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The Disappearance of Charles Wilding
10 Plays14 hours ago
The audacity and the gall in Nylene's story today is off the charts. Follow the tangled web of the fraud behind the disappearance of Charles Wilding.
Enter the Nightmare for show notes, transcripts, sources, and more!
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Transcript
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome
Introduction and Milestone Celebration
00:00:26
Speaker
to Nim and Nyleen's Nightmare Cottage, where we explore history, mysteries, and other tales of the macabre. I'm Nim. And I'm Nyleen. Let the nightmare begin.
00:00:41
Speaker
Disturbing and mature content to follow. Into the nightmare, if you dare.
00:00:53
Speaker
You always catch me mid-sippy sip. Always. Always. Always. It is our 50th episode. I love that. So, happy 50th.
00:01:05
Speaker
Aw. I didn't bring anything for the occasion. i didn't think so. But here we are. That makes me so sad. I wish I would have known. Sorry. Wow, how dare. I just typed it in. and I would have just like decorated it something.
00:01:18
Speaker
I mean, we already have lights. Decorations. It's true. know, but yay. Yay, 50 episodes. That's weird. That's cool. I know. it it doesn't seem like that many. It does not.
00:01:28
Speaker
And a look back at all of the stuff we've researched. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's crazy. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah. so I'm still having fun. Here's to another 50. ah Your face. I'm just kidding. Of course. Here's to another 50. And may it run just as smoothly.
00:01:48
Speaker
Or more so, perhaps, if one might be lucky.
Mysterious Metallic Balls in Australia
00:01:52
Speaker
So, did you hear about the weird stuff washing up on the beach in Queensland, lost Australia?
00:01:59
Speaker
Well, I mean, i feel like there's always something weird in Australia. Okay, so, okay. There were these beach ball-sized metallic balls that Six of them strewn across that had washed up on the beach oh in Queensland, Australia. Well, I will say that the Australian Space Agency warned people to not approach. Oh, my goodness. Because that is generally the rule. If you yeah come across what. Something on. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Don't don't approach it. If it's foreign object. Yes. Exactly. If you don't know what it is, it's probably a good idea to not touch it. Yeah. Kind of sounds like maybe like a military something that washed up shore.
00:02:36
Speaker
But why in Australia? I mean, or aliens. But, you know, I mean, I mean i believe we're aliens. So that's a whole nother situation that we don't want to get into right now. told you that We have not had this conversation. And I'm mad that we're about to record because I want to have that conversation. Well, maybe it's I was worried that you would judge me because I know how you feel about like actual stuff like this.
00:02:59
Speaker
And I was worried to get the actually and they're ruin my entire existence. I mean, I'm familiar with ah um a lot of the theories about, i forget the word that they use, but.
00:03:12
Speaker
It's like a mix of ah Bible theory and it's, yeah, where like, I think it's like creationism or something where like Bible theory mixes, no, not creationism. It's definitely, that's definitely. Bible theory mixes with science theory. There's several cults and stuff that do that. And. Oh, dude, I could totally run one of those cults. Like I, tinfoil hat, that is me. I am like, I love it.
00:03:33
Speaker
That's fantastic. yeah I don't believe in religion anymore, but i do believe other things. That sounds dangerous.
00:03:45
Speaker
ah if you ah If you want to talk about beliefs ah that are not, you know, it sounds like an opening for a cult. Traditional. Traditional. Feel free to message us. Nightmare Cottage at gmail.com. Listen, I will open myself up to this conversation every At Nyleen. At Nyleen, yes. Attention, Nyleen, because I will. I love this. Yes, i am I'm here for it.
00:04:07
Speaker
Flood the inboxes. So anyways, i apologize. We just went on a tangent. So it sounds like you were saying these. so have they have they actually like gone to like... Are they solid? Yeah. So we do actually know what they are. It was actually. You got me like all excited. know. I'm sorry. That was why did it. So it was actually it is space debris. OK. It's they're saying most likely they did not. Yeah. But they say it is most likely containers for pressurized liquids and gases that they would have expelled some point. And right now they're working on trying to figure out what craft it came from.
00:04:42
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. Nice. That's what they say. That's what they say. I think they're probably, I mean, it it seems pretty legit because apparently ah it like the the people commenting under the article, which will be in the show notes is. They're all plants.
00:04:55
Speaker
You know what? Fair enough. i don't know. Whatever. They could be bots. I don't know. I'm not this crazy. Just a little bit. But like ah you're having a day, man. Maybe I should have brought some tinfoil with
00:05:15
Speaker
So what did you bring me today?
The Disappearance of Charles Wilding
00:05:18
Speaker
Our story begins with Charles Wilding. He was in his late 60s and he'd been living in his childhood home in Sherman Oaks, California with his mother.
00:05:26
Speaker
It was just easier for everyone in their advanced age. His mother passed in 2017 and she left behind a sizable inheritance for him to live out his days on. He didn't have any siblings or other family. He just lived alone in a wealthy California neighborhood.
00:05:42
Speaker
Neighbors said that while Charles was reclusive and kept to himself, he was kind and pleasant. And, you know, when they saw him, he was, you know, just friendly, neighborly. But things took a bit of a turn 2020. In December of 2020, a neighbor called the police for a welfare check.
00:05:59
Speaker
As they mentioned, they hadn't seen Charles for about three months. And that's in the thick of COVID before vaccines and he's older and like. Correct. Yeah. So LAPD was dispatched to Charles Sherman Oaks home.
00:06:12
Speaker
And when they arrived, they found Caroline Carrie Hurling. and her assistant, Hadley Pelletier. Carrie claimed to be a trustee of Charles' estate, and she was able to provide a trust document and power of attorney forms for the responding officers.
00:06:27
Speaker
It seems that may have been good enough for them because the police at the time left and they closed the call. Another interesting thing to note is at this point, Because of how long it's been, it seems the neighbors had also opened up a case with Adult Protective Services. And Adult Protective Services did get involved and they said they spoke to someone who claimed to be Charles and they closed the case.
00:06:49
Speaker
And they had also spoken to Carrie and gotten the same trust documents and they just called it a day. So the case was closed. It isn't until October of 2021 that police are called again.
00:07:00
Speaker
an anonymous caller claims that they were very deeply concerned for the welfare of Charles and that he was their sole heir of a multimillion dollar estate and that he hadn't been seen in over 10 months.
00:07:12
Speaker
So a LAPD makes their way to Charles' Sherman Oaks property again. does Does he have any dependents? Not that they can, they get they haven't been able to contact anybody. Like he doesn't have anyone listed as next kin anything so he doesn't have children or? No, okay no, no, no, no.
00:07:28
Speaker
The body camera footage of this encounter is available on the Netflix documentary Worst Neighbor Ever. I will include the information in the source notes. So police pull up and Carrie is outside wearing a nostalgic COVID era face mask.
00:07:43
Speaker
She asked the officer if he's looking for her. Did you just say a nostalgic COVID era face mask? Yes. You know I'm right. I know you're right.
00:07:57
Speaker
He states that he's looking for Charles Welding and asks if she lives there. She responds that she doesn't live there, but she is a trustee of the estate and that Charles is staying an hour away with friends in Carpinteria, California.
00:08:10
Speaker
She states that she's getting the house cleared for black mold while Charles is away. And the police ask to come through the green privacy fence that is surrounding the property. And they ask if they can search the house to confirm that Charles isn't there.
00:08:24
Speaker
Carrie warns them multiple times about the black mold in the house and offers them. That's a good cover. Nobody wants to breathe it. Yeah. And and she did offer them respirators to wear. i think one of them maybe was wearing it, if not both. But I know one of them did.
00:08:38
Speaker
So they actually make it into the house. They go in. The house is a mess. They confirm that it looks like there is work being done, but they see no signs of Charles. Before leaving, they ask Carrie if she can provide contact information for Charles because sure what they have obviously isn't working.
00:08:55
Speaker
Since it's been so long, the police really want to put eyes on him. But Carrie could not provide an address. She let officers know that she would give him a call and tell him to call the investigators. This is the most fishy. The fishiest.
00:09:08
Speaker
The investigator tells Carrie she needs to provide an address for Charles within 24 hours and leaves it at that. Carrie calls the investigator the next day and says she's with Charles, who wants to speak with him.
00:09:22
Speaker
She puts Charles on the phone and he provides the investigator with a number that he can be reached at, as well as a new address that he's staying at in Simi Valley, California. So not even where Carrie originally stated he was at.
00:09:35
Speaker
The investigators ask Charles if he could confirm his social security number or maybe his driver's license for them over the phone just real quick. Charles responds that he definitely does not know that information off the cuff and he doesn't have it on him.
00:09:48
Speaker
The investigator thanks him for giving him a call and they disconnect.
Fraud and Suspicion around Charles's Estate
00:09:52
Speaker
aha So what do you think? How are you feeling about the situation? Tell me tell tell me everything. I don't understand how anybody wouldn't see this as bullshit. agree. 100% agree. i mean, it's like it's not even subtle. No.
00:10:05
Speaker
It's not even a little subtle. No. But at the same time, she has documents that can prove that she's... It's a signed document. Yeah, no, I... Okay, was it notarized? I mean... It was. Of course it was.
00:10:22
Speaker
I guess, I mean, paperwork is powerful, man. Yes, it is. Very powerful. Well, the investigators also felt the same way, so they immediately drove to the Simi Valley address that the man was claiming to be staying at.
00:10:40
Speaker
An older gentleman answers the door when they get there, and he looks nothing like the image they have of Charles from his California state ID. Keep in mind, like, it's been, like, maybe a couple of hours since they spoke to this guy on the phone.
00:10:54
Speaker
The investigator asked him where Charles is, and the guy nervously says that he'd known Charles years ago, but last he saw Charles, he'd left with a pocket full of money. What does that mean?
00:11:08
Speaker
This was in 2020. Yep. A pocket full of money. pocket full of money. Okay. Okay. like I'm glad that the investigators aren't stupid and that they were also feeling a kind of way about it. Definitely. And I will say, like, once the once this investigation, like, the second one kind of went through, they were like, okay, wait a minute.
00:11:30
Speaker
And they actually started following up on a lot more stuff and being, like, really not... You have to realize it's been 10 months at this point. Yeah. And no one has said anything like really.
00:11:41
Speaker
And she's been saying the same four or five different excuses as to why Charles isn't around to various people. So it's been working. So why not continue the confidence? Right.
00:11:52
Speaker
The investigators give it a day and they decide to track down Carrie to try and iron all this out. They show up to her apartment in Los Angeles and come inside for a chat. Carrie explains that she was hired by June, Charles's mom, before she died in 2017, and she was hired to help Charles manage the estate.
00:12:11
Speaker
He was the sole heir, and while he was of sound mind, he just didn't have a mind for business and didn't want to deal with it. So her position in Charles's life was to make sure he had what he needed to last him his life and do what he wanted.
00:12:23
Speaker
As far as the Sherman Oaks property, yes, it got out of hand after his mom had passed. Charles had trouble keeping up with it. And as far as she knew and from what he had told her, he was staying with a friend while she got the house clean and ready for sale.
00:12:38
Speaker
Once the house was sold, they were going to buy him a new, better place that fit his needs. So what do you think of Carrie's telling of events? Yeah, no, I don't. You're like, no, I'm not buying this story. I don't buy anything she's selling at all. It's no.
00:12:54
Speaker
What is it about it that that's like hitting you wrong? Well, it might be ah product of us doing this podcast. I know. Doesn't that suck? I know. i just feel naturally suspicious of everyone now. Well, I mean, sometimes you just see pieces fitting together. And yeah, I don't know. And I just read this book that kind of had some similar kind of manipulation happening. And I just like, I guess I'm primed for it right now. You're like, I know what's happening. I know what's coming.
00:13:23
Speaker
Well, yeah. Before they go, the investigators is ask Carrie to call Charles in front of them and ask if she could provide that trust document and power of attorney documents for the records.
00:13:36
Speaker
Because before she just showed it to them and they were like, looks legit. Cool. Moving on. So she agrees and she tells him she just needs to pop upstairs to grab her phone real quick.
00:13:47
Speaker
And she's gone for a bit. While she's gone, one of the investigators noticed that Carrie had left a receipt on the table for a phone that was purchased two days prior. You know when you get a new phone and they give you like that packet with entirely too much information on it and then it has your new phone number on it too? The phone number on this paperwork was the same one that the supposed Charles had provided to the investigator over the phone the day before.
00:14:12
Speaker
So now she is in charge of his accounts. So her purchasing a phone for him, not the weirdest thing, but it is getting fishier, right? Carrie returns, tries calling Charles at that number,
00:14:27
Speaker
In front of them, but it goes straight to voicemail. And so she leaves a message. investigators are able to confirm that the documents that Carrie provided are a forgery because they take it back.
00:14:37
Speaker
I'm shocked. Yes. So it was actually very interesting because when you started like really digging into it and man, the court records, I'll include a link to the court records because like it is a doozy. It is so it's 55 pages, but it is like a fun little read. I say how she really like got these forgeries done because she really would just take a document.
00:15:02
Speaker
And use Charles's signature or June's signature or whoever. and then she would take it to her real lawyer and tell him it's for a client and she needs this done. And she would involve like her real lawyer and real attorneys and real people who...
00:15:20
Speaker
Real notaries and everything. and I mean, i know that as a notary, like you can get in trouble. You have to have insurance as a notary. Yeah. In case some crap like that happens yeah on something you've notarized yeah to cover your legal fees. Yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
So they involve a financial crimes team at this point to try to piece together as much of their case as they can. right Because they understand something has happened, but they they don't know They know Carrie's involved, but they don't know how or what and what what is happening. I got stuck on financial crime team and now I'm picturing like a bunch of nerdy accountants, but like with guns and badges and stuff like pretending to be cool. And I don't know. OK, so actually, hold on. There is this guy that was like representing the financial crimes.
00:16:07
Speaker
And he was like really excited. And honestly, like this is what I wanted to do. I know. I wanted to do financial auditing. And so it was like really excited to like listen to how his process was. But it's so funny that you put it that way. But yeah, so they they involved the financial crimes team and they're trying to piece together what happened.
00:16:23
Speaker
So meanwhile, let's learn a little bit about Carrie and what she's been up to. Yes, let's. So Carrie Caroline Herling Phoenix was living in this little six unit townhome in Los Angeles for a bit.
00:16:36
Speaker
She seemed pretty normal and casual, nothing too striking. She was friendly, but valued her privacy. And like everyone else in the building, she, you know, just kind of kept to herself. But around 2020, Carrie's neighbors noticed a lot of changes in her behavior and the people that started hanging around her place.
00:16:52
Speaker
She was just really different. She wasn't really talkative. She seemed shifty. The people that would come over seemed a little rough, including one they remember with an angle monitor. But this was COVID times. Everyone was stuck at home and things just got a little weird, right? Yeah. And, you know, you might notice more things maybe you didn't notice before because you're stuck. Exactly.
00:17:10
Speaker
But then things escalated and Carrie was hosting big loud parties at all hours of the night and was apparently not shy about the use of drugs at these parties. Her neighbors put in complaints for the noise and they had safety concerns, too.
00:17:22
Speaker
Not just the shady people and obvious drug use, but she was giving out the townhouse building code to everyone and packages started going missing. Just, yeah, a nightmare.
00:17:33
Speaker
So neighbors complaints seem to be the final straw on top of not paying rent. So Carrie ends up getting evicted. After she gets evicted, she magically finds the money to move into a house in the West Hills, California. I assume this is an affluent neighborhood. Very bougie community. Very bougie.
00:17:55
Speaker
She tells her neighbor upon moving in that she was a litigation consultant and she was tired of the life that she was living and she wanted to try her hand at sober living. She was she was opening a sober living home here and she would she'd be living there with them.
00:18:10
Speaker
So the whole story for the sober living thing, that's a whole nother story. It is a doozy. But the boyfriend that was living there with her, the way that he rationalized sober living, having people in a sober living place, but not doing drugs in front of them.
00:18:27
Speaker
That was OK. ah just Just not in front of them. And we're not going to like do their drug of choice in front of them. Wow. Helpful. Yes. So
Carrie's Arrest and Revelations
00:18:37
Speaker
a month in, it's the same as the apartment she just got evicted from, but escalated.
00:18:42
Speaker
They had trash all over the yard, broken windows, beer bottles. This is a sober living place littered all over the area. People passed out in front of the house. Just not great all around. Unsafe for a family neighborhood or any neighborhood, really.
00:18:56
Speaker
This entire time, the Financial Crimes Unit team is working to build a case on Carrie. Yeah. Throwing calculators, all that. And finally, they're able to get a warrant for her current residence, trap house number two, Electric Boogaloo, and to the LA apartment.
00:19:12
Speaker
So the LAPD show up to Carrie's property in the West Hills at 6 a.m. And they find her and a bunch of other people there. And this is a quote from the assistant U.S. attorney Andrew Brown during the trial, which surprise, there's a trial.
00:19:29
Speaker
Spoilers. It almost seems like something out of a movie scene. She had 16 firearms, including assault rifles, zip tied to her bedroom closet door. i don't think I pictured it going this way. Many of them loaded and several of them being untraceable ghost guns.
00:19:47
Speaker
Investigators said they also found heroin, methamphetamine, police badges. Who is this person? FBI identification cards and numerous financial documents connected to the Wilding estate.
00:19:59
Speaker
Basically, they realized that Charles is just one in a long line of fraud cases. And they also had scales. They had baggies. So they're selling drugs, too.
00:20:10
Speaker
in a supposed it's not I looked and there's no record of it actually being a sober living I think she was just telling people they were sober living right but failing miserably and clearly so Carrie is taken in and interviewed and they ask her where Charles is point blank is Charles still alive Carrie responds quote I hope so I honestly don't know and it would be really sad if he wasn't how but I mean, honestly, it was really hard to find information on her. Okay. So I'm thinking a lot of what she does also, you know, maybe keeps her scrubbed from online. Maybe. i don't know.
00:20:54
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I believe that. and I feel like I've come across some of that in my searches. So this was two years after Charles was last seen. They have evidence of her creating these trust accounts with June Wilding's name on them. That's Charles's mother.
00:21:09
Speaker
And then pulling out almost six hundred thousand dollars from just one of the trust accounts over the past two years and moving it into her own accounts. And it seems that the money from the trust may have been used to purchase this property.
00:21:22
Speaker
So one of the accounts that Carrie was using had a co-owner on it. His name was Jason Croft. He was a career criminal with a long list of offenses related to fraud, theft and drugs.
00:21:34
Speaker
So they go looking for Jason. They pick him up at a motel and they bring him in for an interview. And he just her putting him on the account was like that was it like that that broke everything.
00:21:47
Speaker
ja Why would she have done that? I don't. I don't know. Jason Croft, a.k.a. Speedy, for his friends. According to the interviews with law enforcement officials, Jason would go look for properties in affluent neighborhoods that appeared unkept and break into them.
00:22:03
Speaker
A paraphrased quote from a sentencing memorandum, Jason admitted that he had been surveilling Charles's home because it looked uncared for and therefore easy to rob. Charles was alive and home when Jason first broke into his residence.
00:22:17
Speaker
So Jason used the ruse of performing a welfare check to explain his presence in the house. Even though Jason had encountered Charles during the first break in, he went back months later to try again. Wow. By which time Charles had died.
00:22:32
Speaker
Rather than notify the authorities of Charles's death, Jason used it as an opportunity to steal not just his belongings, as in a regular burglary, but his entire estate, including his home.
00:22:43
Speaker
So he came to break in and he's the one who found him dead? Mm-hmm. Oh my God. Mm-hmm. And we have no way of knowing how dead. dead because Correct. Yeah. So he's saying he broke in once and the guy was alive.
00:22:55
Speaker
And then he noticed a few months later that the house was still in camp. So he was like, go steal more stuff this time. Like, i'll so I'll steal stuff this time. Maybe he's actually gone because that's what they do They take stuff from people who have passed. They're just not usually in the house when that happens. Right.
00:23:12
Speaker
So he said that he broke into the house, took some jewelry and, quote, I smelled a smell the smell. It was bad. And then I kind of shine the light up and I see old what's his face.
00:23:25
Speaker
His mouth was open a little bit and it was just crazy. There were like rats and shit. Oh, I mean, they were in his mouth. Yeah, he was far, far gone. End quote.
00:23:36
Speaker
When asked what he did when he noticed the body, he said he called Carrie. And Carrie took the body out of the house in big bags and put them in her truck and took them to her apartment. That's all he knows.
00:23:46
Speaker
In Los Angeles, took pieces of a body in ah to an apartment. Did they dismember Oh, no, we're going to get into that. oh no. That's like a really great question. So here we go.
00:23:59
Speaker
So investigators now having all of this lovely information, they decided to go back to the Sherman Oaks house and search the room where Jason said that he had found Charles's already dead body because they they need something to come to carry with. Right.
00:24:12
Speaker
Right. There they found the flooring had been removed in an area in one of the rooms and plywood had been put in its place. Underneath, they found a heavy decomposition stain in the outline of a body.
00:24:26
Speaker
So they are for sure that Charles is dead at this point and now have more to push Carrie to tell them what happened. So they go to Carrie. They question her.
00:24:37
Speaker
And she finally breaks and admits to everything in the hopes for a lighter sentence. Don't you? is Aren't you supposed to wait for a plea deal? I don't know if she's going to get one of those.
00:24:51
Speaker
Her story lines up with Jason's. She says that Jason Croft reached out to her and told her he had a body and a lot of personal identifying information that they could use to get access to this guy's accounts.
00:25:03
Speaker
This is not the first time they'd done this, the fraud part, but it was the first time they had a skirt the death notice. Carrie says they had to keep him alive on record so they could access his accounts that were still in his mother's name.
00:25:14
Speaker
They would become inaccessible if he were declared dead. She claims that the body was very decayed by the time that she got to it. So her assistant bought cadaver deodorizer, full protective suits and masks.
00:25:28
Speaker
Do you just hop into a shop and say I need some cadaver deodorizer? They literally went to like Home Depot. I'm not kidding. And bought these these items. Oh, I bet it's for like if like a wild animal dies in your. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:42
Speaker
But you can buy that. Yeah, you can. Then they put what they could into a blue tarp and put him in the garage. They said he was really stuck to the floor. So it wasn't easy. They had him there for some time.
00:25:55
Speaker
But then the police came while the body was in the garage. So that day when she was like, hey. Wow. Call back.
00:26:06
Speaker
Earlier in the investigation, they first met Carrie at Charles's house. She had mentioned that the house was a disaster. The air quality was bad. It was a lot of mold in the house.
00:26:17
Speaker
And then she asked them to wear respirators inside the house when they did the initial wellness check. She did anything she could to keep them from going inside. The next part is summarized directly from the police interview with Carrie, which is wild.
00:26:31
Speaker
The body camera footage shows the officers walking around the very cluttered garage with Carrie wearing a respirator. And this is what you see. She said that they stood right in front of the body.
00:26:44
Speaker
And that's what the image shows. After they left, she freaked out, took the body back to her apartment in Los Angeles. There, she took the body to her rooftop patio where her neighbors couldn't see it.
00:26:56
Speaker
And then the next day, they made a trip to Home Depot and bought five gallons of pool chlorine acid and lye. ah Wow. Keep in mind, the next day, that day when they had bought all that stuff, that was when the police came and were in our house talking to her.
00:27:12
Speaker
Because she had moved the body there. I can't believe she got away with it as long as she did. They then put all of the remains into one of those tall blue barrels. You know the ones. I know the ones. They filled it with acid to try and dissolve the body.
00:27:26
Speaker
And she said they ended up doing a bunch of drugs after to cope with what they had just done. Then they left the remains there for about a week. But the chemicals were so strong that they started melting the tub that they were in.
00:27:40
Speaker
What did, okay. The pool chlorine and lye, I guess they just use too much or something. I'm sorry. I was picturing a different, um like a metal container. and i had a I guess the metal one was a little harder. they not watched Breaking Bad? What is this? How are they going to get it through the apartment door?
00:27:57
Speaker
You know, that's this is this isn't the part, the plan that they should have questioned to begin with. But anyways. So the tub started melting. I don't think they had a plan. So they decided to drain the blue barrel from the third story all the way down with a hose and pump down the the apartment oh my building. Into what?
00:28:21
Speaker
Just behind the apartment. Into the ground? Yeah, behind the building. I don't know how no one saw this, but apparently the neighbor that lived across from Carrie, like where, like, because they shared this area, right? And so she dumped it here and then the neighbor lived here. I'm, everyone can see my points.
00:28:41
Speaker
Apparently, the neighbor that lived across from her had complained about a bad smell outside of her apartment and that all the flowers behind the building had started dying. So, gross. What was left in the barrel was mostly just bones. so They took an axe and other tools they had, and they just tried to cut up the remains to make him unidentifiable.
00:29:00
Speaker
Carrie says that she pulled the teeth out with her hand and crushed them. The bones were packaged up and vacuum sealed. And from there, they rented a sports car and drove to San Francisco Bay where they had a friend who lived on a boat.
00:29:14
Speaker
They got on the boat and they dumped the packages of Charles's remains out in the water. And then she went back to her L.A. apartment. Okay, so she's seen Breaking Bad and she's seen Dexter. Got it. All right. Apparently.
00:29:28
Speaker
So after everything came to light, how do you live there? Like, I... ah i could not live. I mean, I guess. You wouldn't have put yourself in this position to begin with. We're not looking at a mind like yours or mine.
00:29:41
Speaker
yeah After everything came to light, they found that Caroline was using Charles as a template to find new victims and how to make this bit a little easier next time.
Legal Consequences for Carrie and Jason
00:29:52
Speaker
Like if they just so happened upon another dead body, you know.
00:29:56
Speaker
Investigators are estimating that Charles died in September of 2020, but they're not able to determine a cause of death as the body has not ever been recovered. No one was ever directly charged for his death or anything to do with disposing of his body.
00:30:09
Speaker
In March 2024, a U.S. district judge sentenced Harling to the statutory maximum of 20 years in federal prison and ordered her to pay $3.8 million in restitution. wow She's currently being housed at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, which I found very interesting because I'm like, why a medical center?
00:30:30
Speaker
And why in Texas? I'm wondering maybe because, like I said, there was a long list of fraud cases that honestly had been going on for a really long time. If nobody had noticed that Charles had gone missing, like,
00:30:43
Speaker
This probably never, none of these would have been found. And so I'm wondering if she's being held in Texas for a different reason. But I couldn't find out why. i don't know. I'm sorry, no. You're like, I know so much all of a sudden. I know a lot of things about nothing and nothing about lot of things. Yeah, know.
00:31:01
Speaker
Jason Croth pled guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and possession with the intent to distribute methamphetamine. He was sentenced to 16 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $1.9 million in restitution.
00:31:14
Speaker
One of the investigators in this case is quoted as saying, anybody who is convicted of a conspiracy can be held accountable to all the crimes that occur within it. Wow. And she was.
00:31:26
Speaker
Nice. So it seems that this was their loophole in getting them charged with nobody and still, you know, getting them charged. Caroline's assistant, Hadley Putletier, has not been charged in connection with Charles Welding as of the time of this recording.
00:31:43
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. So she was Carrie's assistant. And from the court records, which again, I'll link in the notes, it seems that she is purporting that she had no idea that Carrie wasn't legit because Carrie told her that she was technically practicing. a practicing attorney, and that she was able to practice through a loophole.
00:32:09
Speaker
And this assistant was just someone who was shadowing for assistance and learning about... Is she an actual attorney? She isn't. She's just, she's someone who's studying. Okay. And so she's basics basically just like doing the paperwork and stuff like that to try to learn from someone else who is an apparently an attorney. And she says that she was involved in like cleaning the house and clearing all that stuff up. But she says that she never saw the body. She never knew there was a body. She never had anything to do with that.
00:32:42
Speaker
So I don't know. There was a lot that...
00:32:54
Speaker
It really does remind me of the book I just read. What book was this? it's We're going to turn that into nightmare fuel. Well, good thing I transitioned. I'm just kidding. and This wasn't even going to be my nightmare fuel, but it's so like the vibes feel.
00:33:09
Speaker
It made me think about this. book I finished it today. So it's it's, you know, but it's called. Oh, good. At least you finished it and you aren't like me recommending before it's finished and realizing it's horrible when you're done. You did that one time. It was like twice and it was really bad. It's really bad. It's called Best Offer Wins by Marissa Cascino.
00:33:30
Speaker
It's about this. It's a thriller-ish. It's not really horror. but Spoilers. It ends exactly like this. The storyline, exactly the same. Well, no, of course, it's absolutely nothing like that. But it's about this couple who it's during COVID and they're trying to buy house. okay Do you remember buying your house during COVID and how horrible that was? And you got in just before it got really stupid. So it's about their journey, trying to find a house that they can buy and the lengths to which the wife will go to. Oh, fun.
00:34:03
Speaker
To make it happen. And just the levels of manipulation just, and you know, until I finished the book, I wouldn't have even even recommended it, but like the payoff was exquisite. i love that. so best offer wins. Thanks.
00:34:20
Speaker
I do not
00:34:27
Speaker
I do not I'm still finishing the burrows because I now have a child in and you can watch things in seven minute increments yes time you know yeah but now he's here for the summer so it's rough but you get seven minutes each week it's getting crazy that's all I'm saying
00:34:46
Speaker
I have a little story. Okay.
Humorous EMT Incident
00:34:49
Speaker
It's not really a little story. It's a thing that just happened and last month in Otisville, New York. Okay. Some EMTs were driving along and spotted what appeared to be human legs hanging out of the back of like a hatchback sedan. Was it in October? Was it Halloween? It was about a month ago. So oh it was not like me when I put a rubber foot in my trunk. It's it's different than this. Okay. There were like dangling legs hanging out of the back of this hatchback and it was just driving down the street. So they kept their distance and they were like following it for a while and they were on the phone with police the whole time, like just keeping them posted on where they were at. And so when they finally, when the vehicle with the legs dangling out of it kind of pulls into this residential neighborhood and parks. What a descriptor. Right. mean, what else do you say? And there's camera footage of this. You see, like, an obscene number of police officers approaching. I'll put the link in the show notes. But, like, six or eight officers walking towards the sedan. Okay. Carefully. Yeah, of course. And then you see the back of the hatchback kind of open up.
00:35:49
Speaker
And you see that it's a girl laying in the back of the car holding, like, lumber that they were taking back from, like, the, like, Home Depot or whatever. Oh, God.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah. So they were were all the police lights on. Could you imagine getting home and you're like, what did I do? Multiple flashy light vehicles followed up behind. Yeah, it was completely insane. So just wild. my gosh. That's so funny. But yeah. So obviously she was OK. She was fine. She was just holding it you know, like you do if you buy something that's too big for your stupid small car. Nobody. I've been there. ah You know, I have. I've been there too many times.
00:36:29
Speaker
So some actual levity to take us out this time. I know. I love that. There wasn't actually a body. That's silly. And a fun story. I'm sure they were happy to go home with a fun story. Oh, yeah. For once. Yeah, I'm happy it happened.
00:36:42
Speaker
but I guess that's it for our 50th episode. oh did these Guys, if you've been with us this long, thanks so much. And if you just joined us.
00:36:53
Speaker
It's OK. You don't have to go all the way back. Look for those stories that let sound interesting to you. Yeah. And let us know what you think. That's what I'm saying. Nightmare Cottage Gmail dot com. Have a good night. Sweet dreams. com
00:37:11
Speaker
If you have topic requests, book or movie recommendations, or just want to say hi, email us at nightmarecottage at gmail.com or visit our website at nightmarecottage.com. Sweet dreams.
00:37:32
Speaker
Bye bye.