00:00:03
[Music] I love the Pacific Northwest. This is a beautiful place. At the same time, that
00:00:12
beautiful landscape is what's holding a secret from us. My brother's here somewhere
00:00:22
and I don't know where. the anguish of not having a body to bury and it just it haunts me
00:00:33
[Music] and the stick up and down as my friend tries to bite him. Mark was known as the dog whisperer of
00:00:43
Anacortis and the dog trainer to the stars down. Thank you, E. Thank you, E. My uncle could speak dog. His clients
00:00:52
included CEOs, rock stars, professional athletes, anybody that it was anybody. It is hard to imagine that big of a
00:01:04
force of life gone. I arrived at work as usual that morning. Things were just not right.
00:01:16
My name is Amber Baker and I worked for Mark Stove for close to 5 years. There was a heaviness in the air that
00:01:23
morning [Music] and the dogs were uncontrollable and would not stop barking. [Music]
00:01:35
I walked up the driveway and saw blood. I called Mark for about 20 minutes straight in the morning. I called him
00:01:44
all afternoon. We realized that none of us had heard from him and we realized that something was terribly wrong.
00:01:51
I was very concerned that Mark was missing. Mark Stove was married to Linda Updike.
00:01:56
She was tall, slender, beautiful. My brother adored Linda Updike. Linda Epipike comes from a very wealthy
00:02:06
family. I learned that they gone through a nasty divorce. This is war. This is goddamn war. You
00:02:12
put my life up. I ended up becoming stalked by him. But I can curse you, too. And I know how
00:02:18
to do it. He broke into my house into my bedroom with a gun. It was horrifying. Linda loves playing the victim. She
00:02:28
loves the trauma. I wanted him to just go on with his life and leave me alone. Miss Abdike decided that she needed a
00:02:36
bodyguard. I made a beautiful person by the name of Michael Oaks. Their business relationship evolved into
00:02:43
a romantic relationship. This case had elements of the classic love triangle. This is something that none of us would
00:02:53
have ever ever imagined could have ever happened. I think Linda Dikeke knows more than
00:02:58
what she's telling. If I could ask Linda Obdike one question, it would be where's
00:03:03
Mark Sto's body? I've had no involvement in this. There is nothing there. [Music]
00:03:22
[Applause] [Music] Mark Stove was known as the dog whisperer of the Pacific Northwest.
00:03:46
A man who could tangle with the most ferocious canine. [Music] That's it. And bring it to its knees.
00:03:55
He was almost more dog than he was human. I would see him get down on all fours and look at the dogs right in
00:04:03
their eyes. And he just had this amazing connection. Andrea Fernulovich was his client and
00:04:09
friend. We all run across those people that are extraordinary and Mark certainly was extraordinary.
00:04:16
He just had this way to be able to walk in the room and just grab the attention from everybody
00:04:21
right here. Sit down. An outdoorsman and avid hunter. He was also a history buff and gun collector
00:04:30
with more than 30 firearms, says his sister Vicky Simmons. Highly intelligent, well read,
00:04:40
excellent cook. He could be difficult. Hey, keep down. He could be pointed in his comments.
00:04:49
A hard edge, Vicki says, that came from a tough upbringing. It wasn't a normal childhood. Survival
00:04:56
was a pretty big item on our list. Their father died when Mark was just 18 months old. Then a sister died
00:05:06
and my mother just had a very hard time and an even harder time reigning in her rebellious son.
00:05:14
He was on a bad path. He got kicked out of high school for smoking dope. I think
00:05:19
he was stumbling in the dark for a number of those years. And then a German Shepherd named Gunter
00:05:27
came into his life. Mark and that dog bonded that very day. It gave meaning to his life, gave
00:05:35
purpose to his life. That dog saved him. Mark trained that puppy to become a search and rescue dog. He had found his
00:05:44
calling. A calling that eventually led him to the woman of his dreams, Linda Updike.
00:05:50
I was looking to do some training with my dog and went through the phone book and found him in the phone book.
00:05:57
The daughter of multi-millionaire Wally Updike, once co-owner of Chateau San Michelle Winery and the K2 Ski
00:06:04
Corporation, Linda was Mark Stover's type. Tall, beautiful, and rich. At first, the feeling was not mutual.
00:06:15
I felt he was very arrogant, actually rubbed me the wrong way initially. But yet, he seemed also to know a fair
00:06:20
amount about dogs. So, I thought, let's try this out. In Linda Updike, Mark Stove had met his match. This one-time
00:06:29
junior Olympic equestrian could shoot and fly cast as well as he. The high school dropout who came from nothing and
00:06:38
the elegant beauty born of privilege fell in love. He was incredibly bright, eccentric, um,
00:06:48
charismatic in many ways, uh, very witty. Three months into their relationship, they opened a dog training business on a
00:06:56
private island owned by Linda's parents, Kick It Island. So, it was kind of almost a health spa
00:07:02
for the dogs there, and we'd take them down to the beach and swim them. People really did enjoy uh bringing the animals
00:07:08
there, and it did grow rapidly with that. By 2002, Stover and Updike had grown into a million dollar a year enterprise.
00:07:19
And after 11 years together, Linda and Mark finally decided to get married. Welcome to the Upike family.
00:07:27
Father, Wall-E toasted his new son-in-law. But Linda's mother, Nancy Corbin, wasn't celebrating the moment.
00:07:34
Mark is not a choice I would have made for for Linda. From the beginning, Mark showed an arrogance where he wanted to
00:07:42
isolate Linda. uh all bad signs didn't listen and should have. Linda says the dark corners of Mark
00:07:52
Stove's personality began to emerge more frequently. The last few years of being in
00:07:58
relationship with him was incredibly difficult. The more the business uh began making money, the more obsessed he
00:08:05
became with the money. I would buy maybe a $5 item at the grocery store and he would be in a rage about it.
00:08:12
Like what? like buying what things? For example, an avocado. Uh, that was too much money.
00:08:17
Excuse me. You guys have a million-dollar business. He's upset that you bought an avocado.
00:08:22
Yes. I recognized Mark was really somebody different than what I had um thought he was. He was in rages and t
00:08:32
had tantrums all the time, every day. And it was very very difficult to live with.
00:08:38
I saw him becoming more aggressive with people. Uh, for example, on the property,
00:08:43
he threatened us with a handgun. Danny Jensen was clamming on Kickot Island when he came face to face with an
00:08:50
angry stover brandishing a gun. He told us that this was his land. We were not allowed to dig clams there and
00:08:58
that uh he would hurt us. Do you believe that Mark Stove would have been capable could have been
00:09:04
capable of using that gun? Oh, definitely. Similar incidents followed and it was
00:09:11
taking a toll on their marriage. I told him that I was ashamed by the behavior. This is not how my family does
00:09:18
things and this is my family's property and I would like him to approach people of respect.
00:09:24
In 2005, after 14 years together, three years of marriage, Linda Updike had had enough.
00:09:32
We tried doing some counseling. I decided I could not be in the marriage with Mark anymore because it just
00:09:38
continued. The abuse escalated and I really literally felt like I was dying. She told Mark she was leaving him.
00:09:46
He went just sheer white. His eyes went just crazy. He clenched his hands and fists and he was just in a shaking rage.
00:09:57
He says, "You've got war. I'm not going to grant this to you. You've got a big fight on your hands." Neither one of
00:10:03
them had any idea just how big a fight it would be. When Linda Updike asked Mark Stove for a
00:10:30
divorce, she moved clear across the Cascade Mountains to Winthre, Washington, hoping to start over.
00:10:38
I just wanted to go on with my life, and I wanted Mark to go on with his life. Linda even let Stove stay on her
00:10:44
family's land, Kick Island. and take control of their million-doll dog training business.
00:10:52
I received no buyout for the business. Why were you doing that? Why were you giving up so much to this guy?
00:10:58
I wanted my life. I wanted to get away safely. I wanted him to leave me alone. Did it buy peace for you?
00:11:06
No, it didn't. In fact, it got worse. Much worse. This is war. This is goddamn war. You've
00:11:15
worked my life enough. Linda says he tracked her every move. He was driving all over the state to try
00:11:23
to find me. I probably had 50 to 100 calls on any given day. He told me that he would hunt
00:11:33
me down and he was going to ruin my life. He pursued her relentlessly, says Linda,
00:11:41
traveling 150 miles through the wilderness until he found her mountain hideway. All of a sudden, I look up on the hill
00:11:50
and I see Mark Stove hunkered down with a hunting rifle pointed right at me through the window, looking through his
00:11:57
scope. And you thought at that moment you might get shot? Absolutely. And now Linda says he was armed. He was
00:12:06
dangerous and inside her house. I was in bed about 9:00 at night and he walks in and he's got a gun in his hand.
00:12:17
He put the gun right next to my head on the pillow and he got down on his knees and he was pleading with me to not leave
00:12:25
him or the marriage. Do you believe Mark Stove was capable of killing you? Absolutely I do. He was very capable of
00:12:33
killing me. Terrified, Linda finally called the local sheriff, Frank Rogers. What did she fear could happen?
00:12:42
She didn't know what he could do. That maybe he would harm her? That maybe he would try to kill her?
00:12:48
When you hear these stories that your brother was kneeling with a gun in his hand?
00:12:53
Do you believe that's true? I think that some of this stuff could be true, might be true, but it was hard for
00:12:59
my brother to lose someone he loved. That was difficult for him and he would take a while to find his bearings and
00:13:06
move on. But Linda says her home security cameras show Stover was not moving on. That's
00:13:15
him, she says, lurking outside her home at 2:30 a.m. Every single moment you're wondering
00:13:24
when you walk out the door, is he going to be there? Is he going to come in through the front
00:13:30
door? Would he break in through my bedroom window? And I never know when he was going to show up.
00:13:42
This idea that Linda was um fearful of her life and scared and didn't want to go outside and all this because of my
00:13:50
brother. I don't believe a word of it. Seems like the truth is it's just the opposite.
00:14:00
In fact, Vicki believes Linda was baiting her brother. She had an affair with the best man at their wedding, John
00:14:07
Bonika. If she wanted to hurt him and really knock his feet out from under him, having an affair with John Bonika
00:14:14
would be about the worst thing she could choose to do. Linda admits to having the affair after
00:14:22
they split, but says Mark stooped to a new low, spying on them in their bedroom.
00:14:29
I'd get a call from him telling me in detail what had occurred between John and myself that evening.
00:14:36
And was it accurate? Yes, it was accurate. It was horrifying. After 2 years of terror, two years of
00:14:46
angry legal battles, Mark Stove finally agreed to grant Linda Updike a divorce. What's your goddamn divorce?
00:14:55
But he still wouldn't let go. I better not ever find out in your wedding pictures.
00:15:02
He began oddly fixating on their wedding photos, demanding Linda give them back.
00:15:09
She said she didn't have them. You know, I'm the guy that can hold a crutch until I am dead.
00:15:16
He's basically laid the groundwork that he's going to harm her. And you know what? I can greet him, too,
00:15:22
and I know how to do it. These are strong threats to me. Deputies wanted to arrest Stove for
00:15:29
stalking, but didn't have enough evidence. Linda took matters into her own hands. She started self-defense
00:15:36
training with Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez. I was proud that she as a victim was taking steps to not just be
00:15:45
cowering in her bedroom with the shades drawn. Linda took shooting lessons and filled
00:15:52
her house with guns. I had a gun bedside. I the security company put a magnet right on the
00:16:00
cabinet here and they installed it behind the tapestry here. So there was a gun hooked onto that.
00:16:05
Yes. And then I had one that I carried on my person. Linda had amassed a small arsenal, more
00:16:14
than 20 firearms, and promised herself she would never again be a helpless victim.
00:16:22
Were you ready to shoot Mark Stove if you had to in this house? Yes. No matter how much I would not have
00:16:29
wanted to do that, I was prepared that if it were he or me, it was not going to be me.
00:16:44
[Music] Did you think you were going to end up dead? Yes, I really did. With a stockpile of weapons inside her
00:16:53
home, always within arms reach, Linda waited for what she thought would be a final fatal showdown with her
00:17:02
ex-husband, Mark Stove. [Music] You're constantly living with a fear of when is he going to get you? And you
00:17:15
never know when it's going to happen or what will set him off. I won't fall apart.
00:17:24
He left this voicemail on his 56th birthday. My last birthday. What does that tell you?
00:17:42
That's a man that's ready to check out. and take somebody with him. Despite their worry, deputies still
00:17:50
didn't have the evidence they needed to arrest Stover for stalking. Then they caught a break.
00:17:58
As I pull up here, I notice there's a white station wagon here, and there's a gentleman over at Linda's trash cans
00:18:04
taking the trash out of the trash cans right across the street. Right across the street.
00:18:10
Linda's neighbor, Ruthie Hegister. I said, "Excuse me, who are you?" He says, "My name is John." I go, "Why are you
00:18:17
taking my friend's trash?" And he's like, "I have permission to take the trash."
00:18:23
Ruthie knew his name was not John. It was Mark Stove. She immediately called Linda. Linda called the sheriff's
00:18:32
office. Our deputy saw the the vehicle that was described, pulled him over. was Mark Stove did have
00:18:43
the trash and he arrested him. Finally, the Okonogan Sheriff's Department had the evidence to charge
00:18:52
Mark Stove with stalking, but instead of going to jail, he got a slap on the hand and it was
00:19:01
very disheartening to me. Stove agreed to a plea deal and was placed on a year's probation. He was
00:19:08
also ordered to surrender all of his firearms. From that moment on, Julia believes her
00:19:15
uncle never threatened Linda again. When Linda Optic took my uncle's guns away, that was it for him. She knew how
00:19:26
much he loved to hunt. That made him completely done with her. Julia believes it was Linda who couldn't
00:19:35
let go. It was like she was trying to to pull him in, push his buttons, and perpetuate the drama. Now, is that Kick
00:19:46
It Island? That is island. Julia and her mother Vicki have never met Linda Updike, but they believe they
00:19:53
know her. I don't think she is what she appears. I think she is smart. I think she's
00:20:00
extremely manipulative. I think that she is vindictive. Vindictive enough, they say, to have the
00:20:08
affair with Stover's best man. I mean, how cruel is that? And tough enough to take care of
00:20:16
herself. Linda Opike is no shrinking violet. She was armed to the teeth. She had many
00:20:23
weapons. She knew how to use them all. Do you think there was paranoia in that house?
00:20:28
Absolutely. You show me anybody's house that's got assault rifles and I'll show you somebody who's paranoid. getting all
00:20:34
those firearms. Was that wise or was that paranoia? Oh, I think it was very wise. I'm dealing
00:20:42
with somebody that was incredibly skilled with firearms. He was somebody that would go on hunting trips and he
00:20:48
would stay on his hunting trips until he acquired his kill. And I knew this was somebody that could take my life. It was
00:20:56
a real threat. There were no more reported stalking incidents after his arrest. But Linda
00:21:06
still feared for her life and continued seeking ways to protect herself. A search that led her to a weapons
00:21:14
expert named Michael Oaks. I'm a writer and inventor. I've uh written several patents in my name and then I've had
00:21:21
over 200 articles published. Over 50% of my articles have been for gun rellated magazines.
00:21:28
He also specializes in hand-to-hand combat. You've been described as Linda Updike's
00:21:35
bodyguard, right? Is that accurate? I really don't think I don't believe it's accurate. Let's put it that way.
00:21:40
She never paid me to be a bodyguard. I did a little bit of research and I did an analysis of sort of her home security
00:21:50
situation and made some suggestions on that front and that was the extent of what I would consider my professional
00:21:56
interaction with her. But their personal relationship began to flourish. Gradually, long talks about
00:22:04
books over coffee turned into love poems over wine. My world before me is perfect. There's
00:22:11
nowhere else I want to be except laying underneath the stars, hand in hand, you and me.
00:22:17
She's um almost six feet tall and I'm 5'6. She's never had children. I have four children. So, it was an unlikely
00:22:27
romance. Did you fall in love with her? I I I did. [Music] Michael is somebody that honestly I have
00:22:36
been waiting for my whole life. I went through all of this hell in my previous relationship and I felt like I
00:22:44
had done everything right, learned what I wanted in a relationship with a person
00:22:48
and here he was. Oaks became a single father when his first wife left him with their four
00:22:55
kids. Amanda is his oldest daughter. He's definitely a super mom, stay-at-home dad. I feel truly thankful
00:23:05
to have him in my life. He is sincere. He's genuine. He's caring. He's loving. He's also more complicated than he
00:23:17
appears, says his second wife, Jennifer Thompson. They lived as a blended family, her two boys, his four kids,
00:23:26
before divorcing in 2008. Mike Los had a dual personality. Um, by day he was a family guy and in his head
00:23:35
he had this whole other reality, this action hero persona. Michael saw himself as a protector of his children, of his
00:23:41
family, and of all the people who couldn't defend themselves in the world. In Linda Updike, he found his perfect
00:23:48
match, says Julia. Linda Octahike and Michael Oaks are a disastrous combination of neediness.
00:24:02
Michael Oaks seems to need to be this vigilante and he found his damsel in distress.
00:24:12
They just seem to have been in this fantasy world of non-existent enemy. But this enemy was very real, says Oaks.
00:24:25
The Mark Stove, you got to know. Was he a frightening man? Very intimidating. Very much so.
00:24:33
Threatening. Constantly with me. And Michael says Stover set his sights on a new set of victims.
00:24:43
You were convinced that Mark Stove was a clear and present danger to your family.
00:24:49
That is true. And did you act on that? I acted on it, but not in the way that you or others may believe.
00:24:58
[Music] [Music] In the summer of 2009, Mark Stove's friends say he finally put the anger and
00:25:23
hurt of his divorce from Linda Updike behind him. He was starting all over and um building on so much more solid
00:25:32
ground. Stove relocated his business from Kick It Island to his new home in Anacortis.
00:25:41
He even met a woman he wanted to marry, Teresa Vokes Michael. And was he a happy man?
00:25:48
He was like a kid, you know. He was he just he was joking with me all the time and he was always fun. He was very
00:25:55
happy. and not at all like the monster described by Linda Updike, says private investigator Lee Haron.
00:26:05
Mark Stove was a wonderful guy, beloved by his clients, by his friends, by his family.
00:26:15
Clearly, he also had his enemies. Mark Stove, the stalker, was about to become Mark Stove, the stalked.
00:26:24
Dispatch, 911. What's your emergency? It began with an anonymous phone call to the Scadget County Sheriff's Department
00:26:36
on August 3rd, 2009. Can I help you? Yes. There's a crime that's going to take place in the morning.
00:26:44
It's a drug deal, the caller says, and he names the man who will be transporting the drugs.
00:26:50
His last name is Stove. Okay. And is somebody there with you or why are you whispering?
00:26:56
Very dangerous. He actually carries a gun. I wish you guys would do something before it kills somebody.
00:27:03
Mark Stove was pulled over the following day. Police found a small metallic box on the
00:27:09
undercarriage of Mark's vehicle which contained a couple of marijuana cigarettes and some very lowgrade
00:27:15
cocaine. Stove was not arrested pending further investigation, but he was so alarmed he
00:27:23
hired Haron to get to the bottom of it. It was such a deliberate act. It said, "We're setting you up. We want
00:27:33
you to go to jail." All he kept saying is, "Who would want to destroy me? Who would want me out of the picture? Who
00:27:40
would want to destroy me like this?" And I didn't say anything. and he says, "You know who I'm talking about."
00:27:47
He told me that he suspected that Linda Updike and or her father were out to get
00:27:53
him. He told me that he would not be surprised if they wanted to have him killed.
00:27:59
Investigators never found any evidence that either Linda or her father Wall-E were involved in the drug plant or that
00:28:07
they plotted his murder. But Stove continued relaying his fears about his ex-wife. He was very fearful. He told
00:28:15
me, he said, "She will not rest until I'm dead." Mark Stove saw his own death. Without his guns, Stove had one last
00:28:24
line of defense. His attack dog, Ding. Ding was utterly devoted to Mark. Ding would have done anything that she could
00:28:33
possibly do to protect her master. Ding would be put to the test on a Wednesday morning before dawn, October
00:28:42
28th, 2009. Amber was the first employee at work that morning. And the dogs were uncontrollable and
00:28:54
would not stop barking. She walked up to the house. On my way up the hill, um, I noticed some blood in
00:29:03
the driveway and my thought was, "Oh my gosh, what did that dog kill now?" She then went to the back door.
00:29:13
The door was locked, which it was never locked because he had Dingo and she was a protection dog. Um,
00:29:22
I I turned the handle, but I didn't want to knock. Amber then made a decision that may have
00:29:29
saved her life. She left. You realize today that the suspect was very likely in the
00:29:38
house at that time and you understand that if if you had gone in, what could have happened to you?
00:29:50
I want to believe that Mark protected me that day and I know in my heart that he
00:29:55
did. Another employee, Stephanie Poor, arrived shortly after Amber left. She noticed that Mark's white station
00:30:07
wagon was backed up to the door. I saw who I thought was Mark going into the house and coming out of the house,
00:30:14
putting stuff in the back of the hatch. So, he got in his car and he just screamed down the road. didn't hardly
00:30:25
stop at all at the street and then just took off. Minutes later, Stephanie went up to the
00:30:31
house to use the bathroom. And so I opened the door and it was just like a blast of bleach.
00:30:37
She looked down and saw three splotches of blood. There was a sense in the house that was
00:30:44
very uncomfortable. Made me very uncomfortable. I can only describe it as evil. And
00:30:53
I wanted out of there as quick as I could. And all day I had tried Mark on a cell phone
00:30:59
and it was so unsettling that he had not called me back. The next day, still no Mark Stove. No
00:31:07
return calls. I think we were all trying not to think the worst. Then as Stephanie is walking up the
00:31:16
driveway, I looked up and there was Ding sitting at the back door. She was on all fours
00:31:22
and she was growling. They got Ding to the vet. The news was both shocking and foroding. Ding had
00:31:32
taken three bullets in the head. I think putting that many bullets into a dog and still not killing it, I think
00:31:42
that really says that she tried her hardest to save him. Ding's wounds, the bleach, the blood in
00:31:50
the house, it all added up to one inescapable conclusion. Murder. It was horrible.
00:32:01
Like I cried for three days straight. Um, I just felt sad. Mark Stover's premonition of his own
00:32:12
death had come true. But who had hunted him down and why? I think that there's certainly spite,
00:32:21
hatred, greed. The the usual suspects are behind this murder. And I just don't know how the
00:32:29
story works yet. But Vicki and Julia think they know how the story begins. It is my opinion that Linda Objike
00:32:40
played a part in what happened to my uncle. [Music] [Music] There's only two places on the lake that
00:33:00
he could have dumped a body. Convinced Mark Stove had been murdered. He's up for speed just a touch.
00:33:06
Police search remote mountain lakes and lower a mini sub to scour the sea floor,
00:33:14
but nothing is found. I have complete certainty that everywhere we looked, he's not there.
00:33:24
Union 36 Cascade. Detective Dan Loa of the Scadget County Sheriff's Department searches Stover's
00:33:31
house for clues. I believe that Mark Stover fell somewhere right in this area here.
00:33:37
The blood on the walls, the blood on the carpet, it told a story of what took place.
00:33:45
Traces of a murder, but no trace of Mark. 24 hours earlier. Scadget 911. What's your emergency?
00:33:55
Tammy Gilden and her mom report a trespassing. I need a sheriff to come out here to
00:34:01
Summit Park. Two vehicles, including Mark Stover's missing white station wagon are
00:34:07
illegally parked. Tammy sees a man moving a large object wrapped in plastic from the wagon into a
00:34:15
black SUV. My first thought was, "Oh, a body. I've got a license plate for one of
00:34:22
them." And what's the license plate number? 09. Minutes later, the black SUV with that
00:34:28
license plate is spotted and pulled over for trespassing. Ask him for his driver's license,
00:34:35
registration, and proof of insurance. The driver hands over his license. It's Michael Oaks.
00:34:44
Linda Updike's live-in boyfriend and protector. It was raining. He had sunglasses on,
00:34:51
which is unusual. He was extremely nervous. The deputy notices that bundle in the
00:34:57
back, but has no reason to check it. He gives Oaks a warning and sends him on his way.
00:35:05
Oaks then takes a strange detour. He visits his ex-wife, Jennifer Thompson. He looked very disheveled and frumpy.
00:35:15
He's usually very meticulous and neat and tidy. What does he say to you? I said, "Are you okay?" And he said,
00:35:23
"No, I think I'm in trouble." Oaks then drops a bombshell. Michael told me that if law enforcement
00:35:31
had seen what was in his car, he'd go away for life. What were you feeling at that point?
00:35:36
I don't I didn't know how serious to take it. I was concerned for him because he was so upset. Oaks then said he had
00:35:43
to leave. He kissed him on the cheek and that haunts me cuz he had a body in that car.
00:35:56
Oaks drives into the night 160 mi across the mountains back to Linda's house. He
00:36:03
arrives just after 11:30. That plastic bundle is gone and Linda is waiting for him.
00:36:11
Did you tell her what had happened? Oh, no, not at all. I think my exact words were, "I'm having the worst day of
00:36:17
my life." Linda says she didn't know anything was wrong until she received this chilling
00:36:23
email from a former employee of Stover's the next day. Mark is missing, blood and house. Dingo
00:36:33
almost dead. When I found out Mark was missing, my first thought was, "Was he coming over to my place uh to kill me?"
00:36:43
Soon, there was a knock at her door. She seemed a little surprised that we were there.
00:36:49
Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez and Sergeant Jean Davis were investigating the disappearance of Mark Stove and told
00:36:56
Linda they were there to talk to Oaks. She uh kept on asking me, "I don't know what's going on here. What's going on
00:37:01
here? I I'm so confused. They say, "This isn't just a social call this time. We want to talk to you,
00:37:08
Michael." Rodriguez asks Oaks if he'd been in Anacortis. He said, "Yes, I was over there, but I
00:37:16
was over visiting my ex-wife." Then he started to get pretty agitated and he's looking around and he goes, "I got to
00:37:23
find my medication." Oaks heads to his SUV. I see Oaks open the back hatch, reach
00:37:31
inside and take out a plastic bag. He throws it over an embankment. Davis recovers the bag. Inside is this 22
00:37:42
caliber pistol. Right then, Michael Oaks is arrested on suspicion of the murder of Mark Stove. I thought this had to
00:37:51
have been just a misunderstanding or a mistake and that this would be cleared up uh very shortly.
00:37:58
But Detective Lou was sure he had his killer. Did you set out on the morning of October 28th, 2009
00:38:07
to murder Mark Stove? I most certainly did not. Michael would not want to kill anybody.
00:38:14
That is contrary to everything about Michael. But the investigation was just beginning. Detective Loua wondered if
00:38:28
there was a conspiracy, whether Mark Stover's killing was a murder for hire. Did you want to talk to Linda Updike?
00:38:35
Oh, most definitely. Did she agree to speak with you? No, she did not. Why not? That was our question. Why not?
00:38:44
Investigators were now turning their attention to the ays from one of the most powerful families in the state of
00:38:51
Washington. I've had no involvement in this. There is nothing there. [Music] My dad is a loyal father. He is not a
00:39:04
murderer. Michael Oaks told me that he was in the small percentage of people who could
00:39:09
kill without remorse. I was driving there to be there at a pre-arranged time, a time demanded by Mark Stove
00:39:16
himself. This case is not a matter of self-defense. I lived in constant fear. It's a case of cold bloodooded murder.
00:39:29
He started leaving a handgun in my room. That's how I was trained. Michael Oaks came to my uncle's house that morning to
00:39:43
assassinate him. Michael Oaks is not a murderer. Are you lying to us? I understand. The jury has reached a
00:39:55
verdict. The conclusion of the dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard when 48 hours
00:40:03
continues. Heat. Heat. [Music] Imagine [Music] every day living in my home and wondering whether Mark Stove was going
00:40:49
to show up or not. Never knowing if he did show up, would he kill me? I am Linda Opdike and I was
00:40:58
married to Mark Stove. When I first met Mark, he was witty, very bright, charismatic.
00:41:05
Mark was known as the dog trainer to the stars. My uncle was such an incredible person.
00:41:12
Sit down. Mark had a public persona training dogs. My personal experience with Mark Stover
00:41:18
has been very different. This is wrong. This is goddamn war. You've worked my life enough.
00:41:25
He became very aggressive. He was incredibly unstable and finally I had to leave.
00:41:32
It was a nasty divorce. Things got ugly. He broke into my bedroom with a gun. Linda Updike met a man named Michael
00:41:43
Oaks. The Michael's role became more of a protection person for Linda. their business relationship evolved into a
00:41:52
romantic relationship. After a few years of difficult times, I finally ran into somebody that was very,
00:41:59
very special to me. I kind of felt it was God's gift for being able to get through the other.
00:42:08
I absolutely do not believe that Linda Abdike was in love with Michael Oaks. I think that he was just the perfect guy
00:42:16
to do her dirty work. Michael Oaks left Winthre, Washington around 2:30 in the morning headed to
00:42:26
Mark Stover's house. I was driving there to be there at a pre-arranged time, a time demanded by Mark Stove himself.
00:42:36
This is a case of coldblooded murder. My name is Dan Leber and I'm the lead detective in the Mark Stove murder.
00:42:47
I believe Michael Oaks was hired to kill my uncle. I'm not a hitman. I'm a single father of
00:42:57
four. My dad is nothing like what they're portraying. He is not a murderer. It is my opinion that Linda Objik played
00:43:10
a part in what happened to my uncle. I've had no involvement in this. There is nothing there.
00:43:25
[Music] [Music] I loved this area. I loved everything about it. But it's different.
00:43:57
It's now the murder scene. It has been more than a year since Vicky Simmons brother, celebrity dog trainer
00:44:05
Mark Stove, disappeared from his home in Anacortis, Washington. Police scoured the surrounding
00:44:13
waterways. Mark Stover could be anywhere. He could be in a shallow grave. He could be in
00:44:21
several pieces. We still don't know. In the months before he died, Mark Stove feared someone was out to kill him.
00:44:30
Terrified, he hired private investigator Lee Haron. He thought he was being followed and
00:44:36
that he was concerned for his own life. It's almost as if he had a premonition that he was going to die.
00:44:42
And he told Lee Heron he thought he knew who wanted him dead. His ex-wife, Linda
00:44:47
Updike. I think Mark had a very real fear of what Linda was capable of doing to him.
00:44:56
This mystery had all the makings of a Hollywood movie. Linda Updike, the daughter of multi-millionaire Wally
00:45:03
Updike, drawn into the sensational murder investigation of her ex-husband. Her boyfriend, Michael Oaks, charged
00:45:12
with the crime. Michael would never murder anybody. And those who accuse him of doing just that,
00:45:19
they don't know him and they don't know the whole story. No one believes in Michael Oaks more
00:45:24
than his four children. Amanda is his oldest daughter. We are 100% sure he is not a murderer.
00:45:33
After getting a divorce from his first wife, Oaks took full custody of his four kids, daughter April. He'll sacrifice
00:45:42
everything, his time, his money, and everything, just so we're happy and we have a good life.
00:45:51
The son of a Boeing supervisor, Michael grew up overseas. Smaller than most kids his age, he
00:45:57
quickly learned how to stand up for himself, says his mom, Corey. He's a little warrior, but it's a gentle
00:46:04
warrior. That little warrior grew up to become a self-taught security specialist. skilled
00:46:11
in firearms and I ended up training with SWAT teams and so on and it's uh what we call force
00:46:17
on force training. Michael's expertise in security eventually led him to Linda who told him
00:46:24
her ex-husband Mark Stove was stalking her. Now I'm the guy that can hold a crutch
00:46:29
until I am dead. Michael did an initial assessment for me and looked at the situation, my records
00:46:37
and files and saw what I was dealing with. She confided in him. The threats and he told me that he would ruin my
00:46:46
life. The menacing phone calls. But I can curse you, too. And I know how to do it.
00:46:50
The fear. It was horrifying. Linda had turned her home into an armed fortress with more than 20 firearms and
00:46:58
a video security system. I remember thinking, "This can't be real." Because no woman alone could go through this
00:47:07
amount of harassment. Despite getting a protection order against Stover, the fear lingered and
00:47:15
Michael Oaks was there to protect her. They grew closer and fell in love. It's a beautiful love. It's uh in my
00:47:24
opinion, it's it's legendary. It's something that you read about in uh romance novels or movies.
00:47:31
Michael and his children moved into Linda's home in Winthre. It all seemed perfect. Mark, as far as I knew, was
00:47:39
leaving me alone and he was going on his way and I was going on mine. What she didn't know, says Michael Oaks,
00:47:46
is that Mark Stove had set his sights on a new target. Mark Stove sought me out and told me
00:47:55
that I would do what he wanted. From that point for almost 6 months, I lived in constant fear. Oak says his first
00:48:07
terrifying encounter was in a Costco parking lot when Mark Stove appeared out of nowhere.
00:48:14
He said that he knew who I was and he knew that I was in a relationship with Linda and he said there was something of
00:48:23
his that she wouldn't give back and that I was going to get it for him. As bizarre as it sounds, Oak says Stover
00:48:31
demanded Linda's wedding photos, and if he didn't get them, Oaks's children would pay the price.
00:48:38
He went on to describe what my daughters were wearing that morning. And what did you realize at that moment?
00:48:44
He had had been following us whole time. And he said, "You're going to get this this these wedding pictures back and
00:48:51
then they would be okay." And I was very much afraid. so afraid he trained his children how to defend themselves.
00:49:00
He started placing a firearm in my room and he told me if I thought I heard an intruder, I was to take the handgun and
00:49:08
fire at them. Oak says Stover's obsession with those wedding photos went on and on. He
00:49:16
demanded secret meetings, including two at this church in Anacortis. Did Michael
00:49:21
tell you that Mark Stove approached him and told him information about the kids and demanded wedding photos?
00:49:31
No. Why wouldn't he share this vitally important information with you? My guess in knowing Michael is he really
00:49:39
did not want to stress me out more. He was a deeply disturbed individual. He was a very disturbed person.
00:49:47
Then Oak says Stover demanded that he come to his home in Anacortis. Oak says he had no choice. He had to go.
00:49:56
I was under tremendous pressure to do exactly what he wanted, exactly how he wanted it or suffer the
00:50:05
consequences. [Music] [Music] October 28th, 2009, 2:30 a.m. Michael Oaks is captured on
00:50:27
Linda Updike security cameras leaving her home. His destination, Mark Stover's house.
00:50:37
It was put up or shut up time. Stover was obsessed with those wedding photos, Oak says.
00:50:46
I was supposed to deliver them to him or else. And the else is what? My children were frequently mentioned as
00:50:54
the else. Oaks didn't have the photos, but he went anyway, thinking he could reason with
00:51:03
Stover. just in case he went prepared for the worst. I was always armed in every meeting with
00:51:09
Mark. I had worn my Kevlar vest to every one of those because he was getting progressively
00:51:17
less patient with me. Oak says he parked his car down the road and walked to Stover's house.
00:51:28
Once inside, Michael says Stover left him alone. Moments later, he returned with a gun.
00:51:38
He caught me totally by surprise and shot me in the vest. And in the struggle, he was not wearing kevlar and
00:51:48
he was shot. What gun was Mark Stove killed with? His own gun. So, what are you telling me? You shot
00:52:01
Mark Stove in self-defense? Absolutely. Next thing he knew, says Oaks, he was outside and staring into the ferocious
00:52:13
face of Stover's guard dog, Ding. The dog came at me. I had to shoot the dog. Soon after, employee Stephanie Poor
00:52:28
arrives for work. She sees a man at the top of the driveway. I saw who I thought was Mark going into
00:52:37
the house, coming out of the house, putting stuff in the back of the hatch. What made you think it was Mark?
00:52:42
Because it was his hat and his jacket. And why wouldn't I think it was Mark? Having put on Stover's trademark hat and
00:52:51
coat, Oaks loads the dead body into the back of Stover's station wagon and tears
00:52:57
off. It was the worst moment of my life. I wanted him to be alive still. I would never harm anybody for any
00:53:09
reason except to defend my family myself. Lead detective Dan Loua isn't buying it.
00:53:18
Do you believe that Mark Stove threatened Michael Oak's children? No, not at all.
00:53:25
You don't think it happened? I don't think it happened. In fact, Lou Vera doesn't believe any of
00:53:31
Oaks's story. I believe Michael Oaks went to Mark Stover's house that day with a mission,
00:53:36
and that mission was to kill him. After fleeing, Oaks drives Stove's station wagon to this parking lot. A
00:53:45
woman calls police. There two vehicles facing back to back. Looks like somebody's transferring something back
00:53:51
and forth. Was it the body? If it was self-defense, asked Loua, why did Oaks move it? Why
00:54:00
didn't he call police? And why did he drive to meet Jennifer Thompson, his second wife, who he divorced in 2009,
00:54:08
just hours after the shooting, and tell her this disturbing story. The tension was so thick. The unspoken was so loud.
00:54:18
He's just noticeably agitated and not okay. They went for a walk down by the water's
00:54:25
edge. I said, "Are you okay?" And he said, "No, I think I'm in trouble." Michael told me that u if the police saw
00:54:36
what was in the back of his car, he'd go to prison for life. Jennifer says Michael then implied that
00:54:42
whatever he'd done, he'd been hired to do it. Michael told me that it was a job gone
00:54:51
bad. Now, Jennifer believes he was talking about a murder for hire. I believe Michael Oaks is the hitman. He
00:55:01
took on a job to go take someone out. Jennifer believes that Michael had long been a killer in waiting based on his
00:55:12
unusual philosophy. He felt that there were evil, bad people who needed to be removed, taken away,
00:55:21
taken out. Not everyone was capable of taking those people out. He prided himself on being one of them.
00:55:28
Your ex-wife claims that you described what had happened earlier in the day as a job gone bad. A job implies you were
00:55:37
hired by someone. Yeah. Well, I think she has an interesting approach creatively
00:55:44
speaking. I believe my exact words were, "I had a meeting. Something went dreadfully wrong and I
00:55:53
will be blamed for it." He got that right. Oaks was arrested and charged with the murder of Mark
00:56:03
Stove. But investigators weren't so sure he acted alone. Did you want to talk to Linda Updike?
00:56:11
Oh, most definitely. Did she agree to speak with you? No, she did not. Linda briefly spoke to police the night
00:56:17
Oaks was arrested the next day on her attorney's advice. She refused to answer any more questions.
00:56:26
Michael was freed on bail, but the lovers were forbidden by court order to see each other or communicate.
00:56:33
I think Linda Oakdike knows more than what she's telling. Like, how did Michael Oaks know to put
00:56:40
on Mark Stover's trademark hat and coat the morning of the murder? Lyndon knew his favorite hat. She could
00:56:47
have described it to Oaks. Investigators believe that you must have given Michael details of Mark Stover's
00:56:57
life, what hat he wore during the day, what car he drove. That's simply not true.
00:57:04
The implication was that Michael was hired by someone to go over and kill Mark Stove. Was it you?
00:57:15
No, absolutely not. But Stover's niece, Julia Simmons, believes Oaks was played by a master
00:57:22
manipulator. I'm sure Linda just had him so wrapped around her little finger, she
00:57:31
could have gotten him to do anything. [Music] Can I help you? I need to uh report something. Police
00:57:48
believe this peculiar call from an unidentified man in August of 2009 was the first strike in an organized
00:57:56
campaign to destroy Mark Stove. I have seen a gentleman questioning drugs. And do you know the name?
00:58:04
I know a name. His last name is Stove. S O E R. The police found a small metallic
00:58:12
box on the undercarriage of Mark's vehicle which contained a couple of marijuana cigarettes and some very
00:58:17
lowgrade cocaine. Stove wasn't arrested, but feeling he'd been set up, he asked his private
00:58:24
investigator, Lee Haron, to get to the bottom of it. Mark had been in fear of his life for
00:58:29
some time. Why are you whispering? Uh, yeah, it was something that's very delicate. When Jennifer Thompson heard
00:58:37
the tape, she instantly recognized the distinctive voice. It was her ex-husband, Michael Oaks.
00:58:45
I'm trying to make completely anonymous. When I heard it, I thought it was very disturbing because it was
00:58:51
the moment I realized that whatever he had done, it was premeditated. I believe that Michael Oaks planted the
00:58:59
drugs with or without the help of other people. And while Linda Updike has never
00:59:06
been implicated, Heron thinks she's the only possible link between Michael and Mark Stove. Since Heron believes the two
00:59:13
men never met. In the 2 and 1/2 months that I worked for Mark, he never mentioned the name
00:59:19
Michael Oaks. He never gave any indication that he knew who Linda's boyfriend was.
00:59:24
Did you plant drugs on his car? No. No, I did not. Remember that drug call was made at a time when Oaks insisted he
00:59:37
was being harassed by Stover. So who was really stalking who? Stover's fiance, Terresa Vokes Michael.
00:59:46
It was after the the drug planting that he he thought that his his life was in danger.
00:59:52
Stove may have had a reason to be afraid. Authorities believe Oaks traveled to Anacortis just 4 days before
01:00:00
the murder. This home security video taken at Linda Updike's that same day shows Oaks loading up what appears to be
01:00:08
two rifle cases. He says he told Linda he was going on a hunting trip. They shared a long goodbye.
01:00:16
The long passionate embrace that was captured on Linda's surveillance cameras indicates that Michael Oaks thought of
01:00:22
himself as a prince who was out to slay the dragon, his perceived dragon for the
01:00:28
damsel in distress. and his perceived dragon was Mark Stove. They're comparing it to a wife saying
01:00:36
goodbye to a soldier as they're about to go off to war. Well, um, and maybe they haven't
01:00:42
experienced true love and Michael and I really love each other and it was always
01:00:47
long goodbyes for us. They're very difficult. We do not like to be apart. Is it possible that this love
01:00:56
drove him in order to protect you and to protect his children to plot and kill Mark Stove?
01:01:04
No. Michael would never initiate a plot or a plan or aggressive act towards another person. It's just not who he is.
01:01:14
But on the day Stove died, authorities believe Michael made a three-hour drive from Linda's house over the Cascade
01:01:21
Mountains to a Walmart near Stover's home. He's caught on surveillance cameras shortly after 5 in the morning.
01:01:30
See him walking across the parking lot, grabs a shopping cart, and he's on his way.
01:01:36
What does Oaks buy at Walmart? He buys a backpack, some weights, some anchor line. Buy some
01:01:44
camo gear, camo pants, camo shirt. You did purchase weights at 5:20 in the morning.
01:01:54
Yes. You purchased anchor rope. Rope. Yes. Camouflage suit. Mhm. Yes. Now, does that sound like
01:02:01
someone who's buying supplies for a meeting or someone who is buying supplies to go kill someone?
01:02:07
A meeting with Mark Stove, where you're carrying guns and you're wearing body armor, is
01:02:17
not exactly a meeting at Starbucks. Famed defense attorney John Henry Brown, who once represented notorious serial
01:02:24
killer Ted Bundy, says there's no connection between Oaks's Walmart shopping spree and murder.
01:02:31
Michael did not go to that meeting thinking everything was going to go smoothly. Michael was prepared to defend
01:02:39
himself that day. That doesn't mean he went there with premeditation. Oaks says this bullet hole in his Kevlar
01:02:47
vest proves Stover shot him. But prosecutor Rich Hyrick believes Oaks shot his own vest.
01:02:55
It appeared to have gone in very close to exactly straight, exactly in the middle of the bulletproof vest. What it
01:03:03
suggested to us is that it was done either before or after as somewhat of an alibi.
01:03:10
Investigator Dan Loua took us back to Stover's house at the exact time he believes Oaks attacked. I believe March
01:03:18
Stove let the dog out probably through this carport door. Ding comes outside in this driveway area where I believe
01:03:25
Michael Oaks uh shot Ding several times. Mark comes out the door to see what's going on with Ding. I believe Mark's
01:03:33
door got shot right where we're standing and quickly retreated back to the house.
01:03:37
Loua believes Oaks finished him off in the hallway because of the blood on the walls.
01:03:44
If this is a case of selfdefense, as you say, why didn't you call police immediately and report this?
01:03:53
With my knowledge of law enforcement, nothing added up with Mark Stove. I don't know if it's because he was so
01:04:00
tight with the local law enforcement. I don't know what it was. I'd already that from that first meeting with him
01:04:09
did not feel like calling the police would do anything but kill my kids. Police believe he didn't report it
01:04:23
because he had committed murder. Oaks admits to putting Stover's lifeless body in the back of his SUV, but he's never
01:04:32
revealed to investigators where he got rid of it. What did you do with Mark Stover's body?
01:04:39
I think that probably the nitty-g gritties on that are going to have to wait to court.
01:04:45
But you have a story to tell that you want the world to hear. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think 12
01:04:53
reasonable people are going to see a a reasonable man taking care of his his kids first. And on that basis, I will be
01:05:02
exonerated. Don't come. Come here. Come here. Come here. No. Come. Come here. Right here.
01:05:17
Sit down. Nearly one year to the day Mark Stove was gunned down at his house, Michael Oaks goes on trial.
01:05:26
Be sated for his murder. Number one, Mark is dead. Number two, that the defendant killed him.
01:05:34
Prosecutor Rosemary Kahakula begins the case by connecting the dots between Oaks
01:05:40
and Stover's ex-wife, Linda Updike. Ms. Opdike was armed to the teeth. Mr. Oaks became her bodyguard.
01:05:52
A bodyguard, prosecutors say, who became an assassin, shooting an unarmed Mark Stove in his home.
01:06:00
Mark's house was searched after his disappearance. There were no guns found in his house. He didn't have any.
01:06:07
They meticulously present a mountain of evidence against Oaks, beginning with two women who saw him moving what may
01:06:15
have been Mark Stove's body. And he had a big huge wad of plastic, a big roll of plastic.
01:06:23
The jurors see that damning Walmart video and learn about shell casings recovered from outside Stover's home
01:06:32
that match Oaks's 22 caliber pistol. You may call your ex witness. Then Jennifer Thompson, who asked her face
01:06:39
not be shown in court, tells the story that links her ex-husband directly to Stover's killing and suggests it may
01:06:47
have been a murder for hire. He said he was doing a job and something went wrong.
01:06:55
If the jury believes your testimony, he's likely to go to prison for decades. It just was a matter of right and wrong.
01:07:03
And I can feel bad and I can cry over it. But he killed someone. How do you not go forward with that?
01:07:13
But the defense had a strategy to turn the tables on the prosecution, saying the real victim in this case is Michael
01:07:21
Oaks. Mark Stove made it perfectly clear that if Michael didn't do what he wanted him
01:07:26
to do, Michael's children would be dead. Michael has never pointed a firearm at any other human being in the course of
01:07:38
his entire life until the morning of October 28th, 2009. And then he did it only in self-defense.
01:07:52
With his freedom hanging in the balance, okay, Mr. Oaks, come on up. Michael Oaks
01:07:57
must now convince 12 jurors that Stober's threat was real. And he said that I was going to do what
01:08:05
he wanted. And he began to describe [Music] he he began to describe what my daughters were wearing.
01:08:21
You mean to school? Yeah. that morning, that day. Oaks then puts on that Kevlar vest he
01:08:30
wore at Stover's house and demonstrates how he acted in self-defense after Stover shot him.
01:08:39
What do you do? I don't think we were expecting that. That was amazingly fast. this joke.
01:08:51
Is that the way you did that? That's how I was trained. He even had an explanation for that
01:08:58
shopping trip to Walmart. Oak says the supplies, the rope, the weights, the camouflage would only be used if Stove
01:09:07
sent out his attack dog. Oaks's plan was to flee to this nearby water tower. My hope was to attach a
01:09:17
weight to the D-ring and use it to basically access the ladder on the water tower
01:09:24
and quickly tie those weights to the end of the rope, throw the rope up onto the
01:09:29
ladder to pull himself up. This is like a James Bond movie gone wrong. [Music] Oaks then reveals the secret so many
01:09:39
people have longed to hear. where he put Mark Stove's body. There's a kind of a dilapidated
01:09:48
looking dock thing. The dock is just a mile from Stover's home. And I got my car as close to that as
01:09:54
possible and muscled him out and and uh dropped him in the water. But Oaks has a problem. Authorities
01:10:06
searched that very spot just days after Stover disappeared, never finding a body.
01:10:11
I know Michael Oaks doesn't want us to find the body because it's going to tell us that Mark was probably shot in the
01:10:18
back of the head or in the side of the head. It's going to tell us stories that Michael Oaks does not want us to know.
01:10:26
Are you lying to us? It's it's a natural question and it's a a question that I respect from from
01:10:33
anybody. I am telling the truth. Are we ready? Oaks's defense team is now ready to call
01:10:40
a dramatic witness, a former employee who will crush investigators claims that Stover was unarmed.
01:10:47
Sit down. Stay. Her name is Megan Mataya. She will testify that Stover invited her on a
01:10:55
hunting trip just two months before his death and asked her to carry his gun. It
01:11:01
was my understanding he was going to go get a gun out of his safe from wherever he was storing that.
01:11:07
Megan is also the only other person who can back up Oaks's claim that Stover was
01:11:13
indeed stalking him. Mark told Megan Mataya that he saw Linda and Michael in the Costco in Kenowick.
01:11:22
The same Costco where Michael Oaks says Stover first confronted him. He said, "You're the guy that's my wife."
01:11:33
But in a decision that cripples the defense, the judge rules there is no way to verify that Megan's story is true and
01:11:41
she is not allowed to testify. The Costco episode that is hearsay. Michael Oaks's life now depends on
01:11:54
someone who had remained in the shadows, refusing to speak to investigators, his
01:12:00
lover, Linda Updike. She is now willing to come forward to save his future. Hearing what happened to Michael, and
01:12:09
that he ended up being a victim of stalking, it was really important for me to stand up and talk about that.
01:12:16
You may call your next witness. Miss Updike, if you'd raise your right hand. Linda begins by telling the jurors just
01:12:22
how dangerous Mark Stober could be. I woke up with Mark in my bedroom and he had a pistol in his hand and laid it on
01:12:33
the pillow next to my head. With Linda captive on the stand, the prosecutor zeros in, raising the
01:12:44
possibility that Linda was somehow involved in Stover's murder. Isn't it true that if this is a case of
01:12:53
self-defense, it gets you off the hook, too? What do you mean by that? If a jury were to find that this was
01:13:02
self-defense, you wouldn't have any more liability either, would you? I have no liability in this case.
01:13:12
[Music] In fact, prosecutors have never charged Linda Updike with any crime. Was Linda Updike involved in the death
01:13:23
in any way in the death of Mark Stove? Not at all. Did Andrew crochet that? Yes, he did. This was about my children
01:13:32
and me and Mark's over. He started a gunfight and I won. But will he win this final
01:13:45
battle? The jury will now decide. [Music] With the jury deliberating his fate, Michael Oaks and his family come
01:14:03
together and wait. I just cannot believe that God put him in my life and we have the possibility
01:14:12
of him not being in my life. As the agonizing wait drags on, one, two, three days, Mark Stover's sister
01:14:22
Vicki worries the jury is deadlocked and prepares herself for the possibility of
01:14:28
an aqu quiddle. Being a woman of faith, I know that everything done in secret will
01:14:34
eventually be shouted from the housetops. The truth will come out eventually. Inside the courthouse, the jurors comb
01:14:44
through the mountain of evidence. It was absolutely overwhelming. I've made a timeline based on the
01:14:51
evidence, assembling a 20ft timeline, and elaborate fact sheets to help them find the truth.
01:15:03
We had only his words, the fact that there's no body, some things related to the bullets that injured Dingo. He took
01:15:11
extensive preparations. I just kept thinking, if it was really self-defense, why didn't he call the police?
01:15:19
After four long days of examining the evidence, the jurors voted for the first time. It was unanimous.
01:15:26
I understand the jury has reached a verdict. Stover's family and the investigators
01:15:32
gather on one side of the courtroom, the Oaks clan on the other. We the jury find the defendant Michael
01:15:44
Glenn Oaks guilty of premeditated murder as charged. Number one, tragedy and relief.
01:15:57
I'm just so happy that we were able to get justice for my uncle. It's been a long road, but we're really happy. But
01:16:05
at this time, I'll revoke the bail and remand Mr. Oaks into custody. Michael Oaks gives his children one last
01:16:14
hug goodbye and is led away. [Music] expectations that this would work out and um it was like beyond shock to hear
01:16:31
that guilty verdict. Juror Tom Jenkins, what would you tell Michael Oak's children?
01:16:38
That I truly wanted to believe his story. Um I did everything I could to try to believe his story, but there just there
01:16:45
wasn't enough facts. [Music] Five weeks after the verdict, Michael Oaks heads back to court for sentencing.
01:16:55
He was an extremely intelligent, witty man with a phenomenal gift. Where he must listen to Mark Stover's
01:17:01
anguished loved ones describe their grief. Until the day I die, I will always wonder what happened that morning. Why
01:17:10
was he murdered? Where is my brother? Michael Oaks's mom, Corey, begs Judge Mike Rickert for mercy.
01:17:20
She starts out calmly. He's got a gentle heart and builds to a fervid pitch. I get to see it. I can hear what he said
01:17:28
when the gun went off. He sat there beside him. He sat there beside him and didn't know what to do.
01:17:35
A desperate mother pleading for her son's life. So I I tr I trust that you will be merciful.
01:17:42
Well, after listening carefully, the judge addresses Michael Oaks. I almost have more questions now than I
01:17:49
had when we picked the jury. He goes on to say, "It's a simple story, one that has played out through the
01:17:56
ages. How does the knight win the hand of the princess? He goes out and he slays the
01:18:04
dragon that's chasing the princess. As for Michael's claim of self-defense, I believe that the calculating a
01:18:14
manipulative plan was something that I hadn't seen to that degree in a long, long time.
01:18:21
I don't know where Mr. Stober is, but I pretty sure I know where he isn't, and that's off the dock at the end of the
01:18:28
Swinimus channel. And I also felt that the cruelty to not disclose where the body was, that struck a chord in me.
01:18:39
I would sentence you to 320 months in the Department of Corrections. Michael Oaks gets the maximum sentence,
01:18:47
26 years behind bars, no chance of parole. [Music] Oaks's children have lost the father
01:19:01
they love. Little Andrew lives with his grandparents. Amanda and April with Linda Updike.
01:19:09
There are a lot of ruined lives in this. It's tragic for every single person involved in this.
01:19:14
Linda, never charged, continues to adamantly deny any knowledge or involvement. She and the children still
01:19:23
believe Michael acted in self-defense. We're sick and together and no matter what, we're fighting tooth and nail. Um
01:19:31
because when one of us is under fire, we all are. We know his innocence and we're not
01:19:37
going to take no for an answer in this. Vicki and Julia Simmons believe Michael Oaks is just one part of the story and
01:19:47
the final chapter is yet to be written. My job is to follow this story to the end. I will always be looking for who
01:19:57
did this, who was in the conspiracy, why it was done. That's my job. We just still don't know so much. We're
01:20:06
just going to have to hope that Michael Oaks realizes that he was not being the hero. We need the
01:20:16
truth. We need the body. I need to find him. And I just can't let that go. [Music]
01:21:01
[Music] I remember being woken up early in the morning by a hellacious barking. It was
01:21:10
2009, 3 days before Halloween, a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead become blurred.
01:21:20
Stephanie Poor said the dogs next door were going crazy and they were upset and it was loud.
01:21:29
What' you think to yourself when you were lying in bed listening to that? Um, something was going on over there
01:21:37
and I wanted to get some more sleep and um, I was going to have words with Mark.
01:21:44
Mark was Mark Stove, Stephanie's next door neighbor and her boss. Stephanie was a dog trainer at Mark's facility in
01:21:52
Anacortis, Washington, an island community about 80 miles north of Seattle. He had built a successful
01:22:00
business working with the dogs of the rich and famous and had earned the nickname the dog whisperer of the
01:22:08
Pacific Northwest. That morning, Stephanie made her short commute to work. She assumed Mark had
01:22:20
already left to meet a client in Seattle. And I'm on the phone leaving a message
01:22:25
with him and he's in the driveway. The car is in the driveway parked up by the house. I'm thinking, "Wow, that's weird
01:22:32
because he really he's probably going to be, you know, a little antsy because he
01:22:35
would have rather been gone by now." Mark had a reputation as a bit of a pitbull, intimidating, and impatient.
01:22:45
I saw who I thought was Mark going into the house, coming out of the house, putting
01:22:51
stuff in the back of the hatch. What made you think it was Mark? because it was his hat and his jacket. He opened
01:22:59
the the door to the car, looked at the front windshield, grabbed something off the front, and then just tore like
01:23:06
literally tore down the driveway. Then Stephanie went up to the house to the bathroom. As she walked up the
01:23:16
driveway, she saw tire marks from the car and some spots of blood on the gravel.
01:23:24
Stephanie assumed that the blood belonged to Ding, Mark's guard dog. Ding recently had surgery.
01:23:31
I explained it away that Ding must have ripped her stitches out out here. The blood wasn't the only sign something
01:23:41
was wrong. I could smell the bleach before I even opened the door. Stephanie stepped inside. She noticed a
01:23:51
bedroom door that was usually never shut was closed. And as she went into the house, Stephanie saw three big spots on
01:24:01
the floor. Did they have a color? It was blood. It was red. Dark. Dark red. Stephanie was worried. She kept calling
01:24:12
Mark, but he never answered. Stephanie hoped the blood was from Ding's surgical wounds. She was doing
01:24:20
her best to avoid imagining the worst. But the next morning when she came back to work, she was startled to see Ding
01:24:30
sitting by the back door. She was on all fours and she was growling. Something had happened to her.
01:24:37
Maybe she had had a stroke. It was obvious one eye was in a horrible mess. We couldn't find Mark. We were I was
01:24:44
calling him. I left a message. Mark, we're really concerned. Where are you? You know, why is Ding here?
01:24:50
An unsettling feeling hit Stephanie. I can only describe it as evil. Something horrible, something terrible.
01:25:00
I knew something bad had taken place. Stephanie called 911. Mark's new girlfriend had also called
01:25:09
the police after not hearing from him. Soon after, sheriff's deputies arrived on scene.
01:25:23
Investigators believed the bleach, the blood, and Mark's vanishing act all added up to one inescapable conclusion.
01:25:33
It was a cold-blooded murder. But detectives had no idea they were about to step into a hall of mirrors
01:25:43
where nothing was as it seemed. I've never seen in my career a case that has as many twists and turns and mysteries
01:25:54
as this case with Marx. They soon discovered a story tangled in obsession. We don't have the truth yet. We have
01:26:04
some of the truth, but we don't have all of it. But who was the hunter and who was the
01:26:10
hunted? I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Trained to Kill the Dog Trainer, the
01:26:23
Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode 1, Puppy Love. The coastline of Washington State, just
01:26:41
north of Seattle, is one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Back in the 1800s, my ancestors were homesteaders on
01:26:50
an island not far from Anacortis, Washington. It's gone now, but one of my great greatates even had a small apple
01:26:59
orchard on Orcus Island. Anacortis is the gateway to the San Juan Islands where ferryboats depart to these
01:27:08
wooded jewels. I go hiking, swimming, and fishing for dungeonous crabs and have always considered the small harbor
01:27:16
towns here my gateway into tranquility and peace. That's why I was stunned when 48 hours
01:27:28
first got word about this murder. And then I learned that at the center of it all was a celebrity dog trainer.
01:27:36
Mark was known as the dog whisperer of Anacortis and the dog trainer to the stars.
01:27:42
That's Victoria Simmons, Mark Stover's younger sister. She said some of Mark's clients included Eddie Veter from Pearl
01:27:50
Jam, longtime Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki. I believe he came to love all dogs and
01:28:02
no pedigree or fabulous pedigree. It didn't matter to him. He saw value in all of them and potential in all of
01:28:09
them. Mark offered private training lessons. He could teach basic obedience, but his
01:28:15
wealthiest clients wanted him to train their pets to become protection dogs. This is audio from a video of Mark
01:28:28
training a dog. He's standing in what looks like a gravel driveway, wearing a dark raincoat and his trademark brown
01:28:36
hat with a round brim. Show me the motion again with the stick. Well, this is the barrage that I do.
01:28:46
A handler releases the dog. The dog sprints and bites hard enough to lock onto Mark's leg, which is covered in
01:28:56
padding, and a tugofwar ensues between the growling dog and Mark. So damn far down.
01:29:09
Mark commands the dog to stand down. Right away, the dog lays on the ground looking straight ahead and awaits the
01:29:19
next command. Out. I just thought he was so incredibly interesting. His niece Julia, Victoria's daughter,
01:29:31
said Mark sometimes expressed his love for dogs in eccentric ways. You know, he has this beautiful Porsche 911 and a BMW
01:29:42
and then he has this car called the dog alac Cadillac. And I swear half the textile of the
01:29:52
carpeting in that car was just dog hair that had woven itself into it. She said it smelled horrible. But one
01:30:01
day they went for a drive and instead of taking the Porsche or the BMW, he takes me and the dog alone.
01:30:11
And he said he didn't want his neighbors to know how rich he was. But Mark didn't start out rich at all.
01:30:18
In fact, just the opposite. And his upbringing was far from easy. We went through, our family went through
01:30:28
a series of losses early in our childhood. Just seemed to be one after another. This is Victoria again, Mark's
01:30:35
sister. They grew up in the Seattle area in the 1950s and 1960s. [Music] My father died when um I was 6 months
01:30:47
old and Mark was 18 months old. Then um shortly after that uh a half brother was
01:30:54
killed in a car wreck that was caused by my other half brother which was sad. And
01:31:00
then um mother remarried and shortly after she remarried um my sister died of pneumonia. She was nine.
01:31:11
Their mother's second marriage also then fell apart. And so she remarried again and um he was an alcoholic. Life at home
01:31:20
was tough. Mark struggled in school. According to Victoria, the family didn't know how to
01:31:27
help him. He got kicked out of high school for smoking dope. Um I think he was 16. Um
01:31:37
yeah, he was on a bad path. And then their mother's third husband died of cancer.
01:31:44
We were broke. Um, our family was broke and there was a funeral and at the wake and family friends brought a German
01:31:53
Shepherd puppy for a gift at a wake, which is such an odd choice. The German Shepherd puppy was named
01:32:01
Gunter. While maybe odd, the gift would be a godsend. I've never been able to talk to them and ask them what prompted
01:32:10
them to do such a odd thing. But Mark and that dog bonded that very day. Mark got in touch with the family's old
01:32:22
vet. He encouraged Mark to join the Washington State Search and Rescue Canine Unit.
01:32:29
They trained him and taught him how to train Gunter and um he loved it. He was flown all over the country to look for
01:32:38
um lost people as far as the Everglades and it gave meaning to his life, gave purpose to his life. That dog saved him.
01:32:47
Mark eventually started to train dogs in private sessions where he'd go to people's homes. In a news article from
01:32:56
1981, Mark is described as a disciple of the famous behavioral psychologist BF Skinner.
01:33:05
Skinner studied how rewards and punishment can condition behavior in humans. Mark applied that to dogs by
01:33:15
training them with punishment and reward. He's told me that he was the first person to ever apply human psychology to
01:33:25
dogs and and to understanding the pack and how the pack works. Was your brother an innovator in in the
01:33:32
dog world? I believe it was. As for cats, Mark was once quoted saying that he didn't like cats because he
01:33:40
wants something he can control. He added, "Dogs are easy to change. It's people that are hard to change. See, I
01:33:52
can't put a choke chain around them. [Music] Mark started training dogs in the 1970s
01:34:09
and by the 1980s was a wellestablished K-9 guru. Mark never married during that time. Then in the early 90s when Mark
01:34:20
was nearing 40, a wealthy potential client called I was looking to do some training with
01:34:28
my dog and found him in the phone book. Linda Updike was the daughter of Wally Updike, one of the wealthiest
01:34:36
businessmen in the state of Washington. I remember speaking with him on the phone and uh very I felt he was very
01:34:44
arrogant. actually rubbed me the wrong way initially. Name dropped a lot of people and had uh quite a bit of an
01:34:51
attitude, but yet he seemed also to know a fair amount about dogs. So, I thought,
01:34:55
let's try this out. Mark and Linda met regularly to train her dog. A bond was starting to form.
01:35:04
I saw he definitely did have a connection with dogs, and I felt that he would be able to help us. Mark
01:35:11
definitely had a way with dogs and at times he could be charismatic with people.
01:35:17
He was very bright and witty and charming. After 8 or 9 months, their relationship
01:35:25
evolved. And even though Linda was 12 years younger than Mark, his sister says Linda
01:35:34
was his type. She was tall, slender, beautiful. He seemed to like the girls from these wealthy families, which I um
01:35:46
always was wondered about just just right down his alley. For one of their first dates, Mark asked
01:35:54
her to go fishing. So, I drove over and met him and did a day of fishing. And um that began when
01:36:03
we we started dating shortly thereafter. So what was the attraction? You know, he was incredibly bright,
01:36:10
eccentric, had u a lot of similar interests in that I did. Linda grew up camping, fishing, and
01:36:19
hunting. They connected over a love for nature and the open air. What started purely as business turned personal and
01:36:29
they set out to build a relationship and a successful company at the same time. They were coming together despite being
01:36:39
from two different worlds. While Mark's family had struggled, Linda Updike was the daughter of a millionaire.
01:36:49
I grew up with my family doing a lot of camping on Whidby Island. We have a small beach cabin up there and I grew up
01:36:55
saltwater fishing, salmon fishing. I was born in California and then moved when I
01:37:00
was very young to Bellev, Washington, went to junior high and high school there. Uh was very involved in horseback
01:37:07
riding and competed um doing Grand Prix jumping and that was really my passion and where I spent my time in my youth.
01:37:15
How good were you at this horse jumping? Well, it probably depends on who you'd ask. And tell me also about your father.
01:37:22
He's a a famous man in the state of Washington, very successful man in the state of Washington.
01:37:27
Yes. He um started with u came from very middle class background and went to University of Washington and then really
01:37:37
became involved in a lot of different businesses. One of them being Chateau Sanm Michelle um developing that and um
01:37:45
that's a very famous winery in Washington sold all over the world. Yes, it is. I'm very proud of his
01:37:51
accomplishments that way. He was also involved in um K2 ski company and Jansport sporting goods and um different
01:38:00
businesses throughout his career. Linda is her parents only daughter. A very good friend of mine at an adult
01:38:10
age. Yes, we're mother daughter, but we're very good friends. That's Nancy Corbin, Linda's mother. She
01:38:18
admits that she wasn't entirely thrilled when Mark and Linda started dating. Mark is not a choice I would have made
01:38:26
for for Linda from the beginning. Mark showed an arrogance had a where he wanted to isolate Linda. Uh all bad
01:38:38
signs. And so it was it was noticed by me right away. Nancy let her daughter make her own
01:38:47
choices and was even supportive when Mark and Linda decided to go into business together. Linda said she'd been
01:38:56
interested in opening a dog boarding business in 1992. Linda and Mark opened Island Dog Adventures. Linda ran the
01:39:06
boarding part of the company and Mark handled the dog training. You essentially were the CEO, right?
01:39:13
Yes. Uh, it was all of my what we developed there was my business idea, my development, my money. I did capitalize
01:39:21
it to go in. Linda thought Mark's reputation in the industry helped and her parents leased
01:39:29
Linda the perfect place to set up shop. Beautiful piece of property that my family has owned, no longer owns, uh,
01:39:37
but did purchase in the 80s. Kikit Island and the surrounding area once belonged to the Swenomish tribe.
01:39:48
Besides a clearing for some buildings, the island is a thick forest with tall Douglas furs and western red cedars.
01:39:57
I don't think there's probably many places like that, whether dogs live on there or people live on there. It was
01:40:03
just a a terrific place. Their house was at the end of a long, narrow driveway that felt like you were
01:40:11
almost entering Jurassic Park. The sprawling property filled with wild flowers, hills, and beaches made it seem
01:40:20
otherworldly. Business started booming. Over time, Island Dog Adventures turned into a milliondoll operation. Linda said
01:40:33
that despite their success, Mark started to become obsessed with money, tightly controlling her spending.
01:40:43
For example, an avocado. Uh, that was too much money. It really upset him. I remember another time I was
01:40:49
Excuse me. You guys have a million-doll business. He's upset that you bought an avocado.
01:40:54
Yes. Yes. There. And you're serious. I'm absolutely serious. Yes. He would be in a rage that I spent too much money
01:41:01
and it was an inappropriate expenditure on things. Most of their attention was going to the
01:41:09
business and not each other. And we were working, you know, 7 days a week, 15-hour days, and there was really
01:41:19
not any time for personal relationships. Despite her concerns, Linda was committed to making things work. I just
01:41:27
kept thinking that if I could reduce our workload, if we could make some changes
01:41:34
and try to get more personal time that the relationship could be salvageable and and work. Um, so we went through
01:41:42
some counseling and at that point in time Mark did want to get married and I again because of the commitment said
01:41:51
okay. [Music] On May 17th, 2002, Mark and Linda were married in a small wedding at the Four
01:42:09
Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. She was 38. He was 50. This is a picture from the wedding in
01:42:18
Las Vegas. And um this is Linda Opike. This is her mother, Nancy Corbin. Victoria, Mark's sister, showed me
01:42:27
photos from the wedding. At this picture, he thinks he's at the beginning of a very happy
01:42:35
phase in his life, and he's the beginning of a nightmare, but he doesn't know that yet.
01:42:45
[Music] Mark has on a dark suit and Linda is wearing a black dress holding a white
01:42:54
bouquet of flowers. They look like a happy couple here. They do. They do. And your brother thought this is the one
01:43:02
after all those years he married her and that this was going to be his partner for life.
01:43:07
He adored this woman. But Mark seemed different to Linda after the wedding. Things were fine for about uh 4 months
01:43:18
after the marriage and then it really started going south. What happened? What went wrong?
01:43:26
I think my desires for a personal truly a personal loving marriage and relationship was something that he did
01:43:35
not want to provide and could not provide. Linda wanted to move off the island, but she said Mark dug in his
01:43:43
heels. He wanted to stay. Kickot Island meant a lot to Mark because it had quite a prestige to it.
01:43:51
Linda said she watched Mark's whole demeanor intensify. I saw him becoming more aggressive with
01:43:58
people uh for example on the property uh that were trespassing, pulling guns on people and threatening them. uh being
01:44:06
verbally aggressive and very threatening. According to Linda, Mark developed a reputation for threatening locals. He
01:44:15
would even use his dogs to intimidate people. My experience with him was he was very
01:44:21
unstable. And with that and his agitated state and uh he had real highs and lows
01:44:28
and rages that he dealt with, it was very um concerning to me and what his reaction would be to something how that
01:44:36
would affect my safety. After nearly 14 years together, including 3 years of marriage, Linda
01:44:46
decided that she couldn't do this anymore. I recognized that I was so unhappy and I I knew that I needed to
01:44:55
leave the marriage and I got a separation. She moved out of their home. Linda left
01:45:05
the island that was owned by her family to start a new set off on a new path alone. But she said Mark followed. He
01:45:17
told me that he was listening to phone conversations and that he had been in my house and read my diaries and just it
01:45:28
was it was horrifying. It was chilling to me. Every single moment you're wondering when you walk out the door, is
01:45:35
he going to be there? I know how he operated and his stalking abilities and hunting abilities. The fallout from
01:45:44
their collapsed marriage started a nasty back and forth that would culminate in that bloody scene at Mark's house.
01:45:53
This is war. This is goddamn war. He put my life up. I really did feel that my life was in
01:46:00
danger. Coming up on Trained to Kill, the dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard. I
01:46:10
remember at that time thinking this can't be real because no woman alone could go through this
01:46:17
amount of harassment. My first thought was oh a body. I have a safe room in there. I have a plan A, a
01:46:25
plan B, a plan C. I think Mark had a very real fear of what Linda was capable of doing to him.
01:46:32
He told me that he was capable of killing without remorse. This is not a case of self-defense.
01:46:38
This is a case of coldblooded murder from 48 hours. This is trained to kill the dog trainer, the ays, and the
01:46:57
bodyguard. The following episode contains references to harassment, intimidation,
01:47:07
and stalking. Listen with care. I left uh actually was a birthday gift to myself on in September 2005.
01:47:18
That gift to herself for her 41st birthday was something Linda Updike had long desired, a separation from her
01:47:27
husband, Mark Stove. I moved out of the main house of my family's property up to a small guest
01:47:34
house on the property. But while Linda put some space between herself and Mark, she didn't leave Kick
01:47:41
Island, home to their profitable dog training business, Island Dog Adventures. I stayed there for a number of months to
01:47:51
see if Mark would finally understand the seriousness that I really would be leaving if we could not build a
01:47:58
relationship and he would seek help. At that point, they'd been together for 14 years, the last three as a married
01:48:08
couple. After nearly 7 months, Linda finally decided she was ready. I drove down from the house that I was staying
01:48:18
at down to the main house and I told him that I wanted a divorce and he right there and then I could tell he just
01:48:27
snapped. He went just sheer white. His eyes went just crazy. He clenched his hands and fists and he was just in a
01:48:37
shaking rage with me. Startled, Linda said she stayed as calm as she could and tried to lower the temperature by
01:48:46
offering to talk, but could tell she needed to leave. She got into her Suburban and drove back to the guest
01:48:55
house. I knew I just had a short period of time to grab a bag and leave. As she gathered
01:49:02
her things, Linda could see Mark heading in her direction. And he comes out of the car and he's,
01:49:09
you know, shaking his fists. He says, "You've got war. I'm not going to grant this to you. You've got a big fight on
01:49:15
your hands." [Music] In April 2006, Linda said she fled Kickot Island, a property her family
01:49:27
owned. She was now on the run. Well, instantly at that point when I left, he was calling me constantly. I It
01:49:39
was obsessive phone calls on my cell phone um trying to reach me. He would call, you know, 40, 50 times that
01:49:48
evening. She kept her whereabouts a secret. I left the area and was just traveling
01:49:55
around with my dog in a suitcase and hotels just trying to move through the state. He'd leave messages on my cell
01:50:01
phone that he was driving all over the state to try to find me. This is war. This is goddamn war. You're
01:50:08
wrecking my you. [Music] Linda spent the summer and fall of 2006 in Sisters, Oregon. That December, she
01:50:24
relocated to the western themed town of Winthre, Washington. The downtown included an antique boardwalk and
01:50:34
oldtime saloons. Linda got a house outside of town. She put more than 250 miles of winding roads
01:50:44
and a mountain range between her and Mark. I left the whole west side of of the state.
01:50:52
She tried everything to avoid leaving a trail. I immediately stopped my credit card
01:50:59
accounts. I was worried that he would follow me there. I got a mailing address in Belleview. I tried to close contact
01:51:07
with anything where I could be tracked. But Mark, an avid hunter, still managed to track Linda down.
01:51:19
On October 16th, 2007, at about 7 a.m., Linda said she was getting ready to start her day. I just stepped out of my
01:51:29
shower right here and I heard my dog Sojo in the backyard barking incredibly loud, very defensive, like I've never
01:51:37
heard her bark before. Linda scan the hillside overlooking her house. And I see Mark Stover hunkered down with
01:51:47
a hunting rifle pointed right at me through the window looking through his spotting scope. According to Linda, the
01:51:54
man she left was crouched down like a lion, preparing to pounce on his prey. I really did feel that my life was in
01:52:04
danger. That incident would be one of many in which Linda said her life was threatened.
01:52:13
I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard.
01:52:23
Episode two, The Hunter. [Music] I walked away from almost literally everything except for my own investments
01:52:38
that I had before I met him. In the spring of 2006, Linda Updike was perfectly fine leaving everything behind
01:52:48
if that meant getting away from her husband, Mark Stove. We spoke about this in 2010.
01:52:55
How much money was the business making? How successful was it? It became very successful. At the time I
01:53:02
left in uh September 2005, it was just under a million dollars a year that it was making.
01:53:11
That's extraordinary. It really is. Linda said she took none of that money with her when she left.
01:53:18
Well, I put in over $100,000 as startup capital into the business. I can't recall what the divorce settlement was,
01:53:25
but it was not much over $100,000. I did not get any retirement benefits out of it. I got no proceeds from the
01:53:34
business. But she said Mark still wanted more. She said his rage and incessant calls pushed
01:53:41
her to give him what he wanted. According to Linda, Mark demanded she return one of her dogs to the island.
01:53:51
He told me that he would track me down uh to no end until he could have the dog back.
01:53:58
So, I um I thought that if I um gave the gave the dog back that he would leave me
01:54:06
alone. But Linda said that wasn't enough either. Karen Lungren worked at a salon
01:54:12
near Linda's house in Winthre. She told me about a frightening moment when Mark dramatically entered the salon.
01:54:20
Linda Opdike was here and I was sitting here. What were you doing? was doing a European facial on her and of course
01:54:30
she's lying down like this and Mark or excuse me Mr. Stove came in and moved the screen
01:54:40
and walked right in and just and stood here barges right in. Just stood right here.
01:54:46
She sat Linda up. She said, "What are you doing here?" And he said, "Well, I saw your vehicle, so I
01:54:54
thought I'd just stop stop in and see you." And just saw your vehicle. He lives more
01:55:00
than 150 miles away from here. Right. Right. Karen was sure Mark hadn't just stumbled
01:55:10
upon Linda's car. He'd somehow crossed a mountain range and tracked her down. The two spoke and Karen said Mark left
01:55:21
after a few minutes. But Linda said Mark's stalking behavior didn't stop at the beauty salon.
01:55:29
He came into my bedroom somehow gotten into my house. Came into my bedroom. Linda said he had an uncanny ability to
01:55:39
get inside her home. I was in bed about 9:00 at night and he walks in and he's got a gun in his hand. He told me he had
01:55:50
just driven 18 hours straight from Montana. Then he gets on his knees bedside, puts a gun right on my pillow,
01:55:57
right next to my head, and then starts sobbing and is very emotional about not wanting to let the divorce go.
01:56:06
She tried to stay calm and sat with him until he decided to leave. Linda said instead of calling the
01:56:19
police, she tried to handle those kinds of unwanted visits herself. You're just dealing with what you see at the time
01:56:28
and trying not to escalate his behavior and get him upset off the chart to hurt me. Another big reason why I did not
01:56:38
make a report initially on a number of things is I knew he would deny being here.
01:56:45
But she didn't think her tactics were working. She found herself feeling increasingly paranoid.
01:56:54
So you'd hear any noise and you're wondering is it Mark? The phone would ring. You're wondering is it Mark?
01:57:01
Yes. You wondered anytime you went outside with Mark there. Then you're pulling the blinds. You're living behind
01:57:06
closed blinds all the time. Um and you're trying to just move on with your life and it's
01:57:13
it's very very difficult. It's it was very difficult. On November 2nd, 2007, Linda couldn't
01:57:22
hide her fear anymore. She called 911 after Mark came to her house and chased her in his Chevy Suburban as she tried
01:57:33
to drive away. And he came driving, flying down my driveway and down the road, uh,
01:57:38
following me at a rapid speed into Winthrop. Linda said the police contacted Mark,
01:57:44
but didn't make an arrest. How was Mark, after all these incidents, still walking
01:57:51
free? Soon after, Mark discovered something about Linda that truly pushed him over the edge. It involved Mark's
01:58:01
friend and hunting partner. It had been more than 2 years since Linda's decision to leave Mark. Linda
01:58:18
told me that Mark had forced her down a terrifying path, dodging and hiding from
01:58:25
his harassment. But there was someone in his corner who didn't believe Linda's accusations.
01:58:33
Someone who's known Mark longer than Linda. His sister Victoria Simmons. My brother adored Linda Updike.
01:58:43
Just loved her. It was hard for my brother to lose someone he loved. That that was difficult for him. Um and he
01:58:50
would take a while to find his bearings and move on. She said that Mark was devastated by the
01:58:58
separation. He was blindsided. He he thought he told me he thought everything was fine.
01:59:05
Victoria doesn't believe her brother was as much of a danger as Linda Updike claimed.
01:59:12
He was terribly hurt. It was not only was it a surprise, but the circumstances surrounding it were so
01:59:21
painful. Double betrayal. Mark discovered that Linda once got some drinks and went to
01:59:28
the house of John Bonika, Mark's best man, at their wedding. It shook his foundation.
01:59:36
He was just so angry that two really valuable relationships in his life were destroyed in one fell swoop. If she
01:59:46
wanted to hurt him um and really knock his feet out from under him, having an affair with John Bonika would be about
01:59:53
the worst thing she could choose to do. Here's Linda again. John Benika is a person that uh has
02:00:04
known Mark for many years and I met him um shortly after meeting Mark probably in 1992 and he was a friend to both of
02:00:12
us. Once John learned of Mark's antics and behavior to towards me, he uh seized him having friendship with Mark.
02:00:22
You developed a relationship with John Bonika. Is that right? Yes. A romantic relationship.
02:00:28
Uh very briefly, we had a an intimate occurrence. Linda said she got a call from Mark the
02:00:36
day after she and John were together. He told her that he knew what they'd done.
02:00:42
described in detail of what had occurred between John and myself that evening. Um,
02:00:50
and was it accurate? Yes, it was accurate. It was horrifying. So, do you believe that a that someone
02:00:58
was at John Bonika's house watching you be intimate with John? Yes, I do. And after uh hearing that
02:01:08
from Mark, I actually drove down with a friend down there to see if I could find
02:01:13
any signs of Mark being there. And I went down there and saw tire tracks where the Suburban was parked. I saw
02:01:21
footprints of his uh LLBAM boots. They have a very distinct tread. I could see them along the fence line and up to the
02:01:30
house. And John told me that he saw the same thing and received phone calls from
02:01:35
Mark saying that he was in his house as well at other times. She said that John was horrified and
02:01:43
fearful of Mark. He wrote me a letter saying that he needed to seize any friendship or
02:01:50
relationship with me due for the safety of him, his children. and he advised me to do the same thing to take all
02:01:59
precautions that I could for my safety and well-being as he was. When Mark found out about John, he was
02:02:12
so angry that Linda decided to go stay with her father in Hawaii until things cooled down. She returned several weeks
02:02:22
later in January 2008. When Mark finally signed the divorce papers, Linda still didn't think having the divorce
02:02:32
finalized would make Mark stop. So, she reached out to the local sheriff's office to let them know she was worried.
02:02:41
My initial advice to her is immediately get a protection order. Here's then Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez
02:02:50
with the Okonogan County Sheriff's Office. He told Linda that if she got a protective order, law enforcement could
02:02:58
act more decisively to where if you do make even these loose kind of threats, we can do something
02:03:04
about it. But without a protection order, it's harder. Did Linda seek it out? She didn't.
02:03:10
She didn't. She did not. Why not? I have no idea. Linda said she was now relying on the
02:03:16
advice of security experts she hired. They felt this particular type of personality that getting a domestic
02:03:27
violence protection order and contacting the police could possibly escalate the situation.
02:03:33
Some of the sheriff department staff still tried to help Linda even though she wouldn't file for a protective
02:03:40
order. After hours, once they got off the clock, they agreed to help Linda. Here's
02:03:46
Sergeant Jean Davis. We felt, at least I felt the threat was severe enough that we did every option
02:03:53
we could to help her out by train a protection dog, similar to a police dog, but it's more designed if somebody came
02:04:00
to her house and tried to harm her, um, her her dog would protect her. What kind of dog did she have? Um, she
02:04:06
had a uh a young female German Shepherd. And those are good guard dogs, right? A very good dog. I have one myself.
02:04:14
Linda specifically wanted a dog that hadn't been trained by Mark and had no connection to him. Remember, she only
02:04:23
met Mark because she needed him to train one of her dogs for protection. And now
02:04:29
she was training a dog against that same man. But Linda concluded that wasn't enough. She wanted even more security.
02:04:41
[Music] I installed cameras onto my house. I added to the security system. Linda got into a routine of checking her
02:04:56
cameras every day and reviewing footage. Her instincts proved to be right. While the divorce had been finalized,
02:05:06
Linda said it seemed nothing would stop Mark from harassing her. Linda said one of her cameras spotted a ghostly black
02:05:15
and white image of Mark in the middle of the night. It was very creepy, very eerie, very scary knowing he was here
02:05:24
and then seeing his body language and he went underneath the house and all a sudden you can tell he had recognized
02:05:32
that there was cameras here and then he's seen 2 minutes later walking away with the shirt pulled over his head and
02:05:39
sneaking off the property. We reviewed the footage and you can see a man crossing Linda's lawn, pulling up
02:05:48
a shirt to cover his face. She said Mark started calling her, demanding she give
02:05:54
back their wedding photos. Here's a voicemail of Mark threatening Linda. Better not
02:06:03
wedding pictures. You know, I'm the guy that get all the crutch. It's a little hard to hear, but Mark is saying, "I
02:06:11
swear to God if I ever find out that you're in possession of those wedding pictures, you know I'm a guy who can
02:06:18
hold a grudge." [Music] At one point, Linda was convinced that Mark tapped her phones and was listening
02:06:30
to her calls. I knew for a fact that he was on my phones because I was talking to my
02:06:37
stepmother and she was telling me about um how the Montana police were utilizing
02:06:44
tasers and she was asking me if I knew anything about tasers for one of my self-defense tools. And Mark called and
02:06:51
left a message and said, "You girls sitting around talking about tasering me and shooting me." and he says, "I would
02:06:57
have let you shoot me at one point in time, but now I'm going to survive this just to ruin your life."
02:07:03
Fearing that Mark's campaign of harassment was now escalating toward violence, Linda started brainstorming,
02:07:11
both battle and escape plans. Getting all those firearms, was that wise or was that paranoia?
02:07:21
I think it was very wise. I'm dealing with somebody that was incredibly skilled with firearms. He was somebody
02:07:26
that would go on hunting trips and he would stay on his hunting trips until he acquired his hunt, his kill. And I knew
02:07:34
this was somebody that could take my life. It was a real threat to her. Mark had proven he was willing
02:07:42
to cross any boundary she set. Linda decided to turn her house into a fortress. I have a safe room in there. I have a
02:07:57
plan A, a plan B, a plan C. If he comes in this door, if he comes into my bedroom, if he breaks in downstairs.
02:08:04
She gave me a tour of her hidden arsenal. This one was put in the living room entryway area. Um, obviously I'm very
02:08:14
vulnerable in this area. We walked from room to room as she pointed out the spots where she was
02:08:20
hiding her guns. There's this magnet right here. Yes. So, there was a gun hooked onto that.
02:08:27
Yes. She had one in her office, one next to her bed, and one in the hallway, another
02:08:34
behind a wall hanging. It seemed she was never more than 6 ft away from a firearm.
02:08:42
The security company installed a magnet for me to have bedside. As she guided me
02:08:47
through her security system, I couldn't help but think how this reminded me of something out of a James Bond movie. I
02:08:56
had never seen so many guns in a home in my life. I knew exactly where there were. So, in
02:09:02
a time of stress that I could count on them being there. It wasn't like, "Wow, where's my firearm? Do I have it on me
02:09:08
to defend myself?" They were always consistently there. Linda felt certain that Mark would eventually try to hurt,
02:09:16
maybe even kill her. But until she had hard evidence, a witness, or filed for a protection order, sheriff's deputies
02:09:25
couldn't arrest him. Then on March 18th, 2008, at about 10:00 a.m., Linda's neighbor, Ruthie
02:09:35
Hegmeister, was on her way over to visit. We were going to do some cooking together and then take our dogs for a
02:09:43
walk. As I pull up here, I notice there's a white station wagon here and there's a gentleman over at Linda's
02:09:48
trash cans taking the trash out of the trash cans right across the street. Right across the street.
02:09:54
Ruthie was immediately suspicious and pulled her car right up to this man's white station wagon.
02:10:01
I blocked this car. I did. I blocked this car and I proceeded to get out of my car. I left my door open and I asked
02:10:09
the gentleman. I said, "Excuse me, who are you?" He says, "My name is John." I go, "Why are you taking my friend's
02:10:15
trash?" And he's like, "I have permission to take the trash." You have permission to take someone's trash. How
02:10:21
can you have permission to take someone's trash? You're not buying it? No, I'm not buying it at all. So, I
02:10:26
proceed to say, "Okay, well, we'll find out." I walk around my truck to the passenger door. My cell phone's on the
02:10:32
seat, pick up my cell phone, and I dial Linda's house. I'm like, "Linda, there's
02:10:36
a man down here." In the meantime, he's getting the trash, throwing it in his car, closing the door. I'm like,
02:10:41
"There's a man down here stealing your trash." And I said, "No." I couldn't believe. And she said, "Yes." She starts
02:10:47
describing who this person is and it's Mark. While Ruthie was on the phone, Mark got
02:10:54
back in his car and drove off. And Ruth is like, "Ah, no. This is, you know, something's really wrong with
02:11:00
this." And we're like, "Well, so finally somebody's seeing him. there's a witness
02:11:05
to him being here. So, she calls 911 and that was, you know, the he finally got pulled over for that. After more than 2
02:11:15
years of what Linda described as a campaign of harassment and fear, the county finally had enough evidence to
02:11:23
charge Mark with stalking and theft. Mark entered what's called an Alford plea. That's when someone claims to be
02:11:33
innocent but admits there's enough evidence that a judge or jury will likely find them guilty. Mark was
02:11:41
sentenced to 2 years probation and 12 months of anger management. The court also entered a protection
02:11:50
order against him which meant Mark had to turn over all of his weapons and never go near Linda ever again. Linda
02:12:00
was not satisfied with the sentence. He got a slap on the hand and it was very disheartening to me.
02:12:07
Throughout 2008 and into 2009, Linda repeatedly called the sheriff's office to report suspicious activity she
02:12:17
thought could be Mark. But she was never able to link those situations to him, but stayed vigilant about her security.
02:12:29
And in the summer of 2008, Linda made a decision that would forever change her life. She hired a former security
02:12:37
consultant to do an assessment of her house. I did an analysis of sort of her home
02:12:44
security situation and what the steps she was taking. Looked into the people that she was working with and made some
02:12:52
suggestions on that front. His name was Michael Oaks. He was a gun and safety enthusiast.
02:12:59
Similar to her relationship with Mark, things started professionally, but soon became something more.
02:13:06
Did you fall in love with her? I I I did. That same summer, Mark left Kick Island
02:13:16
for Anacortis, Washington, about 10 miles away. He bought several acres and a new house on Thompson Road where he
02:13:26
opened his new business. His sister Victoria said Mark even started dating someone new. Teresa Vox Michael.
02:13:36
He was amazing. He would drive down almost every weekend, take me to dinner. To those around him, Mark really seemed
02:13:42
to have moved on. He was joking with me all the time and he was always fun, you know, when we were on the phone and
02:13:50
yeah, he was very happy. Then in October 2009, Linda heard from one of Mark's employees
02:13:59
and she informed me via email late in the afternoon that Mark was missing. I was very concerned that he would be
02:14:10
coming over my way. But detectives had a different theory. They believed Mark was dead.
02:14:19
[Music] From 48 hours. This is Train to Kill. Trigger warning. The following episode
02:14:40
contains references to harassment, stalking, and physical violence. Listen with care.
02:14:48
[Music] Can I help you? In August 2009, an anonymous man called the Scadget County Sheriff's Office 911
02:14:59
hotline. There's a crime that's going to take place in the morning. It involved a dangerous drug dealer.
02:15:08
There's going to be a a van transporting some drugs from uh in the Cortis area to
02:15:15
I5 and then to Seattle. The dispatcher then asks the caller for the person's name.
02:15:21
And do you know the names? The last name is Stove. S O E R. Stover as in Mark Stover, the dog trainer to
02:15:31
the stars who had moved to Anacortis, Washington. Okay. And is somebody there with you or
02:15:37
why are you whispering? Uh yeah, this is something that's very delicate. I have I have to not be found
02:15:44
out about this. He's very dangerous. Perpetually carries a gun. It's a little tough to hear, but he's
02:15:51
warning them that Mark carries a gun. He said, "This is very dangerous. I wish you guys would do something
02:15:58
before it kills somebody." He says, "I wish you guys would do something before he kills somebody."
02:16:06
All righty. Well, I've got the call in and we'll pass it along to the deputies for you.
02:16:12
Thank you. The following day, Mark Stove was pulled over by sheriff's deputies. He was asked
02:16:22
if they could search his car. He refused. This is Lee Haron. She's a private investigator Mark hired after the
02:16:31
incident. Lee said when Mark refused to cooperate, the officers wouldn't let him
02:16:37
leave. A search warrant was obtained. A canine was brought to the scene and there was a
02:16:42
positive hit. The dog detected some drugs. The police found a small metallic box on the
02:16:48
undercarriage of Mark's vehicle which contained a couple of marijuana cigarettes and some very lowgrade
02:16:54
cocaine. Mark told the deputies the box had been planted. They let him go, but from then
02:17:01
on Mark watched his back. It was such a deliberate act. It said, "We're setting you up. We want
02:17:10
you to go to jail." I think Mark had a very real fear of what Linda was capable of doing to him.
02:17:19
I'm Peter Vans from 48 Hours. This is Train to Kill. The dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard.
02:17:29
Episode 3, Secret Meetings. [Music] At the time Mark Stove was pulled over by police, Linda Updike said she had
02:17:42
moved on from her ex-husband. I just wanted to go on with my life with Michael and I wanted Mark to go on with
02:17:49
his life. Michael was Michael Oaks, a security expert. We spoke back in 2010. I remember at that time thinking this
02:17:59
can't be real because no woman alone could go through this amount of harassment. Michael said they
02:18:07
met at a Starbucks and quickly connected over their love of books. By the fall of
02:18:13
2008, Michael said their business relationship turned romantic. I said to her, I think we have a
02:18:20
connection that that could go beyond friendship and is that something that you're open to? And I think she, as you
02:18:28
may know, she's um almost 6 feet tall and I'm 5' 6. She's never had children. I have four children, so it was an
02:18:37
unlikely romance, but she said, "You know, I have gone through a lot of things in my life, and I'm open to
02:18:43
considering that." Linda was impressed by how dedicated Michael was to his family. After getting
02:18:50
a divorce from his first wife, Michael took full custody of their kids. He even treated the kids of his second wife as
02:18:59
his own. Everything he did took into account of his children. He worked at home so he
02:19:06
could be there for them. He was a full-time single parent. He drove them to school every morning. He made sure he
02:19:12
had Friday night movies time with them or game evenings. The family was a priority to him.
02:19:20
Michael described himself as a self-taught security specialist skilled in firearms. I ended up training with uh
02:19:28
a lot of the alphabet soup of of government agencies and SWAT teams and so on. And it's uh what we call forceon
02:19:35
force training. I owned a small company in in Seattle here and uh I managed to get some training equipment and figure
02:19:43
out how to use it. People have said that you are a gun enthusiast. Is that true?
02:19:47
Yes, I am a gun enthusiast. I've taught all my kids from the earliest age that they I felt they were safe. gun safety.
02:19:56
Uh, and I have shot competitively for some years. You've been described as Linda Updike's
02:20:03
bodyguard as well as boyfriend, right? Is that accurate? I don't believe it's accurate. Let's put
02:20:08
it that way. She never paid me to be a bodyguard. I did a little bit of research and I did an analysis of sort
02:20:17
of her home security situation and what the steps she was taking. looked into the people that she was working with and
02:20:24
made some uh suggestions on that front and that was the extent of what I would consider
02:20:29
my professional interaction with her. And did she pay you for that consulting? You know, she paid me. She wrote me a
02:20:35
check, but it was just for my expenses and it was a minimal amount of money. I don't even remember now what it was, but
02:20:39
less than $1,000. So, I mean, it was minimal. Michael said that by the spring of 2009,
02:20:46
he and his kids started spending a lot of time at Linda's house in Winthre, which was more than 200 miles north from
02:20:54
Michael's place in Kenowick, Washington. It's a beautiful love. It's uh in my opinion, it's it's legendary. It's
02:21:04
something that you read about in uh romance novels or movies. Their relationship deepened. What seemed
02:21:12
to make it even better was that Linda said she hadn't heard from Mark since he had been arrested for stalking and
02:21:19
theft. I was believing and hoping that that had enough impact and he recognized that
02:21:28
this behavior was unacceptable and that he would be moving on with his life. And
02:21:33
we went for many months where nothing happened. To her, the nightmare finally felt over.
02:21:41
I really started feeling more at peace in my life and more at ease and really felt that he was moving on and I was
02:21:50
able to move on into a new relationship with nothing from the past hampering that.
02:21:56
But according to Michael, the past roared back into the present when Mark Stove unexpectedly
02:22:04
re-entered their lives. Mark Stove sought me out one day out of the blue and told me that I would do what he
02:22:17
wanted. And from that point for almost 6 months, I lived in constant fear. Michael said that Mark hadn't stopped
02:22:27
stalking. He just found a new target. The Mark Stove you got to know. Was he a frightening man? very
02:22:35
intimidating very much so threatening constantly with me. Michael Oak said the first time he
02:22:50
encountered Mark Stove was a real shock. It was around Memorial Day 2009. Michael
02:22:57
and Linda had been in a romantic relationship for about 9 months. I think it was a it was a weekday morning. I had
02:23:05
just dropped my kids off at school. Michael said he then made a stop at Costco and went in the store. When I came out,
02:23:14
he was standing by my car and because I had done research for Linda Optic some months previously. I'd seen a picture of
02:23:23
him. I immediately recognized him. Mark Stove is standing next to your car. next to my car in the park
02:23:29
in Kenowick, Washington, which is on the other side of the mountains from from where we are now.
02:23:34
Yes. The drive from Mark's home in Anacortis to this Costco in Kenowick, Washington
02:23:41
would have taken about 5 hours. Yet there he was, according to Michael, menacingly standing by Michael's car.
02:23:50
He's very icy, actually. He said that he had been listening to our calls and and
02:23:55
he knew all about me and he knew that I was in a relationship with Linda. He said his wife. He didn't say his
02:24:01
ex-wife. He said his wife. And he said that there was something of his that she wouldn't give back and that I was going
02:24:10
to get it for him. Michael couldn't remember if he said anything to Mark or if he just gave him
02:24:18
a confused look as he waited to hear Mark's demand. He said that Miss Updike would not give back their uh wedding
02:24:26
photo albums. And he said I was going to get them back for him. And then he went on to uh
02:24:35
he went on to describe what my daughters were wearing that morning, what they'd worn to school. and there's
02:24:42
no way he could have seen. But what did you realize at that moment? He had had been following us whole time
02:24:49
and uh he said that uh he he told me all the details of what they're wearing, their
02:24:55
backpack colors, everything. Michael said that Mark told him to bring the wedding photos to the Northgate Mall
02:25:04
in Seattle on July 14th, 2009. He said he agreed. Why didn't you at that moment simply look him in the eye
02:25:14
and say, "Mark Stove or whoever you are, get away from me. I don't ever want to speak to
02:25:21
you again. If you get anywhere near my children, I'll call the police." I'm not a confrontational person at all.
02:25:29
That's not my mode. I felt very much offbalance in that meeting. And I think it's one of those things where once I'm
02:25:37
driving away thinking I should have said this or I should have done that. There was something about him that was
02:25:42
chilling to me and I felt I kept trying to talk myself out of it. He can't be real. It can't be real. He has to be
02:25:52
fooling. Michael said at first he was going to call the police, but then decided against it, worried about
02:26:00
getting Linda involved. Did Michael tell you that Mark Stove approached him and demanded wedding
02:26:08
photos? No. Why wouldn't he share this vitally important information with you? My guess in knowing Michael is he really
02:26:17
did not want to stress me out more. Michael said that when July 14th rolled around, he went to meet Mark at the
02:26:26
Nordstrom store at the Northgate Mall, just as he said Mark demanded. Michael said that since he didn't tell
02:26:34
Linda about this meeting, he arrived empty-handed. No wedding photos. Michael said Mark got angry and scolded him.
02:26:44
What was his obsession with these wedding photos? Well, I I I'm not a psychologist. I'm
02:26:50
not a psychiatrist. It enraged him. I believe in retrospect that she chose not to continue the marriage with Mark Stove
02:27:00
to continued to do what he wanted and yet she retained something that he felt was part of him.
02:27:09
A couple of weeks later, Michael suggested to Linda that they leave and go on a trip out to Whitefish, Montana.
02:27:17
That's where Linda's father, Wally Updike, had a house. We were going to stay there and stayed
02:27:22
at their vacation home. In route to White Fish, Michael remembered making a stop so Linda could
02:27:31
take her dog for some exercise and he could pick up some snacks. But Michael said when he got in line to check out,
02:27:39
he spotted a familiar face standing near the front door. And I I'm in line minding my own business and look across
02:27:46
the way and I see Mr. Stover standing by the entrance to the store staring at me.
02:27:51
And what was that moment like for you? Very similar to the first time that I saw him. It's just a shock of
02:27:57
recognition in a place you don't expect to see somebody. Michael, why didn't you just say to him,
02:28:04
"You get away from me. If you get anywhere near me and Linda again, I'm calling the cops."
02:28:10
There's at least two reasons. One of them is I do know enough about protection to know that there's no way
02:28:20
for me to I mean this is why the president has so many people that protects him from potential threats. One
02:28:27
man cannot protect three children 24/7. And for any time that I could enrage or outrage Stove, it was putting a gun to
02:28:37
the head of my children in my opinion. You felt if you confronted Mark Stove, you'd be putting yourself in more danger
02:28:44
instead of dealing with the threat that he posed to you? Absolutely. And I'm certainly not the
02:28:49
first person to feel that way. By now, Michael said Mark's uncanny ability to find him and Linda wherever
02:28:57
they went made him realize Mark posed a real danger to his family. Mark Stove was remarkably sophisticated
02:29:05
in some ways. He had managed to penetrate Linda's computer prior to meeting me. He managed to tap a phone.
02:29:11
Uh follow finding us in Montana was impossible and I took tremendous steps not to be followed. And yet there he
02:29:18
was. How did he find us? By late September of 2009, Michael said that Mark demanded that they set up
02:29:28
another meeting after he and Linda were back from Montana. He was getting progressively less
02:29:35
patient with me. this time at a church in Anacortis. By now, Michael decided to wear his Kevlar vest to the meetings. He
02:29:45
said that he drove west across the state to the church parking lot not far from Mark's house and waited. Still unable to
02:29:54
find the wedding photos, Michael said he brought two pictures of Linda with her horse so Mark would have something to
02:30:02
look at. But Michael said he didn't show up and Michael felt helpless. And the thought of just at any given one
02:30:13
of these meetings that we had just telling him, I'm done. Take a hike and don't come looking for me. You know, and
02:30:20
every time the reality of knowing that there's no way I can keep my kids, myself, and Miss Optike safe if he
02:30:30
decides he's going to go for it, pulled me back from that brink. But were all these stories Michael was
02:30:37
telling me true? Some people who knew Michael well said he had a darker side to his personality, a potentially
02:30:46
violent side. During the course of our marriage, he told me that he was capable of killing without remorse.
02:30:55
[Music] Michael looks had a dual personality. He was a family man by day and tried to
02:31:08
live up his action hero persona in the background. That's Jennifer Thompson. She knows
02:31:14
Michael Oaks as well as anyone. Jennifer was his second wife. I talked to her in
02:31:20
2010. You know, we eloped. It wasn't a wedding. She said they were married when Michael
02:31:28
first met Linda. Jennifer said that she loved him, but that Michael had an insecure side.
02:31:35
Is he a tough guy? Well, no. An action hero kind of guy? No. He thinks he is. He he wanted to be
02:31:46
he wanted to be he idealized that he he read about it. He aspired to be that. According to Jennifer, Michael thought
02:31:56
part of being tough meant being armed. Michael Oaks was very infatuated with guns, weapons, and I think they made him
02:32:05
feel powerful, strong, capable. There was one book Jennifer said Michael referenced a lot. It's called Onkilling
02:32:14
and it's a book about the psychology of killing. The book examines how people learn to
02:32:23
kill in war. Jennifer said that Michael zeroed in on a part that described how one small sliver of the population could
02:32:33
be vicious. Michael Oaks told me that he was in the small percentage of people who could
02:32:38
kill without remorse. She said that over time, Michael's fascination with killing and his tough
02:32:45
guy persona rotted out their marriage. Michael had a really strong sense of righteousness and he believed that bad
02:32:56
people should be taken out so that the good people can not be harmed. Um, the problem is he decided who was bad and
02:33:06
who wasn't. And he felt that he had the right to just take a bad man out. And we
02:33:12
would argue about that. We argued about that for years. Uh, right and wrong. Can
02:33:16
you kill? Can you not kill? And it was a it was a point of contention in our marriage.
02:33:21
Jennifer told me that the final straw came when verbal tensions between them turned physically abusive. I remember
02:33:31
his hand coming up and slapping me across the face and I remember it very clearly and I was expecting
02:33:38
after feeling it I was expecting the oh my god I'm sorry oh my god and he didn't
02:33:43
he said get the out of my house and he chased me down the stairs and I could feel his breath on my neck and his body
02:33:51
behind me. It was horrible. It was horrible because I trusted him. I trusted him and he had never he had
02:34:00
been angry before. He had shown aggression before, never at me. [Music] Michael told us no one should believe
02:34:11
Jennifer's allegations against him. In July of 2008, a year after they tied the knot, Jennifer left with her two
02:34:20
biological kids. and I went to my mom's and I spent two weeks just took my kids at Disneyland,
02:34:27
went to the beach, just got away from it and then decided that I needed to get an
02:34:33
apartment somewhere cuz I couldn't go back to the house. On August 15th, he said, "If you can't give me a date that
02:34:41
you're coming back, we're done." And so he told me he wanted a divorce. Soon after, Michael Oaks and
02:34:50
Linda Updike set up their first in-person meeting. I think he's a very insecure man, and I
02:34:57
think that he musters up confidence really well. He's an excellent salesman. He's an excellent presenter of images.
02:35:06
As the fall of 2008 began, Jennifer faded from his life. As Michael, the action hero wannabe, now had a new woman
02:35:16
in his sights. And as Michael's relationship with Linda grew deeper, he said Linda's ex-husband Mark became
02:35:24
obsessed, constantly calling him on the phone, asking for meetings. By October 2009,
02:35:32
it's become very very clear to me that in my mistaken belief that I could appease or satisfy
02:35:42
Mark Stove, I did become yet another person who was doing exactly what Mark Stove wanted.
02:35:50
He had reached a fateful breaking point. I kept thinking if I can just This is the one thing he wants that Linda Opdike
02:35:58
won't give him. and if she just gives him what he wants, he'll leave us alone. Michael said the two men finally agreed
02:36:06
to meet again on October 24th, 2009 at that same church in Anacortis. There is surveillance video from Linda's
02:36:16
house showing Michael packing up his car to head out that day. It appeared that he was taking off for a
02:36:22
fairly serious journey. That's Lee Heron again, Mark's former private investigator. She examined the
02:36:29
video herself. He was loading a number of items into his car, including a rifle bag.
02:36:36
As Michael is packing, you can see Linda come out onto their deck. They touch hands and then Linda wraps her arms
02:36:45
around Michael. They share a long heartfelt embrace. The kind that suggested to me that something important
02:36:55
lay ahead. Something serious. Here's Lee again. The long passionate embrace that was
02:37:02
captured on Linda's surveillance cameras indicates that Michael Oaks thought of himself as the prince who was out to
02:37:09
slay the dragon, his perceived dragon for the damsel in distress. and his perceived dragon was Mark Stove.
02:37:17
Michael and Linda kissed and he drove away. Hours later, Michael claimed he came face to face with Mark Stove in
02:37:26
that church parking lot. He was extremely agitated, not cold and calculating, not controlled like that
02:37:32
first meeting. He was erratic. Michael said Stove once again demanded those wedding pictures.
02:37:43
So, did you give him those photo albums that he wanted? I never found them. Late that night, Michael is seen
02:37:50
returning to Linda's home. But is it possible this entire story was Ola Ruse for a failed murder attempt? Because 4
02:38:00
days later, at 2:30 a.m. on October 28th, Michael is again seen on surveillance video driving away from
02:38:10
Linda's house. This time, Michael said the two men would meet in private at Mark Stove's house in Anacortis.
02:38:20
Michael claimed that Mark had told him this was his last chance to turn over those damn wedding pictures.
02:38:28
It was put up or shut up time. But what really happened when they met remains a mystery. Only those who saw
02:38:36
the bloody aftermath can express what they felt. I can only describe it as evil,
02:38:44
something horrible, something terrible [Music] from 48 hours. This is trained to kill
02:38:57
the dog trainer, the aerys, and the bodyguard. Gadget 911. What's your emergency? Uh,
02:39:09
it's not an emergency, but um I need a sheriff to come out here to Summit Park Graange.
02:39:18
This is Tammy Gilden in Anacortis, Washington. She called 911 sometime before 11:50, the morning of October
02:39:27
28th, 2009, when she and her mother noticed a man trespassing behind the Grange Hall. It's an event facility
02:39:36
about half a mile from Mark Stover's house. I just saw one guy. Okay. Did you say anything to him?
02:39:44
Nope. I just backed up and pulled in front. Tammy noticed that the guy was at the
02:39:50
back of the property where no one should be parked. There's two vehicles are facing back to
02:39:56
back. One of those two vehicles was a white station wagon. The other was a black
02:40:02
SUV. They were transferring something back and forth or living back and forth or something.
02:40:07
What Tammy saw was both odd and disturbing. Whatever the object being transferred was, Tammy remembered it was
02:40:16
large and covered in plastic. My first thought was, "Oh, a body." I thought, "Oh, you know, you're reading a
02:40:23
murder mystery. You know, silly girl. You know, that's not a body." As they sat in their car at the front of
02:40:30
the property, Tammy and her mom waited for a deputy to arrive. Tammy said the stranger got into the black SUV, leaving
02:40:38
the station wagon behind. I didn't see his face headon when we first pulled in. Uh, I saw him when he
02:40:47
pulled next to us to leave. He drove right up next to their car before stepping on the gas and speeding
02:40:54
away. We were scrambling to find pen and paper and write the license plate number down.
02:41:02
Tammy called the sheriff again. Dispatch, can I help you? Yeah. Hi. Um, I called about meeting the
02:41:09
sheriff at They gave the dispatcher the license plate number and a description of the
02:41:14
trespasser's car. It's a black SUV. Which direction did it leave? He turned on Stevenson. He turned uh
02:41:22
west on Stevenson. He was driving toward downtown Anacortis. Minutes later, Scadget County Sheriff's
02:41:35
Deputy Rick Du Hame arrived and checked out the station wagon and then went looking for the black SUV.
02:41:43
It didn't take long. I noticed the license number matched the piece of paper that the reporting party
02:41:50
had given me. I turned around in the vehicle, made a traffic stop. The deputy went up to the car window.
02:41:56
It was raining. He had sunglasses on, which is unusual. He was extremely nervous.
02:42:02
Deputy Dame asked the man who was hiding his eyes for an ID. He didn't listen to the question and
02:42:09
then repeated my question to me. So, he wasn't tracking the conversation we were
02:42:14
having. The deputy explained that he pulled the driver over for trespassing. His story
02:42:20
was he was headed to the casino which is down the road. During the conversation, the deputy
02:42:30
noticed that the driver had some dog hair on his clothing and he noticed a big bundle of blankets in the back of
02:42:36
the SUV. He didn't think much of it. This just so happened to be the same morning that Mark Stover's employees
02:42:47
reported seeing their boss tear out of his driveway in his white Chevy station wagon. And this traffic stop was just a
02:42:55
few hours later. No one yet knew Mark was missing. The deputy took the driver's ID
02:43:04
and went back to my patrol car, ran a driver's check on him, made sure that the car was registered to him.
02:43:11
I pulled over Michael Oaks and the bundle of blankets in the back. Only later would he learn that was
02:43:18
Mark's dead body. The whole case took off. I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is
02:43:25
Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode 4, The Bundle in the Back.
02:43:37
After the sheriff's deputy let Michael Oaks drive away with just a warning, Michael made a phone call, but not to
02:43:45
his girlfriend, Linda Updike. It was out of It was unexpected. It was out of the blue. It wasn't
02:43:52
pre-coordinated. It was to his ex-wife, Jennifer Thompson. She lived in Everett,
02:43:58
Washington, about an hour south of Anacortis. We spoke in 2010. And he said, "Hey, I am available this
02:44:07
afternoon. I'm in your area. Are you available?" I said, "Actually, yeah, I I am." And he said, "Well, do you want to
02:44:14
meet up?" I said, "Sure." Although they had been separated for about a year, Michael and Jennifer
02:44:21
started talking again. She had emailed him just a few weeks earlier. I had entered a relationship with someone and
02:44:30
it made me really reflect on my situation with Michael because I can't say I didn't love him anymore. I
02:44:37
was healing and moving forward, but I it's not just done. And so I emailed him and said, "I've met someone. I'm
02:44:46
entering this relationship. Are you sure? Are you still sure?" before she started something new.
02:44:55
Jennifer wanted to know if her marriage to Michael was really over. We had a pretty amazing relationship.
02:45:02
Yeah, it had a lot of brokenness in it, but I don't know. Are you absolutely 100%.
02:45:10
Had he said, "Yep, I'm sure." I would have said, "Okay, carry on and move forward." But he didn't say that and he
02:45:19
wrote back, "No, I'm not." This is October 2009, right? When Linda Updike and Michael Oaks have
02:45:27
become a couple and what we've been told is they're deeply in love. He's telling
02:45:31
you something else. He's telling you that in his mind it may not be over. Yeah. Your relationship with him.
02:45:38
And I actually he told me that he didn't love her. Um I I can't say what's true and what isn't.
02:45:46
I don't know. But what he told me was that it wasn't it wasn't like us. It it was a convenience. They were partners.
02:45:56
Like they each had things that the other needed. [Music] So when Michael called her that October
02:46:05
morning, Jennifer agreed to meet him at a Starbucks. And he looked very disheveled and frumpy, like just kind of
02:46:14
hair was poofy and clothes untucked, which is different because he's usually very meticulous and neat and tidy,
02:46:21
tucked in, belt, you know, that kind of thing. They sat together at a table in the
02:46:26
corner of the coffee shop. We kind of have some general chitchat. And then he says, "Hey,
02:46:33
you know there's a beach around here?" And I said, "Well, it's Everett. It's a port. It's not very pretty though. What
02:46:40
are you looking for? She suggested a beach they could go to. Says, "Sure, that sounds good." He says,
02:46:46
"I have some time." He said, "But my car is really full. There's no room for you,
02:46:51
so I'll just follow you." It's fine. Jennifer noticed that Michael parked far away from her and that his vehicle was
02:46:59
caked in mud. Well, the way there was very strange because he was driving so carefully,
02:47:09
laying low, trying not to draw attention to himself. And this is a man that flips
02:47:13
a U-turn when it's convenient for him, even if it's illegal. She said when they arrived at the beach,
02:47:21
she watched him fumble with things in his car. Michael suggested the two of them go for a walk.
02:47:28
Did he seem nervous? No. At this time, he seemed very calm, but the tension was so thick. The unspoken
02:47:37
was so loud. And I felt I don't know. I It was really, really a strange cuz he and I have very easy, breezy
02:47:45
conversations. So, it was very weird. It was very uncomfortable. Then, when they finished their walk, she
02:47:51
said they each decided to stop at the bathroom before they left. And so I went in, he went in, and I came out and he
02:47:59
was still in there. He was in there for a long time, and I sat on a picnic bench and just
02:48:04
waited, waited, and he came out and he was just distraught. Something happened while he
02:48:12
was in there. He came out and his entire demeanor completely changed. And so he he looks upset.
02:48:20
He looks stressed out, like he's freaking out. He's just noticeably agitated. and not okay.
02:48:27
What does he say to you? I said, "Are you okay?" And he said, "No, I think I'm in trouble." And I
02:48:34
said, "Real trouble or like perceived trouble?" And he said, "Like 10 to 15 years felony trouble."
02:48:42
Knowing that Michael could be over the top, Jennifer didn't know whether to take him seriously.
02:48:48
I also know this man to be very melodramatic. So, I'm trying to assess him. I'm reading him and looking at him
02:48:56
and I'm saying I'm thinking in my head, is this real? Is this not? At that point, he's sitting in my
02:49:06
passenger seat and I was in the driver's seat and he was very noticeably agitated, rubbing his temples and his
02:49:12
hair, his fingers through his hair and um really vigilant, watching around, real paranoid, freaking out at
02:49:18
looking out the windows. Yeah. At one point a patrolman had come by and he really really went crazy and
02:49:26
he said, "I feel like they know like they" and I said, "They don't know anything. You're just a guy sitting in a
02:49:31
car in a parking lot." He says, "You're right. It's just that guilty conscious thing." And
02:49:36
did you not say right then? They know what? I No, I didn't. I probably didn't want
02:49:42
to know because if it was real, I didn't want to know. And if it was being dramatic, I didn't need to know.
02:49:48
Then Michael said something even more unsettling. He made reference to if he was to be
02:49:54
pulled over, he was just trying to get out of this area. And if he had been pulled over and law enforcement had seen
02:50:00
what was inside his car, he'd go away for life. After that disturbing comment, Michael
02:50:05
got out of her car into his and drove away. I think the part that disturbs me the
02:50:12
most on my part of it is when we parted ways that day, kissed him on the cheek. And that haunts me cuz he had a body in
02:50:25
that car. Michael left Jennifer. He drove back up to Anacortis, then drove more than 250
02:50:35
mi, crossing the Cascade Mountain Range for a second time in the same day. That night, he returned to Linda Updike's
02:50:44
house. From Linda's home surveillance camera, you can see Michael arrive just after 11:30 p.m.
02:50:52
On a different camera, you can see Linda in a bathrobe come out to welcome him home. Their reunion would prove short.
02:51:09
On the evening of October 29th, 2009, the day after Mark Stove went missing, Sergeant Jean Davis with the Okonogan
02:51:19
Sheriff's Office got a call. We talked in 2010. I checked into service around 6:00 and
02:51:27
received a call from Detective Meyers with Scadget County um Sheriff's Department advising that um they're
02:51:33
working on a missing person case. Mark Stove. Sergeant Davis knew the name Mark Stove well. Months before he had
02:51:41
suggested Linda Updike get a protective order against Mark. He also had offered to help train her dog to attack. And I
02:51:50
told Detective Myers, um, "Yeah, I know Linda, known Linda very well, and I know
02:51:55
Oaks very well." Detective Meyers then told Sergeant Davis that they had a lead concerning
02:52:02
Mark Stover's disappearance. The lead included a familiar name. Somehow Oaks, Michael Oaks, got involved
02:52:11
in this. So, I uh initially heard this information and I placed a call to uh Dave, Chief Rodriguez, to let him know
02:52:19
what was going on. He didn't answer. Simultaneously, Linda calls me and she's pretty
02:52:27
agitated, somewhat frantic, actually. This is Dave Rodriguez. Back in 2010, he was a chief deputy with the Okonogan
02:52:36
Sheriff's Office. She said um an employee of Stover had just called her and said that the police were there,
02:52:47
that Mark is missing, there's blood at the scene, and the dog's been shot. And she's very frantic
02:52:55
and she's saying, "We're not sure what's going on, and we've not ruled out the possibility that some type of violence
02:53:04
happened at his house by him. not onto him and he's now he's snapped and he's coming over here.
02:53:13
So, Linda is thinking she may be next. This is what she's conveying to me anyhow. And I said, "Uh, are you there
02:53:20
by yourself?" And she said, "No, that uh Oaks was there." And I said, "Well, you
02:53:26
should be fine, but if you don't, maybe you guys should uh leave the house and go stay with uh your mother or somewhere
02:53:34
else." So, if that's a good idea, um, that's what we're going to do. Sergeant Davis and Deputy Rodriguez
02:53:43
drove to Linda's place separately, unsure of what they were heading into. It's 7:00 at night and it was uh, almost
02:53:52
a typical fall, foggy, wintry, not winintry yet, but it was starting to mist dark night.
02:54:00
Both investigators were familiar with Linda's house. So, we drove up to the house and
02:54:07
normally when we were going there to train with her dog, her camera system or possibly a sensor would say someone's
02:54:15
coming up the driveway, she would always be out on the outside on the deck or whatever.
02:54:23
[Music] Instead of that usual warm welcome, the front door stayed closed. This visit to
02:54:30
Linda's would clearly be different. I used my spotlight, my high beams to, you know, if they came out, they'd be
02:54:37
blinded. I tried calling her on the phone and um no answer yet. Her car was there. Oak's
02:54:44
car was there. Lights were on. No answer. The deputies pulled in and parked. I'm like, we're going to have to go.
02:54:52
Maybe something has happened now. Maybe Sto did come to the house in between the
02:54:56
time that I talked to her. So, we need to go to the house. So, we go and knock on the door.
02:55:02
Linda answered the door and invited them inside. She seemed a little surprised that we
02:55:09
were there because I didn't you know last I talked to her I said I recommend you pack some bags and go stay with
02:55:16
somebody else. So I don't I think she found that uh a little surprising that we showed up. But I mean other than that
02:55:24
nothing unusual. Invited us in. Initially, we didn't see Michael Oaks, but as we walked in the living room, he
02:55:31
was walking up the stairs from a lower level. The deputies told Michael to sit on the
02:55:38
couch. This was after they searched between the cushions for any weapons. I I know Michael and and Linda were are
02:55:48
into guns, and I asked if he was armed, and he said he was, and I removed a a 9mm pistol from him.
02:55:56
And at that point, um, we go into more of the questioning. Was Linda armed as well?
02:56:03
No, she was not. Linda was in a chair nearby. Even though Michael wasn't under arrest, he was
02:56:10
clearly a person of interest in this case, having been in Anacortis on the day Mark Stove disappeared. Sergeant
02:56:18
Davis said they read Michael his Miranda rights just in case he said something that could be admissible in court.
02:56:26
And we point out that we we're here on a task from Scadget County to find out if
02:56:33
you were here because your car was seen in the area of Stover's residence at this particular time. And I as flat
02:56:42
asked him, "What were you doing over there?" And that's when he said, "Oh, I was over there. I was visiting my um
02:56:48
ex-wife." Chief Deputy Rodriguez noticed how distraught Linda became when Michael
02:56:55
said that he made the trip to see his ex-wife Jennifer. So, actually, in my mind is, oh, Oaks
02:57:02
just got caught messing around with his ex-wife and now current girlfriend just found out about it.
02:57:08
He said Linda left the room crying. Sergeant Davis went after her. She kept on asking me, "I don't know
02:57:16
what's going on here. What's going on here?" You know, she asked, "Jean, what's going on? I I'm so confused. I
02:57:21
don't know what's going on here." Numerous times to me. Back in the living room, Chief Deputy
02:57:28
Rodriguez continued to press Michael for an answer about why he went to visit his
02:57:34
ex-wife. Then he started to get pretty agitated and he's looking around and he goes,
02:57:41
"Can I get up to find my medication?" And we didn't have probable cause to have him under arrest. And um I said,
02:57:49
"Yeah, you're not under arrest. You can get up." So he's now looking around in the living room for his medication.
02:57:55
Kind of strange, isn't it? It is. Now, Jean actually, Sergeant Davis, then I believe got the call from
02:58:03
Scadget County, but in her house, like a lot of places up here, you don't get cell signal. He had to go out on the
02:58:10
deck to actually get cell signal. So, he's running around. I'm trying to keep an eye on him while he's looking for his
02:58:16
medication. And then Linda comes out of the back room and asks me something and which diverted my attention briefly.
02:58:25
And then when I looked back for Oaks, he had ran down went down the stairs that he had come up when we initially got
02:58:30
there. Where'd he go? He went downstairs. So I said, "Linda, he he's got to be at least he's not
02:58:37
under arrest, but he has to be within my sight." Outside on the deck, Sergeant Davis was
02:58:42
getting new information from Scadget County. They advised that um they had a search
02:58:47
warrant signed and for us to take Oaks's vehicle. When I was outside, I something
02:58:53
caught my attention by Oaks's vehicle. Um, I see Oaks open the back hatch, reach inside, and take out a plastic
02:59:01
bag. Appears to be like a garbage bag. When Sergeant Davis saw this happen, alarm bells started to go off in his
02:59:08
mind. Why was Michael even outside? And what did he just remove from his car? [Music]
02:59:25
Michael Oaks had just taken something out of his car, but the darkness and mist made it tough to see. Sergeant Jean
02:59:33
Davis spotted Michael while outside talking on the phone. So, I sneak down to him. I light him up
02:59:39
with my flashlight and right when I hit him with beam of my light, the plastic bag, he throws it over an embankment and
02:59:45
he starts going into the front of his car. I grab grab him, ask him what he's doing. You know, he's really agitated,
02:59:53
nervous at this point. I'm looking for medicine and then he goes right into it. He goes, "Why are you giving me the
02:59:57
third degree? Why are you treating me like a suspect?" I said, "Well, you're acting suspicious." And at that point, I
03:00:03
take control of Michael Oaks and escort him back into the house. Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez was inside with Linda
03:00:11
when Sergeant Davis brought Michael back. So he walks in with Oaks. What do you say to the sergeant?
03:00:20
Sergeant said to me what he just saw Oaks doing. And to me that just threw the switch.
03:00:27
Since he knew them well, he felt that he needed to reinforce to Michael that he was no longer a friend. You're now the
03:00:36
suspect and I'm the deputy. Sit down on that couch. We got the second call from Scadget County that says, "We have
03:00:43
probable cause. Put him under arrest." Sergeant Davis put on the handcuffs. And at that point, he looked at Linda
03:00:51
again and said, "It's going to be okay, babe." Linda broke down. She was crying even more now. She was
03:00:59
basically hysterical at this point, sobbing. couldn't even make out the words that she was saying. Um, she was
03:01:05
completely emotional wreck at this time. After he put Michael in the back of his
03:01:12
car, Sergeant Davis walked out to grab whatever Michael had thrown down that embankment.
03:01:20
Once he's secured in the back of my car, I go and secure um the garbage. It's a basically is a Walmart garbage sack,
03:01:26
white garbage sack tied up. I How far away from the car was it? Uh it was probably 20 ft down an embankment um
03:01:33
from the car and then I secure it and secured in in the floorboard of my front passenger of my vehicle.
03:01:39
He didn't open the bag. Sergeant Davis didn't want to risk spoiling the evidence, but he said that whatever was
03:01:47
inside was heavy. And after several minutes in my car, I started up smelling a bleach smell. A
03:01:54
strong odor of bleach. You smelled a strong odor of bleach coming from what was ever inside that
03:02:00
bag? Yes. Scadget County deputies arrived later that night to search Michael's SUV and
03:02:07
Sergeant Davis gave them that unopened garbage bag. They they checked it after the warrant
03:02:14
and discovered a firearm and um and what the rags and whatnot. What was in the bag?
03:02:21
What kind of gun? It was a 22 pistol. 22 caliber. Yes. But when they searched Michael's
03:02:28
vehicle, there was no bundle of blankets. Investigators kept searching for Mark Stove's body.
03:02:35
Scadget County Sheriff's Office asked us to check any probable locations where a
03:02:40
body may be dumped in water. And as they gathered the evidence, Michael Oaks's story seemed more and
03:02:47
more unbelievable. So, what are you telling me? You shot Mark Stove in self-defense.
03:02:56
Absolutely [Music] from 48 hours. This is Train to Kill. Did you set out on the morning of
03:03:20
October 28th, 2009 to murder Mark Stove? I most certainly did not. In the wee hours of October 28th, 2009,
03:03:31
Michael Oaks was seen on Linda Updike's surveillance footage getting in his SUV and leaving.
03:03:39
Why were you going to Stover's house at 2:30 in the morning? I was driving there to be there at a
03:03:44
pre-arranged time. a time set and demanded by Mark Stove himself. And what did he say the purpose of this
03:03:52
visit was going to be? It was put up or shut up time. I was supposed to have obtained the wedding
03:04:00
pictures that up till then I could not find and I was supposed to deliver them to him or else.
03:04:07
And the else is what? My children were frequently mentioned as the else. So, I sent my children to stay
03:04:14
with my my parents in case it didn't go well. As Michael told it, Mark instructed him
03:04:21
to park about a/4 mile away from his house at the same church where they had met 4 days before.
03:04:29
Why didn't Jesus say, "No, I'm not going to park there. I'm going to drive up to
03:04:32
your home. This is this really sounds bizarre." It certainly did sound bizarre, and I
03:04:37
certainly was frightened, but we're back to that same situation. either it's everything or it's nothing. And if it's
03:04:44
nothing, it means that I have to scoop up my children and honestly uh flee to a foreign country or or something because
03:04:52
they're just was no safety inside any area that Mark Stove could find us. Michael said he did as he was told,
03:05:03
walked to Mark's and was greeted at the front door by Mark along with his specially trained attack dog, Ding.
03:05:13
From there, Michael described Mark leading him through the living room, down the hallway, and oddly into the
03:05:21
bathroom. That's where he claimed Mark confronted him once again with his neverending
03:05:29
obsession with those wedding photos. And uh I went to his house and told him that I couldn't get the pictures
03:05:39
that I'd gone through her safe and they weren't in her safe and they weren't in her house and I presumed that she had
03:05:44
destroyed them. And what did Mark Stove say to that? He didn't say much. Instead, Michael
03:05:51
claimed Mark suddenly turned around and walked away. He was so agitated or erratic that he had he broke off in
03:06:01
mid-con conversation. Michael said when Mark returned, he raised a gun he was holding in his left
03:06:10
hand. The long and the short of it was moments later, I was shot in the chest. [Music]
03:06:22
But Michael had prepared for this moment. As a self-described security expert, Michael said he was wearing a
03:06:30
bulletproof vest that allowed him to safely take the hit to the chest. He said he then quickly lunged at Mark,
03:06:38
grabbed the gun, and returned fire. He started a gunfight and I won. But the fight wasn't completely over. As Michael
03:06:49
exited the house, he said Mark's dog, Ding, attacked. The dog came at me and um I had to shoot
03:06:57
the dog and I stopped shooting as soon as it stopped trying to bite me. So, what are you telling me? You shot
03:07:04
Mark Stove in self-defense? Absolutely. But detectives on the case soon came to a very different conclusion about what
03:07:16
happened that morning. This is not a case of self-defense. This is a case of coldblooded murder.
03:07:25
I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode 5. Put
03:07:37
up or shut up. I want the truth for Michael Oaks as to what really occurred on that day,
03:07:51
October 28th, 2009. This is Detective Dan Louvera with the Scatch County Sheriff's Office. Now
03:08:00
retired, Louvera said he spent nearly 2,500 hours investigating Mark Stover's killing.
03:08:09
We were a small department and we only have five detectives. Lou Vera thought major parts of
03:08:16
Michael's story simply weren't true. That included the meetings over the months that Michael described having
03:08:24
with Mark Stove. Michael Oaks claims he met with Mark Stove at the Northgate shopping mall in
03:08:32
Seattle. Do you believe that meeting occurred? No, not at all. He he claims he met with Mark Stove at a
03:08:38
church parking lot in Anacortis. Do you believe that happened? No, not at all. He claims uh Mark Stove comes out of a
03:08:45
Costco in Kenowick, Washington, and and basically has a threatening conversation. Do you believe that
03:08:51
happened? No. You think this is all made up? I do. [Music] I first met Detective Loua at Mark's
03:09:01
house back in 2010. He was a sharp detective who was meticulous and tried not to leave any stone unturned.
03:09:11
And we're almost a year to the day when this murder occurred. It was dusk as we started the interview.
03:09:19
Soon it would be dark, just as it was when Michael said he arrived that morning.
03:09:27
[Applause] Lou Vera brought a big flashlight to show us the crime scene. Michael Oak
03:09:35
says he walked right up the uh front way steps here. First, we went through what Michael Oaks
03:09:43
said happened. He knocks on the door. Mark Stove answers the door. Mark lets him in.
03:09:50
Loua and I went inside. Mark's place was like a high-end cabin with dark wood floors and exposed oak beams. He said
03:10:01
Michael claimed that Mark brought him into that bathroom and then left before coming back with a gun.
03:10:11
Mark Stover comes around the corner where I'm standing right now. Where you're standing right there right
03:10:15
now. He says Mark Stoer came around the corner, fired one shot, boom, right into Michael Oaks's ballistic
03:10:23
vest. It's then, Michael said, he grabbed the gun from Mark's left hand and fired back at pointlank range,
03:10:31
killing him. The whole thing doesn't make sense. After he told me Michael's version, Loua
03:10:37
then broke down for me why the evidence doesn't match Michael's story. First, he
03:10:44
said investigators discovered that on October 28th, 2009, Michael didn't drive directly to
03:10:51
Anacortis from Linda's house. Louver said Michael drove west for nearly 3 hours before he made a pit stop. We have
03:11:01
him on surveillance tape at a local Walmart store here in Mount Vernon at approximately 5:30 in the morning.
03:11:07
What did he buy? Michael Oaks bought anchor line, anchor weights. He bought camo pants, camo sweatshirt,
03:11:17
and a backpack. Camouflage clothing. Camouflage. Kind of an odd eclectic bunch of stuff,
03:11:25
isn't it? Yes. Loua believed Michael bought those items not to have a talk with Mark Stove, but
03:11:32
to hide evidence of a murder. I believe that he bought those items to uh dispose of Mark's body.
03:11:45
Interestingly, Louvera said Michael also purchased a pair of soccer shin guards.
03:11:51
The reason he bought those is that he knew Mark Stove had his dog, Ding, and that Ding was uh trained as a protection
03:11:58
dog. Louvera said after his Walmart shopping, Michael headed to Anacortis. Michael
03:12:05
Oak's car arrives in the area of Mark Stover's house uh sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m.
03:12:12
in the morning. It would still be dark. Loua then demonstrated for us what he thought actually happened at Mark's
03:12:21
house that morning. I think he came up the right hand side of his driveway right here.
03:12:30
You can see the tree lines, fence lines. He could have easy concealment. It's dark out. I think as he's in the
03:12:38
area of the kennels right here. The dogs are barking. They sense someone or something on the
03:12:47
property. Mark was uh probably alerted to the dogs barking at the kennel. Sense something
03:12:53
was wrong. Loua thought a worried Mark then led Ding out of the house to confront
03:13:00
whoever or whatever was out there in the darkness. And I think uh the the dog was
03:13:06
shot right away. Ding starts to yelp. Mark hears Ding yelping. Mark comes out probably on the carport
03:13:20
door porch there or maybe out in the driveway. where Michael Oaks encounters Mark
03:13:27
Stove. It's during that encounter that Lou Vera believes Michael Oaks first shot Mark
03:13:34
Stover. Spent shell casings were found outside. I believe Mark Stove was probably shot
03:13:41
just right in this area where we're standing right here. It's the first time I think he was shot several times. And
03:13:47
the first time he was shot, he probably uh started to retreat back to his residence. Loua believed Mark only made
03:13:55
it as far as the hallway just inside the door leading from the carport. And Michael likely fired again and finished
03:14:04
Mark off with one final shot. There was blood splatters on the wall here, on the wall here. When you come
03:14:15
into Mark's house through the carport door, immediately on your right is that bathroom. This is where in Michael's
03:14:24
dramatic telling, he said Mark shot him in the chest, a bullet stopped by a bulletproof vest. Michael said he
03:14:33
wrestled the gun away from Mark and shot him dead, but Lou Vera is skeptical. It's too unbelievable that he could get
03:14:43
shot in the vest, lunge at Stover, grab his hand, twist it, and shoot Stover and take him down. He's
03:14:55
going to back up or he's going to grab his chest as a normal reaction of somebody being shot. But he doesn't say
03:15:04
that. He says he immediately goes into a defensive mode and grabs Mark Stove's hand and gun. Twists,
03:15:16
shoots, fires. Mark Stove falls. [Music] Loua believed Michael cleaned up the bloody scene at Mark's house with bleach
03:15:31
and put on Mark's trademark hat just in case anyone saw him leave in Mark's station wagon.
03:15:39
Investigators suspected the driver seen speeding down the driveway was Michael with Mark's body in the back and that
03:15:49
Michael then moved Mark's body from the station wagon to his SUV. Later, Loua said Michael's plan worked, fooling
03:16:00
employee Stephanie Poor. I saw who I thought was Mark going into the house and coming out of the house
03:16:09
putting stuff in the back of the hatch. What made you think it was Mark? Because it was his hat and his jacket.
03:16:17
And why wouldn't I think it was Mark? Michael would continue to cover his tracks. But how long would he be able to
03:16:25
evade authorities? After Michael left Mark's house at around 10 that morning, he was seen
03:16:44
stopping at a store where for some reason he bought a pair of bolt cutters. And then a couple of hours later, just
03:16:52
before noon, that's when Tammy Gilden made that call to report a trespasser. Gadget 911. What's your emergency?
03:17:02
Uh, it's not an emergency, but um I need a sheriff to come out here to Summit Park Graange.
03:17:08
She told me it seemed like the man was moving what looked like a body. That was huge. They had no idea what was
03:17:16
going on. They just happened to see two vehicles parked behind the Grange. Then at around 12:30, we now know that
03:17:23
Michael was pulled over in Anacortis, Washington by that Scadget County Sheriff's Deputy.
03:17:30
Knowing what we know today, what was in Oak's vehicle when he was pulled over? Mark Stoer's body,
03:17:39
it was in the back. Yes. Louvera said, "From there, Michael left Anacortis to go meet with his ex-wife,
03:17:52
Jennifer Thompson. She already told us how they met at a Starbucks, went to the beach, and how before long she realized
03:18:02
Michael had a body with him that day." Investigators said Michael left Jennifer at about 400 p.m. returned the bolt
03:18:11
cutters to that store and drove back east over the Cascade Mountains to Linda's house.
03:18:19
It's a rugged two-lane uh highway that leads through very rural areas of Okonogan and Scaja County.
03:18:32
Surveillance video showed Michael arriving at Linda's at about 11:30 that night. He parked his SUV.
03:18:41
I asked Michael about the evidence they found inside that vehicle. Mark Stove's blood is in your vehicle.
03:18:50
How did it get there? Well, it got there because because he was there. Michael then left again. Where he went
03:19:02
and what he did is unknown. He returned about 30 minutes later. It was the end of a very long day. A
03:19:13
long day that police later learned may have been months in the making. This is the statement of Jennifer L.
03:19:23
Thompson. The date is now 10:30, 2009. The time is now 2200 hours. 2 days after Mark's disappearance, the
03:19:36
Scatcha County Sheriff's investigators question Michael's second wife, Jennifer Thompson. There is some noise in the
03:19:44
background since they are recording at her home. This is Chief Will Reichart. I'm just going to ask you to go over
03:19:51
some of the things that we had already talked about so that it's on the it's on the record. The first thing they wanted
03:19:57
on the record was concerning a call Jennifer claimed Michael received back when they were still married. About May
03:20:05
2008, he told me that there was a potential job coming up that he was interested in taking um about a a woman
03:20:13
and an ex-spouse that was harassing her. If true, that woman could only have been
03:20:19
Linda Updike. Jennifer said Michael then revealed details of a sinister plan. They would basically use Linda as sort
03:20:32
of bait to lure the um expouse toward her. Once Mark Stove was fooled into threatening Linda, Jennifer claimed the
03:20:42
plan was to violently end that threat. They would take him out. Okay. And by taking him out, you
03:20:49
understood that to be they would they would kill him, right? And you mentioned that that didn't
03:20:54
really sit too well with you. Bothered you that he was contemplating doing something like this.
03:21:00
Yeah, we had um you know, mortgage, family, house, kids kind of thing. And I I said, "This isn't good. It's a good
03:21:08
thing for you to be doing." And we had a a big fight about it, big argument. Jennifer claimed that it was after this
03:21:16
bitter argument their marriage quickly fell apart. Eventually, I left the home in July of
03:21:23
2008 for separation. One month later, she said Michael told her that he wanted a divorce. In
03:21:32
January of 2009, our divorce became final and we pretty much stopped contact. But then in October of 2009,
03:21:41
Jennifer reached out to Michael. She wanted to give him one last chance to reconcile.
03:21:48
We still had this intensity together. And so it was just an email of, "Are you sure? Are you sure? Her instead of me,"
03:21:57
Jennifer said after a few emails between them, Michael wrote that he'd soon be on
03:22:02
the west side of the mountains and suggested they meet. This was October 24th, which is the same day Michael said
03:22:11
he met Mark Stove at that church in Anacortis. They just said he was here on a job, a
03:22:19
sign job, and I knew what that meant, but I didn't ask for specifics. Did he say that that job was going to be
03:22:27
particularly dangerous or did he He did when he was leaving here. He said he was going on and um that there was
03:22:33
risk involved, possible injury to himself. Um that it was fairly dangerous. Michael told me that he showed up to
03:22:45
that October 24th meeting without the wedding photos and that Mark demanded Michael return later in the week. The
03:22:54
following day, Michael messaged Jennifer. He texted me and said, "Um, job failed.
03:23:01
I'm okay. No payill." 3 days after that October 25th message, on the same day Mark was killed, Michael
03:23:13
and Jennifer met again, the day that they met at that Starbucks. When Michael mentioned that he was afraid of getting
03:23:21
arrested, he was really concerned about getting pulled over with the things in his
03:23:26
vehicle. Um, he wanted to get them home and get them sterilized. And he said, "If anyone sees this now, I'm going in
03:23:34
right away." Uh, by going in meaning he would be arrested right away. He felt if somebody saw what
03:23:40
was in his vehicle. Mhm. But there was one final interaction with police that convinced Jennifer that
03:23:50
Michael was the hunter in all of this. [Music] A month after Jennifer was questioned,
03:24:05
the detectives came back to her house. They wanted Jennifer to listen to a CD. She told me her reaction after hearing
03:24:13
the anonymous tipster's voice telling the 911 operator about a drug deal involving Mark Stove.
03:24:21
There's going to be a a van transporting some drugs from uh in the Cortis area. My first thought was um what an idiot.
03:24:32
Jennifer instantly recognized the voice. I knew it was him. How do you know it's him?
03:24:38
I was married to him. I know how he talks. Michael's voice of his disguise, but it was his speech pattern and and it
03:24:44
was it was him. It was devastating for her. Everything she had suspected suddenly clicked
03:24:52
because in that moment I knew it was all premeditated. Jennifer thought back to that job
03:24:56
Michael mentioned and remembered something else Michael told her. Something he said on the day Mark Stove
03:25:04
was shot. He said that the people that were helping him, and I had the impression that there were two, but I
03:25:10
don't know that that was stated. People that were helping him were no longer helping him, and he was on his own. No
03:25:16
one was going to help him. So, who could be helping Michael? Well, when Jennifer was being questioned by
03:25:27
detectives in those early days after the murder, she shared an intriguing detail.
03:25:34
The father of the woman was initiating the job. [Music] That would be multi-millionaire business
03:25:49
tycoon Wally Updike, Linda's father. Later, when I got to sit down with Jennifer, she explained this further.
03:25:59
Wally Optike wanted to hire a Michael Oaks to take out the ex-husband that was stalking his daughter, Linda.
03:26:06
Simple as that. Simple as that. Do you believe that Linda Updike is involved in this? That she either
03:26:15
paid or manipulated Michael to kill? I don't believe she manipulated because he's too smart for that. But I do
03:26:22
believe that they served each other's needs. Meaning I think she's as guilty as he is.
03:26:35
Jennifer's testimony to police suggested that Mark's murder was a premeditated hired hit. In our interviews, Linda and
03:26:45
Michael both denied that her father had anything to do with Mark's death. I believe that
03:26:55
she knows more than what she's saying and what she's telling. Detective Dan Laa never called Linda
03:27:02
Updike a suspect, but he has always wondered if she was involved. How would Michael Oaks know that Mark
03:27:12
Stove always wore a hat and wore an overcoat driving a car? Through Linda. Linda was was his basis
03:27:23
of information. Linda had knowledge. She had direct knowledge. You know, she was
03:27:27
married to Mark. Um she she knew him best. When I spoke to Michael, he told me that
03:27:37
he just spontaneously put on the hat after he spotted it in Mark's car that morning.
03:27:44
There was a pair of glasses and a cap or a hat sitting on the seat. And when I sat down, I had to move the
03:27:53
hat. I put it on my head and thought, "This shall probably do for getting down the driveway."
03:28:00
And that's all there was to that. It didn't have anything to do with anybody but the moment.
03:28:07
You're telling me you just decided to put this hat on? You hadn't been told by Linda that that's a hat that Mark Stove
03:28:16
would wear? No, I've seen I'd seen two or three pictures of Mark Stove. Detective Livera told me that he wanted
03:28:23
to ask Linda about this and many other aspects of the case. Have you received cooperation from Linda
03:28:32
Updike? No. As is common in a case like this, Linda and her father, Wally Updike,
03:28:39
hired lawyers after Michael was arrested. She won't sit down and talk to you. She won't sit down and talk to us.
03:28:46
She's lawyered up. She's lawyered up. While Linda declined to take questions from Louvera, she was willing to answer
03:28:53
mine. Investigators believe that you must have given Michael details of Mark Stover's
03:29:04
life that would aid him in attacking Mark Stove, knowing when he got up, what hat
03:29:10
he wore during the day, what car he drove with the dogs. What do you say to that?
03:29:16
That's simply not true. I had no interaction or contact with Mark for since the protection order was issued.
03:29:25
It's not something I wanted to have any involvement with Mark. Uh there again, I
03:29:31
I wanted no harm or anything to happen to Mark. I just wanted to go on with my life with Michael and I wanted Mark to
03:29:39
go on with his life. In other words, did you brief Michael Oaks on the intricacies of Mark Stover's
03:29:46
life? right down to the hat that he liked to wear during the day to aid him in an assassination.
03:29:54
Of course not. The suggestion is out there. Did your father have anything to do with
03:30:03
the killing of Mark Stove? Absolutely not. Both Linda and Michael refused to answer
03:30:11
most of the authorities questions until they took the stand at trial. There was, of course, one big question
03:30:20
Michael still had not answered. What did you do with Mark Stove's body? I think that probably
03:30:29
the nitty-g gritties on that. I really want to tell you about it. We're going to have to wait to court.
03:30:41
[Music] from 48 hours. This is trained to kill the dog trainer, the aerys, and the
03:30:49
bodyguard. This is Perigan Lake. Just over these trees over here is where the updike
03:31:02
residence is. [Music] In June 2010, Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez took me out on patrol in an
03:31:11
Okonagan County Sheriff's Fastboat on a lake just a few miles from Linda Updike's home outside Winthrop,
03:31:20
Washington. Rodriguez had helped Linda Updike train a new attack dog and later was one of
03:31:28
the deputies who arrested Michael Oaks. Months had passed since Mark Stove was murdered and still his body had not been
03:31:37
found. Scadget County Sheriff's Office asked us to check any probable locations where
03:31:43
the body may be dumped in water since we're so close to her home. Um, this was on the list to check.
03:31:51
Michael Oaks had spent time near these waters and Rodriguez wanted to check if he might have sunk Mark's body here. So,
03:32:00
how does this work? Well, I don't know if you can see, but the lake is too big for two or three or
03:32:07
four or even six divers to adequate adequately search. That's why they turn to sonar to scour
03:32:15
the lake bed. And we grid search across the lake and then when we find something of interest
03:32:20
on the sonar screen, then we put divers down on it. And that diver will be you. Yes, today it's me.
03:32:30
Then Deputy Rodriguez slowed the boat down toward a spot where he had detected some kind of an image. He put on the
03:32:38
divers suit. Are you ready? Ready. And jumped into the water. He swam below the boat, but no luck.
03:32:57
It's been quite a while since um Mr. Stover's been missing. So that makes it more difficult.
03:33:04
Decomposition. Correct. The search for Mark Stove had stretched across the state of Washington. The one
03:33:12
person who could end that search decided to be Koi. Are you willing to tell authorities
03:33:20
where you placed Mark Stove's body? Certainly, all that I know about the whereabouts of Mark Stove, I will be
03:33:29
more than happy to share with authorities in the course of our trial. This is going to be a dramatic week.
03:33:37
It has been a dramatic year. I'm Peter Vans. From 48 hours, it's trained to kill, the dog trainer, the
03:33:47
ays, and the bodyguard. Episode 6. Time will tell. [Music] Michael Oaks has been accused of a
03:34:02
murder of Mark Stove. What do you say? Prove it. That's John Henry Brown. He was Michael
03:34:11
Oak's lead defense attorney. We spoke in 2010. So, my defense is prove it. First, they
03:34:18
have to prove there's a murder, right? Brown is a brilliant showman known for making arguments in court that could fit
03:34:27
into the final scene of a prime time legal drama. We've got blood, right? We've got shell casings,
03:34:33
correct? Got a dog that was shot. Correct. But we don't have a body. Correct. And what does that add up to for you?
03:34:42
Uh, a case of circumstantial evidence. When it comes to representing accused killers, Brown has been around the
03:34:49
block. He titled his memoir The Devil's Defender to highlight a career spent arguing on behalf of defendants he
03:34:58
considered evil. His client list included one of the most notorious serial killers in American history, Ted
03:35:06
Bundy, who said he had murdered 30 people. Bundy once told me that he knew he was
03:35:12
evil. Now, most sociopaths don't say that. Now, I don't see any of that in Michael at all.
03:35:20
Brown argued instead that Mark Stove represented the evil in this case, not his client.
03:35:27
I think somebody asked Michael recently whether he thought Michael thought uh Mark Stove was evil and Michael said no
03:35:36
not not all parts of him which I thought was a very gracious thing for Michael to
03:35:40
say under the circumstances but I think there were parts of Mark Stove that were
03:35:45
very evil. you know, when you start people treating people as objects and when which is what Stover did and
03:35:52
particularly with Linda, um then I think that crosses over. In court, they plan to make the case that Michael shot Mark
03:36:00
in self-defense. The trial started in September 2010, less than a year after Mark Stove was
03:36:08
killed. It did have an interesting cast of characters. Um, everybody appeared at
03:36:16
first blush to be very, very good citizens. That's Judge Mike Rickert. The case became very sensationalized,
03:36:26
uh, much to my chagrin. Um, that makes things more difficult for us as we're trying to ensure that both sides get a
03:36:33
fair shake and that justice is actually done. Judge Rickard said this turned out to be
03:36:38
one of the stranger cases he had presided over. The trial actually lasted four weeks and the investigation lasted
03:36:46
for the year prior to that. And the twists and the turns in the plot and the details of this case um just kept
03:36:54
changing. Witnesses included detectives. Some of Mark's former employees and Michael's
03:37:01
second wife, Jennifer Thompson, who told jurors that Michael said, "If police saw
03:37:06
what was in the back of my car, I'd go to prison for life. But it was Michael himself who played
03:37:15
the leading role in this trial when he took the stand. Mr. Brown, you got a new witness for us.
03:37:21
Mr. Oaks. Mr. Oaks, come on up. His defense attorney, John Henry Brown, wanted Michael to explain why he had to
03:37:32
defend himself. He came around the corner with a gun in one hand and he pointed the gun at me and the
03:37:43
look on his face, he didn't say anything. Okay. How close is to you? I'm inside the washroom. He's right at
03:37:55
the doorway and he's just inside the hallway. 3 ft maybe. Okay. What happens then?
03:38:05
I can't remember if he I lunged and he shot. We tangled and I got shot. Remember,
03:38:19
Detective Dan Louver said it was highly improbable that Michael could shoot Mark
03:38:24
in self-defense immediately after being shot himself, even if he was wearing a bulletproof vest. So, Brown asked
03:38:33
Michael to reenact the shooting to show that it was possible. [Music] Would you mind taking off your coat?
03:38:45
I'm not sure how it works. So, why don't you put this on the way you had it on, right?
03:38:50
Brown asked Michael to put on a Kevlar vest like the one he wore on October 28th, 2009.
03:38:59
Brown's co-consel, Corbin Vz, stood in as Mark Stove. Mr. Valdis is larger than Mr. Stove, as
03:39:07
far as you know. He's taller. Volz held up his left hand and stuck out his pointer finger to act like he was
03:39:14
aiming a gun at Michael. So, Mr. Vles is holding the gun out. He's fired at you.
03:39:20
Mhm. What do you do? Michael lunged at Valz, grabbed his left arm, and tackled him to the ground.
03:39:33
I don't think we were expecting that. The aggressive move startled the courtroom into a big laugh.
03:39:43
Are you all right? I'm fine. My finger wasn't loaded. Michael took off the vest and then
03:39:52
walked back to the witness stand. Can I take this off? That was amazingly fast. Mr. Oaks, is
03:39:59
that the way you did that? That's how it was trained. Can I take this off? Yes, please take that off.
03:40:07
I asked prosecutor Rich Hyurrick why a bullet hole in Michael Oaks's vest wasn't convincing to authorities.
03:40:15
He explained the location of the bullet was suspicious. It appeared to have gone in very close
03:40:23
to exactly straight, exactly in the middle uh of the bulletproof vest. And uh which suggests what to you? Well,
03:40:32
what it suggested to us is that it was uh it was done either before or after uh the event
03:40:39
u as somewhat of an alibi. Back on the stand, Michael eventually came to the dramatic moment everyone was waiting
03:40:48
for. He was finally going to disclose where he put Mark's body. [Music] you somehow get Mr. Stober's um body
03:41:04
into the station wagon. That's what I did then. I picked him up, which was very difficult, and carried
03:41:11
him out to the back of the station wagon, and laid him there, and I had that kitchen towel that I had
03:41:23
grabbed, and I threw that in with him. Oh, before I when I picked him up and the gun fell
03:41:29
down on the floor, I just put it in his vest pocket. Michael then testified he later drove to
03:41:34
that Graange Hall parking lot nearby where he struggled to transfer Mark's body.
03:41:41
I tried to move him to my car, but it was too heavy. And so I used the plastic that was in the back of the rig and
03:41:51
his rig. Yes. in the back of the station wagon and slid it underneath of him and was
03:41:55
able to then slide him across to my car. After meeting with his ex-wife, Jennifer
03:42:01
Thompson in Everett, Washington, he drove back to Anacortis to move Mark's now empty station wagon
03:42:09
and it was still just sitting there and I was blown away. I thought for sure it would have been like some big crime
03:42:16
scene investigation. Michael said he then drove the station wagon about 2 miles to the nearby
03:42:23
Swenomish Casino parking lot. Michael then walked back to his own car where Mark's body was covered up in the back.
03:42:32
You leave it there. Yep. Michael told the courtroom he then decided to dispose of the body because
03:42:39
he didn't think investigators would believe his story. And walking away from Mr. Stover's car.
03:42:46
I see some kind of a boat in the water just near there. Michael said he then drove down to a
03:42:55
dock at the far end of that casino's vast parking lot. And I got my car as close to that as
03:43:02
possible and muscled him out and dropped him in the water. According to Michael, he then dropped
03:43:13
Mark's body into the Swanomish Channel, which flows into the Padilla Bay near Anacortis.
03:43:20
Was the gun with him? His gun? His gun? His gun was in his pocket still of his vest.
03:43:28
After you did that, what did you do? Um, I threw some other stuff like the plastic in the water. Um, and I smelled
03:43:37
blood. I'm pretty sensitive to the smell of blood. I smelled blood and I couldn't
03:43:42
see. It was dark and so I started throwing things out of the car into the water um that were in the back. I had some
03:43:49
stuff of the plastic and a piece of carpet from his car and then uh some other items that were you know were
03:43:56
there. He then headed to Linda's home in Winthrop. I arrived there. I don't remember now. It was dark. Um,
03:44:09
I'd had to stop to throw up a couple times. I don't know. I'm not sure. Okay. Um, we see your tape of when you
03:44:16
get to Linda's. So, that' be accurate, right? Yes. When you got to Linda's, did you tell
03:44:21
her anything about what had happened? I just said I had a really bad day. What time was that?
03:44:27
It was late. It was late. I think it I don't remember now. I was exhausted. But when the prosecution cross-examined
03:44:34
Michael, they zeroed in on some inconsistencies in his story. Here's Scadget County Prosecutor Rich Hyurrick.
03:44:43
You indicated that you when you were at the Summit Park range body was too heavy to move from car to
03:44:51
car, so you had to slide it. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. On two other occasions, you were able to
03:44:58
just pick the body up and walk it down. And I think you described a dilapidated dock and toss it in the water.
03:45:05
Yes. And on another occasion, you were able to just pick it up and toss it into the
03:45:09
back of Mr. uh Stover's car. Uh pick up and toss, I think, would be your words, but yes, I was able to pick
03:45:16
him up. Why was it too heavy at the Summit Park range? Because it's a station wagon. I couldn't
03:45:21
stand up. You have to lean over to lift something, and I can't do that. Detectives searched the waters behind
03:45:28
the casino with a submersible camera and found nothing. While court was in recess, I asked Michael if he was
03:45:38
telling the truth. Police have searched that area. They have not found a gun. They have found no skele no skeletal
03:45:46
remains. Is that really where you dropped the body? Absolutely. Yes. No matter where he may have disposed the
03:45:54
body, I pressed him more. What do you say to those who suspect that you disposed of the body because
03:46:00
you wanted to dispose of the evidence? That if people could see Mark Stove's body, maybe there's a bullet hole in the
03:46:06
back of the head. Maybe they would have seen that he was shot in the back, not in the front.
03:46:12
Maybe you were trying to cover up a murder. Well, I understand that feeling. I I
03:46:16
really do. And I wish I hope that the body is recovered uh because it will exactly corroborate my story 100%.
03:46:27
After he was cross-examined, Michael watched the woman he loved, the ays, the person at the center of Mark Stove's
03:46:35
rage, Linda Updike, raise her hand. [Music] Please state your name for the record
03:46:46
and spell your last name. Linda Opdike spelled OP D and David Y c K E. Did you choose to violate your
03:46:57
attorney's advice and speak to the prosecutor and testify in this trial? Yes, I did.
03:47:02
Why did you change your mind? because I felt this was an important part of the story that I could tell um about a
03:47:11
dangerous stalking situation and if there's any information that I could offer up, I wanted to do so.
03:47:17
But Linda wasn't there just to defend Michael. She told me she also wanted to defend herself and her father. It's
03:47:27
heart-wrenching enough to be dealing with what us as a family are dealing with with Michael, let alone seeing my
03:47:34
family attacked. Um, it's just another level of I feel victimization and randomly going after anybody with no
03:47:43
reason for anything. And to do a smear campaign, here's Scadget County Prosecutor
03:47:51
Rosemary Cahol questioning Linda. You continue to have romantic feelings, intimate feelings
03:47:59
toward Mr. Oaks and vice versa. Yes. And in fact, I think that you said that in our interview last week is that you
03:48:06
loved him. Correct. I don't know recall if I said that or not, but I do. Yes. When Mr. Oaks was arrested, you did what
03:48:15
you could to find him a lawyer. Correct. Yes. She asked about what help Linda provided
03:48:22
Michael after his arrest. And you made some phone calls, took some notes, tried to figure out who the best
03:48:29
lawyer for him would be. Correct. Yes. In addition to that, you figured out um if what his bail amount was.
03:48:36
No, I had nothing to do with that. Michael somehow managed to pay $250,000 for him to get out on bail. Linda
03:48:46
insisted she didn't cover that cost. Michael's defense attorney, John Henry Brown, told me the Updikes weren't
03:48:54
paying his fee either. Is Linda Updike paying for Michael Oak's defense? No. God, I wish she was.
03:49:03
Boy, I really wish she was. No, there's no money going through a third party to Oak's family and back to you
03:49:10
guys. No, I'm going to lose my shirt on this case, actually, just like many of my
03:49:13
other cases. Back at trial, the prosecution showed no sympathy in its cross-examination of Linda.
03:49:23
Now, it's correct, isn't it, that throughout the investigation of this case, you've been concerned about your
03:49:30
own potential legal liability in this case? Yes. The prosecutor even suggested Linda's
03:49:39
support for Michael may have been an attempt to protect herself. You don't have to worry about Mr. Stover now, do
03:49:46
you? It appears to be that case. And in that sense, the defendant helped you out. Correct.
03:49:56
No. Isn't it true that if this is a case of self-defense, it gets you off the hook,
03:50:05
too? What do you mean by that? You indicated you were concerned about your own potential liability in this case. If a
03:50:14
jury were to find that this was self-defense, you wouldn't have any more liability either, would you?
03:50:20
I have no liability in this case. The prosecution also argued that Linda had no evidence Mark continued to stalk
03:50:30
her after his arrest. You made a report on December 5th, 2008. Do you recall that?
03:50:38
Yes. And you indicated that time that you believed that you saw Mr. Stover's vehicle in the area. Do you recall that?
03:50:44
Yes, I do. Cahol pointed out that Linda was never able to identify Mark in this incident
03:50:52
or several others she reported in 2008 and 2009. Nobody was able to respond in time.
03:51:03
So the answer would be no. That is correct. Prosecutors also called Mark Stover's
03:51:12
fiance, Terresa Vox Michael, to testify. Their engagement was used as evidence Mark was moving on. I talked to Teresa
03:51:22
in 2010. In the weeks before he died, was he a happy man? Oh, he was. He was like a kid. He was
03:51:30
joking with me all the time and he was always fun, you know, when we were on the phone.
03:51:36
But Teresa claimed there was still a dark presence in his life, his ex-wife, Linda. She said that Mark described
03:51:43
Linda as a vengeful ex who wouldn't leave him alone and often took him to court.
03:51:50
He was he just was very troubled about the way things had gone. And in what did he believe the endgame
03:51:56
was with her? I don't know that he thought there was a goal. He just couldn't believe that
03:52:01
things wouldn't stop. The legal battles, the accusations, he knew his life was in danger.
03:52:12
But Michael's attorneys alleged just the opposite. They argued Mark threatened and stalked Michael and that he only
03:52:20
killed Mark to defend himself and his family. They insisted Mark and Michael met multiple times. The defense even
03:52:30
claimed to have a witness who said Mark mentioned seeing Michael and Linda at a Costco months before the shooting, but
03:52:39
the judge ruled there was no way to verify the witness's story. Soon, Michael would learn his fate.
03:52:53
[Music] After more than 50 witnesses and more than 700 exhibits, the jury began to
03:53:04
deliberate. They took four days before they reached a verdict. I'll rise, please.
03:53:12
Linda sat next to Michael's mom and tried to comfort Michael's daughters as they all waited.
03:53:19
Mark Stove's niece, Julia Simmons, was there to represent his family. Who did this jury believe?
03:53:28
We, the jury, find the defendant, Michael Glenn Oaks, guilty of the crime of murder in the firstdegree
03:53:34
premeditated murder as charged. [Music] Michael was found guilty of firstdegree murder. He turned and hugged his
03:53:48
daughters. At his sentencing, his mother, Corey Oaks, pleaded with the judge to have mercy, that her son never
03:53:57
wanted to hurt Mark. He wanted to reason with him. I believe that with all my heart, and I think it's
03:54:06
grieving him. I know it is. He would never want to take a life. He is not a murderer. And none of us would want that
03:54:14
for Mark. Mark's family felt differently. His sister, Victoria Simmons, asked the
03:54:21
judge to give Michael the maximum sentence. Why was he murdered? Where is my brother? When will I be able to lay him
03:54:30
to rest in a dignified manner? Years from now, Michael Oaks will be released. He will have paid his debt to society. I
03:54:38
will still be serving the life sentence that Michael Oaks gave me. Judge Mike Rickert sentenced Michael to
03:54:45
the maximum amount of time in prison, 26 and a half years. The absurdity of the actions that you
03:54:52
took on that day are beyond belief. And I've got to tell you, there's large parts of your story I just flat do not
03:54:59
believe and never will. There was finally an ending to this emotional saga gone horribly wrong. But
03:55:08
there will always be lingering questions about what really happened on October 28th, 2009.
03:55:16
But the pieces don't fit very well in this case after 4 weeks. And to a certain degree, I almost have more
03:55:22
questions now than I had when we picked the jury. This case of Mark Stove has been defined
03:55:32
by an infinite loop of suspicion between three people. Linda said she feared Mark. Mark said he feared Linda. And
03:55:42
Michael said he too eventually feared Mark. Each person claimed the other was threatening their life until that
03:55:51
morning in October proved that one of them was right. With no more new information surrounding
03:56:00
the crime, law enforcement closed the case in 2012. Linda's father, Wally Updike, died in
03:56:08
2018 at age 81 at his home in Whitefish, Montana. The Chateau San Michelle Winery, the
03:56:19
largest in Washington, remains open today and thriving. The Updike sold kick island, too. It's
03:56:28
now a park that belongs to the Swenomish tribe. It's open to the public for hiking, but there are no dogs allowed.
03:56:38
After Michael went to prison, his daughter, April Oak, said each of her siblings went to stay at a different
03:56:46
home. April lived with Linda until she was 17 and said, "Linda has remained a big part of the family's lives."
03:56:56
Linda last sat for an interview in 2011. It's incomprehensible to me that that's
03:57:02
a verdict that would have come back. Michael's first instinct was to turn to all of you.
03:57:08
Yes. And to hold his family. [Music] Yes. Um he uh definitely loves his children and
03:57:19
loves me and I know that's his biggest concern is for all of us and our biggest concern is him. So, we're all um
03:57:29
supporting each other and just sticking by one another. Michael appealed his case to no avail.
03:57:38
He is incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walaw Wala. In a call from prison in April 2025,
03:57:47
Michael said he expects to get out in 2035 when he is 67 years old. He blamed one of his appellet attorneys
03:57:57
failing to file an appeal on time for his inability to keep challenging his sentence in court. Today, there is a
03:58:06
website free oaks.com that advocates for Michael's freedom. His family sent us documents from
03:58:15
Michael's appeal. In 2017, the Oaks family hired an oceanographer to study where Mark's body may have ended up in
03:58:24
the water and believed that the police missed a spot where the current could have moved Mark. Detective Dan Loua said
03:58:34
the police searched the channel multiple times and even used underwater cameras.
03:58:40
We asked Michael about his current relationship with Linda Updike. He said he wanted to respect her privacy.
03:58:50
After Mark's death, Teresa, the woman who had hoped to marry Mark, took his dog Ding into her home. Ding had
03:58:58
miraculously survived being shot. And when she came to be with me, she slept on my bed. She went to work with
03:59:08
me. She was with I took her everywhere with me. And in petting her, I found a a tumor about this big. Well, it grew and
03:59:17
grew and she was in tremendous pain. Um, so I had to have her put down. And was that was that tough cuz Ding was
03:59:27
a a link to Mark. Oh, she was my my last link to him. Teresa told me that Ding was buried with
03:59:35
a custom headstone. She hopes a day will come when they can give Mark the proper
03:59:40
burial. he deserves. I would love to see him buried with a ring on his finger. Mark's sister, Victoria Simmons, said
03:59:50
she will never rest until her brother's remains are found. I need to find him, and I just can't let
03:59:58
that go. Being a woman of faith, I know that everything done in secret will eventually be shouted from the
04:00:05
housetops. You cannot plead the fifth in heaven and the truth will come out eventually.
04:00:12
A celebrity dog trainer, an ays and her bodyguard. Three lives ruined by a triangle of jealousy, fear, and rage.
04:00:24
[Music] [Music] from 48 Hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the
04:00:40
Bodyguard, produced by Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Peter Vans. Judy Tigard is the executive producer of
04:00:51
48 Hours. Original reporting by 48 hours producers Ryan Smith and Liza Finley. Jamie Benson is the senior producer for
04:01:02
Paramount Audio and Mora Waltz is the senior story editor. Recording assistance from Alan Pang and
04:01:11
Regginald Bazil. Special thanks to Paramont podcast vice president Megan Marcus.
04:01:19
It is written and produced by Alex Schuman. Stephanie Serrano is our editor. Our executive producer is Sherah
04:01:28
Morris. Our associate producer is Zoe Kulkin. Theme and original music composed by
04:01:36
Hansdale Shei. Cedric Wilson is our sound designer and mixed the episodes. We also use music from APM and Epidemic
04:01:48
Sounds. Fendle Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Tama Balance
04:01:56
Kolassni. I'm Peter Vans. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review. It
04:02:04
helps more people find it and hear our reporting. Follow and listen to Train to Kill and
04:02:11
other 48 hours podcasts on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.
04:02:20
Thanks for listening. [Music]