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they met maybe in the spring of 2016 and it wasn't until the fall of 2016 that Miss Gilman proposed the the idea that
00:00:12
if her ex-husband was no longer alive that she would benefit from a vast amount of money as a beneficiary to a
00:00:21
life insurance policy [Music] Salt Lake City town called Harriman a 69 year old woman
00:00:31
named Linda Gilman hired a man named Christian Olsen to do some repairs on her condo after months of working
00:00:39
together Linda Gilman asked for Christian's help with a different sort of project
00:00:48
help find somebody to do the job she would pay him and sure enough she gave him a five thousand dollar check he kept
00:00:55
he kept stringing her along there's no doubt about that he was a person that was down on his luck needed to make a
00:01:01
quick buck and she was willing to pay and so he would string her along indicating that he had lined somebody up
00:01:10
and there were some fanciful stories that he came up with that she believed and it was in late December of 2016.
00:01:18
that she had told him that enough's enough and that she had found somebody else that would do the job and she no
00:01:23
longer needed him to do it for her this is Mark Mathis a deputy District Attorney at the Salt Lake County DA's
00:01:31
office the first thing the Christian did actually was hop in his truck and drive
00:01:37
over to Linda's ex-husband's house and he had the address because Linda had given it to him
00:01:45
to give to the Hitman to you know to perform the ACT and so he went over to his house here in
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Salt Lake knocked on the front door and his new wife answered the door he introduced himself and said
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your husband's ex-wife has hired me to find somebody to kill him she invited him in they had a discussion
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about it they called Linda's ex-husband had a discussion about it and then called unified police department and
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that's when the detective got involved I was initially given this case by my sergeant who asked me and another
00:02:27
detective that was brand new in the unit to call an individual on the phone this is Dwayne Gilman how can I help you
00:02:37
Dwayne this is detective Adamson with the unified Police Department how are you hi hi Dave I'm great so it's Dwayne
00:02:44
Gilman right Dwayne Gilman yes sir g-i-l-l m-a-n yeah I got a uh just hand it to me
00:02:53
um this is Brent Adamson at the time he was a detective with Salt Lake City's unified Police Department he's since
00:03:01
moved to the Harriman City Police Department where he's a detective sergeant I mean is that rare that someone calls
00:03:09
the police department and say I think someone wants to kill me it's very rare and it's even more rare
00:03:16
to have the individual show up at the intended victim's house and say hey surprise uh this is guess what and so it
00:03:24
was even more kind of shocking to get the report that way rather than it to come in some other manner to you know
00:03:31
have the victim call and say hey there's a guy at my house right now that says he's supposed to find someone to kill me
00:03:37
he's been here for four or five hours and uh he came to me and everything grew out of what he had to say
00:03:47
I am not thinking terribly clearly but I've been it's upset me sure what was Dwayne's demeanor when you spoke with
00:03:56
him was he nervous or worried I think he was worried but I think uh that was tempered a little bit by the fact that
00:04:03
this individual had come to his home uh I think I was probably more kind of scratching my head if you will that this
00:04:10
took place and in fact you know the individual first made contact with Dwayne's current wife who invited him
00:04:16
into the house and and made a pot of coffee for him and waited for her husband to come home
00:04:21
I'm not sure that I would have even done that who who is this Christian Olsen uh
00:04:27
Christian is an individual uh that for lack of a better term he's kind of an odd job guy he was uh doing various
00:04:37
different jobs at the time that this case started uh he was just a local person here in
00:04:45
the in the county Mark Mathis he would purchase like items from Like Home Depot hardware
00:04:52
stores things like that that were on clearance fix them up and resell them on a local website and that's how she
00:04:59
actually met him you know he he offered up you know or indicated that he was also a contractor
00:05:06
and I think the ultimate irony here is that the contracting company that he worked for was called Hired Gun
00:05:12
contractors it kind of wrote itself there um and so that was kind of the I think
00:05:17
the first uh toe that was dipped into the pool of curiosity that you know well you work for a place called higher gun
00:05:25
are you a Hitman and they would kind of just laugh it off and you know as months
00:05:30
went on and they developed a more of a relationship that's when the idea of her husband's death started to
00:05:39
be discussed Linda and Christian used a variety of code words a sub was the subcontractor or Hitman the words Home
00:05:50
Depot meant everything was on track but a reference to Lowe's meant there was a problem
00:05:57
Linda's code name for her ex-husband was his majesty have you ever seen a case like this
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I have not um I hope to never again Linda Gilman had been divorced from her third husband Dwayne Gilman for years he
00:06:17
was paying alimony and the divorce settlement stipulated that Linda could Remain the beneficiary
00:06:23
of Dwayne's life insurance but she'd also taken out life insurance on Dwayne that he didn't know about
00:06:31
he got older the monthly premiums Linda had to pay increased to just over ten thousand dollars a month
00:06:38
according to court records Linda Gilman stood to gain quite a lot of money if anything happened to her ex-husband I'm
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Phoebe judge this is Criminal [Music] thank you hello is this Christian yes it is so give me kind of the Reader's
00:07:07
Digest version of what's going on and then well she approached me a few months ago about she being Linda Linda yeah
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about taking out her ex-husband and said that you know she would pay all this money to
00:07:23
to have them taken out what was the agreement what was she offering to she offered the 5 000 up front and then
00:07:30
after he was gone and something you know that it was confirmed and she was going
00:07:35
to give a portion of the um Insurance life insurance policy on it ultimately we determined that there was
00:07:46
at least two different life insurance policies I think her beneficiary portion ended up being somewhere in the
00:07:54
neighborhood of three and a half million dollars did she specify how she wanted you to
00:08:00
kill him or nothing yeah she wanted it done in in a way that it didn't look like he was murdered like it was a
00:08:08
drug overdose or something okay and somebody mentioned that there was something with some syringes or
00:08:14
something what was that yeah she had she had given me some syringes what was the purpose of the syringes for
00:08:22
like a drug overdose okay Linda Gilman had no criminal record she had her hands in a lot of different
00:08:30
small businesses a snow removal business a lawn service fixing up cars by all accounts she was doing quite well
00:08:40
financially after he spoke with Dwayne Gilman and Christian Olsen and understood what
00:08:47
Christian was alleging detective Adamson needed proof he needed to get Linda on tape
00:08:55
so when you get the phone call from Dwayne and you you talk to Christian you find out what Linda is trying to do how
00:09:01
do you I mean how what what's your next step I mean that's just hearsay right what how do you figure out
00:09:08
how do you figure out how you're going to get proof so yeah I talked to Dwayne and then I
00:09:13
talked to Christian and then immediately following that I sit down with Christian
00:09:18
and and conduct a little more formal interview in person uh and basically Christian relates to us
00:09:26
that he's having ongoing conversations with Linda he's basically delayed her and told her that he'll he'll help her
00:09:35
with this problem uh so that she doesn't find someone else uh and so we we set up
00:09:41
a recording device that we send in with Christian he makes arrangements to meet her and then we basically just kind of
00:09:47
stage in the neighborhood and and listen to the conversation as it takes place do you sit in one of those vans that
00:09:54
says like air conditioning on the outside when you we do not no we just used our regular unmarked police cars
00:10:02
and just kind of parked a couple streets away that seems exciting I mean of all of the
00:10:08
work going on a little Stakeout seems like one of the most exciting things unfortunately more often than not it's
00:10:15
probably more boring um this one uh obviously piqued our interests we were very interested and as
00:10:23
it progressed it became more and more interesting your safety I don't want to be mean I don't get the
00:10:33
damn if somebody kills me I don't care I don't want to be maimed however and I'm not going to be blackmailed this is
00:10:41
the recording that Christian made of his conversation with Linda they have to expect this is gonna it could take some
00:10:47
time and you nail them you screw up here there isn't going to be any money you screw up even if you take him out if you
00:10:55
screw up and there's an investigation there's not going to be a payout okay that is the law That's the Law okay
00:11:06
we were having a really difficult time hearing what was taking place there was background noise
00:11:13
I know there's just some high tension transmission electrical lines close by I don't know if that was
00:11:21
causing interference and I also know that based on what we could hear that they'd gone to the basement so that may
00:11:28
have interfered with the cellular signal as well so Midway through this conversation
00:11:41
I Tech I was texting with Christian and basically uh convinced him to go outside
00:11:46
for a cigarette and we placed an additional just a digital recorder on the bumper of his truck and asked him to
00:11:54
get that and take it in with him as kind of an insurance policy to make sure that
00:11:57
we could record the audio of the conversation even if we couldn't hear it in real time that seems kind of like a
00:12:03
little risky trade-off there uh it was and in fact we later found out that even one of the neighbor saw us doing that
00:12:09
and didn't quite know what was going on but fortunately for us it Linda was never aware that it took place and when
00:12:17
that meeting was over Christian had come out of the meeting and Linda had in fact
00:12:22
given him a diamond ring has basically a down payment to give to who she thought
00:12:29
Christian was going to hire to have Dwayne killed detective Adamson sent Christian in to
00:12:36
secretly record Linda a second time on that day Linda introduced the possibility of a home invasion gone bad
00:12:45
and she said that the Hitman might consider killing both Dwayne Gilman and his current wife
00:12:52
she said she'd pay extra another 10 grand remember 10 grand so it's 25 what's the value of the room
00:13:02
25 minus the value of the Ring yeah so what's that come back to [Music] 18. 18 000
00:13:18
cash okay I'm sure he'll like that I I just I don't know how how easy it is to get away with this
00:13:31
kind of stuff I just don't know yeah changes there'd be an investigation okay because we got too hot now we got two
00:13:40
obvious homicides on our hands right so there's going to be an investigation okay
00:13:46
now it comes down to the probability of getting away with it [Music] the recordings that detective Adamson
00:14:12
gathered with Christian were enough to make an arrest on December 27 2016 they went to Linda Gilman's house
00:14:21
are you the one who went in and arrested Linda yes will you tell me that about that
00:14:27
scene so we responded out to Linda's house when we went out there obviously our intent was to take Linda into custody
00:14:37
and we also had a search warrant for her residence so when we arrived we knocked on the
00:14:44
door several times didn't get a response I could see Linda inside the house moving around but she wouldn't come to
00:14:51
the door I tried to call the phone number that we had for Linda continue to pound on the door announced that we were
00:14:58
the police that we had a warrant and after several minutes she finally came to the front door was shaking was
00:15:07
you know clearly upset and demanded to know what was happening she opened the door we had identified
00:15:15
ourselves numerous times and she was taken into custody and we transported her to our office for an interview
00:15:21
and you interviewed her I did I'm willing to talk to you but you're you're asking me questions in the dark
00:15:31
and without telling me I don't even know what's going on yet you've told me this
00:15:35
is conspiracy solicitation I don't know for what I don't know what's up what happened Linda
00:15:43
investigation for what for solicitation for murder For Hire okay who I'm not willing to give you that
00:15:51
information just yet okay well I'm asking you some questions to get some background on you okay okay but we're
00:15:59
investigating a case where you're the suspect who who has instigated a solicitation for someone to kill another
00:16:05
person who will get there who's the well you mean all right tell me what's going on I'm
00:16:18
gonna but I'm getting some background information from you ask asking you some questions okay
00:16:24
I don't think we'll get there have you been engaged in a conversation with anybody about having someone killed no
00:16:30
you haven't no no so when I play recordings of that conversation what are you gonna say you're kidding me no I'm
00:16:37
not kidding you do think I'm wasting your time do you think I'd come to your house and try to kick your door down
00:16:41
with a search warrant because I've made something up I don't know I don't know I
00:16:45
don't know I know I have hours of recordings of you hours of recordings of you made by whom by me
00:16:54
by you yeah because you made a this doesn't even make any sense how would you even make arrangements to
00:17:03
record anything that I said where how and she was played a copy of the recording district attorney Mark Mathis
00:17:13
and we played a segment for her that was clearly her talking about the planning and the amount that she was
00:17:23
willing to pay for her husband's death you know I'm just gonna leave it up to his judgment but
00:17:30
it might make it easier and there there's going to be less of an investigation if she's gone too
00:17:36
really oh don't you think I would imagine yeah no witness nothing do you recognize your voice
00:17:48
could be me but I no I could also not be me and she wouldn't neither say whether
00:17:56
that was or wasn't her in fact during the interview when confronted with uh whether or not that was her voice her
00:18:05
response I believe was it could be me it could also not be me [Music] and couldn't have known was
00:18:18
someone for hoping to hurt someone but not being able to actually do it well I guess the difference between hoping and
00:18:30
doing is taking some significant step towards making that hope a reality and and that's where lend
00:18:39
across the line you could probably find someone every day that wishes that their ex-husband or
00:18:46
wife was dead but they don't do anything they don't take any steps to make that happen so it was intent yeah I mean
00:18:54
clearly she's she's not saying I wish Dwayne was dead or I wish I could collect on this life insurance policy
00:18:59
thing she's saying if you can find someone that will kill Dwayne here's a ring go give it to him as a down payment
00:19:05
let's get it done you've set the wheels in motion for someone to take action on your behalf that most likely will cause
00:19:12
someone's death [Music] foreign was tried in Utah's Third District Court in March of 2018. Mark Mathis was the
00:19:25
prosecutor she pled not guilty all right let's go on the record on the state versus Linda Gilman
00:19:33
171-900-245 appearance is a state of the former Skillman is back with us State your full name again okay
00:19:41
uh Christian Andrew Olson and do you recall sir that you're still under oath yes
00:19:47
Christian did testify that in the beginning it was just like any relationship you know between employer employee
00:19:56
that over time the relationship grew closer they started talking about personal things you know his personal
00:20:05
relationships with his his ex-wife with his new girlfriend his family religious beliefs
00:20:15
things like that just personal things and so they developed more of a friendship over time
00:20:24
hi hey I gotta hurry um how was the party last night she was family you know okay end of story
00:20:39
yep needed alcohol could be there did you get drunk not really yeah a little bit but not too bad than anything
00:20:56
it's not a good boy and then when she retained him to actually remodel her condominium
00:21:03
she gave him the option of living there and he could live in her condominium and while he was working on it she gave
00:21:13
him a Dodge pickup to help with all of the you know Remodeling and things like that so she
00:21:22
had made all of these gestures and offers to Christian to um I think and that's that's when the
00:21:30
relationship really started to get close to his admission he he took advantage of her and he did
00:21:37
so knowingly because that was a great opportunity for him to get money so he is taking advantage of her and she
00:21:46
thinks that she's grooming him correct the secret recordings Christian made were played in court the prosecution
00:21:55
argued that Linda wanted Dwayne dead so she could collect the insurance money the defense argued that Linda's net
00:22:02
worth was 1.5 million and so she didn't need the money the defense attorney told
00:22:08
the jury that Christian Olsen was a quote master manipulator and a Flim Flam artist
00:22:16
the jury deliberated for three and a half hours and Linda Gilman was found guilty of one
00:22:23
count of criminal solicitation to commit murder normally after a conviction we we generally train sentence people
00:22:36
within 45 days you know we are asking um for the sentencing to proceed as soon as possible and I know that the Linda's
00:22:47
ex-husband and his new wife they were very anxious to to get this thing resolved and to to get some
00:22:55
finality she managed to keep getting her sentencing postponed sometimes she'd refuse to come to court
00:23:03
she kept firing her lawyers she'd hire a new one and then argue that the new attorney hadn't had enough time to
00:23:10
become familiar with her case this went on for months after her sentencing was postponed for
00:23:17
the eighth time Third District Judge Paul Parker said we at some point need to drop the hammer on this
00:23:25
on October 29 2018 Linda Gilman was finally sentenced in Utah we have indeterminate sentencing where the judge
00:23:35
when they impose prison that it would be for an indeterminate time and the level of this offense was
00:23:42
three years to life so you don't know in Utah how long you're going for typically
00:23:48
no the Utah has a a system where we have a five-member Board of Pardons and Parole that takes
00:23:59
into account a lot of different considerations that determine how long somebody will spend
00:24:06
in prison I mean there's um like I said there's all sorts of factors that can come into play but the
00:24:14
the sentencing range is three years to life [Music] detective Adamson told us that Linda
00:24:26
Gilman is someone who likes to be in control she tries to manage everything that's
00:24:31
happening around her and so maybe it makes sense that even Behind Bars she was trying to run the
00:24:39
show on the same day she was convicted of trying to have her ex-husband killed she
00:24:46
was charged again with trying to hire another Hitman not to kill her ex-husband but someone else
00:24:56
I understand that she's now going back to court because she's being accused of having trying to have Christian Olsen
00:25:02
killed that's correct when you heard that when you heard that now she was going after Christian what
00:25:10
did you think did that surprise you not at all that's just that's the type of person that Linda Gilman that I know is
00:25:18
that's um she wants it her way and whatever she's gonna do to make things work her way
00:25:29
while she was in jail in Salt Lake City Linda Gilman allegedly approached a fellow inmate about having Christian
00:25:35
Olsen killed according to court documents Linda called herself the bank and said she could quote make everything
00:25:44
happen the inmate went to the police there's more when that first inmate didn't do what
00:25:52
she'd asked Linda hired another inmate this time she figured as long as she was going to try to have Christian killed
00:26:00
she'd go after someone else who was bothering her a lawyer who'd sued her on behalf of an
00:26:06
electric company a Washington Post headline read woman accused of hiring Hitmen to get out of
00:26:14
her hitman-related troubles the first line of the article reads the number of people Linda Gilman allegedly
00:26:22
once killed keeps growing Linda Gilman will be back in court to face these charges very soon
00:26:33
it really is a rabbit hole but when people were approached by Miss Gilman each one of them came to
00:26:47
law enforcement and I and I have to believe that most people are good-natured and they understand that
00:26:53
you know I may not have Clean Hands here but at the end of the day I'm not a killer and I'm not going to allow this
00:26:59
to happen I think Linda Gelman definitely poses a great safety risk if she's free and I
00:27:10
think even in jail she's clearly showing that she's a threat rather resourceful huh you got to give
00:27:21
her an a for effort that's for sure thank you [Music] criminal is created by Lauren Spore and
00:27:37
me Nadia Wilson is our senior producer audiomix by Rob Byers special thanks to Nikki dokus at the unified Police
00:27:46
Department of Greater Salt Lake Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal you can see
00:27:54
them at this criminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show Criminal is recorded in the studios of
00:28:02
North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around
00:28:12
shows like Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything he just started a new mini-series it's called failure it's
00:28:20
fail Sun so the idea is that you failed and you're someone's kid I mean my my wife is she would be considered more of
00:28:28
a success daughter the dark web itself is like this horrible world of cyber criminals and like child pornography I
00:28:38
never heard of it until the intellectual dark web came along you're a big boy you
00:28:42
have to clean your apartment anyways you should be cleaning your apartment anyways
00:28:48
you're a big boy subscribe to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything At theory of
00:28:54
everythingpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
00:29:03
[Music] s [Music]