Transcript of Three's a Crowd (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballon podcast one month early, and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Late on a June evening in 2000, a detective with the Easton, Pennsylvania Police Department sat in his car on a darkened neighborhood street, watching a house right nearby and waiting patiently. After what seemed like an eternity, finally, somebody emerged from this house, and in their hands were a couple of bulky trash bags. The detective tensed up, but they didn't move. The detective kept watching as this person placed the trash bags on the curb for pickup in the morning, and then this person went back inside the house. Right then is when the detective flung open his car door, and as quickly as he could, he darted across the street towards the house, but instead of going in to confront this person, he just grabbed their trash bags at the curb. Then with these bags, he ran back to his car, stuffed the bags in his trunk, and he drove away. And as he drove away, he knew he was about to solve his murder case. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So if that's of interest to you, please sneak in to the Follow Buttons home and super glue all their doors shut.

Okay, let's get into today's story. I'm Jon Robbins, and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, How do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure. Every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts or listen to episodes early and ad free on WNDYRI Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life with thousands of audiobooks, guided meditations, and motivational series. Hello, I'm John Robbins, comedian and host of WNDYRI's How Do You Cope podcast. I'm also, Plot Twist, an alcoholic. I've written a book, Thirst: 12 Drinks That Change My Life, published by Penguin. Thirst is a book about alcohol. It's mystery, it's terror, it's havoc, it's strange meditations. But, John, I hear you cry. Isn't that a rather odd book to write for a sober man who more than anything wants to stop thinking about alcohol?

Well, yes, but I had to go back to find out why the one thing I know will kill me still calls out across the night. It's the story of what alcohol did for me and what alcohol did to me. If that's of interest to you or someone you know, Thirst, 12 Drinks That Change My Life is available to pre order now online and from all good bookshops.

On May 28, 2000, an 18-year-old woman named Devon Guzman stood on a beach on the island of Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands. She squinted her eyes from the sunlight as a tropical breeze blew lightly through her shoulder-length hair. Standing facing her was her girlfriend, Michelle Hetzel, who was also 18, and who was holding a pair of gold diamond diamond rings in her hand. Devon almost began to tear up as Michelle slipped one of the rings onto her ring finger. And then Devon reached out and did the same, placing the other ring on Michelle's ring finger. Then the young woman held hands and recited vows to each other. Now, there was no priest or marriage officiant present, but for Devon, it didn't matter. She was spiritually and emotionally pledging to spend the rest of her life with Michelle. And in this moment, she couldn't imagine she could ever be happier. Their private little makeshift wedding ceremony during their Memorial Day weekend vacation almost felt like a fantasy. St. Croy was hundreds of miles away from North Hampton County in Pennsylvania, where Michelle and Devon both lived. Michelle lived in a city called Easton, and Devon lived nearby in Forks Township.

But life had been full of exciting changes recently for Devon. In the last four months, she'd moved out of her mom's house, got in her own car, and started a full-time job as a cleaning technician for a company that repaired and restored property damage. And now, getting married to the woman she loved on a beach in the Caribbean felt like a romantic and fitting way to end a whirlwind couple of months. Now, Devon took Michelle's hand and the two walked through the warm sand to a tourist trap bar to celebrate with some cold drinks. However, after they got a table and the afterglow of exchanging vows began to fade, along with the late afternoon sun, reality began to set in for Devon. Getting married to Michelle in a tropical paradise was one thing, but dealing with the repercussions back home from this marriage was going to be something else entirely. It wasn't homophobia that she was worried about. In 2000, there was still some social stigma associated with being a member of the LGBTQ community, but Devon was confident and outspoken, and so this didn't bother her. What Devon was worried about, though, was the very complicated romantic situation that was waiting for her back home.

Because despite the fact that Devon had just gotten spiritually married to Michelle here on this beach, she was actually already living with her other girlfriend, whose name was Carrie Renner. And that wasn't all. Her other girlfriend, Carrie, was actually also married to someone else, a man. Although, Carrie and her husband had actually been separated since he had left for the army to go to basic training. But Devon's relationship with Carrie was a lot different than her relationship with her new spiritual wife, Michelle. Devon and Kerry fought a lot, and their fights often became physical. Sometimes the police would have to come to break them up. Devon looked down at the pager clipped to her waist, and she was actually a little surprised that Kerry had not been paging her nonstop. Devon was planning to break up with Kerry as soon as she got home, and she really was not looking forward to the fight that that would almost certainly cause. But she decided that for right now, she wasn't going to think about any of that. Instead, she looked up and clinked her glass against Michelle's and took a sip of her cocktail. Later that night, Devon and Michelle were relaxing back in their hotel room.

They were preparing to head back home the next day, and they were both sad and stressed that their trip was almost over because going back home wasn't only going to be complicated for Devon. Michelle also had a difficult set of relationships waiting for her back Pennsylvania. Just like Devon, Michelle was also married to someone else, a man named Brandon Bloss. Michelle had actually used Brandon's credit card to pay for this Saint Croy trip. But also just like Devon, Michelle was planning on picking up with Brandon right when they got back home. However, Devon and Michelle had come up with a plan to make their transition into their new life of spiritual marriage together easier. And now, sitting on the hotel bed together, Devon put this plan into action. She picked up the hotel phone and called her father, Rick Guzman, who lived near her in Pennsylvania. When her dad answered, Devon told him about how she and Michelle had just gotten spiritually married and that she was planning to break up with Kerry. And then she asked if she and Michelle could come move in with him for a bit. Rick immediately said yes. And Devon knew, just from the sound of his voice, that he was actually thrilled with her news because he knew all too well that her relationship with Kerry was a nightmare.

So Devon thanked her dad and said she loved him very much and hung up. Then she and Michelle went to sleep feeling happy. A few weeks later, at around 6: 30 PM on Thursday, June 14th, Devon and Michelle were hanging out and drinking at Devon's father's house in Pennsylvania, like they often did these days. However, Devon and Michelle were not actually living there yet, like they had planned to do way back in St. Croy. And this was because neither of them had actually broken up with their other partners yet or had even told them about their spiritual wedding with each other. I mean, basically, they had kept everybody in the dark. And as this night were on and Devon and Michelle drank more and more, this fact started to become a point of contention between them, and they started to bicker. Both of them were mad at the other for not fully committing. And so a little after 9: 00 PM, Devon and Michelle each left the house feeling really mad, and they got into their own cars, and they drove off to their own homes. A few minutes later, Devon stumbled drunkenly up the stairs and towards the door of the apartment that she still shared with Carrie that was right above a bar in Forks Township.

She paused before she walked in. She was dreading the confrontation she knew was waiting for her inside. Devon looked down at the palm of her hand at a cut that had not quite finished healing yet. Only weeks earlier, after she had come home from St. Croy, she had tried to tell Carrie she did want to break up. But before she could say very much, Carrie had threatened to kill herself with a knife. And then when Devon had tried to wrestle that knife out of her hands, Devon had gotten this big cut on her hand, which required a trip to the emergency room. And so eventually, Devon took a deep breath, then reached down and turned the door knob and walked inside. As expected, Carrie was waiting, and she was very upset. Devon couldn't hide the fact that clearly she had been out drinking, and also she couldn't hide who she had been out drinking with. And so naturally, they began to argue, and for the first time, time, Devon told Carrie that she and Michelle had exchanged wedding rings during their trip to St. Croy, and this made Kerry fly into a rage. And so she hit Devon, and Devon hit her right back.

And then before it could And then, as soon as she turned into a full-blown physical altercation, Devon's pager suddenly went off. She picked it up and saw that Michelle had actually been paging her nonstop. She just hadn't noticed. And so quickly, she just walked away from Kerry and went into another room to call Michelle. And And then a few minutes later, she just came back into the living room where Kerry was still standing there fuming. And Devon told Carrie that, Hey, Michelle is not feeling well, and so I'm going to go over to her house and check on her. And Carrie was caught off guard and just said, Well, I'm going with you. And Devon, not wanting to argue anymore or have this escalate any further, told Carrie that fine, she could come as long as she stayed in the car the whole time. So at around 10: 30 PM, Devon pulled her car up to Michelle's house in Easton with Carrie sitting in the passenger seat. Devon reminded Carrie to remain where she was, and then Devon got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Devon knocked, and Michelle's husband, Brandon, answered.

And unsurprisingly, he said he would not let Devon inside. However, the reason he gave was because his wife, Michelle, was upset that Devon had come here with Carrie. And so he told Devon that if you want to come inside, you first have to bring Carrie home. And so Devon just turned around walked back to her car, got inside, and informed Carrie that she was going to have to drive her back home and that she really didn't want to fight about it. And surprisingly, Carrie just agreed because she didn't want to fight either. And at around 11: 30 PM, Devon dropped her off back at the Forks Township apartment. Devon did go into the apartment with Carrie for a little while, but then at about 12: 15 AM, she went back outside and left to return to Michelle's place. About 30 minutes later, around 12: 45 AM on that Friday morning, the phone at Devon and Kerry's apartment began to ring. Kerry answered and heard Michelle's voice on the other line, and Michelle sounded really upset. She was demanding to know where Devon was. Kerry told Michelle to slow down here. She said Devon wasn't home because she had gone to your place.

And when Michelle heard that, her voice turned frantic. She told Carrie that Devon had not returned to her house that evening and that She had been paging Devon over and over again, but Devon still had not called her back. Now, to Carrie, this seemed like classic Devon behavior. Devon had a habit of storming off dramatically and disappearing for a while and not talking to anybody, but she always came back. And so Kerry tried to reassure Michelle that Devon would turn up soon. However, trying to reassure Michelle only made Michelle mad. Michelle began accusing Kerry of lying and started insisting that Devon must be with Kerry right out, and that Kerry was selfishly keeping Devon from seeing her. Then, very abrupt, Kerry heard Michelle slam the receiver down to hang up the phone. Kerry thought that was going to be the end of it, but about an hour and a half later, at about 2: 30 in the morning, there was a loud knock on her door. And when Kerry answered, she found herself face to face with Michelle. And just as Michelle had done over the phone, she once again began to aggressively accuse Kerry of literally hiding Devon in in the apartment.

But Carrie told Michelle she had nothing to hide. And to prove it, she let Michelle come in and look around for Devon. Kari figured once Michelle searched her apartment, she would chill out and realize Kari was honestly telling the truth here. But Michelle did not chill out. Instead, after searching the apartment and not finding Devon, Michelle took out her phone and called 911. Hours later, still on that Friday morning, Kari woke up in bed, where she'd finally collapsed after being awake most of the night. The cops had come to her place after Michelle called 911, but they seemed totally uninterested in the fact that Devon could be missing. And since it hadn't been 24 hours since she'd been seen or heard from, they really couldn't even file a missing person's report. Instead, the cops issued what's called an attempt to locate report, which, as far as Carrie could tell, was basically the same thing, but just way less urgent. And before Kerry could even begin to sort out all her thoughts, there was another other knock on her door. And so, Carrie got up and she opened it up, and once again, there was Michelle.

And she looked like she literally hadn't slept. And then she would say that, yes, she'd been up all night and all morning just calling Devon's Pager over and over again and just not getting an answer. Carrie rubbed her eyes and told Michelle to please calm down, that she was just making herself crazy here. But Michelle ignored her and suggested they should both drive around together and see if they could literally just go find Evan, since it was obvious the cops were not going to be much help here. Carrie did not really want to go drive around with Michelle, but she figured at the very least, it would get Michelle out of her apartment. So, Carrie got dressed and got into Michelle's car, and the two of them drove around town scouting all the usual places she would go to with Devon. But realistically, Carrie was barely paying attention. She thought the whole thing was a big waste of time and that Devon was sure to turn up soon on her own. That is, until around 1: 00 PM, when they arrived at a place called Canal Park, which was this gravel parking lot in Easton, right next to a river.

Because as they pulled into the lot, Carrie saw Devon's car, a silver Pontiac Sunfire with a rainbow sticker on the bumper. And so as soon as Michelle came to a stop, Carrie jumped out of the car and ran over to Devon's car and tried to open the door, but it was locked. She banged on the window in frustration and tried to look inside, but the windows were too tinted, so she couldn't see anything. But then she remembered she actually had a spare key in her pocket. So she pulled out, unlocked the door, opened it up, and when she did, she screamed.

The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea, and sex. But lately, life on the Coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting. I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.

As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all. Legal proceedings have been initiated.

Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Chic for The Mystic and the Mayor, as we investigate a story of power, corruption, and magic. Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad-free right now on WNDYRI Plus. Start your free trial in Apple podcast, Spotify, or the WNDYRI app.

Hey, listeners. Big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcast, Mr. Ballin's Medical mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts, completely Really ad-free. No more waiting through cliffhangers or dealing with ads, because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to amazon. Com/ballin. That's amazon. Com/ballin. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. A half an hour later, Detective Barry Golesesky of the Easton Police Department, stepped out of his cruiser at Canal Park. As he slipped under the yellow police tape that cordoned off the area, Golesesky mentally ran through what dispatch had told him. Two women had discovered the body of their friend, another young woman named Devon Guzman. He looked over and saw two crying women in the park and figured those must be the two women who found the body. Góla Zesky just shook his head. Easton was not the place where you would expect to find a dead teenager in a parking lot.

Nonetheless, he walked over to car to get a look for himself, peering in through the open rear door. Devon's body was curled up on the back seat, facing the rear of the car and covered by a green jacket. He slipped on a pair of disposable gloves and went in for a closer look. He pulled back the jacket, and right away, he saw a gaping wound on the front of Devon's neck. But he noticed right away that there was very little blood for such a major injury, and her clothes weren't covered in blood either, which is what he would have expected. Instead, he just saw dirt and grass stains lines. He scanned the interior of the car and saw that it, too, was pretty clean, although one of the floor mats was missing. But the strangest detail was what Devon had clenched in her hand. She was holding a kitchen knife. Something about this didn't sit right to Góla Zesky. The knife in Devon's hand seemed to suggest she might have cut her own throat, but slitting your throat was a horrible way to die. Besides, there was almost no blood, barely any in the car and none on the knife.

So to Góla Zesky, he felt like this was not a suicide. This was a murder staged to look like a suicide. Just then, the coroner's car pulled into the gravel lot, signaling to the detective that it was time for him to get a move on. Golazesky grabbed a cop standing nearby and told him to have both Devon's car and the car her friends had been driving when they found her impounded immediately. Devon's car for obvious reasons, but the friend's car as well, because the women had driven it so close to the crime scene. Then, Gólazeski walked over to the two hysterical friends of his victim and told them he would give them a ride to the police station to get their statements. Around 3: 00 PM that afternoon, Gólazeski walked into an interview room at Easton Police headquarters and sat down across from Kerry, who had been crying so much that her eyes were red and bloodshot, and her voice was hoarse. Gólazeski started with the basics, asking Kerry how long she'd been friends with Devon. Now, in a homicide investigation, Gólazeski knew that everyone connected to the victim starts off as a suspect. But neither Carrie nor the other friend, Michelle, seemed particularly suspicious, at least to him so far.

That was until Cary started talking. Because right away, she explained to Golazeski that she and Devon were not just friends. They were actually in a relationship together. Although she admitted she was also technically married to somebody else, too. And Cary didn't stop there. She told Golazeski that Michelle, the other friend who had there when they found the body was also in a relationship with Devon. But like Carrie, Michelle was also married to someone else, another man, and she was living with him. Golazeski could barely keep this straight, but he also just couldn't believe what he was hearing. In the first five minutes of his interview, he already had a list of four people, Kerry, her husband, Michelle, and Michelle's husband, who were all romantically linked to the victim. The potential for jealous rivalries here was through the roof, and so they were definitely all suspects. And so they were all going to need an alibi. So Góla Zesky told Kerry to slow down and asked her about the last time she had seen Devon. Kerry took a deep calming breath. Then she said that she and Devon had been fighting recently because Kerry was really upset about Devon's ongoing relationship with Michelle.

She said that Michelle and Devon had recently gone to St. Croy together, and it just really upset Kerry. Góla Zesky nodded, but inside he was thinking, this is like textbook joke, jealous rivalry here. However, Kerry went on to say that their most recent fight had not been as bad as some of their other fights. She admitted that on other occasions when they got into fights, that she and Devon would get physical. But most recently, she said their fight had just been them yelling at each other. And then, after this heated argument, Carrie said she had actually gone with Devon to Michelle's house, where Michelle's husband had told Devon to take Carrie back home again. And so, Carrie said Devon came back to the car and did drive her back to the apartment, and she got dropped off at about 11: 30 PM. And then, Devon left again, a little while later, to presumably go back to Michelle's. But apparently, she hadn't made it there because Michelle had called asking Carrie, Where is Devon? And she said, I thought she was with you. When Carrie finished, Góla Zesky just sat there trying to make sense of this very complicated story she had just told him.

Of all the romantic partners in Devon's life, it seemed to Góla Zesky that Cary was, physically at least, the closest to her, given that they lived together. And so that put her pretty high up on the suspect list. But on the other hand, she was being extremely candid about the ugly side of their relationship, which made him think she might not be trying to hide anything. After Gólazeski wrapped up the interview, he told Kerry she could go. Then, Gólazeski walked out of the room wondering what more his victim's other girlfriend could possibly have to say. But When Gólazeski sat down to speak with Michelle, Devon's other girlfriend, the other friend who found the body, he immediately sensed that this was going to be a very different interview. Kerry had been almost shockingly honest, but Michelle seemed far less interested in talking much at all about her personal life. She downplayed her relationship with Devon, saying that while they had been romantically involved in high school, they were just friends now. So typically, a person lying about their romantic affiliation with a murder victim was a huge red flag for Gólazeski. But this case was a bit different.

In the year 2000, being gay or bisexual was not as widely accepted as it is today. And so it was actually more surprising to Gólazeski that Carrie had been so open about it than it was that Michelle was trying to downplay it. And so he didn't press Michelle too hard on her romantic relationship with Devon. And besides, Michelle seemed to have a lot to say about Kerry. Michelle told Gólazeski that when Devon did not return went to her house after dropping off Kerry on the night she disappeared, Michelle called Carrie to find out where Devon was, but Carrie had sounded totally unconcerned. And then when Michelle had literally gone to Carrie's house to look for Devon, she said the only reaction Carrie had about the whole situation was just irritation. Michelle said she had been the one to insist on calling 911. Like, We don't know where Devon is. We have to do something. But then when the police showed up, they didn't really take it seriously, which was upsetting. But what was even More upsetting was apparently, Kerry's reaction to all this. Michelle told Gólazeski that Kerry basically didn't care and had even tried to talk Michelle out of calling the police in the first place.

Like she just didn't seem to care about Devon. After that, Michelle asked Góla Zesky if Kerry had told him about the fight where Kerry had stabbed Devon in the hand, and Góla Zesky just shook his head and said no. And so she told Góla Zesky everything Devon had told her about that particular incident. And then at the end of telling the story, she told the detective that really that ordeal summed up Devon and Kerry's relationship. And all of this did make Góla Zesky more suspicious of Kerry. But then again, this whole four-way romantic relationship just generally seemed highly suspicious to Góla Zesky. It was hard to try to sort out which of Devon's married girlfriends was lying about what and why. After wrapping up with Michelle, Góla Zesky had just one more interview to conduct that afternoon, and that was actually speaking to Michelle's husband, Brandon Bloss. Some uniformed officers had gone to Michelle's house while Góla Zesky was talking to Kerry and Michelle and brought Brandon in. And so after leaving Michelle, Góla Zesky went to find Brandon. At this point, he didn't know what to expect. And for a second, when he entered the final interview room, he got excited because Brandon was sitting there, sweating profusely and looking incredibly uncomfortable.

And Gólazeski's first thought was that, boy, he must be nervous. But then, Gólazesky took in what Brandon was actually wearing, which was a long sleeve shirt and jeans in the middle of summer inside of a tiny interview room with no windows and weak air conditioning. And so quickly, his excitement disappeared. Brandon was not nervous. He was just hot. The whole interview with Brandon turned out to be pretty unhelpful. He seemed to have no idea that his wife was romantically involved with Devon, and he also didn't know about their trip to Saint Croix. In fact, he said that Michelle had told him that she'd gone on a business trip to San Francisco, not to a tropical island on vacation with Devon. Now, it was possible that Brandon could be pretending not to know anything about his wife's relationship with Devon, but given how tight-lipped Michelle herself had been with the detective, Gólazesky was inclined to think that Brandon might really be in the dark here. Eventually, Gólazesky told Brandon he could go home, and once he was gone, the detective just sat by himself in the interview room, thinking over his entire suspect list. He had already ruled out Kerry's estranged husband pretty much as soon as he had run his name through the system, because what he found is he was in the military and living 250 miles away on a base in New York.

And Michelle's husband, Brandon, didn't seem very promising either, since he appeared to be basically clueless about his wife's romantic dynamic. However, Kerry and Michelle, on the other hand, seemed like real possibilities. So, Koluzeski wrote out two applications for search warrants, one for the apartment Kerry shared with Devon, and one for the home where Michelle lived with Brandon. Koluzeski was pretty sure Devon had not been killed where her body was found, and he figured with one of these searches, he'd find the real murder scene. So far, the investigation had been moving extremely fast, and to Gólazeski's delight, he was able to get both warrants granted right away, so the momentum continued. Late on the same night that Devon's body had been found, two teams of crime scene technicians decisions, descended on the two properties and began searching for evidence. Gólazeski went first to the home where Devon had lived with Kerry. And the first thing he noticed was the place was in shambles. Furniture was overturned and strewn about like a very intense fight had taken place there. In the bathroom, a few members of the forensics team had found what appeared to be a car's floor mat in the shower, just like the floor mat that was missing from Devon's car.

And so the running theory became amongst the people on the scene that the mat was there because clearly it was being washed, and probably recently. And so Golesesky watched as someone from forensics sprayed the shower floor beneath the mat with luminal, a chemical compound used by law enforcement to detect blood. And immediately, The area that was sprayed began to glow blue, suggesting that there was indeed the presence of blood either on that floor mat or in the shower. Now, the luminal test was not 100% accurate, but at this point for Golesesky, it was good enough. And so as he stood there looking at the glowing bathroom floor, he realized he might very well be standing in the home of his killer. By the time Gólazeski made it over to Michelle and Brandon's house to check on how the search was going over there, it was past midnight, so he was tired, but he was also feeling pretty good about the state of his case. And initially, when a crime scene tech began walking him through Michelle and Brandon's home, he felt even better because there was no blood at all inside of Michelle and Brandon's house.

There was no sign of a fight either. But then, the crime scene tech told Golesesky that they had found some blood with the luminal test out in the backyard, on a pool cover and on the nozzle of a hose. Golesesky frowned. Until this moment, He had felt lucky to have found blood in one suspect's home. Now, he had blood in both the homes where all his suspects lived, making this thing even more confusing. Now, he was fairly certain that Kerry, Michelle, and Brandon had not all worked together to kill Devon, and even if they had, they wouldn't result in two separate murder scenes miles apart. Koluzeski checked his watch, and he saw that at this point, he'd been awake for almost 24 hours. And so he decided to let the crime scene unit finish processing both homes and go get some sleep. He'd come back fresh in the morning, and hopefully then, things would look clearer. When Góla Zesky walked into his office the next day on June 16th, so one full day after Devin Guzman's body had been found, he found her autopsy report waiting for him on his desk, and it was gruesome.

The wound to Devin's throat was a four-inch long cut that went almost all the way to her spine. The cut had severed her tongue and also sliced in half both her right carotid artery and also her right jugular vein. When the coroner originally pulled her body from the car, they thought for a moment that her head had actually been completely cut off. Devon had lost almost all the blood in her body before she was placed in the car. So Góla Zaski had been right, that she had been killed somewhere else, like Carrie's shower or maybe Michelle's backyard. But as he continued reading, he realized he had been wrong about something else. The coroner had put Devon's time of death somewhere between midnight and 3: 00 AM. Until this moment, Gólazeski still thought that Kerry was his best suspect. But now he thought of something. Kerry didn't have a car. To kill Devon and leave her at Canal Park, Kerry would have had to walk eight miles back to her apartment, which would have taken at least three hours. And so obviously she had not done that because she had been at home when Michelle showed up looking for Devon at 2: 30 AM.

And so suddenly, Michelle was looking a lot better as Gólazeski's killer. And that's when Gólazeski's desk phone rang. An officer on the other line told the detective that he had this strange collar on hold and that this guy was saying really weird stuff about the Devon Guzmán case. The officer said he would patch him through. Gólazeski dropped the stack of papers on his desk and picked up a pen just in time to hear the voice of a man who introduced himself as George Vine Jr. The man said he was a friend of Devon and Michelle, and a few months ago, Michelle had offered him, sex or money, to, quote, get rid of Devon. Now, at the time, he said he just laughed it off because he knew how volatile Devon and Michelle's relationship could be, and he figured this was just more of that. But now that Devon was dead, he wasn't so sure. And now, neither was Gólazesky. And so Golesesky now had a whole new theory for this case, with Michelle, not Kerry, at the center. But almost immediately, he started running into new problems. George Vine Jr. 'S story sounded like a slam dunk.

But when another detective went to take his statement, he found that it was actually pretty months old and pretty vague, and that Vine had no corroborating evidence. And as Gólazeski and his team began the painstaking process of conducting interviews with every family member, friend, and neighbor of Devon's they could find, more cracks formed in the Michelle theory. Two separate sets of interviews threw Gólazeski off. The first set was with Michelle and Brandon's neighbors. They told police that Michelle and Brandon fought with each other constantly, and that contrary to what Brandon had told Gólazeski, he did know about Michelle and Devon's relationship, and he wasn't happy about it. And one of these two neighbors had actually heard Brandon arguing with Devon on the same night Devon was killed. And so this made Gólazeski think that he should be looking more closely at Brandon. However, the second set of interviews muddied the waters even further and pointed him right back at Kerry, because her neighbors said that on the night of the murder, they heard fighting, too. Now, Gólazeski already knew that Kerry and Devon had fought because Kerry herself had told him this. But Kerry had claimed that the last time she saw Devon was at about 12: 15 AM when Devon left to head to Michelle's.

Her neighbor's, though, said differently. One woman said after hearing this fight, she had walked past their apartment at about 1: 30 AM, and she saw that the front door was open. And inside, she said that she could see this woman laying on a couch wearing a green jacket. This was obviously significant because when Devon's body was found, she was being covered by a jacket. If what this woman said was true, it meant Kerry lied about when Devon left her apartment. The final complicating piece of evidence arrived late that afternoon. The crime scene text had tested the blood found at both Kerry and Devon's apartment and Michelle and Brandon's apartment. The blood that was found in Michelle and Brandon's yard couldn't be matched to anyone because it was too diluted. But the blood in Kerry's shower was a match for Devon. Less than one week into his murder case, Gólazeski now had three suspects. They all had motive and opportunity, and they had all lied to him. And Gólazeski had witness statements and physical evidence that made all of them look guilty. But Gólazeski knew they didn't all murder Devon, and he was stump as to how to figure out which one did.

Devon's funeral was held on June 21st, six days after her murder. Four hundred people attended her funeral. Right around that day, Gólazeski and his team sat down all their files and went back to square one. They went through every interview, every piece of physical evidence, every observation that any of them had made during their investigation so far. And as they did this, they ended up stumbling upon this unusual plan that they believed would point them to their killer. On June 28th, about a week and a half after Devin Guzman was killed, Detective Golesesky sat in an unmarked police car parked on the side of a street. It was a Wednesday, which was important. Because Wednesday was trash day, and Góla Zesky was waiting for one of his suspects to leave their home and bring their trash to the curb because their trash was not just trash. In Góla Zesky's eyes, it was evidence. And in the state of Pennsylvania, once someone puts their trash out on the curb for collection, the trash is no longer considered private, and so the cops don't need a search warrant to go sifting through it. This curbside search is called a trash poll.

So now, Góla Zesky was betting on bags of trash to close this case. Eventually, his suspect emerged carrying their trash. They put it on the side of the road, and Gólazeski waited until they were back inside their home. Then he climbed out of his car, grabbed the trash, put it in his trunk, and drove to the police station. Once inside headquarters, Gólazeski brought the trash bags into an evidence room, ripped them open, and dumped their contents out on a table. And then he began the very dirty work of sorting through all the smelly junk, the rotting food, the discarded receipts, the coffee grinds, the wet paper towels, and balled-up clumps of newspaper. But then, right as he reached the end of the bag, he found something. This discovery would trigger the police to exhume Devon's body and look inside of her mouth. And once they did this, they had their killer. Based on evidence collected by the Easton Police Department over the course of a nearly two-month investigation, this is a reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to Devon Guzman in the early hours of June 15, 2000. Devon Guzman had actually left her killer's home, but she eventually came back.

And when the killer saw her, all the rage they'd been feeling for weeks exploded, and the killer lunged at Devon. But Devon fought back, and for a brief moment, Devon escaped their killer and began to walk away. But the killer took the that Devon's back was turned to come up behind her with a knife, and they reached around, and they viciously slit her throat. Then, after Devon had bled to death, the killer dragged Devon's body to Devon's own car She put her body in the back seat along with a decoy knife in her hand, and then the killer drove the car all the way to Canal Park and left it there. Now, the killer might have gotten away with it, except for the bite mark, they didn't even realize Devon had left during the fight. In And the reason they didn't realize it is because Devon did not bite the killer. She bit the killer's accomplice. And the accomplice, not really realizing how significant that bite mark was, had just dressed the wound as if it was just any other wound. They'd put gauze and bandages over the bite mark. And unfortunately for them, but fortunately for law enforcement, those bandages, when they were discarded in their trash, well, police were able to actually see the bite mark on the bandage.

It retained the bite mark and gave But, to give away, that's what it had been dressed over. Now, Góla Zesky might have noticed the bite mark on the accomplice's arm when he interviewed them, except the accomplice was wearing long sleeves in the middle of the summer. The killer was Michelle, and her accomplice was her husband Brandon. The blood identified in Carrie's bathroom was indeed Devon's, but it had not come from her murder. She had simply bled in the shower, naturally, just close to the time that she was killed. The car mat turned out to not any blood on it at all. Instead, it was stained with pickleed beet juice, which Devon or Kerry had coincidentally tried to wash off in the shower. Devon's body was covered in dirt and grass stains because she was likely killed outside in the backyard of Michelle and Brandon's home. As for the eyewitness who saw Devon on the couch at Kerry's house on the night of the murder, they were simply mistaken about the time. Both Michelle and Brandon were arrested in August of 2000. They each blamed the other for the actual killing, although prosecutors presented evidence that suggests Michelle had been wielding the knife.

On October 5, 2001, both Michelle and Brandon were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They later divorced. As for Kerry, she was completely exonerated and actually wound up reuniting with her estranged husband. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballen podcast Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive-produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zack Levit, produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Seth Lundee. Research and fact-checking by Shelleyshue, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beemer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Eer. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacassio and Cole Lacassio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham. Mixed and mastered by Brenda Cain. Production Coordination by Samantha Collins. Production Support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kyner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugdon. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Balin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.

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