Transcript of Jim McIntyre

Come on in.

I'm Tracy Sands. I'm with GBI.

Hi.

Hey, Mr. Sands.

Hey, sir.

Jack Frost.

I'm with Lowry County Sheriff's Office.

Hi.

On May 13th, 2023, investigator Jack Frost and Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Tracy Sands found themselves sitting face to face with Nick Casotas. Although he no longer answered to that name.

And what's your name now?

Nicholas Stark.

Nick had also changed his address. He had been arrested the day before in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

This is in reference to the death of Mindy? Yes. And at that time, she was your wife, correct?

Yes, she was.

Nick seemed relaxed and perfectly happy to talk about his now deceased wife, Mindy. And said their troubles had started nearly 5 years earlier, in 2018, when he and Mindy were living in Alexandria, Virginia.

We started undergoing a kind of a campaign of harassment.

Okay.

Um, we—

it started with, with money going missing from our, from our accounts.

He said there was also vandalism and threats. I was getting anonymous emails and text messages threatening Nick said that after he and Mindy had filed an FBI report, a man reached out.

Um, we'd been contacted by somebody who initially told us that he was with the FBI. He showed up one day and talked to Mindy.

Nick said the man began to counsel them on safety, encouraging them to start moving around.

He goes—

he goes by Jim to me.

Jim?

Jim.

Jim. Okay.

Yes. Um, the last name McIntyre.

According to Nick, Jim McIntyre initially helped them out, but soon began making life very difficult for the couple.

Well, a constant issue with Jim was him telling us things or asking us to lie on his behalf.

And still, Nick says, the couple continued to do what Jim instructed.

This man has implanted in their lives He takes over their lives, makes them move from where they're at, makes them start living in Airbnbs, uh, helps facilitate him quitting his job, takes over all their finances and every aspect of their day-to-day life from what they do.

So who was this Jim McIntyre, and what did he really want from Nick and Mindy? Was he somehow connected to Mindy's tragic end? I'm Erin Moriarty from 48 Hours. The Woman in the Woods, Episode 4, Jim McIntyre.

So he's held in, uh, the Lancaster State Prison. That's where they hold, I guess, out-of-state extradition, um, inmates.

The day after Nick Casotas's arrest, Jack Frost and Tracy Sands flew from Georgia to Pennsylvania. They had very low expectations that they'd learn much upon entering the jail.

And so this is an old, like, castle-looking building, and we get escorted in through a series of little hallways into little pods. And then we finally get to him and, um, the one he's in, and he comes in. We were just both surprised that he would talk, and to keep him talking, we didn't want to question him about anything hard or anything else. We want to let him tell his story.

The investigators just let Nick talk and talk, often holding off questioning to keep him from shutting down. But it wasn't easy to be silent. The former military prosecutor, now going by the name of Nick Stark, was telling an incredible story.

I'm just trying to get my timeline right. This went on for, for a long time.

He told them both how the man, Jim McIntyre, had entered his and Mindy's lives. It all started, he said, when Nick was attacked one day.

I was assaulted.

And how were you assaulted?

With a bat or something similar.

Nick said he believed it was a baseball bat.

Do you have any idea who it would have been?

I believe it was— it was Wayne Kosotas.

Okay. Um, and who is Wayne?

Wayne is my father.

Okay.

Yes, Nick said it was his own father Wayne who had attacked him. According to Nick, things had gotten bad with his family starting in 2017. But this was all new information to Frost and Sands. They had heard stories from friends and family about threats tied to Nick's work. But now Nick was saying that it was his father threatening him. Nick said it was around this time that Jim McIntyre first approached him and Mindy. Jim talked about Wayne and thought it would be a good idea for the Kasodises to relocate. And so, Nick said, he and Mindy began moving around quite a bit. They changed their phone numbers.

I'm just— because we were, you know, um, if, if I had— if I had one too long, um, I would start getting texts on it saying, you know, that, you know, um, you know, I found your new number, I'm gonna kill you, that, that I assumed— that, that I assumed were from Wayne.

And Nick said McIntyre got him work, connecting him with a software development project.

And so how often would you message him?

Every day.

Every day.

And how did you message him?

Uh, an app called Signal.

Okay.

It's an encrypted messaging app that he introduced me to.

Okay.

Special Agent Sands asked Nick if he ever saw McIntyre in person.

I—

oh, I've met him multiple times. He's— he showed up at places that Where we were, um, you know, told us to, you know, told us that he thought it was time for us to move, you know, to find another place.

Nick claimed that as time went on, McIntyre started telling him bizarre things about his family.

Like, you know, that my parents were not actually my parents. Sometimes it was—

it was—

So he told you That your parents weren't your parents?

Yes.

Okay.

Um, and how did he get that? How would— what was his source of the information?

He, he had me take a DNA test.

Okay.

And told me that the result— that he had, he had gotten a, you know, a sample from them.

Okay.

Agent Sands couldn't understand why Nick would share such personal information Why would you give him your DNA?

I, I trusted him a lot throughout this. I felt like he was keeping us safe.

It wasn't clear to investigators why Nick would trust Jim McIntyre. What's more, Nick said he learned something else about McIntyre— that he was not with the FBI. Nick didn't share a lot of details about how he learned that McIntyre wasn't with the FBI. That seems like a big deal, right? Well, Nick said that he continued to believe McIntyre was keeping him and Mindy safe. And at that point, there was also a business relationship involving a software company.

Do you know what company Jim was selling or brokering the software to?

No.

He wouldn't tell you?

No. I mean, he said different things. Like, at some points he said Microsoft. You know, at some points he said, you know, maybe there would be a government use. But I was never sure. And I thought that that was kind of part of his— part of the point for him was that he didn't want me to know.

OK.

By 2022, Nick said, the couple was living in Savannah, Georgia. He had given McIntyre complete control over their funds. So after living out of a hotel, Nick said he asked him for access to their funds for a rental home and a vehicle. They moved into an Airbnb along with Mindy's parents. Mindy was pregnant again after suffering from an earlier miscarriage.

Did you know if it was a boy or a girl, or—

Uh, we were told it was a girl.

Okay.

That's when Nick said that Jim McIntyre had talked to the couple about helping them change their names.

He said, um, that his plan was to have us go to, to Missouri for a brief time, change our names there with the court, and then, um, you know, to settle in kind of a rural area, you know.

And this was Jim you're talking about?

Yeah.

Okay.

You know, near enough medical so that we could do all the baby stuff, but far enough that we would just kind of be— he said that his— he would tell us to cut contact with people, to not tell them.

Nick said there was even more fear because he claimed his father Wayne had suddenly shown up at the Savannah house that fall.

Um, you know, we had locked the doors. Um, you know, Mindy had her phone. Um, I went out the back door, um, and walked around the corner to where there was a 2 blocks up, there's a hospital where there was normally security sitting in the parking lot. And, uh, and Jim picked me up from there. Um, you know, we got a— he said he didn't think I should be— we should be moving right away. Um, he thought it was a bad time.

So they stayed put in Savannah, and Nick says Nick said he reported the incident to the police. At that point, Nick said Mindy was having some health issues and was put on bed rest.

Um, her blood pressure had been really bad, um, and, and, uh, She had— she'd had— she said she'd had a long conversation with the doctor about the fact that, like, you know, we, you know, we felt like we had been, you know, stalked for years. We were very worried. Um, I wanted her to go to him, to the emergency room. Um, she had had, at this point, I think, 3 pretty bad emergency room visits in a row.

He said Mindy wanted to go see stay at a birthing center affiliated with the doctor she was seeing. But instead of Nick driving Mindy to the birthing center and keeping her company, he claimed that her doctor was the one who drove her there and checked her in.

I didn't understand. Why would you not drive your car there? Because she—

we were still very worried about being followed by Wayne.

And that was the doctor saying he would come by?

Yes.

Yes.

This was the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving. Mindy's parents were out of town for the holiday. Nick said that Jim McIntyre told him not to tell them about Mindy's hospital stay yet. Nick displayed no emotion as he spoke about his wife struggling with health problems while carrying his first child. Nick did say that he and Mindy were actively messaging on the private Signal app once she checked in, and he said she kept him up to date on her status. He claimed that Mindy had messaged him and asked him to pack some of her things.

I woke up to a message saying, actually, you know, take 2 Tupperwares. So we had most of our stuff We had a couple, like, large duffel bags, and then we had a lot of the, you know, like— is Tupperware the right word? I feel like that's for food.

Plastic?

Yeah, yeah, like plastic, like a ready-made, like those things.

Okay.

I woke up, I woke up to that. So I woke up to saying, like, pack 2 of those.

This was the Monday or Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Nick said he packed up his wife's things in 2 plastic bins and put them in his Ford Explorer. That's when he said he got a call out of the blue.

Um, a man called me, um, said, hey, can you, can you come drop these off?

Um, and you didn't know who that was?

I didn't know who he was. I assumed he was— he worked with the clinic.

Um, He gave—

he said he understood that we were worried. Would I turn off my phones and use a GP— like an old-school GPS unit that we had?

Now, this information was likely of interest to investigators, considering 2 plastic bins, or what they called totes, had been recovered from the crime scene. Special Agent Sands tried to get Nick to divulge more information about the man, the road, anything.

Do you remember where it was at?

I don't. Uh, it was a little outside Savannah, but I, I don't know much about it. I dropped off the— I dropped off the containers, uh, with him.

Was— do you remember if it was on a paved road or a dirt road?

Um, I, I think it was— I think there was dirt. I don't know if that was just the driveway though. I don't know. I was—

And describe him to me.

Uh, a little shorter than me, probably 6 feet tall. Um, youngish, like in his probably earlier— early 30s.

According to Nick, he continued to get updates from Mindy for the next day or so and wasn't worried, but said that on Thursday, December 1st, he got a call from someone at the birthing center to come pick Mindy up.

Um, I drove out there that afternoon. Um, it was a A brick building. Um, somebody was waiting outside and brought me into, you know, what it— you know, like a, like an office, and said that Mindy had passed away.

Nick said he was told Mindy's death was sudden, that they thought it was her heart but weren't sure. Nick said he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

I yelled and sobbed. So, okay, I, I mean, I was, I was a wreck. Um, I, um, he had some, some paperwork that he had me sign.

Um, did they give you a copy of that?

No.

Okay.

Um, and what was the paperwork?

He said it was just releasing her remains and releasing her medical records so that I could have those. He said that he was going to— That he was awaiting an autopsy and that I would be contacted with the results of that.

Nick said he drove back to the house and informed Mindy's parents, who by now had returned from their trip. But Nick admitted that he never actually saw Mindy's body.

Somebody contacted me and said that they had cremated her body. Extremely upset. I thought that, that I was going to, you know, get to make a decision on where she was sent.

Um, do you know who that person was?

No. Um, he said, he said that, uh, that the fee was $5,000 payable in cash.

Okay. Um, did you pay that?

I did. Um, I, I met him in the next day in Montgomery. I Withdrew $5,000 in cash and—

Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama.

Okay.

I believe Montgomery.

Nick couldn't give any details to investigators, not the name of Mindy's doctor, not even an address of the birthing center. But he told them that he withdrew $5,000 in cash and then drove to Montgomery, Alabama, and almost 5.5-hour drive from Savannah, Georgia.

He gave me a, like, a street address and, like, just, just on the side of the road.

Okay, so mid-side of the road.

Yep.

And he had the ashes?

Yeah.

How were they packaged?

They were in a, a, a thick clear plastic bag with then, like, a kind of, like, nicer velvet bag around them.

He told Sands and Frost that he couldn't remember the man's He refused to give the court his name or the address where they met, but said that later he had scattered Mindy's ashes along with their wedding rings in an area Mindy loved by the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Did you ever inquire about a death certificate?

No, I did not. Um, no, I should have.

Instead, after telling Jim McIntyre what happened, Nick said he did what he was told to do. He drove to St. Louis, Missouri, to officially change his last name to Stark.

We had picked out that last name together. We had been given a, like, a list of choices from Jim, you know.

Nick said Jim told him to move to Delaware next. He claimed that strange things continued to happen. He said someone stole a backpack with 2 computers and a phone from his vehicle one night in February of 2023. According to Nick, McIntyre thought it was all very suspicious, and bad things continued to happen.

Um, just over a month later, my— I was driving and my car Started acting funny and then burst into flames.

He said he called 911 and went to the hospital.

I don't know what caused the fire. You know, I— it was in the same area that the bag was stolen from, which is something that did raise my suspicion, but at the same time, Um, that last year's Ford Explorers had some fire issues. So, um—

So, those Ford Explorers?

Yeah, they had— they had multiple recalls for, uh—

Was it fire in the engine compartment?

Yeah.

That burned-out Ford Explorer was the same vehicle caught on camera driving back and forth in Georgia near the area where Mindy's remains were later discovered. Nick said he also learned around this time that Mindy's parents thought he had died in a car accident.

Did you ever call them and tell them you were alive?

I did not. I was a little concerned about where— I spoke with Jim, probably one of the last times we spoke, and I said, you know, why do they think I'm dead? And he said that he had not had any contact with them, um, and that, that he didn't know, uh, he didn't know where that had come from, um, and, and that, that he would, he would recommend, uh, you know, not contacting them.

So where was Jim McIntyre now? Nick told investigators that he last saw Jim in person between Christmas and New Year's a year earlier and last spoke with him as recently as late March or early April.

What's the last phone you used to contact Jim with? Do you still have it?

Um, I do, I do still have it, though it doesn't still have service on it.

Okay, so if we needed a number for Jim, we could get it off that phone?

I think so, yeah. It should It should still be in the signal there.

Before they concluded the interview, Sands and Frost asked Nick about his visits to Home Depot caught on store videotape. Nick said he went to Home Depot all the time.

Do you remember during this time doing a purchase of a knife?

Um, I think so. I think, I think I purchased a couple of things. There were issues at the house with, with mosquitoes coming, coming up from underneath the house. So, but, but, but I didn't know where they were getting in. So.

Okay. So this was the— the knife was for mosquitoes to try to deter them?

It was to cut screen.

They showed him an image from outside a Home Depot from November 29th, 2022.

Do you recall, is that you? Yeah, that's me. That's you? And is that the knife you used?

Um, I think so.

As for where that knife was now, here's what Frost told me.

He believed he'd left that knife underneath, um, a storage area in the back of his Ford Explorer that burned up. And by that time, when we get that information and go to try to find the Ford Explorer, it is in a yard and already been destroyed. Frost told me that he and Tracey Sands knew a lot more about what happened to Mindy We kind of end it there and ask if he'll consider talking to us again when he gets extradited to Georgia, which he agrees to. And again, we're thinking, no way. He's going to sit here. He'll come back to Georgia. No way he's going to talk to us again.

But he did.

He did. The first one, we let him talk because we were surprised he was going to talk. And the second one, we wanted to try to be more careful. Um, a little bit more confrontational and, and tried to show him that we knew he was being deceitful in his answers.

Jack Frost and his investigative partner, Tracy Sands, a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, used a decidedly different approach when they went back to talk to Nick Casotas, aka Nick Stark, almost 2 weeks later. This interview was recorded on video.

Hey, Nick.

Hey, sir.

Have a seat back here for me.

Nick wore a black shirt with blue jeans. He looked tired and disheveled as he sat down and put his thick black-framed eyeglasses on the table. Agent Sands asked again about what happened after Nick said he found out So you didn't get to see her?

I did not get to see her, ever.

Um, could it be because you were looking down the entire time, like you have the entire time that you've been talking to me?

It's possible. I, I tend to, I tend to look down when I'm, when I'm, when I'm in my head a little.

You realize I've been doing this 28 years?

I, I didn't, sir.

As you can hear, Special Agent Tracy Sands is no longer the patient listener.

Did you kill your wife?

No, sir.

Okay.

I swear to God.

When was the last time you saw your wife?

I saw my wife on Saturday, uh, the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Sands paused while scribbling down notes.

So you did not kill your wife?

I did not.

Yes, you did.

No, sir.

Then Frost jumped in.

Nick, did you love Mindy?

Yes, sir.

Did you love her parents?

Yes, sir.

Frank and Betsy?

Yes, sir.

You want to help us put all this together?

Yes, sir. More than I deserve.

Then we need you to be truthful with us.

I'm— sir, I'm being 100% truthful with you.

The investigators were no longer willing to let Nick ramble on with his incredible story. Sands began to challenge him with the evidence— the knife, the phone data, the car data, the video surveillance footage, including that of his car driving back and forth near the crime scene.

Sir, I didn't—

I did not hurt my wife.

Did you dispose of her?

No, sir.

You did.

No, sir.

And all the evidence is showing that.

And Sands didn't let up.

And your elaborate 2 hours of story that you gave in Pennsylvania, you know how many items— you've been an attorney, you should realize how many of those can be disproven.

Sir, I, I have not lied to you at all.

You've been living a web of lies for a long time.

Sands accused Nick of creating an elaborate story of intrigue for a very simple reason: to avoid paying his first wife Heather that $1.5 million that he owed her after their divorce. They challenged Nick that he was never actually afraid or running from his father Wayne.

You lied about your father.

Sir, I don't believe—

How much money did you take from him in the very beginning? How much money did you get away with with your father?

I, I had borrowed some money from him.

But that's not the question.

I don't know.

I don't know exactly how much.

About $60,000.

Nick's claims about Wayne Kosotas fell apart. He admitted that he no longer believed that his father attacked him.

I don't believe anymore that Andrew may have.

Okay, and you didn't really believe it then?

Sands asked about Samantha, Nick's 3rd wife, the woman he married after Mindy died. Investigators now knew that Nick and Samantha began communicating online in the fall of 2022, before Mindy died.

Y'all were fairly close online. I mean, yeah, we, I guess we got fairly close in November.

Okay.

So why would you tell her in October that your wife had died while pregnant?

Because I had to tell everyone that.

Okay. Why did you tell everyone else that lie?

What?

Why would you tell everyone that lie?

Because my understanding was that my, that both of our online worlds were, this goes back to, this goes back to, uh, fall 2020. Mindy got very sick. Um, she was—

The point of that is that's a lie. She was alive and well.

Yes, sir.

You continued telling other people that she was alive and well when she was dead, and then you continued to tell people vice versa, that she was dead leading up when she was alive and well.

Yes, sir.

Sands continued to press Nick about killing Mindy and then revealed they knew about another big lie.

Um, she was not pregnant at the time of her death.

Sir, she was.

She was not. As a medical certainty, she was not pregnant.

Sands is correct. After Mindy's remains were recovered, the medical examiner determined that Mindy was never pregnant. Okay. When I learned that detail, I was floored because all along, I thought Mindy had been gaslit by her husband, Nick. It never occurred to me that Mindy had some secrets too. But we now know from Mindy's friends, Angela and Morgan, that it wasn't just Nick saying Mindy was pregnant. Mindy herself had told her friends she was expecting. So was Mindy lying to Nick? Were they both lying? Investigators continued to push.

Were you wanting to move on because she was not pregnant? Was there some type of argument?

Did she strike you, sir, that led to that? No, sir.

If Nick was feeling the heat, he sure didn't show it. He continued to deny and deny. And when he was caught in a lie, he'd often blame Jim McIntyre.

Sir, anything I ever lied about, I was told to lie about.

Okay, so right now, if you said you killed her, you'd say it because I was told to lie?

Sir, I never killed her.

So Jim told you to say that, you would say that?

No, sir.

Okay, so my point is, everything you do— if Jim told you to jump off a cliff, you were gonna go jump off a cliff?

Yes, sir. For years, for years, we did exactly what Jim told us to do. He wanted full access to our lives. He said he was keeping us safe.

At this point, investigators were desperate to talk to Jim McIntyre. But where was he? The investigators had their own theory about that.

I think, I think Jim has lied to me for a long time.

I do believe that.

I don't believe Jim exists.

I don't believe Jim exists. That's next time on The Woman in the Woods. From 48 Hours, this is The Woman in the Woods, produced by Sony Music Entertainment. If you like this episode, please rate and review. I'm your host, Erin Moriarty. Judy Tygart is the executive producer of 48 Hours. Special thanks to 48 Hours producer Chuck Stevenson and associate producer Chelsea Narvaez. Maura Walls is the senior story editor, and Jamie Benson is the senior director of podcast operations for CBS News. Mixing and sound design, by Alan Pang. The Woman in the Woods was written and produced by Alex Shuman. Our associate producer is Zoe Kuhlkin. Shara Morris is the executive producer for Sony Music Entertainment. Tamika Balance Kolasny is the production manager.

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