00:00:03
[music] >> Down here is where the hunters had discovered the torso of a female in the
00:00:31
[music] ditch. Jack, had you ever run into anything like this? No, ma'am. >> [music]
00:00:42
>> What day were you out here and what do you remember from that day? This was December the 2nd of 2022, I
00:00:49
believe. We was hunting that block of woods that particular day. Well, I kind of thought it was a mannequin to start
00:00:53
with. It didn't look real. And this area right here and all around this is where all the
00:00:59
trash, the bags of clothes, the tote, the knife, that's where all that was found right here.
00:01:07
And your big priority was to >> [music] >> find the rest of this woman and find out
00:01:12
who she is. That's correct. It was getting about dusk. We started walking and got to a point where I'm
00:01:20
looking up and the sun's going down. It's shining in my eyes and there's an oak tree and I kind of look behind it
00:01:24
and I see a little disturbed area, a mound. All the remains were found fairly close
00:01:29
to the edge of the road. And at that point, as far as what we knew, there was the female had dark
00:01:36
brown hair. You put out a sketch? GBI had had a forensic artist put out a sketch.
00:01:45
According to deputies, hunters found the body in the area of Barrington Ferry Road. This sketch from the GBI serving
00:01:51
as one of the only glimpses of who the woman could be. >> like, "Whoa, wait a minute.
00:01:59
Like, that looks like Mindy. That looks like Mindy." And I just froze. I said, "I have reason to believe that
00:02:11
this person is Mindy Cassodus. [music] Looks very like much like her." I was like, "I want to be wrong. I have never
00:02:19
wanted to be wrong like this in my whole entire life." A drive through the area shows how dense
00:02:28
the wooded area where the woman was found can be. That was on the local news, but I had zero
00:02:34
reason to connect it to Mindy. [music] So, you get this call from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent and he
00:02:44
says, "You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you." >> Yeah, he absolutely said that.
00:02:50
I think the first thing through my mind was disbelief. I had been told back in December that
00:02:59
she had died in the hospital. That's what all of the immediate friends and family of Mindy's had been told.
00:03:05
Nobody was looking for a murder victim. They thought she had died of natural causes.
00:03:10
>> What did they think had happened to her? >> She died at the hospital on December
00:03:14
1st. She's not in the woods. She was cremated. What do you do? What do you do when
00:03:20
you're in a situation and you feel like something is wrong, but also the entire story is so crazy, who's
00:03:28
going to believe you? >> [music] [music] [music] >> Investigator Jack Frost, now with the
00:04:20
Liberty County, Georgia DA's office, was one of the first detectives [music] called to the scene on December 2nd,
00:04:27
2022. The hunters had seen a knife and a um tote and some wipes back there. Detectives recovered a razor sharp
00:04:38
Milwaukee brand knife, a plastic storage tub with what looked like traces of blood
00:04:44
>> [music] >> and wipes. Do you think whoever brought her out here had to know this area? That
00:04:50
would be a safe assumption because it's so desolate. It would take 5 days until Investigator
00:04:58
Frost found the rest of her body. Authorities said it appeared the woman had defensive wounds.
00:05:07
There's no one that winds up dismembered in the woods that's not a victim of homicide.
00:05:13
My name is Lori Bayo. I'm an assistant district attorney with the Atlantic Judicial Circuit.
00:05:19
Investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released two sketches. There were hundreds [music]
00:05:26
and hundreds of calls and leads that came in through the forensic sketches that were published from civilians
00:05:32
calling in. One call came from a woman 500 miles away in Virginia, Heather Thomas.
00:05:39
>> I was like, "Whoa, wait a minute. Like, that looks like Mindy." Mindy Cassodus.
00:05:46
Heather Thomas turned out is one of the people that recognized the photograph and said, "This could be
00:05:52
Mindy." [music] Heather recognized Mindy because Mindy was married to Heather's ex-husband,
00:05:59
Nick Cassodus, [music] a naval officer, a lawyer in JAG, the Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps.
00:06:07
Nick had traveled the globe, was deployed to Iraq. He served in Italy and the Pentagon. He dealt with sensitive
00:06:15
cases [music] involving Afghanistan. He definitely had an air about him of of confidence,
00:06:23
of you know, reassurance, but never, in an egotistical way, cuz you could sort of
00:06:31
pick that out from a mile away. Heather and Nick got married in 2009. Back then, she was a brunette. Was he
00:06:41
wearing a uniform? >> Yes. [music] He was in his uniform. I was in I had two different dresses. It
00:06:47
was a very big deal. It was a It was a happy day. He had a lot of friends and he
00:06:53
just knew everyone and he had a very outgoing personality and just was a talker and
00:07:01
loved to read and just was It was very different than kind of how I I was. Things started out well, but eventually,
00:07:13
after 6 years, their marriage faded. I felt like we had grown apart. I felt like he was my best friend, but at the
00:07:22
same time, like didn't have the romance. And in 2015, they divorced. Nick Cassodus bounced back quickly. That
00:07:33
same year, he started dating Mindy. She was working as a legal secretary in Washington, D.C. Mindy was the
00:07:43
consummate romantic for a while there, right? Angela Wynn and Morgan Paddock were
00:07:51
long-time friends of Mindy. Angela says Mindy met Nick on a dating app. When she
00:07:57
finally did meet him, [music] that was just her fairy tale ending coming to fruition. Even Heather was happy. He
00:08:06
told me all about it. He was so excited that they met and I was excited for him.
00:08:13
Nick and [music] Mindy married in 2016. Her friends say the couple soon started looking for a home and planning [music]
00:08:21
a family. It's one of the things that that she wanted. She wanted to have kids. >> And Mindy became a podcaster.
00:08:28
We both were on her podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Compelling Women podcast. She just
00:08:35
wanted to find the stories of women and elevate them. >> I'm Mindy, your host, >> [music]
00:08:39
>> and I'm really excited to share with you another thought-provoking interview with
00:08:45
a different compelling woman. Mindy and Nick's life seemed good. After leaving active duty, he was still
00:08:55
practicing law. I was so happy that she was so in love and just so enamored and ready to move on to that next [music]
00:09:03
phase of her life. But her friends say Mindy's life began taking some strange turns. She once told
00:09:12
me, "Morgan, if you knew everything that was going on, like, this is something that would be a
00:09:20
like best-selling novel or or a best-selling movie." Mindy and Nick started moving around a
00:09:27
lot, living in three different states. She rarely saw her friends, they say, and was so worried about security, she
00:09:37
started communicating through the encrypted Signal app. We only ever talked on Signal. If we
00:09:43
called, it was through the Signal app. And if we texted, it was through the Signal app. And whose idea was to use
00:09:48
the Signal app? Oh, Nick. And Mindy said at one point, she was being spied upon. I remember her saying,
00:09:57
"I may have had a tail." Someone following her. >> Yeah. Yeah. It ramped up after that.
00:10:05
Mindy's life ramped up into a series of stranger and stranger events. [music] She told me they had been hacked by a
00:10:14
hacker group. Their bank accounts had been completely frozen. They didn't have any money at all. And she told friends
00:10:20
that Nick said they were being surveilled and that he told her, "We have a security issue now and now we're,
00:10:27
you know, we're in danger." Mhm. She thought her life was in danger? Mhm. It was, according to Mindy, all
00:10:36
connected to Nick and some classified work that he had been involved in during his time in the Navy. There had to be
00:10:44
video surveillance in a van down the street to just keep watch to make sure the comings and goings of their home
00:10:51
were safe. Nick warned Mindy that an undercover team disguised as tree surgeons >> [music]
00:10:59
>> were planting surveillance cameras around their house. It sounded crazy. [music]
00:11:05
It did sound crazy because that does sound like something you see in a movie or read in a novel, but again,
00:11:11
you're talking to Mindy whose husband is a JAG who has all of this military clearance.
00:11:19
By June 2022, Nick and Mindy were living in Savannah. Friends say she was afraid to leave the
00:11:26
house. Did she sound scared? Uh she was she was scared. >> [music] [music] >> As Mindy's friends worried about the
00:11:49
strange events in her life in Savannah, 500 miles away in Virginia, Heather Thomas had been trying to track down her
00:11:57
ex-husband Nick Accosotas for nearly 2 years. I tracked him going to South Carolina. He had said something about
00:12:06
Georgia and that was always in the back of my mind. He owed her money from their divorce, a
00:12:12
million and a half dollars. A court had ordered him to pay and issued a warrant for his arrest. His law career was now
00:12:21
in jeopardy. >> If he was willing to throw away his license to practice ever and he was just
00:12:28
going to throw all caution to the wind, you're now dealing with a scenario where
00:12:33
you can't assume anything. So, you have to be prepared. I had to be prepared for anything.
00:12:40
Heather had a friend who was training to be a PI. Through him, she would discover
00:12:46
that Nick had been on the move. She would later find out that he had gone from state to state living in Airbnbs,
00:12:53
motels. Heather didn't know it, but Nick and Mindy were now hiding out in Savannah, [music] Georgia. That summer,
00:13:02
Mindy had told her friend Angela that she was pregnant. She's very excited and very happy.
00:13:09
But months later, just after Thanksgiving 2022, Angela got an unexpected call from Nick
00:13:17
and couldn't believe what he told her. He called me. He told me that Mindy was gone.
00:13:25
Mindy, Nick said, had died from a sudden medical problem, but his details were sketchy. He told her she'd been
00:13:33
cremated. There was no funeral, no memorial. I'm not hearing anything from anybody and I need to know what the hell
00:13:41
is going on cuz in my mind, you know, Mindy's not gone until I see that she is gone.
00:13:46
And I told him that several times. Like, I need to see it. I need to [music] see
00:13:50
her. I I need to see her. She tried to reach Nick again and again. He just dropped off the face of the
00:13:58
earth. It was a very hard and confusing time. >> [music] >> At around the same time, Nick's ex-wife
00:14:06
Heather had also gotten a message telling her that Mindy had died in the hospital. I was contacted saying, "Hey,
00:14:15
you know, Mindy's dead." What was your reaction? Horror. I was just like, "Oh my god." I felt terrible because
00:14:28
no matter what our beef was, Nick and my, like, to hear that a woman around my age is now dead,
00:14:36
I was sad. And just weeks after that sad news was still sinking in, Heather received more
00:14:44
surprising news >> [music] >> in a text from an acquaintance. >> This person says Nick is dead.
00:14:51
Nick Accosotas had died in a car crash. And I said, "Hm." So, you didn't believe that then.
00:14:59
I immediately didn't believe it. I'm like, "Well, something's fishy here." But Heather wasn't the only one who
00:15:06
heard that Nick had died. Mindy's parents received an email from the security department at the tech company
00:15:14
where Nick told them he was working. It read, "I'm very sorry to inform you that
00:15:20
Nicholas passed away late Wednesday evening." As Heather tried to get more details,
00:15:28
Googling news sites online, she came across that police sketch, the one that looks so much like Mindy, and called
00:15:37
authorities in Georgia. That helped police make a positive identification. And once they got a DNA and genetic
00:15:46
genealogy confirmation, they finally had proof [music] that the woman found in the swamp was indeed
00:15:54
Mindy Accosotas. Once they figure out who she is, all of these things that they've been
00:16:01
learning about the evidence found at the scene all ties in. Investigators could find no evidence of
00:16:09
Accosotas dying in a car crash. What they did find was a new driver's license in a new name, Nicholas Killian James
00:16:20
Stark. They tracked him to Lancaster, Pennsylvania where he was now living with a third wife, a tech worker and
00:16:30
fiction writer, Samantha Coleyasnic. He had told her he was a widower. But then she writes,
00:16:39
He means Hey, sir. Can you read that here for me? In May 2023, detectives brought Accosotas back to Georgia for
00:16:46
questioning. He told them a detailed story similar to what Mindy's family and friends had heard about being pursued
00:16:54
and harassed by unknown individuals connected to government work he had done. There was different a couple
00:17:00
different stories. It was that there was um some fallout from some stuff that Nick
00:17:04
had done at the Pentagon. He was a potential target for a terrorist group. It was real top secret stuff and that it
00:17:10
was really super sensitive and almost like a, you know, secret agent type of life where they
00:17:14
just hidden in plain sight but had to kind of be careful. The once buttoned-down,
00:17:20
straight-laced attorney and former naval JAG officer now looked scruffy. Accosotas claimed that he reported the
00:17:30
conspiracy to the FBI. And that's when he says a federal agent came to their home offering to protect them. His name,
00:17:40
Jim McIntyre. I came home one day um and Mindy said that a that a FBI agent had come to the house
00:17:48
and uh you know, he was serious about what was going on and you know, wanted to meet with us both
00:17:54
and talk about it. And that was Jim? That was Jim. Um did he show you any credentials or
00:18:00
anything? I don't recall. According to Nick, for 4 years, Jim McIntyre took control of everything in
00:18:09
the couple's lives, telling them when to move and where. Jim told you to jump off
00:18:15
a cliff, you were going to go jump off a cliff? >> Yes, sir. For for years for years we did
00:18:20
exactly what Jim told us. So, you He wanted full access to our lives. He said he was keeping us safe. I think you're
00:18:25
living a web of lies. You talk in parallel realities. That's what you're doing here.
00:18:30
No, sir. Nick Accosotas had spun such an elaborate story for detectives, they had
00:18:49
a hard time believing anything he said. They began to suspect that he made up everything, [music]
00:18:57
that he was the author of the email sent to Mindy's parents announcing his death,
00:19:02
>> [music] >> complete with a company he didn't work for. It's kind of like, yeah, we we can
00:19:07
see through all the lies now. This is such a nightmare. Why is this happening? Detectives began asking him about
00:19:14
Mindy's last days. Right around Thanksgiving of 2022, while Accosotas was out of town, he said,
00:19:23
Mindy texted [music] him saying she had taken a fall and had checked herself into a clinic.
00:19:30
He was vague on details. Tell me about the day that you got called to the doctor's office. I got a phone call.
00:19:38
I forget from who. I don't know if it was somebody I knew or not asking if I could
00:19:43
I don't think it was somebody I knew asking if if I could come and pick her up that afternoon.
00:19:49
When Nick arrived, he told investigators, the doctor gave him bad news. I I sat down and and he he said
00:19:57
that that he uh was very sorry to tell me that Mindy passed away suddenly. So, he said Mindy had passed away
00:20:04
suddenly. Then what happened? He he I was I was extremely upset. I was Yeah, I like I I thought I was I was
00:20:14
coming there just to just to pick her up and bring her back. Um he said he said he he wasn't sure what
00:20:25
had happened. You go to this doctor's office, they tell you wife died, you don't ask to see
00:20:33
her. You immediately >> I did ask to see her. You don't get to see her. Cousot couldn't tell investigators where
00:20:42
the facility was or the names of anyone he spoke to. You don't force the go any further to see her. You just take them
00:20:50
at their word. You don't know their names, you don't know their addresses, don't know how to return there
00:20:55
whatsoever. You just leave. But if Mindy had died at a Savannah clinic, how did her remains end up in a swamp? Nick told
00:21:05
detectives he had no idea, but insisted he didn't do it. What Nick didn't know at the time was
00:21:16
that detectives were already building a case against him. I think it's easy for people to think about doing something,
00:21:24
but I think the act of doing it and then trying to cover up all the loose ends after you've started it's almost
00:21:30
impossible. For starters, when detectives ran a background check on Nick, they discovered he owned a green Ford
00:21:39
Explorer. A green Ford Explorer that looked just like the vehicle investigators had
00:21:46
spotted on a surveillance video from a remote pumping station near the crime scene. And why was that camera so
00:21:54
significant in this case? >> Because it captured Nicholas Cousot's Explorer driving past it going in and
00:22:00
out of that area. And that wasn't all. On a hunch, days after Frost had processed the crime
00:22:07
scene, he checked with Home Depot stores which sold that Milwaukee brand of knife. Agent Frost had contacted Home
00:22:15
Depot because he had worked another case and was familiar with the brand. One of
00:22:20
those knives had been purchased from a store just 50 minutes from the hunting club with a debit card belonging to Nick
00:22:27
Cousot. Here's a surveillance photo of Nicholas Cousot right after he paid for that
00:22:34
knife. There he is and you can see the knife right under his arm. And there were more knives. When Frost
00:22:43
had checked out a Bass Pro Shop in Savannah, he discovered that Cousot had also used his debit card there
00:22:51
and bought a knife kit designed for hunters. This is a seven-piece pursuit field dressing kit for animals. This is
00:23:00
like the same kit that was purchased by Cousot and there is an assortment of knives.
00:23:07
Oh my god. I'm not touching this. These are very sharp. >> Very sharp. And then there is also a
00:23:14
bone saw. Now, with Cousot apparently tied to the knives and the Ford Explorer, they
00:23:22
subpoenaed records from his phone and the Ford's GPS system. The car records showing his vehicle and phone traveling
00:23:33
down to exactly where her body is. He has no reason whatsoever to be there other than that his dismembered wife
00:23:43
happens to be found there when he told everyone else she was cremated. That was that facility.
00:23:49
>> Back in the interrogation room, detectives [music] confronted Cousot with their discoveries.
00:23:55
I mean, who else has the luck of going on a 25,000 acre property and getting captured on video?
00:24:02
It just so happens your phone, even your car, shows clearly where you were at down this long dirt road that just
00:24:11
happened to pass a camera and tracks your every movement. We put you and your cellular device and your
00:24:19
vehicle out there in these places where your wife's body is found dismembered with the knife that you just bought.
00:24:30
Why did you kill Mindy? >> Sir, I didn't kill Mindy. You killed Mindy. I did not. All the evidence shows
00:24:35
that you killed Mindy and it will continue to show. It's like a thousand piece puzzle.
00:24:41
You burned some of the pieces, but we've got enough to see a very clear picture.
00:24:48
But Cousot insisted he was innocent and pointed the finger at the man he says had been controlling their lives, Jim
00:24:56
McIntyre. Are you alleging that Jim killed your wife? I don't know, but I think it's possible.
00:25:04
She should never been in this situation. We should have never listened to Jim. In February 2024, a little over a year
00:25:12
after Mindy's death, Nick Cousot was indicted for the murder of Mindy Cousot. It's very difficult for me to believe
00:25:20
that Nick Cousot could murder anyone. Philip McCuller had walked these grounds of the Portal Hunting Club for years.
00:25:43
Before the December day in 2022 when he made that gruesome discovery. Kind of thought it was a mannequin to
00:25:50
start with. It didn't look real. Strewn along the swamp, the remains of the once vibrant 40-year-old Mindy
00:25:59
Cousot. More than two and a half years later, her husband Nick Cousot charged with her
00:26:07
murder was in a Hinesville, Georgia courtroom. We'll begin the trial at this time with the opening statements. This
00:26:14
trial would prove to be unlike any other from the get-go. >> My name is Doug Weinstein and I am
00:26:20
representing Mr. Cousot. In an unusual move, the prosecution forced defense attorney Weinstein to open his case
00:26:29
first. I honestly think it was purely a tactic to try to get into my head a little bit
00:26:35
and make me off balance. Mr. and Mrs. Cousot were told that they were targets. Weinstein immediately set the scene for
00:26:45
the defense. The alleged killer he says was actually another victim. Nick Cousot
00:26:53
is a man who lived in fear. Relentless, all consuming fear. Running for his life. It's hard
00:27:03
for me to ever believe that Nick killed Mindy. Instead, Weinstein told the jury Cousot
00:27:10
had been duped [music] and deluded by the mysterious figure Jim McIntyre. You'll hear testimony
00:27:18
that a man called calling himself Jim McIntyre claiming to be with the FBI told them that their lives were in
00:27:28
danger. Cousot is not a killer, he says, more like a frightened, desperate hero. A
00:27:35
decorated military veteran. He served in Iraq. He was in the Pentagon. But prosecutor Lori Beall says the real
00:27:44
Nick Cousot is revealed by the gruesome evidence left behind. And unfortunately,
00:27:50
you're going to hear about the dismemberment. Beall showed the weapon found near
00:27:54
Mindy's mangled body. A Milwaukee orange handled, black sheathed knife. Cousot's DNA was not found at the crime
00:28:06
scene, but that knife is the same brand investigators say as the one seen under his arm. That's him
00:28:14
>> [music] >> on surveillance from Home Depot. On the same day that authorities say Mindy may
00:28:20
have been murdered. The state calls Samantha Kolyesnik to the stand. Along with the facts and
00:28:27
forensics, the jury heard tales of betrayal. Do you swear including one by Cousot's third wife, Samantha Kolyesnik.
00:28:37
Yes. She believed she had married a loving widower, but later learned that Mindy was still alive when Nick first
00:28:45
started messaging her. She had no idea that that he was leading this double life. I don't think words will ever
00:28:53
capture how I felt, but I felt if I had to choose some words, I'd say horrified,
00:28:59
shocked, traumatized, violated, deceived. Samantha also told jurors Nick wanted to
00:29:07
quickly start a family. I went to a a preconception appointment. >> Right around the date of our marriage,
00:29:13
yep. Nick and I met at Naval Justice School in 2008 when he Retired Commander Cameron Nelson described the Nick that
00:29:21
she and others had once believed was an honorable, proud patriot. And I was scheduled to deploy aboard the USNS
00:29:29
Comfort which >> When she received a serious cancer diagnosis, unfortunately, I wasn't able
00:29:34
to go on that deployment. >> Cousot, she told the jury, stepped up and stepped in. Nick immediately
00:29:41
volunteered to take that deployment so that I could focus on treatment. But that same Nick Cousot, she says, also
00:29:48
betrayed her trust. When he told her that his financial accounts had been hacked, she lent him money and even gave
00:29:55
him a credit card. How much did the defendant charge to that credit card? Approximately $198,000.
00:30:03
Has he ever paid a penny towards that debt? Not a penny. The man Cameron thought was a patriot
00:30:10
now seemed like a calculating And we decided that it was just not sustainable to continue to allow him to
00:30:17
borrow money. Please raise your right hand and take the oath. First wife Heather Thomas testified
00:30:23
about her own betrayal. With its court order for Kosodas to pay up on their divorce agreement. Did the defendant
00:30:31
cooperate with the divorce obligations? No. Did that cause any kind of hardship to you? Of course. It
00:30:38
put me through a lot of emotional stress. Did he ever comply with that court order for the $1.5 million and the
00:30:45
attorney interest and the attorney fees? No. The jury watched that video of Kosodas'
00:30:53
green Ford Explorer [music] less than a mile from where Mindy's remains were found. And that camera captured that
00:31:02
vehicle. Is that correct? The water pumping station camera. Thank you. Special agent Tracy Sands said he
00:31:09
wasn't just sifting through physical evidence. He had been on a hunt for a star witness. Did you ever make an
00:31:17
effort to locate Jim McIntyre? Uh yes, ma'am, I did. There was only one in this area. I'm in the Savannah area.
00:31:25
And this McIntyre was definitely not an FBI agent. An older gentleman. He managed the company that sold dental
00:31:33
implants. Could you identify any connection between that Jim McIntyre to this case? I could not.
00:31:41
It's a powerful circumstantial case against Nikosodas that only one man can rebut. The defense
00:31:49
calls Nicholas Kosodas to the stand. Please raise your right hand and take the oath. For more than 3 hours, Kosodas
00:31:56
repeated to the jury his story about the mystery man who he insists controlled every detail of Mindy's life and his. I
00:32:07
gave Jim McIntyre access to literally everything. He had access to our home. He had all of our bank accounts. Why
00:32:13
would an accomplished attorney listen to some guy who just shows up and do whatever he says?
00:32:21
>> Well, isn't that's the million-dollar question, right? Why would he do that? Um
00:32:26
all I can think is panic. The defense offered no pictures of McIntyre, no records, just Kosodas'
00:32:36
testimony. I had no reason to doubt that he was who he said he was. And Kosodas claimed he was only in the area where
00:32:43
his wife's remains were found because the manipulative McIntyre had told him to go there. Did you kill your wife,
00:32:51
Mindy Kosodas? I absolutely did not. I would never have hurt Mindy. Did you dismember her body? No, absolutely not.
00:33:02
Then what about that knife cradled under his arm? Kosodas said it wasn't about murder. It was for home improvement, a
00:33:11
broken screen. I was having a very hard time getting the netting on it and keeping it secured up there. So I was
00:33:18
looking for something that kind of long and thin. What is Nick's strongest defense?
00:33:26
His strongest defense is it's entirely circumstantial. There was zero evidence presented at
00:33:33
trial of how Mindy was killed. And frankly, how, where Mindy was killed. They don't know.
00:33:42
>> [music] >> Attorney Weinstine closed his defense with this reminder to the jurors. The
00:33:47
state has an incredibly high burden to meet cuz they have got to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And
00:33:57
they haven't done that. They just They just haven't done that. As the trial wrapped up, the mystery man Jim McIntyre
00:34:06
Can't find a person that doesn't exist. never appeared in this Georgia courtroom. I submit to you there is no
00:34:13
Jim. He killed her. He took her from everyone. Bright, light, kind, good-natured. I submit to you
00:34:30
Mindy, she deserves your attention. This case is about her. Look at the evidence and come back with
00:34:41
what is the only appropriate outcome. Guilty of all charges. Nick Kosodas and his attorney had hoped
00:35:03
to convince a jury that he wasn't capable of killing his wife, Mindy, but somebody else was. It is not my job to
00:35:13
figure out who killed Mindy Kosodas. That is the state's job. It's a huge job. It's an important job and it's a
00:35:19
high burden. What's the motive for someone else to kill her? Well, again, we go back to Jim McIntyre.
00:35:30
That's the only person that could possibly That's the only person. The mysterious Jim McIntyre.
00:35:36
Prosecutors say there is no Jim McIntyre, that he doesn't exist. Do you have any evidence he does? I I have no
00:35:44
evidence that Jim McIntyre exists. >> have a picture of him? I have no picture. Any kind of documentation that
00:35:51
showed that he worked for a federal agency? All that we have on Jim McIntyre is what Nick has told Mindy. If I had
00:36:00
any way to prove that Jim McIntyre existed, you would have seen it at the trial.
00:36:07
Why should anyone believe Nick Kosodas' story when he's a liar? He lies a lot. He told some big lies, but nothing like
00:36:16
murdering your wife. I just refuse to take the leap of because you lie about certain things,
00:36:22
you're a murderer. I just It's just too far for me to go. Even prosecutor Lori Beo admitted that
00:36:28
despite Kosodas' inconsistencies, jurors might have doubts about his guilt. If you look at him on paper, he
00:36:37
looks like Prince [music] Charming. My mom and dad would have said, "Oh my gosh, he's a wonderful catch. He looks
00:36:45
fantastic. So why wouldn't you believe him?" But Beo says Kosodas has been fooling
00:36:51
people for years. He gaslighted everybody. Not stupid people, not people that are
00:36:57
unaware. And they all bought it. Including Mindy. She believed [music] him. I mean, there's no one disputes
00:37:06
that Mindy never left the house. That she was terrified and that she stayed home every moment of her life
00:37:13
afraid that if she left that she'd be [music] killed. The real story, says Beo, was much more
00:37:20
mundane. Kosodas was hiding, she says, because he didn't want to pay his ex-wife. Was Nick Kosodas gaslighting
00:37:29
his wife and making her believe that their lives were in danger when in fact he's just running from a debt?
00:37:37
You know, that's possible. >> I mean, he's a prosecutor. He's a lawyer. He might be able to convince her
00:37:44
of that. He also knows how to handle the legal system. So there's a million and a
00:37:48
half-dollar judgment against him. There's all kinds of ways to get rid of this debt. You don't need to live a
00:37:55
miserable life for 5 years because of a judgment that you can't pay. But why kill Mindy? Why do you believe
00:38:03
Nick Kosodas killed his wife? What What's the motive for it? That was the hardest question to answer.
00:38:12
But juries want to know. It was my argument to the jury that everybody said Nick wanted a family.
00:38:22
He wanted kids. He really wanted to have kids. But so why kill her? I think he found out she wasn't
00:38:28
pregnant. In fact, Mindy's death certificate [music] said she was not pregnant. Ladies and gentlemen, please be seated.
00:38:42
Jurors [music] took just a little over an hour to reach a verdict. It's my understanding that
00:38:48
the jury has reached a verdict. Count one, malice murder, guilty. Count two, felony murder,
00:39:00
guilty. Guilty [music] on all charges. I don't believe for a minute Nick ever expected a guilty verdict to come back.
00:39:12
Before sentencing, Mindy's friend Morgan Paddock spoke directly to Kosodas. [music]
00:39:18
She loved you and trusted you to tell her the truth, to protect her, to live out your marriage vows.
00:39:27
And yet you were the one [clears throat] that she needed protection from. He is remanded to custody.
00:39:34
>> The judge sentenced Kosodas to life [music] without parole. Why did so many people
00:39:40
believe Nick Tsougas. You know I All I have are questions from this case, right? Just I don't have answers. So
00:39:49
many people, college grads, professionals, career Navy officers believed everything that Nick and Mindy
00:40:00
told them about why they were living the life. And I think it's because when Nick
00:40:05
would tell them something they they believed him. The people in his life are still
00:40:13
struggling with a betrayal. Is that hard for you then >> [music] >> to think that you were married to this
00:40:19
man who then killed his wife? The thing that I struggle with I think even now [music] is the fact that
00:40:31
survivor's guilt is very real. Out of the two of us I probably had he probably had more
00:40:40
reasons to perhaps maybe >> [music] >> come after me. I trusted him with my literal life
00:40:48
and I believed him. Mindy's friends now accept that they were all betrayed by Nick, but they hope
00:40:59
Mindy will be remembered not as a victim but a woman who saw the light in other women and tried to capture that in a
00:41:08
podcast. And it was beautiful and it was special and it was talking to a friend and
00:41:13
knowing that she had a platform and she wanted to use it for good. The Compelling Women podcast is written
00:41:19
and hosted [music] by me, Mindy Tsougas. Thank you so much for listening to the first season and I promise to be [music]
00:41:25
back with another season as soon as I can. >> [music] [music] >> Hello, I'm Anne Marie Green and welcome
00:42:11
back to Post Mortem. This week we're discussing the case of Mindy Meven Tsougas whose dismembered remains were
00:42:17
found in the woods near Savannah, Georgia on December 2nd, 2022. Now it took 5 months to identify her remains
00:42:25
and when her family and friends found out they were shocked by the discovery because Mindy's husband, Nick Tsougas,
00:42:32
had told them that Mindy died in the hospital in December and that her body had been cremated. When investigators
00:42:38
zeroed in on Nick Tsougas, he denied any involvement in Mindy's murder but told them a real sort of detailed story about
00:42:47
how he and Mindy had been targeted and harassed by shadowy figures for years. So joining me today to give us some
00:42:54
insight into this case, this very unusual case, is 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. Thank you for joining us,
00:43:00
Erin. Well, it's a thrill to be here, Anne Marie, and I have to agree with you. We've never really had a case like
00:43:07
this where there really were two realities. So if you look at the evidence the cops
00:43:13
did, it's an ordinary, well, ordinary premeditated murder. But if you listen to Nick Tsougas, he's a former naval
00:43:22
officer and lawyer, he tells a very different story. So the bottom line was who do you believe? So true and so many
00:43:30
people believed him for years. Before we get into it, a quick reminder, if you haven't watched or listened to
00:43:36
the 48 Hours episode The Woman Who Died Twice check it out and then come on back and
00:43:43
join us for this conversation. So let's dig into these two realities as you put it. Um Mindy and Nick Tsougas
00:43:50
started dating back in 2015. They got married in 2016 and at first it really seemed like a fairy tale marriage but at
00:43:58
some point in 2018 Tsougas started telling Mindy that they were being surveilled and harassed by shadowy and
00:44:08
they went on the run. They basically went into hiding. Erin, can you break down just what was happening in the
00:44:14
couple's lives in those months leading up to Mindy's murder? Okay, so by June of 2022
00:44:22
they were living in an Airbnb in Savannah, Georgia and they were living with Mindy's parents who also believed
00:44:29
Tsougas' story that they were being surveilled, harassed. Mindy had told some of her friends about
00:44:34
the harassment and she told them it was all connected to her husband and some of
00:44:39
the classified work that he had done when he was in the Navy. And according to her friends, there was no question
00:44:46
Mindy believed it and was truly scared for her life. And here's the evidence we found of that. This was something we did
00:44:53
not put in the show but that Airbnb was just blocks from where Mindy's best friend from high school, Morgan Paddock,
00:45:00
lived. But Mindy apparently was so afraid to leave the house she never even told Morgan that. She never reached out
00:45:07
to her and Morgan had no idea she was there because they had stopped communicating at this point. And that
00:45:13
really gives you an idea of just how scared Mindy seemed to be. Right, clearly she believed what her husband
00:45:20
was telling her about these shadowy figures and in a way I can understand it especially if he's cutting off, you
00:45:28
know, her connections to other people, right? We've seen that before, Erin, where people, you know, their world
00:45:33
becomes so small that they become almost completely dependent on this one person
00:45:37
that's misleading them. But what I don't get is that even Mindy's friends and, you know, members
00:45:44
of her family, they didn't question this outlandish story. So that's the question
00:45:51
I ask people. I would ask her friends "Why didn't you ask more questions?" And they said that they did think the story
00:45:59
was crazy but because her husband had such an impressive background they believed him and they didn't ask a lot
00:46:07
of questions. Keep in mind, Anne Marie, Tsougas had been a lawyer in JAG, the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps,
00:46:14
which is basically the Navy's legal arm. I don't know if I ever mentioned to you
00:46:19
that before I went to law school I thought about being a JAG because they pay for your way into law school and it
00:46:26
is considered to be one of the best ways, it's a military lawyer. And so he was highly respected, he was a naval
00:46:34
officer and he had served all over the world. So not only Mindy believed him, all her friends did, too. It also
00:46:42
occurred to me that because of the internet and there are so much talk about conspiracies, I think people are
00:46:48
more open to this kind of story that he was telling. That is such an interesting
00:46:54
observation. I I think you're probably right. Um but then we sort of go a step further,
00:47:01
right? Because in December of 2022 Tsougas told Mindy's friends and family that she died from a sudden medical
00:47:10
issue and that, you know, there's no body because she had been cremated. I can maybe understand Mindy's friends
00:47:17
accepting that story because they weren't around her but her own parents didn't question
00:47:23
this. You know, this is still kind of a mystery to me, Anne Marie. Um her parents did not speak to us but the
00:47:31
investigators told us they did love their daughter. Still, we know that when Tsougas told
00:47:38
Mindy's parents that their daughter had died and that he didn't get her body and
00:47:43
couldn't tell them where it was and oddly they seemed to accept that. You know, you would think they would
00:47:51
maybe call the cops. They did not. I should also point out they were all living in the same house.
00:47:58
Um but they went away to visit her brother, their son, during Thanksgiving and when they got back that's when
00:48:07
Tsougas said that he had taken Mindy to the hospital and that she had died. And then here's the weird part of the story.
00:48:14
Right after >> this is the weird part of the story? Yeah, well, all right, it's getting
00:48:18
weirder. Right. >> So right after Tsougas told them that Mindy died but he, you know, couldn't show them the
00:48:27
body or anything, then he disappeared. He disappeared and again they still did not call the cops.
00:48:34
And 2 months later, in February of 2023, Mindy's parents got an email ostensibly
00:48:42
from the company that Tsougas claimed he worked for saying that he had been in a
00:48:46
car accident. We know that they wanted to go see him but then they get another email saying that he had died. Mm. Even
00:48:56
then even then Mindy's parents don't seem to realize that they were being bamboozled. So when Mindy's
00:49:04
dismembered body was found in the woods investigators were unable to identify her at first and they released two
00:49:11
sketches of her face. Tsougas' first wife, Heather Thomas, discovered that sketch and then made an anonymous call
00:49:18
to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation saying that it looked an awful lot like her ex-husband's new wife, Mindy
00:49:24
Tsougas. What's interesting about Heather is that when she spoke to you about Tsougas, she
00:49:29
said at one point that, you know, they were best friends, that they remained friendly after the divorce. When did
00:49:35
things sort of break down between them? Well, initially it was amicable. Um she said they had become roommates not
00:49:43
husband and wife and that's why they broke up. Also, Heather and Kusoldas had shared two dogs. So, they stayed in each
00:49:50
other's lives and she says they were friendly during that that time. But, there was one really big issue between
00:49:56
them. Apparently, Kusoldas owed Heather money from the divorce and he was supposed to pay off It's a lot of money.
00:50:05
Yeah. $1.5 million for the mortgage on the house. He also owed her lawyer's fees and interest and
00:50:12
compounding. And the only reason why Heather really was upset about it, why she became upset
00:50:18
about it was she also worked for the government and had a security clearance and she was worried it would be denied
00:50:24
if she had large debts. What's interesting is that Mindy, who is now married to Kusoldas, knew nothing about
00:50:33
any of this debt. Her friends say that Mindy heard a totally different story from her husband.
00:50:39
He told her that Heather was crazy and was trying to steal from him. Wow. I mean, people believe Kusoldas except for
00:50:46
luckily investigators. Um they didn't buy his story at all. When they brought him in for questioning, he told them uh
00:50:52
the same tale about being pursued and harassed by unknown individuals and also said that uh for his family's
00:50:59
protection, he gave complete control to a mysterious FBI agent. He said his name
00:51:06
was Jim McIntyre. Of course, he said that he didn't kill Mindy and that uh he didn't know who did, but he thought
00:51:12
maybe Jim was responsible. Uh let's just listen to a clip from the hour of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's agent
00:51:18
Tracy Sands asking Kusoldas about Jim McIntyre. If Jim told you to jump off a cliff, would you have gone and jumped
00:51:25
off a cliff? >> Yes, sir. For For years For years we did exactly what Jim told us to do. So, you
00:51:30
He wanted full access to our lives. He said he was keeping us safe. Unfortunately, we did not get to sit
00:51:36
down with Tracy Sands um during the hour um even though he was so important to this investigation,
00:51:44
the DA Billy Joe Nelson told us, and I'm quoting, that we might not be sitting here today without Tracy Sands. That's
00:51:51
how important he was. We could have had an unsolved death on our hands without Tracy Sands. In fact, Sands led both
00:51:59
interviews with Kusoldas after Kusoldas's arrest and he worked with the FBI to try to find the mysterious Jim
00:52:08
McIntyre. But sadly, this was Tracy's last case. He did agree to sit down with us. He
00:52:15
would have been in our hour for an interview, but he died unexpectedly right after the trial. But this is why
00:52:23
Tracy Sands and investigators didn't believe Kusoldas the way all of Kusoldas's friends and family did
00:52:31
because they had been investigating him for weeks as soon as they were able to identify that woman found in the swamp
00:52:38
as Mindy. And investigators told us they couldn't find any evidence to back up Kusoldas's
00:52:46
story and they tried hard, they say. They even wanted to find the mysterious Jim McIntyre. Um and they did. They
00:52:54
found a Jim McIntyre. He was an older man who managed a company that sold dental implants. He was not a federal
00:53:04
agent. Uh what they did find though was surveillance footage of Kusoldas's car and it was very close to the hunting
00:53:12
grounds where Mindy's body was found. And they were able even to find the evidence that Kusoldas had bought the
00:53:20
same kind of knife that was found at the crime scene. So, in February of 2024, just a little over a year after Mindy's
00:53:30
death, Kusoldas was indicted for his wife's murder. So, let's talk about the trial. More
00:53:39
than 2 and 1/2 years after Mindy Kusoldas's murder, her husband Nick Kusoldas is charged with her murder and
00:53:44
appears in a Georgia courtroom. I could not help but to notice just how different he looked from his police
00:53:52
interview. He looks like a completely different person. I It really made me question like who is
00:53:58
this guy? I mean, that was the big question I had all the way through this. Um Sadly, we don't know a lot about
00:54:06
Kusoldas's upbringing or even his background before he went to law school and got all his legal training.
00:54:13
His parents decided not to talk to us, but we did see them in the courtroom to support him. Um and here's something
00:54:20
that we didn't tell you in the hour, which I think is so interesting, is that at some point, Kusoldas said, and I
00:54:28
don't think this should surprise anyone who's listening, he began to write fiction. He had
00:54:33
actually published a short story on Reddit. I should tell you what the name was. It was called My Mother-in-law was
00:54:40
poisoning me and then I found out why. Oh my gosh. >> this, Sony Pictures paid him $400,000
00:54:48
for the story rights. >> You're kidding me. And then here's a weird thing that we did tell you in the
00:54:53
hour, but after Mindy died, which did not make Kusoldas look so good, he ended up getting married quickly to another
00:55:01
fiction writer that he had met online. He lied to that wife also. He told her he was a widower and that was at a time
00:55:11
when Mindy was still alive. Mhm. Oh my gosh. Just saying. I mean, this is really an unusual case,
00:55:17
but another reason why it was unusual is Nick Kusoldas testified in his own defense. That doesn't happen frequently
00:55:23
even though I know if you watch 48 Hours, you see it frequently enough, but in general, it doesn't happen. Um he
00:55:30
testified for more than 3 hours and he repeated to the jury this story about Jim McIntyre insisting that McIntyre had
00:55:36
offered him and Mindy protection and controlled every detail of their lives. Uh so, you spoke to Kusoldas's defense
00:55:43
lawyer, Doug Weinstein. What was his reasoning for putting his client on the stand? I I was curious about the same
00:55:51
thing. Weinstein is a very good trial lawyer. He says, and I think he's right, his strongest defense was that
00:55:59
this case was entirely circumstantial. Nobody saw Kusoldas kill his wife. Yeah. There was zero evidence of how or where
00:56:09
Mindy was killed and investigators never found any of Kusoldas's DNA near Mindy's
00:56:15
body. But Doug Weinstein told us that in fact, he had never ever put a client on
00:56:22
the stand before and would never want to, but he did because remember, his client was a lawyer and that lawyer
00:56:30
insisted he wanted to testify. Mhm. It was all Kusoldas. He decided he wanted to to testify and I think what's
00:56:38
interesting about that is, and this is just my feeling, so many people have believed Kusoldas, I
00:56:44
think he thought the jury would too. Right. I was in the courtroom I when Kusoldas
00:56:50
testified. I did not want to miss it. He was calm, unemotional and when I thought
00:56:55
about it, this was his wife and her death. If he's insinuating that someone else did it, you would think that he
00:57:03
would be more emotional. I was also surprised when the prosecutor did not go harder on Kusoldas in cross-examination
00:57:11
because I thought she would. I think everybody in the courtroom thought she would. But later, that prosecutor, Lori
00:57:17
Beall, told me that she thought he had sunk himself and she thought it was better just to let the jury see that.
00:57:24
The prosecution did present a really strong circumstantial case uh including the surveillance footage of Kusoldas's
00:57:31
car near the hunting grounds, the evidence that Kusoldas had bought the kind of knife that they found at the
00:57:37
crime scene, and then records from his cell phone and the car GPS showing both traveled to the exact location in the
00:57:45
woods where Mindy's body was found. It's hard stuff to refute, but what they were
00:57:50
not able to do, and they don't have to, but it helps, is they didn't really present a clear motive. They could not
00:57:58
tell us why he would kill his wife. Lori Beall, the prosecutor, felt that she needed to answer that for the jury. Mhm.
00:58:08
But she says that to this day, it's the hardest question to answer. Um her theory is that Kusoldas really wanted a
00:58:18
family. We know that Mindy and Kusoldas had told Mindy's family and her friends that she was pregnant.
00:58:26
But after her remains were found, the death certificate revealed that she hadn't been and wasn't pregnant within
00:58:35
the past year before she was killed. So, did she lie about it? Did she lie to her
00:58:41
husband about it? The prosecutor thinks that Kusoldas might have killed her when
00:58:46
he found out that she wasn't pregnant and maybe lying about it. Mindy was stabbed in the abdomen. Mhm. Um and that
00:58:55
is really why Lori Beall thinks that. Um there's more evidence to show that he really did want to have children. At
00:59:04
least the story that Heather told us is that when Heather had been married to Kusoldas, she had really tried to get
00:59:10
pregnant and he wanted her to. Uh they didn't have children. And then when she remarried, she had a child
00:59:18
really quickly afterwards and she says that Kusoldas saw her pregnant and that she thought he looked really freaking
00:59:28
and uncomfortable. So, that kind of supports that theory too. Mhm. Um when you spoke to
00:59:35
the district attorney Billy Joe Nelson, he had another theory about Nick Kessodis' motive. Um I want to play a
00:59:41
clip from the interview that was not in the hour. I believe if you look at the evidence in
00:59:45
this case, ultimately the defendant Mr. Kessodis in this case was looking for a way out of
00:59:53
his current situation. Why that had to end with the death of Mindy Meven, we'll never know
01:00:01
unless he decides to tell you why he did it. Um but at the end of the day, if you look at the evidence, I think he
01:00:09
was planning an escape out of the life he was living. That is the theory I kind of go with
01:00:17
Emery. I really do. Can you imagine how many people he had told this story to? It must have been really hard to keep it
01:00:25
up and keep all the details. Um he had already met the woman who would become his third wife a couple of months before
01:00:34
he killed Mindy. So it's possible that getting rid of Mindy would let him run away from his past life and have a new
01:00:42
wife. It's also possible, we don't know because we can't ask Mindy, maybe she was beginning to question those stories
01:00:50
toward the end. But these are all just theories and as the prosecutor said, unless Kessodis decides to tell us,
01:01:00
we'll never know for certain. We'll never know. The jury deliberated for just a little
01:01:06
over an hour before finding Kessodis guilty of all charges. Clearly there wasn't a lot of debate in
01:01:12
the in the jury room there. But when you think about it, he really came very close to getting away with a perfect
01:01:18
murder. If Mindy's body had not been found, could Kessodis have actually gotten away with this? I actually think
01:01:24
he he could have. If he had not left Mindy at that hunting ground, because he didn't realize how often
01:01:33
people were there, we might never have heard about this case. If you think about it, all her friends
01:01:40
thought she had died in the hospital. Her own parents thought she had died in that hospital. None of them were
01:01:47
questioning it. If he had left her someplace where there weren't people all the time, he really
01:01:54
could have gotten away with it. The other problem, of course, was driving a car that was a cell phone and getting
01:02:00
caught on video. So his car was identified very close to where her body was. That those were the two big
01:02:08
mistakes he made. You know, often when you discover that someone you trust and like has lied to
01:02:16
you, it rocks you a little. Like you start to reassess just how you view the world. You start to reassess the other
01:02:21
people that you have believed and trusted. I'm just curious how the people who he lied to are how are they
01:02:28
grappling with all of this? Everybody feels so betrayed. Kessodis' first wife Heather specially. She has what she's
01:02:36
been calling survivor's guilt cuz she said to us, "Look, there were more reason to kill me. You know, he owed me
01:02:43
so much money, but I survived and Mindy didn't." And Mindy's friends say even though they're really
01:02:52
devastated by what happened, they're happy to know what really happened to Mindy and that there is some sense of
01:02:59
justice. I I just want to let you listen to something that Angela Wynn, one of Mindy's closest friends, said to us. I
01:03:09
was very upset. I was very distraught. But I also felt like I'm finally going to get the closure that I needed because
01:03:20
after that December, I I didn't I wasn't even able to to see her, to say goodbye to her. And so
01:03:28
for me it was I cannot believe this has happened, but then on the other side of that, I'm so glad that we now know and
01:03:37
that he can be held accountable for it. I had been lied to for years. We had all
01:03:42
been lied to for years, right? Her parents, her friends, his friends, his family. I mean, he spun a web of lies, a
01:03:53
web of lies that touched every single person that he knew. Isn't that moving? He gaslit everyone.
01:04:02
Yeah. How many people were damaged by this man's lies? The other thing that kind of I keep thinking about is we have
01:04:10
done stories on people who were scammers or liars or and and usually they're kind of failing
01:04:17
through life. But here's a guy who is actually quite successful and if he just kind of continued along that path, he
01:04:26
would have the life that he always wanted. He didn't need to do any of this. I also wonder whether when he left
01:04:34
the Navy, maybe things didn't come as easy for him. And so maybe he had to create this interesting life because he
01:04:43
never had a great job after he left the Navy. So I wonder if that's part of it, too, that he became kind of a legal
01:04:51
Walter Mitty. That that's actually a great observation. I don't know if we'll ever really know who Nick Kessodis
01:04:58
really is. Um but this was a fascinating hour. Aaron, thank you so much for talking to
01:05:04
us today. Thank you, Emery. Always. And thank you all for listening. If you like this
01:05:10
episode, please rate and review on [music] Apple Podcasts or Spotify.