an arson.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Man, what a strange allegation.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  It is.

• 33:56Speaker 00

  You know, it must be one of his neighbors who started the fire. They hate us because we're lesbians. Not to say that some people don't discriminate, right? Against lesbians or other members of the LGBTQ plus community.

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:16Speaker 00

  But it just seems like a weird accusation kind of right off the bat. Marcia swore she was not on Mount Baldy at all that day. And eventually she and Judy were paid $170,000 for insurance, which is quite a bit of money because they were under contract with Jack to buy it for $48,000.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. How's that work?

• 34:40Speaker 00

  I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet. They rented out Jack's Upland home for about a year before contacting a second real estate agent whom they told they inherited the home from a relative. And the home sold in March 2001 for $190,000.

• 35:00Speaker 01

  All going to them.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. Also, how do you sell someone's home?

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Well, I think the home was part of the trust and they.

• 35:08Speaker 00

  Oh, they had the, the trust document?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  That maybe gave them the authority?

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  That would be the, okay, that makes sense.

• 35:16Speaker 01

  Similar to that piece of paper I try to have you sign every now and then.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, that I always refuse. But wouldn't that only kick in if Jack was declared dead legally? And to this point he hasn't. So I'm, I don't know.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  It just depends on what the.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Maybe they just pulled the wool over somebody's eyes and were able to do it. In April 2001, Judy was transferred to San Diego County and the couple moved to Alpine and purchased another home. Jack's case stagnated and he was never seen or heard from again. His neighbors in Mount Baldy and Upland called authorities often and said Marcia and Judy should be investigated. And I think that's an understatement.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  I do too.

• 36:01Speaker 00

  I mean, just again, I don't know how much police had looked into it at this point, but you know, they had a story and obviously if Jack returns, then okay, whatever, the story is probably true. But if he's never seen or heard from again, do you want to maybe look into that story a little bit and the people who told you that story? And then to me, once the house sells, how can that not be suspicious?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  I agree with you.

• 36:33Speaker 00

  In June 2001, Upland turned the case over to San Bernardino County. The case was picked up by Maury Weiss, an elder abuse investigator. Weiss discovered that on September 13th, 1999, the day Jack disappeared, Marcia Johnson made the first of many withdrawals from Jack's account. She took out $4,000 the first time. Two days later, Gibbs, she withdrew $7,000. Two days after that, she bought a Jeep. And then about a month later, Marcia sold Jack Subaru and bought a Corvette.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Okay. But they're just using that money up.

• 37:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, but it doesn't seem like they're being shy about it at all.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  No, they're not.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  I mean, who's not going to notice a Jeep, a Corvette? And then it was said for two months, she made withdrawals every few days until Jack's account dwindled to just $14.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:38Speaker 00

  And remember, this is a guy who's supposed to be on a trip to Seattle.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:43Speaker 00

  And returning somewhat soon.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Like he'd be okay with you withdrawing all his money from his accounts?

• 37:51Speaker 00

  A guy that is about as frugal as it comes.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Weiss believed the women had illegally drained Jack's estate, but he knew that unless he could show they were responsible for his disappearance, they would claim the trust, gave them the right to Jack's money. Weiss also noted the sale of Jack's home in Upland and the suspected arson of his cabin on Mount Baldy. And I gotta be honest with you, I agree with this guy, but I also don't think that this was that tough of a conclusion to come to. I mean, just look at all the facts, look at all the signs. It's all pointing to one thing.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  And it's just pointing to these two people. I'm not denigrating him for doing his job, but I don't think you had to be Sherlock Holmes to, you know, figure this one out.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 38:45Speaker 00

  Records showed that two days after the fire, arson investigator Tom Fee interviewed Marcia and Judy. During that interview, Marcia mentioned that she was suing her psychologist with whom she'd allegedly had an affair. And that seems like a strange thing to confide to an arson investigator.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Of all the things.

• 39:08Speaker 00

  That. Of all the gin joints?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Gin joints.

• 39:12Speaker 00

  When Detective Maury Weiss talked to Fee about the fire, Fee recommended he look into Marcia's lawsuit. At the time, Weiss was too busy investigating the financial aspects of the case. But a year later, in late August, 2002, he contacted the state board of psychology, which had done its own investigation of Marcia's complaints. Weiss learned that nine days after Jack went missing, Marcia was in the emergency room and was diagnosed as acutely psychotic and suffering from hallucinations.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Have you ever suffered from something like that?

• 39:52Speaker 00

  Not that I know of.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  But do people who suffer from things like that actually know they are? I don't know.

• 40:00Speaker 01

  Would it be like that one time we did those mushrooms?

• 40:02Speaker 00

  Possibly.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Not sure why you thought you had to take all your clothes off. That made the experience very strange.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  For the others around us, yeah.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Who were all clothed, the rest of us, totally clothed.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Before she was released, Marcia blurted out to Judy, her mother and hospital staff that she killed Jeff. But as Judy later testified, no one really believed her because she also confessed to killing her brother and sister who were alive and well. I get that, right? Kind of hard to believe what someone is saying. They, they had just been diagnosed as psychotic and suffering from hallucinations. They're spouting off all kinds of things, some of which couldn't possibly be true. So how do you believe one thing out of all of the rest of it? Judy took Marcia to the New Day Institute in China.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  Marcia demanded the female therapist and was assigned to Dr. Deborah Martin. Martin was a registered psychological assistant. She had earned her doctorate, but had not yet passed her board exam. At first, Marcia rejected the idea of therapy and said she only came because Judy dragged her there. She said her real problem was the possibility of ending up in jail for spending between $60,000 and $70,000 of Jack's money.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Well, shouldn't have spent it.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  No, definitely shouldn't have spent it, shouldn't have taken it. But I think we're going to find out there's, there's quite a few things that shouldn't have occurred. Marcia was hospitalized three more times over the next four months. After her November 1999 hospitalization, Marcia told Dr. Martin she was terminating her therapy, but she began paging Martin at work. Martin responded and soon they were talking regularly on the phone and driving around while they talked about things. They grew increasingly close.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  Now Martin later denied under oath, having any sexual attraction to Marcia. She considered Marcia one of her best friends and thought Marcia felt the same way. And there's got to be some kind of rule against that type of fraternization. I get it. Technically she was no longer her therapist.

• 42:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  But I don't know what the exact rules are.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  There should be some like calming off period.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  Calming?

• 42:39Speaker 01

  Calming.

• 42:39Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:40Speaker 00

  I didn't know what you said there.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  In January 2000, Marcia drove Martin to Tijuana to buy her prescription medication for her health issues. On the way home, they stopped to watch the sunset and kissed. According to Marcia, Martin disputed this under oath and said, all that happened was that Marcia tried to put her arm around her shoulders. By this time, Marcia and Judy were not together, and Marcia was living in the motorhome. Marcia claimed that one evening she invited Martin over for dinner, and they, quote, "went into the bedroom." She claimed she performed oral sex on Martin. Martin later testified they never had sex. All that happened was that she spent the night

• 43:28Speaker 00

  once and was shocked, when she woke up to find Marcia asleep in the same bed, but outside the covers.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Well, it's outside the covers, so, you know.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  But it's your dog.

• 43:41Speaker 01

  You and your movie quotes, man.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  Hey, what are you gonna do? Movies just pop, movie quotes, they just pop into my head for some reason. Marcia said that in an effort to win Martin's affections, she deposited money into her account, paid for her test prep classes, paid off two student loans, and bought her gifts such as a cellphone and diamond earrings. In February 2000, Marcia proposed to Martin. Now, she claimed that Martin tentatively agreed, but she couldn't do anything until she passed her boards. Okay, either this was much more of a relationship than Martin wants to admit, or they have very conflicting views on how all this went down.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Kind of thinking they have some conflicting views.

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Or one person's telling the truth and the other person's not.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  I, I just know from personal experience, this is a lot to do in the form of, you know, giving money, putting money into someone's account, paying for these test prep classes, which we know are not cheap.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 44:49Speaker 00

  Paying off student loan.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 00

  And giving these gifts like cell phones, diamond earrings. Most people don't do that unless there is some type of relationship that is more than just friends. I'll put it that way.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Something's being reciprocated.

• 45:08Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 45:11Speaker 01

  Something's being reciprocating.

• 45:14Speaker 00

  And he does it again, folks.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  It's all good. They know what you're saying.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  It's the meds. It's the meds.

• 45:21Speaker 00

  You're not even on the meds anymore.

• 45:24Speaker 00

  No, I get what you're saying, right? There, there's a give and take.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Or as you would say, reciprocate. I don't even know how you said it.

• 45:31Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  But it just doesn't seem like, I understand it, friends help each other out. This seems to be going way far and above that.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  That's not even to mention the fact that there are allegations of cunnilingus and, you know, things like that going on.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  That is being passed around.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  Literally. Over the next couple of months, Marcia felt like Martin was pulling away. Martin said she was busy studying for her board exam and working. Marcia wasn't doing well either. She was taking pills daily and then drinking at night. In March, Marcia and Martin were talking in her motorhome, when Marcia said she had to tell her something. Marcia said she killed Jack. She claimed she shot him in the back of the head, cut up his body, wrapped the parts in plastic wrap and foil, and put them in a container. Martin asked her, "Like meat?" And Marcia replied, "Like meat." And don't make that face because you're making me feel bad.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  You should feel bad if you killed somebody and, on top of that, cut them up and then wrapped them up like they were meat.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  Leftovers, almost. Marcia asked Martin if she wanted to see where she threw the body parts, but Martin said no. Eventually, she concluded that Martin had no intention of marrying her, so she reconciled with Judy.

• 47:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, so let me think about this. Do I want to marry somebody that just told me that they killed somebody, chopped them up, packaged them up like leftovers, or not marry that person?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Tough choice.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  It kind of is, you know?

• 47:19Speaker 00

  I mean, you can't blame this woman for wanting to get the heck out of Dodge.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Marcia privately turned on Deborah Martin. According to Martin, Marcia once called her in a drunken stupor and threatened to drive off a cliff. Martin apparently told her that if she was going to do that, to take Judy with her.

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Kind of a good comeback.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  It is not what you're used to hearing from a therapist or a psychiatrist. I don't think that's the type of advice that they're taught to hand out. Marcia began secretly recording all of her phone calls with Martin, hoping to catch her urging her to kill Judy. In the meantime, Marcia told Martin that Judy was planning to sue her for rape. Marcia also filed a professional misconduct lawsuit against Deborah Martin and reported her to the Board of Psychology. The case was settled before trial, with Martin agreeing to pay

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Marcia $35,000, and the case would be sealed. Okay, that would be rough. Now, I get it. Deborah Martin did some things that she probably wasn't supposed to do right in her profession.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  But she didn't kill anybody.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  No.

• 48:41Speaker 00

  She didn't hurt anybody. It would sting to have to pay this woman who has come after you because you didn't want to marry her $35,000.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  It would hurt.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  When you know she's a killer.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wonder if maybe, uh, Martin had some E and O insurance that kicked in to help her out on that, I would hope.

• 49:02Speaker 00

  It could be. After reviewing the lawsuit, Detective Maury Weiss was shocked to find Marcia's confession. The problem was, there was no body. So, there's a couple of strange things here. First of all, this confession was part of the lawsuit.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Right? Deborah Martin obviously revealed it. Weiss had hiked the mountains looking for remains. Deputies had searched the campground owned by Ron Curtis, where Marcia and Judy once parked their motorhome. Some of Jack's neighbors also searched the area and found nothing. Detectives contacted VA hospitals between LA and Seattle, and Weiss went to the morgue to look at photos of unclaimed bodies. Weiss obtained a warrant to test the soil around Jack's cabin, which did test positive for blood. However, it had been 22 months, and the sample was so deteriorated, it couldn't even be identified as human blood.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, makes it rough to, uh, use it for anything.

• 50:11Speaker 00

  So Weiss felt that he needed something stronger. He needed a confession straight from Marcia. So in September 2002, Weiss met with Detective Bobby Dean, and they made a plan to stir the pot by confronting Marcia and Judy with legal problems such as search warrants and arrest warrants, to make them so rattled they would discuss the case on a wiretap line and make incriminating statements.

• 50:40Speaker 01

  I love stirring the pot sometimes.

• 50:42Speaker 00

  You are a pot stirrer.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Sometimes you have to do it.

• 50:45Speaker 00

  You're also a pot liquor.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  I don't know why you had to bring that into this.

• 50:49Speaker 00

  The plan launched on September 27, 2002. Weiss called Marcia at her new home in Alpine and said he was dropping off paperwork. He presented her with a warrant notifying her and Judy they were being charged with commercial burglary, grand theft by embezzlement, theft from elder, recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure, insurance fraud, and grand theft auto. They had two weeks to turn themselves in.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  Well, that should get a conversation going.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  It, it's kind of an ingenious plan, right? If you think about it, those types of charges would scare the you-know-what out of anyone.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 00

  And if you got more than one person involved, chances are they're going to want to talk about this quite a bit, and Marcia and Judy did. They called each other more than 10 times each day over the next few weeks. On October 2, 2002, deputies went to the prison where Judy worked, called her to the front office, and served her with a search warrant for her vehicle to test for blood. Judy called Marcia to tell her the news. Marcia called their attorney, then called Judy back to report that their attorney said deputies had no authority to take the car. Marcia said their attorney wanted to

• 52:13Speaker 00

  know why they took the car. Judy responded, "Because Deborah Martin said that you confessed to her that you murdered Jack and that you transported the body in that car." Marcia said, "Oh, Jesus fucking Christ."

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Oh, there you go.

• 52:31Speaker 00

  I don't like to blaspheme, but that's exactly what she said. According to LA Weekly, Marcia realized the game was up. She called her aunt and said, "Everything's over." Her aunt asked her what she meant, and Marcia said, "I'm turning myself in for killing Jack." So the plan did work, right? The stirring of the pot and all that, it worked out perfectly. But Marcia didn't turn herself in right away. On October 9, 2002, detectives Weiss and Dean arrested Judy at her home in Alpine for accessory to murder. They told Marcia they were planning to charge her with murder, but were not going to take her in

• 53:11Speaker 00

  at that time. She was arrested on October 11, 2002. In a videotaped interview with detectives, Marcia confessed to everything. She admitted she shot Jack in the back of the head, then used a chainsaw to cut off his head and cursed at it as she rolled it down a hill off Mount Baldy Road.

• 53:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 53:35Speaker 00

  She also insisted Judy had nothing to do with it and pleaded for her not to be prosecuted.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  It was all me, just me.

• 53:44Speaker 00

  Now, we've talked about a lot of macabre things on this podcast in 10 years. We've heard of people dismembering bodies before, many times actually, more times than I would care for, but I don't know that we've ever heard of somebody cutting off a man's head with a chainsaw and then cursing it as it rolled down a hill.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  It's bizarre.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  Very bizarre. On October 15th, 2002, Marcia pleaded not guilty to 40 counts of burglary, grand theft, theft from an elder, arson, and insurance fraud. It was kind of interesting though, because at that point, she had not yet been charged with murder. Judy was charged with the same 40 counts. So she's admitted to murder, right? Marcia had, but she's pleading not guilty to all these other charges.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:39Speaker 00

  We don't know how she's going to plead to murder once she is officially charged with it. On October 29th, Marcia was charged with murder and Judy was officially charged with being an accessory to murder. Sheriff Sergeant Bobby Dean told the LA Times that although Judy was charged as an accessory, he didn't think she knew about the plan beforehand. He said, "I don't believe that Geller was in on the, any planning. She basically received all the assets and put it in her name." On April 2nd, 2003, Marcia was ordered to stand trial on 39 counts, including murder, arson, insurance fraud, elder abuse, and grand theft.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  That day, 36 out of 41 charges against Judy were dismissed. So she was ordered to stand trial on five counts of insurance fraud, elder abuse, and grand theft.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  Ones that they probably thought they knew they could get through.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, but what's missing there?

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Well.

• 55:43Speaker 00

  Murder.

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  In June 2004, Judy Gellert made a deal with prosecutors. She pleaded guilty to one count of receiving stolen property in exchange for testifying against Marcia.

• 55:57Speaker 01

  That's a great deal for her.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, one count of receiving stolen property versus being an accessory to murder? Yeah, I think you're going to get somebody to flip pretty easily on that deal.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 56:10Speaker 00

  And if you don't, then you're not smart.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:15Speaker 00

  Opening statements in Marcia's murder trial began on September 13th, 2004. The jury heard that several months before he disappeared, Jack was befriended by Marcia Johnson and Judy Gellert, who were interested in buying his cabin. They ultimately persuaded Jack to name them in his financial trust and grant them access to his bank accounts. In wiretapped calls to family and friends and in a videotaped interview with detectives, Marcia admitted she shot Jack in the back of the head. She cut off Jack's head, hands, and feet with a chainsaw and disposed of the evidence on the mountain in Wrightwood and in dumpsters.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  I mean, she was scattering parts of this man all over the place. After Jack went missing, Marcia and Judy defrauded his estate of an estimated $450,000.

• 57:13Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 57:13Speaker 00

  By cashing his retirement checks, selling his car and house. And when there was nothing left, they burned down his cabin and collected the fire insurance.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  They were definitely doing everything they can to benefit from this the most.

• 57:29Speaker 00

  Well, this was greed, right?

• 57:31Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 57:31Speaker 00

  Pure and simple. Marcia claimed she shot Jack because he criticized Judy, had flirted with her, and exposed himself to her repeatedly. But prosecutors argued that her real motive was money. Now, if you're a juror, which one are you thinking is more likely?

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, money.

• 57:53Speaker 00

  Yeah. Is it impossible that he flirted with her? That he exposed himself to her? It's not impossible, but in the grand scheme of things, Marcia seems like a person, and Judy for that matter as well, they seem like people who are out to get his money.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  And I think she's trying to soften it a little bit by saying, "Well, I shot him because he did this, this, and this, right? He was a creepy guy." But in reality, to me, it was all about money. Deputy DA Tristan Zvare told the jury per the LA Times, "We have the evidence, the documentation of her withdrawals from his bank accounts, her false police reports, her insurance claims." Marcia's defense attorney, Stephen Williams, argued that "her descriptions of the murder were delusions triggered by her ongoing struggle with bipolar disorder and alcohol abuse. The absence of a body and the lack of forensic evidence proved that the murder of Jack Irwin never happened.

• 58:58Speaker 00

  It's something that festered inside of a disturbed woman." And it's not a bad strategy. She did have a pretty long history of mental health issues.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 59:12Speaker 00

  The jury heard Marcia's confession from her October 11th, 2002 interview. She told police that she and Jack were on a car ride in September 1999, when he allegedly exposed himself to her several times, which caused her to snap because she was sexually abused as a child. She also said that Jack criticized Judy, calling her a nasty girl. Marcia said, "He got the repercussion for everything that's happened to me in my whole life. I was so mad at him for making me kill him. It was like everyone that's ever done a thing to me never paid for it. I felt justified in making him pay.

• 59:56Speaker 00

  I just wanted him to stop. I wanted him to shut up. I was so mad at him, Gibbs, for making me kill him." It's a strange thing.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  It is a strange thing to say.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  She said about throwing Jack's head down the mountain, "I just took it out of the bag and I watched it roll down the mountain, thinking, 'I can't even believe this. I was screaming at him for making me do that and I just thought, 'No effing way, nobody is going to hurt me again.'" Well, we talked about how strange it was, right? To roll this head down the mountain and curse at it. This does help fit, I guess, a little bit.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:00:40Speaker 00

  Doesn't mean it's true, but it does fit a little easier. It helps you make sense of why she might have been cursing. But is it strange, Gibbs, that nobody else comes forward and says, "Okay, this is a man who, you know, comes on to people. He exposes himself to people. It's just these two individuals."

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:03Speaker 00

  That's, that seems so strange to me. Marcia claimed she set the cabin on fire because "I kept seeing ghosts. I just like kept on seeing him. I just never wanted to go back there again, you know, because he was there. So I lit up a piece of paper towel and threw it in the trash can. It burned up pretty good."

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Or she knew there was a big insurance payout and that's why she really did it.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's hard to believe that she was haunted by his ghost.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  And that's the reason why she burned the cabin down, not the almost $200,000 that they got in insurance money.

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  Marcia's defense argued that she'd been drinking the night she made her confession. Marcia later said in that same interview that "she dropped Jack off at the Upland MetroLink station in September 1999, which matched what she said in her missing persons report." The defense called on experts who detailed Marcia's troubled mental history. In closing, Stephen Williams argued that there was no body, no gun, no chainsaw, and no physical evidence to convict Marcia. But the jury sided with the prosecution. On November 2nd, 2004, Marcia Johnson was found guilty of first degree murder

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  and 25 other counts, including burglary, grand theft, and insurance fraud. The jury foreman told the LA Times, "It was very shocking to hear that intricate detail of the dismemberment. That part of the story was actually kind of irrelevant to us because we were focused solely on the specific count of murder. But I would say that in our minds, her doing that fit her character."

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Says a lot.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  It's always interesting, right? When the jurors speak out later on about what was impactful, what wasn't. Another juror said, "We put no stock in her mental health alibi. Everything together, the finances, the wiretapped calls, the confession, all of the ingredients convinced us she did it." And I get how they came to that conclusion, I really do. That month, Judy was sentenced to 180 days in jail with five years probation and was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution.

• 1:03:33Speaker 01

  You should feel really good about that.

• 1:03:35Speaker 00

  Ooh, 180 days in jail? Now, I wouldn't want to do 180 days in jail, but that is a far cry from what she would have received had she been convicted of accessory to murder.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:03:49Speaker 00

  On December 15th, 2004, Marcia was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

• 1:03:57Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:03:58Speaker 00

  The judge told Marcia, you told police, Mr. Irwin purchased a train ticket to see the Emerald City of Seattle, but the jury did not believe that. What they bought was that he purchased a one-way ticket to the afterworld from you and that the ticket was punched not by a conductor, but by you. That might be one of the most fascinating things I've ever heard a judge say.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Pretty good line.

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  It is. And I think it's very fitting in describing what happened in this case. But as of 2026, at the time we're doing this episode, Jack Irwin's remains have never been found.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know if they ever will.

• 1:04:44Speaker 00

  I don't think they ever will be either. But as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, you know, I think, you know, like I said earlier, this was a case of greed, simple greed. You know, these two women, it sounded to me like they didn't have a lot, right? They're in a motor home, staying in RV parks, kind of getting by, and they see in Jack Irwin this opportunity to fleece him out of a bunch of money.

• 1:05:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Speaker 00

  And they jump on it and Marcia ultimately murders him. I just don't know how they ever thought they were going to get away with it. I really don't.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 1:05:26Speaker 00

  But one of the things it shows me is just how big greed is as a motivator.

• 1:05:32Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:05:32Speaker 00

  We know it's a motive for a lot of murders, but I understand they got a lot of money, but to take a person's life for money, that just seems so wrong to me. I mean, all murders seem wrong to me, but yeah, was this guy quirky? Was he odd? It sounds like he was, but all people also said, you know, he was sweet. He was a good guy. He just liked to keep to himself. And there's nothing wrong with that.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:06:01Speaker 00

  Unless you're the Unabomber and you're doing it because you're mailing bombs to people. Jack Irwin wasn't doing that. He just got conned.

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  And it cost him his life, unfortunately. But that's it for our episode on Jack Irwin. We got a voicemail. You want to check that out?

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  Let's hear it.

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  Hi, this is Kim calling from Margot, Florida, not Key, Margot. So don't get excited. Just plain Margot. I'm calling about the Denise Huber case. You guys cracked me up talking about a 23 foot freezer. I'm pretty sure it was probably a 23 cubic foot freezer, which is a lot different. It's about six foot wide. So only one mic can fit unless we stack you. Anyway, I am Team Mike. Keep your head on the swivel and keep your own time ticking.

• 1:06:52Speaker 00

  Well, we very much appreciate the voicemail. I also appreciate the kind of macabre humor there as well. And you and I were talking about it on Patreon, but I have got loads and loads of voicemails, emails of people saying, yeah, 23 cubic foot. None of them were mean, which is rare. Normally some of them are mean, but none of them were. You would just think people of our education would have figured that out as we were moving along in that story.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Well, I tried to tell you, but you kept on hushing me like.

• 1:07:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  You know.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. That was just all edited out. Is that what you're saying? It was editing magic? No, I just, I thought, man, 23 foot freezer. That's a big ass freezer.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  And they have to put two of us in there and stack us. I'm telling you, I'm not going to be the one on the bottom.

• 1:07:50Speaker 00

  How about neither one of us are in there?

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  That's even a better.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  That's a better point.

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Speaker 00

  But that's it, buddy, for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 1:08:01Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.

• 1:08:40Speaker 03

  From the New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Pictures and The Last One at the Wedding comes Look What the Cat Dragged In, a new supernatural thriller about a young woman petting a cat with a mysterious secret, featuring more than 80 pages of illustrations. New York Times bestselling author Freedom McFadden says, Rakulik has a knack for making the creepy crawly supremely readable. On sale now wherever books are sold.