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Hello, I'm Anne Marie Green and welcome back to Postmortem. This week we're discussing the case of Mindy Meg Ben
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Cosgrove, whose dismembered remains were found in the woods near Savannah, Georgia on December 2nd, 2022. [music]
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Now, it took 5 months to identify her remains and when her family and friends found out, they were shocked by the
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discovery because Mindy's husband, Nick Cosgrove, had told them that Mindy died in the
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hospital in December and that her body had been cremated. When investigators zeroed in on Nick
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Cosgrove, he denied any involvement in Mindy's murder but told them a real sort of detailed story about how he and Mindy
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had been targeted and harassed by shadowy figures for years. So, joining me today to give us some
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insight into this case, this very unusual case, is 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty. Thank you for joining us,
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Erin. >> Well, it's a thrill to be here, Anne Marie, and I have to agree with you.
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We've never really had a case like this where there really were two realities. So, if you look at the evidence the cops
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did, it's an ordinary, well, ordinary premeditated murder. But, if you listen to Nick Cosgrove, he's a former naval
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officer and lawyer, he tells a very different story. So, the bottom line was who do you believe?
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>> So true and so many people believed him for years. Before we get into it, a quick reminder,
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if you haven't watched or listened to the 48 Hours episode, The Woman Who Died Twice,
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check it out and then come on back and join us for this conversation. So, let's dig into these two realities
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as you've put it. Um, Mindy and Nick Cosgrove started dating back in 2015. They got married in 2016 and at first it
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really seemed like a fairy tale marriage. But, at some point in 2018, Casares started telling Mindy that they
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were being surveilled and harassed by shadowy figures, and they went on the run. They basically went into hiding.
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Aaron, can you break down just what was happening in the couple's lives in those
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months leading up to Mindy's murder? >> Okay, so by June of 2022, they were living in an Airbnb in
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Savannah, Georgia, and they were living with Mindy's parents, who also believed Casares's story that they were being
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surveilled, harassed. Mindy had told some of her friends about the harassment, and she told them it was all
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connected to her husband and some of the classified work that he had done when he
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was in the Navy. And according to her friends, there was no question Mindy believed it and was truly scared for her
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life. And here's the evidence we found of that. This was time we did not put in the show, but that Airbnb was just
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blocks from where Mindy's best friend from high school, Morgan Paddock, lived. But Mindy apparently was so afraid to
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leave the house, she never even told Morgan that. She never reached out to her. And Morgan had no idea she was
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there, because they had stopped communicating at this point. And that really gives you an idea of just how
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scared Mindy seemed to be. >> Right. Clearly, she believed what her husband was telling her about these
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shadowy figures. And in a way, I can understand it, especially if he's cutting off, you know, her connections
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to other people, right? We've seen that before, Aaron, where people, you know, their world becomes so small that they
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become almost completely dependent on this one person that's misleading them. But what I don't get is that even
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Mindy's friends and, you know, members of her family, they didn't question this outlandish story.
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>> So, that's the question I asked people. I would ask her friends, "Why you ask more questions?" And they
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said that they did think the story was crazy, but because her husband had such an impressive background, they believed
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him and they didn't ask a lot of questions. Keep in mind, Emery, Coutsodios had been a lawyer in JAG, the
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Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps, which is basically the Navy's legal arm. I don't know if I ever mentioned to you
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that before I went to law school, I thought about being a JAG because they pay for your way into law school and it
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is considered to be one of the best ways. It's a military lawyer. And so, he was highly respected, he was a naval
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officer, and he had served all over the world. So, not only Mindy believed him, all her friends did, too. It also
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occurred to me that because of the internet and there's so much talk about conspiracies, I think people are more
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open to this kind of story that he was telling. >> That is such an interesting observation.
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I I think you're probably right. Um but then we circle a step further, right? Because in December of 2022, Coutsodios
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told Mindy's friends and family that she died from a sudden medical issue. And that, you know, there's no body because
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she had been cremated. I can maybe understand Mindy's friends accepting that story because they
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weren't around her, but her own parents didn't question this. >> You know, this is still kind of a
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mystery to me, Emery. Um her parents did not speak to us, but the investigators told us they did love
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their daughter. Still, we know that when Coutsodios told Mindy's parents that their daughter had
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died and that he didn't get her body and couldn't tell them where it was. And oddly, they seemed to accept that. You
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know, you would think they would maybe call the cops. They did not. I should also point out they were all
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living in the same house. Um but they went away to visit her brother, their son, during Thanksgiving.
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And when they got back, that's when Casorla said that he had taken Mindy to the hospital and that she had died. And
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then here's the weird part of the story, right after >> Okay, this is the weird part of the
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story? >> Yeah, well, all right, it's getting weirder. >> Right. >> So, right after
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Casorla told them that Mindy died, but he, you know, couldn't show them the body or anything, then he disappeared.
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He disappeared and again, they still did not call the cops. And 2 months later, in February of 2023,
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Mindy's parents got an email ostensibly from the company that Casorla claimed he
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worked for saying that he had been in a car accident. We know that they wanted to go see him, but then they get another
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email saying that he had died. >> Mhm. >> Even then, even then, Mindy's parents don't seem to realize that they were
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being bamboozled. >> So, when Mindy's dismembered body was found in the woods, investigators were
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unable to identify her at first and they released two sketches of her face. Casorla's first wife, Heather Thomas,
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discovered that sketch and then made an anonymous call to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation saying that it looked an
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awful lot like her ex-husband's new wife, Mindy Casorla. What's interesting about Heather is that
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when she spoke to you about Casorla, she said at one point that, you know, they were best friends, uh that they remained
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friendly after the divorce. When did things sort of break down between them? >> Well, initially it was amicable. Um she
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said they had become roommates, not husband and wife, and that's why they broke up. Also, Heather and Kusotas had
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shared two dogs, so they stayed in each other's lives, and and she says they were friendly during that that time, but
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there was one really big issue between them. Apparently, Kusotas owed Heather money from the divorce, and he was
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supposed to pay off That's a lot of money, $1.5 million for the mortgage on the house. He also
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owed her lawyer's fees and interest and compounding. And the only reason why Heather really
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was upset about it, why she became upset about it, was she also worked for the government and had a security clearance,
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and she was worried it would be denied if she had large debts. What's interesting is that Mindy, who is now
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married to Kusotas, knew nothing about any of this debt. Her friends say that Mindy heard a totally different story
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from her husband. He told her that Heather was crazy and was trying to >> steal from him.
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>> Wow. I mean, people believe Kusotas, except for, luckily, investigators. Um they didn't buy his story at all. When
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they brought him in for questioning, he told them uh the same tale about being pursued and harassed by unknown
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individuals, and also said that uh for his family's protection, he gave complete control to a mysterious FBI
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agent. He said his name was Jim McIntyre. Of course, he said that he didn't kill Mindy and that uh he didn't
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know who did, but he thought maybe Jim was responsible. Uh let's just listen to a clip from the hour of the Georgia
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Bureau of Investigations agent Tracy Sands asking Kusotas about Jim McIntyre. >> If Jim told you to jump off a cliff, you
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were going to jump off a cliff? >> Yes, sir. For For years, for years we did exactly what Jim told us to do.
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>> So, you >> He wanted full access to our lives. He said he was keeping us safe.
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>> Unfortunately, we did not get to sit down with Tracy Sands um during the hour, um, even though he was so
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important to this investigation, the DA, Billy Joe Nelson, told us, and I'm quoting, that we might not be
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sitting here today without Tracy Sands. That's how important he was. We could have had an unsolved death on our hands
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without Tracy Sands. In fact, Sands led both interviews with Casodotis after Casodotis' arrest, and he worked with
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the FBI to try to find the mysterious Jim McIntyre. But sadly, this was Tracy's last case.
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He did agree to sit down with us. He would have been in our hour for an interview, but he died unexpectedly
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right after the trial. But this is why Tracy Sands and investigators didn't believe Casodotis the way all of
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Casodotis' friends and family did, because they had been investigating him for weeks as soon as they were able to
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identify that woman found in the swamp as Mindy. And investigators told us they couldn't
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find any evidence to back up Casodotis' story, and they tried hard, they say. They even wanted to find the mysterious
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Jim McIntyre. Um, and they did. They found a Jim McIntyre. He was an older man who managed a company that sold
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dental implants. He was not a federal agent. Uh, what they did find though was surveillance footage of Casodotis' car,
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and it was very close to the hunting grounds where Mindy's body was found. And they were able even to find the
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evidence that Casodotis had bought the same kind of knife that was found at the crime scene. So, in February of 2024,
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just a little over a year after Mindy's death, Casodotis was indicted for his wife's
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murder. >> So, let's talk about the trial. More than 2 and 1/2 years after Mindy
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Cassotis' murder, her husband, Nick Cassotis, is charged with her murder and appears in a Georgia courtroom.
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I could not help but to notice just how different he looked from his police interview. He looks like a completely
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different person. It really made me question, like, who is this guy? >> I mean, that was the big question I had
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all the way through this. Um Sadly, we don't know a lot about Cassotis' upbringing or even his
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background before he went to law school and got all his legal training. His parents decided not to talk to us,
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but we did see them in the courtroom to support him. Um and here's something that we didn't tell you in the hour,
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which I think is so interesting, is that at some point, Cassotis, and I don't think this should surprise anyone who's
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listening, he began to write fiction. He'd actually published a short story on Reddit. I
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should tell you what the name was. It was called "My Mother-in-Law Was Poisoning Me, and Then I Found Out Why."
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>> Oh my gosh. >> And and get this, Sony Pictures paid him $400,000 for the story, right?
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>> You're kidding me. >> And then here's a weird thing that we did tell you in the hour, but after
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Mindy died, which did not make Cassotis look so good, he ended up getting married quickly to another fiction
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writer that he had met online. He lied to that wife, also. He told her he was a widower, and that was at a time when
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Mindy was still alive. >> Mhm. Oh my gosh. >> saying. >> I mean, this is really an unusual case,
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but another reason why it was unusual is Nick Cassotis testified in his own defense. That doesn't happen frequently,
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even though I know, if you watch 48 Hours, you see it frequently enough, but in general, it doesn't happen. Um
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he testified for more than 3 hours and he repeated to the jury this story about Jim McIntyre insisting that McIntyre
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offered him and Mindy protection and controlled every detail of their lives. So you spoke to Cosgrove's defense
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lawyer, Doug Weinstein. What was his reasoning for putting his client on the stand?
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>> I was curious about the same thing. Weinstein is a very good trial lawyer. He says, and I think he's right, his
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strongest defense was that this case was entirely circumstantial. Nobody saw Cosgrove kill his wife.
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>> Yeah. >> There was zero evidence of how or where Mindy was killed. And investigators
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never found any of Cosgrove's DNA near Mindy's body. But Doug Weinstein told us that in fact he had never ever put a
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client on the stand before and would never want to, but he did because remember, his client was a lawyer and
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that lawyer insisted he wanted to testify. It was all Cosgrove who decided he wanted to to testify. And I think
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what's interesting about that is, and this is just my feeling, so many people have believed Cosgrove. I
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think he thought the jury would, too. >> Right. >> I was in the courtroom I when Cosgrove
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testified. I did not want to miss it. He was calm, unemotional, and when I thought about it, this was his wife and
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her death. If he's insinuating that someone else did it, you would think that he would be more emotional.
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I was also surprised when the prosecutor did not go harder on Cosgrove in cross-examination
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because I thought she would. I think everybody in the courtroom thought she would. But later that prosecutor, Lori
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Baugh, told me that she thought he had sunk himself and she thought it was better just to let the jury see that.
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>> The prosecution did present a really strong circumstantial case including the surveillance footage of
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Kusoldas' car near the hunting grounds, the evidence that Kusoldas had bought the kind of knife that they found at the
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crime scene, and then records from his cell phone and the car GPS showing both traveled to the exact location in the
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woods where Mindy's body was found. It's hard stuff to refute, but what they were
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not able to do, and they don't have to, but it helps, is they didn't really present a clear motive. They could not
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tell us why he would kill his wife. >> Lori Beyo, the prosecutor, felt that she needed to answer that for the jury. But
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she says that to this day it's the hardest question to answer. Um her theory is that Kusoldas really wanted a
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family. We know that Mindy and Kusoldas had told Mindy's family and her friends that she was pregnant.
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But after her remains were found, the death certificate revealed that she hadn't been and wasn't pregnant within
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the past year before she was killed. So did she lie about it? Did she lie to her husband about it? The prosecutor
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thinks that Kusoldas might have killed her when he found out that she wasn't pregnant and maybe lying about it. Mindy
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was stabbed in the abdomen. Um and that is really why Lori Beyo thinks that. Um there's more evidence to show that he
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really did want to have children. At least the story that Heather told us is that when Heather had been married to
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Kusoldas she had really tried to get pregnant and he wanted her to. Uh they didn't have children. And then
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when she remarried she had a child really quickly afterwards and she says that Casados saw her pregnant and that
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she thought he looked really freaking and uncomfortable. So that kind of supports that theory too.
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>> Mhm. Um when you spoke to the district attorney Billy Joe Nelson, he had another theory about Nick Casados'
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motive. Um I want to play a clip from the interview that was not in the hour. >> I believe if you look at the evidence in
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this case uh ultimately the defendant, Mr. Casados in this case, was looking for a way out of his current situation.
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Why that had to end uh with the death of Mindy Meads Meven we'll never know unless he decides to
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tell you why he did it. Uh but at the end of the day if you look at the evidence, I think he
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was planning an escape out of the life he was living. >> That is the theory I kind of go with,
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Emery. I really do. Can you imagine how many people he had told this story to? It must have been really hard to keep it
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up and keep all the details. Um he had already met the woman who would become his third wife a couple of
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months before he killed Mindy. So it's possible that getting rid of Mindy would let him run away from his past life and
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have a new wife. It's also possible, we don't know because we can't ask Mindy, maybe she was beginning to question
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those stories toward the end. But these are all just theories >> Mhm. >> and as the prosecutor said, unless
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Casados decides to tell us we'll never know for certain. >> We'll never know. The jury deliberated for just a little
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over an hour before finding Casados guilty of all charges. Uh clearly there wasn't a lot of debate uh
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in the in the jury room there. But when you think about it, he really came very close to getting away with a perfect
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murder. If Mindy's body had not been found, could Kostas have actually gotten away with this?
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>> I actually think he he could have. >> Mhm. >> If he had not left Mindy at that hunting ground,
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because he didn't realize how often people were there, we might never have heard about this case.
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If you think about it, all her friends thought she had died in the hospital. Her own parents thought she had died in
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that hospital. None of them were questioning it. If he had left her someplace where there
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weren't people all the time, he really could have gotten away with it. The other problem, of course, was driving a
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car that was a cell phone and getting caught on video. So, his car was identified very close to where her body
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was. That Those were the two big mistakes he made. >> You know, often when you discover that
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someone you trust and like has lied to you, it rocks you a little. Like, you start to reassess just how you view the
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world. You start to reassess the other people that you have believed and trusted. I'm just curious how the people
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who he lied to are How are they grappling with all of this? >> Everybody feels so betrayed. Kostas's
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first wife, Heather, especially. She has what she's been calling survivor's guilt. Cuz she said to us, "Look, there
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were more reason to kill me. You know, he owed me so much money, but I survived and Mindy didn't." And Mindy's friends
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say, even though they're really devastated by what happened, they're happy to know what really happened to
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Mindy and that there is some sense of justice. I I just want to let you listen to something that Angela Wynn, one of
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Mindy's closest friends, said to us. >> I was very upset. I was very distraught.
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But I also felt like I'm finally going to get the closure that I needed because after that December
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I I didn't I wasn't even able to to see her to say goodbye to her. And so for me it was I cannot believe this has
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happened. But then on the other side of that, I'm so glad that we now know and that he can be held accountable for it.
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I had been lied to for years. We had all been lied to for years, right? Um her parents her friends, his friends, his
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family. I mean, he spun a web of lies a a web of lies that touched every single person that he knew.
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>> Isn't that moving? He gaslit everyone. >> Yeah. How many people were damaged by
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this man's lies? The other thing that kind of I keep thinking about is we have done stories on people who are scammers
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or liars or And and usually they're kind of failing through life. But here's a guy who is
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actually quite successful. And if he just kind of continued along that path, he would have the life that he always
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wanted. He didn't need to do any of this. >> I also wonder whether when he left the
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Navy, maybe things didn't come as easy for him. And so maybe he had to create this interesting life because he never
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had a great job after he left the Navy. So I wonder if that's part of it, too, that he became kind of a legal Walter
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Mitty. >> That that's actually a great observation. I don't know if we'll ever really know who Nick Kessidis really is.
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Um but this was a fascinating hour. Um Aaron, [music] thank you so much for talking to us today.
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Thank you, Amory, always. And thank you all for listening. If you like this episode, [music] please rate and review
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on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.