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Welcome back to another episode of 48 Hours Postmortem. I'm your host Anne Marie Green, and today we are talking
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about the man with two names. The first name, John Green, uh he is serving time for soliciting the murder
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of his wife in New Mexico. He was also convicted uh for forging checks and larceny, but more than 20 years earlier
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this same man, then known as Ted Maher, was at the center of an international mystery involving a billionaire in
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Monaco. So, joining me now to unpack this intercontinental criminal decades-long
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saga, our 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty and producer Josh Yager. Thanks for joining us, Erin and Josh. Hi, Anne
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Marie. It's a pleasure to be here. It's great being here because I think Josh would agree with me, this is one of the
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more unusual defendants we've ever run into, wouldn't you say? I would say so. We've both been doing this job a long
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time and it's hard to hard to get to know him, hard to know what to believe, and it's been an adventure covering him.
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So, speaking of that, um you all have actually been covering Ted Maher, John Green, since 2002. Well, not exactly. I
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mean, we really thought back then when that story ended, when he was convicted, that we had seen the last of him. So, I
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mean, I think Josh and I were both surprised that he would come back into our radar screen with a whole other
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crime. Okay, so there is obviously a lot to talk about. Before we get going, of course, a reminder for everyone, if you
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haven't watched or listened to this episode, it's called The Man With Two Names, go check it out and then come on
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back for our conversation here at Postmortem. So, first we're going to take you back to the late 1900s, uh more
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specifically December 3rd, 1999. In the early morning hours, emergency responders arrived at the Monte Carlo
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penthouse of billionaire Edmond Safra. There had been a fire and both Safra, along with his nurse, her name is Vivian
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Torrente, they died from smoke poisoning. Well, soon after an American, then known as Ted Maher, was arrested.
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Josh, Maher is working as a nurse. Um, but how does this American nurse find himself involved in in the life of an
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international financier, one of the wealthiest men in the world? It's just an amazing story and an incredibly lucky
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turn of events in his life. Um, at least it seemed so at the time. He'd been working as a nurse in a hospital in
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New York City and he was in the the neonatal unit. According to his wife at the time, he'd taken care of twins at
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the hospital. But when the babies were allowed to go home, the parents mistakenly left behind a
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camera, which turns out to have had the very first pictures of the babies on it. And
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he contacts them. Well, it turns out these parents, this couple, is a very wealthy
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couple who live in New York, who happen to be friends of Edmond Safra and his wife, Lily. And
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they're so grateful to Ted for returning their camera and they say to Ted, "We have someone we'd like to introduce
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you to. A friend of ours happens to need a nurse." And the rest is history. His wife at the
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time, she said that she felt that part of Safra's attraction to someone like Maher was that he was also purportedly a
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Green Beret, right, Aaron? Yes, but Anne-Marie, remember, Safra had Parkinson's, so he was sick, he wanted
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great care, but also Safra surrounded himself with security because he believed he had enemies who might come
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after him. So, the fact that Ted Maher told people he was a Green Beret, this appeared to be a perfect fit. A nurse
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who also had a military background. So, Ted took the job, moving around with the
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Safra's, sometimes going back home to New York, and eventually ending up in Monaco with the Safra's. Mhm. But then
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there is this fire, and there are all sorts of versions about how the events unfold, Aaron. What do we know? We know
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for one thing that Safra and his nurse died from smoke poisoning, as you had talked about. And the two had locked
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themselves into a secure room when Ted Maher alerted them that there were intruders in the apartment. Maher was in
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fact found wounded. At that time, he claimed he was stabbed by two intruders. He also said that the reason why he lit
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a small fire in a trash basket was cuz he thought that would set off the fire alarm and get help, thinking that the
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fire department, especially in Monaco, that small country, they would respond quickly.
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What did seem odd to observers at the time, this became a big deal afterwards, is that most of Safra's security wasn't
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there that night. So, that seemed to be very strange. Maher's wife at the time told us that
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her husband was initially seen as a hero, but then later he was charged with arson, and in part because Maher signed
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a confession saying there were no intruders. He said he stabbed himself, then set that small fire. His lawyer
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though maintained that Ted never intended to kill anyone. He just wanted to look like a hero by saving his boss.
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And his attorney also said that no one would have died if the responders had gotten to the victims faster. But
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authorities blamed Ted because they said they did get to the scene in minutes, but they had to be careful and they
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slowed their response because Ted had told them that they were violent intruders inside at the scene. So, he is
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arrested and Josh, uh you were in Monaco in uh 2002 and you are able to briefly film him in prison. You throw him a few
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questions, but I need to hear that story about how you even managed to do that. Well, as a producer you encounter lots
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of obstacles in the field and your job is to get around them, over them, under them. In this case we got got over one.
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>> Above. Uh above one, exactly. Um Monaco did not make Ted Maher available to the
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press for interviews and we were afraid we weren't going to get to talk to him. But over the course of the trial I
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noticed that when the court wasn't in session, he would come out into the prison yard,
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which was a sort of an asphalt surface with a cage around it, at roughly the same time every day.
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And there was one building right up next to the prison yard, which happened to be something like 10 stories
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tall. Um and so I took the crew and we somehow managed to talk our way through the lobby of this building and
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got get permission to go up on the roof with our camera and our tripod and right
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on schedule that day he came out and he was by himself in the prison yard. We started filming immediately. I leaned
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over the wall and started yelling questions at him and I said, "Did you do it?" He heard me and started answering.
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Oh my gosh. I I assume he said he didn't do it. He said he was as I recall, "I've been
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innocent as charged and I'm not responsible for the death of two people." That's my recollection of what
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he said. That is fascinating. See, that's the kind of uh work that that goes into getting these sort of amazing
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interviews and this is next level. Um So, in the end Ted Maher was found guilty of arson uh leading to the death
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of two people. He was then sentenced to 10 years in prison, but then weeks later, he escapes.
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And we actually learned how he escaped from this prison because years later, he wrote a book about it, Erin. Yes, that
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was the book Framed in Monte Carlo. According to that um he had cut the bars of his cell. I mean, this story is just
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so crazy. Then he used a rope made of trash bags and scaled the wall. Um he claimed that he had had hacksaw blades
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smuggled in, hid them in the lining of his bread, hid the trash bags in the prison library. doesn't sound like there
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was great security there. Right. >> And then he had to saw through multiple layers of bars. Uh uh again, according
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to the story he tells, um it took 5 and 1/2 weeks to cut his way out. There should have been a movie made about
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this. Really, it's so crazy. >> You think you've seen everything in this job and and I've seen a lot since then,
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but this still ranks up there among the most bizarre things that have ever happened.
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This is about a month or two after he's convicted. And it just so happened that Erin and I were back in Monte Carlo sort
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of tying up loose ends on the story and I'm in my hotel room fast asleep. It must be 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning when
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my phone rings. I sit up in bed and I answer the phone and it is Ted Maher's wife. She said,
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"My husband escaped. He just called me from outside of the prison telling me he was out and asking for my
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help." Oh my gosh. I grabbed my mini DV camera and ran up to the prison. It wasn't very far away from the hotel.
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And I look up and I see a window on the side of the prison that's been pried open. So, I film
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the open window and I head back to my hotel room, lie down in bed, and there's a knock on the door.
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And I'm suddenly surrounded by police. I I I speak enough French to know that that they wanted me to come down to the
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station. Wow. >> It's by now probably 4:00 in the morning. I remember the the detective sitting there had a sort
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of cigarette with a long ash dangling off the end and there was smoke curling up towards the ceiling. It was
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very It's sort of something out of film noir and I was sitting there and >> Absolutely. I said,
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"What's going on?" And I I think I got the feeling that what they were worried about was why did the American inmate
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escape on the same night that the American TV producer was up lurking around the prison in the middle of the
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night. >> Right. Finally, we cleared everything up and I got home and I saw Erin in the lobby,
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filled her in. I remember the look on her face and that was just yet another weird little chapter in this. I would
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have loved to see Erin's face when you were like, "Guess what I've been up to over the last 6 hours?"
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Guess what Ted has been up to. I know. Freedom was not long for him. Uh the next day uh he was back in custody and
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that is where sort of the the story sort of ends, you think, for you too, right?
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Decades pass. Um but then, Josh, you just happen to be digging around recently. So, I'm sitting
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there in my office probably 2 and 1/2 months ago, 3 months ago. And it just popped into my head,
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"I wonder what some of the truly outlandish people you have covered in the in your 30 years at CBS,
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what some of them are doing now?" And the name that went immediately to the top of the list was Ted Maher. So, I
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literally Googled him. I put his name into Google and the first thing that popped up
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was about a documentary made primarily on the Monaco case that happened to be dropping that night. But then, I look
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below that on on the Google search and I learn that Ted Maher got out of prison in Monaco,
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came back to the United States, changed his name to John Green, and just last spring, the spring of
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2025, was convicted for soliciting the first-degree murder of his wife in New Mexico. And my next
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move was immediately to call Aaron and say and say, "Remember Ted Maher?" So, now
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Maher is charged with a new crime? You would think that he would come back to the United States, he would go back to
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nursing or something like that, but he would lead a straight and narrow life. But now, this put a whole new wrinkle to
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the story. Who was this guy? Welcome back. So, you were able to interview some key
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figures in the life of John Green, as he's known now. Uh chief among them, his now ex-wife, uh Kim Lark. She's a
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retired physician in Carlsbad, New Mexico, and also the trainer and owner of search and rescue dogs. Uh she met
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Green when he came into her office for a biopsy. She said they really hit it off.
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And Kim marries him in 2020. Did she know about his past and did any of that give her pause?
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That was one of my first questions, Amalie, because you know, she's a very smart woman. She's a doctor.
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But she said that very early in their relationship, John, cuz he went by the name John Green by then, he told her his
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real name, Ted Maher, and then he gave her the book, Framed in Monte Carlo. And And of course, that book is all his side
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of the story, and she said to me that she believed him. Um and she thought that it In fact, he
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may have been unfairly blamed for the deaths, but I think she really wanted to believe him, too.
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Right. >> Kim Lark said, I'm paraphrasing her, "Whatever I wanted my best friend to be,
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he was. And he had a way of just being who you needed him to be. And that resonated with me as something he
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perhaps has always known how to do." He's a chameleon. That's what I think he is. He's a chameleon.
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I mean, the guy looks good on paper, right? Nurse, former Green Beret, and he loves dogs. But, even with all of that,
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uh Kim is starting to have suspicions about this new man in her life. And I want to play an unaired clip of your
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interview with Kim. Did you over time start thinking he would tell stories that put
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him in a good light? >> Always. He liked to still tell stories and brag about things that he had done.
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And just little by little, I realized that a lot of them were stories. Like what? What do you remember like any
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kind of story or anything that seemed to be a red flag? We We took a concealed weapons permit.
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Now, supposedly, Ted is a Green Beret? And I'm no Annie Oakley, but I really outshot him with with my right and my
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left hand. What did you think? I thought, "Oh dear God, he's lying about that." When Kim told us that, we started doing
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research and the army told us there was no evidence that he had served in the special forces. So, when I got a chance
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to talk to him, I asked him directly about that. This is a man who could talk a lot and never give you a straight
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answer. So, I kept asking him, "Were you a member of the special forces and a Green Beret?" And he would say something
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like, "Well, I was never assigned to a unit with the Green Berets." So, I then go, "So, you never served as a Green
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Beret?" He goes, "Yeah, yeah, I did." I was so confused. Um but, I'm going with the army on this
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one. Yeah. I mean, one of the things we see a lot is in this job is is people who know how to
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talk a lot whilst whilst saying almost nothing. Very little, yes. That's so true. Well, I'm sure when you're living
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with him then this stuff pops up, you know, more and more and no surprise um his marriage go south. Uh really south.
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Uh Green is charged for forging checks. He also receives several other charges that were later dropped. Kim then
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initiates divorce, but about a month after Green received those initial charges, Kim said he drove away with her
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dogs in the car. Why would he take them? Okay, so the first thing I think you have to bear in mind about Kim Lark is
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she doesn't just love these dogs. Lots of people love their dogs. These dogs are the most important thing
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in Kim Lark's life. But, they are also very valuable, very highly trained as search and rescue,
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disaster response, cadaver dogs. In fact, one of them is a descendant of a dog that Kim took to the Pentagon
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soon after 9/11 um and and helped look through the rubble of the Pentagon in response to that disaster. And
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um one of the dogs, whose name was Zero, was even pregnant when Ted took them. So, these dogs were everything to Kim.
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She was very scared that he might sell the dogs. I don't think she worried about him hurting the dogs because he
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cared about dogs as well, but she was scared she'd never see the dogs again. Uh Green is arrested and then he ends up
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in this detention center. But then, of course, things get even worse. Uh there's another person that is
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introduced into the story, Green's jailmate. His name's uh Greg Markham. What did he say happened? So, this is
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another unusual character. Greg Markham is a guy who was detained on drug charges when John Green
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got to the Eddie County Detention Center. So, they were in jail together. And Markham said they struck up a sort
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of a casual friendship and started playing chess every day. Until one day, Markham told us
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that John Green asked him, "Do you know anyone who could and would kill my wife?"
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Referring to kill Kim Lark. So, what happens, according to Greg Markham, is he said to John Green, "If
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you help me get money for bail to bond out of jail, I'll do it." He said that he never really planned
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to kill Kim Lark. But he wanted this bail money. So, Markham says that sort of this is
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the plan. Green describes the layout of Kim's home. There's a diagram that's drawn out, and the idea was to make her
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drink water laced with fentanyl, which seems like a plan that's got you know, a few holes in it. More than a few holes.
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I mean, what if he doesn't drink the water? Markham, as Josh said, is quite the character. He He says that Green told
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him that the way to force her to take fentanyl, okay, is by pointing a gun not at Kim, but at her dogs.
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And that she cared about her dogs so much she would do whatever she was ordered. And then the whole idea was
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once the deed was done, there was this like code phrase and it was supposed to be I walked the dogs. I mean, as you
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pointed out, Adrienne Marie, it was a ridiculous plan. When I asked him about the plot, and remember, she's she's a
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tough chick. She said she would have refused to drink anything and she would have fought like hell for her dogs if
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she had to. And of course, then when we talked to John Green, he denied all of this. And the thing about Markham is
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that he's certainly no Boy Scout at all. Well, Markham called himself a con man,
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not a hit man. One thing that he was unequivocal about, though, was that I may be a lot of
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things, but I'm not an assassin. And I would never I would never kill anyone. So then
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how was the plot ultimately uncovered? So you have Green and Markham in in jail, and there is a another inmate who
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apparently overhears Green and Markham talking about this plot. That inmate takes it upon himself to write Kim Lark
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a letter. And in the letter, the inmate is saying to Kim, "Your husband is someone who's in jail
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with me, and I have the feeling he's planning to do something to you. If you want to know
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more details, um I'm willing to tell you and also even get up in court and testify to this Wow.
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and do the right thing if you pay me. Oh [laughter] my gosh. So so what happens is he sends that letter to Kim, and she
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immediately gives it to authorities who track down the author of the letter and interview him. He
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leads them to Greg Markham who corroborates the story and alleged plot. So then Green goes on trial in March of
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2025. He's charged with criminal solicitation to commit first-degree murder. Markham testifies against him.
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Green's found guilty. He's sentenced to 9 years in prison, but with time served he could actually get out in less than 3
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years. Aaron, you managed to talk to Green. You get an interview with him. His attorney
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sets up a video conference and you can ask him some questions. I imagine you must have mapped out your questions and
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you were ready to hit him. Well, and remember I he's with me, but he's on video. It's almost like a Zoom
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interview. It really is. And so it was frustrating because while we could see him on screen, it's not quite the same.
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In many ways even though you know, he's aged definitely over the years, he was the same guy after all these years.
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Denied any kind of crimes just as he always had. And as we've been saying throughout this, he has a way of saying
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a lot without answering your questions at all. It's very very frustrating. >> talking to people like that especially
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when you know your time is limited. We saw some of the interview in the hour. Let's play some more of your
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conversation. I followed your life for the last 25 years. I mean, when you read your book it's you seem to blame
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everything on somebody else. Well, it's like I got framed in Monaco. I'm I'm just saying what I'm saying is
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that when I look at your life over everything in Monaco and then here, you're you're always blaming somebody
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else. It's Kim and not you. Do you take responsibility for any of this? Well, I took the responsibility for what I did
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when I took the dogs, but the what I did with in most most most actions was community property. I
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didn't take a gun to anybody's head. I didn't do anything that would harm anybody. Ted, somebody listening to
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right now is listening to what sounds like a very angry man. I mean, did you want Kim Lark dead?
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No, absolutely not. I mean, you sound very angry. You sure you didn't like bring this up with Greg Markham?
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No, absolutely not. Like I said, you don't pay somebody $2,500 to kill somebody.
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That's a convenient thing for him to say. You don't pay $2,500 to kill somebody because Greg Markham said the
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$2,500 payment was only the initial installment of what he allegedly was promising to Markham.
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And I just want to remind you, Emery, even though he says he never wanted to see his wife dead, the judge at
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sentencing who had listened to all the evidence said that he was worried about Kim's safety. Green had appealed his
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conviction, it was denied, but he was going to get out at some point. And as for Kim, she told us that even now, even
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though Green is still behind bars as we speak, she still keeps a shotgun within easy reach.
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>> And she also keeps those dogs around, too. She has the dogs still. >> Yeah, and you know, what what's so great
00:24:34
is that Felony and Storm are back with her. Zero has a new home, and I I just want to remind people that because Zero
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was pregnant, she had puppies. So, there were a lot of dogs, and there were people who benefited
00:24:50
from Zero and her puppies. That's fantastic. Well, I I know. This is a hell of an odyssey, but thank you so
00:24:58
much for joining us for this podcast. Pleasure. >> It was fun talking about this.
00:25:03
Um and thank you all for watching or listening to Post Mortem. And if you like this episode, please rate and
00:25:09
review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.