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Episode 354

June 07, 2026 /

This episode covers the tragic case of Marsha Allen, her husband Harold's suspicious death, and the subsequent burglary that led to shocking revelations. Key discussions include Marsha's installation of security cameras, the break-in by Stephen White, and the investigation into Harold's death, which was initially ruled natural but later suspected to be murder.

Marsha Allen, a widow from Freetown, Indiana, felt unsafe after her husband's death and installed cameras to monitor her home while on a trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. During her absence, she received alerts about intruders in her house, leading her to call the sheriff's office. The intruder, Stephen White, was later identified as a friend of her daughter, Ashley.

As the investigation unfolded, Stephen revealed that Marsha had allegedly orchestrated the burglary to retrieve valuables from her home, claiming she needed money from life insurance that had gone to her brother-in-law instead. The narrative shifted when Stephen accused Marsha of being involved in her husband's death, suggesting she had motives tied to financial gain.

Detectives discovered text messages between Marsha and Ashley that hinted at a conspiracy involving Harold's death, which was later confirmed to involve poisoning with ethylene glycol. Marsha denied any involvement, but evidence pointed to both her and Ashley being complicit in the crime.

In a tragic turn, Marsha was found dead from a suspected suicide just before she could be arrested. Ashley was later charged with murder and conspiracy. The episode concludes with the implications of their actions and the ongoing investigation into the circumstances surrounding Harold's death.

TLDR

Marsha Allen's suspicious death leads to revelations of murder and conspiracy involving her daughter Ashley and a burglary gone wrong.

Episode

1:13:56
00:00:00
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.
00:00:06
Listener discretion is advised. We got a call to go check on her welfare at her home and she's passed away.
00:00:20
What? She passed away. It's mid-September 2023. 52-year-old widow Marsha Allen is away from her home in Freetown, Indiana.
00:00:43
She's on a trip to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, with her parents. She leaves on Saturday, planning to return a week later on the following Saturday.
00:00:56
Before the trip, she does something she's been wanting to do for a while. She installs cameras.
00:01:03
She buys the system herself from Walmart and keeps it quiet. She wants to watch the house while she's away,
00:01:11
mostly to keep an eye on her cats, and because she feels unsafe since her husband died about a year ago.
00:01:18
She gets them because she's never left her cats alone that long, And she has a bad feeling in the gut of her stomach.
00:01:26
So she wants to be able to check in on her pets wherever she is. I've never left my cats alone for that long before.
00:01:35
And I had a bad feeling. I thought maybe one of them would have died or something.
00:01:38
And I felt bad if I didn't know about it. And I got them to keep an eye on my cats.
00:01:43
I'm still scared. So I got the security surveillance cameras because every time I hear a noise, I jump.
00:01:50
I look at all outside cameras, or even go outside to work, because I don't want anybody to come out and jump at me.
00:01:56
Right. Okay. And you can watch it on your phone? Yeah. Because you were actually out of town.
00:02:03
We went to Tennessee Pigeon Forge, because it's mom and dad's anniversary, and they wanted to go.
00:02:12
And I knew I was going to start going to work, and it couldn't take them for that long.
00:02:17
Because dad's getting dementia, so I took them. Marsha has already lost her husband
00:02:22
and she was in that phase of life where you're not sure how much longer your parents are going to be around
00:02:28
starting to get there myself it's not a good feeling she notes that her dad has dementia
00:02:35
and it was their anniversary she's a good daughter on her parents couch she scrolls through the camera app
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suddenly there's a ping then another the AI in the app is able to determine that there is a person in view
00:02:53
but no one should be inside her house she nervously taps the first click and the view of the camera pops up on her phone
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a shape slides across the frame she pinches to zoom then another alert lands another clip cues
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her thumb keeps moving Save, save, save. She starts counting, and she'll end up with 22 videos by the time this is over.
00:03:25
One of them is nearly five minutes long. Obviously, she's in a state of panic. As she stares at her phone, there are two adult males wearing hoodies and moving towards her safe.
00:03:40
And in that longer clip, a face suddenly turns towards the camera. she watches more
00:03:47
the time stamps move towards six o'clock a door that should be shut swings open and a view shifts down a hall
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she knows by heart she studies the intruder's hands and clothing the face flashes again
00:04:04
making her stomach drop she recognizes it this time and says the name out loud her eyes fixed on what she's seeing
00:04:16
she calls the sheriff's office and says where she is and what the app is sending
00:04:22
along with how many clips she has of the break-in she texts and emails what she can
00:04:29
and then keeps the live view open to keep watching inside the house drawers open and shut
00:04:37
in one camera angle she sees the safe and catches her breath She knows the sound that the safe makes when it opens.
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The live feed hiccups, then streams again. A second figure passes through a doorway.
00:04:53
She listens for anything. Footsteps, a scrape, anything she can tell deputies later.
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Then, around 6 p.m., everything suddenly stops. The stream freezes up and drops.
00:05:07
No more alerts, no more clips. She refreshes. Nothing. She switches to another camera.
00:05:15
Nothing. She knows this means someone must have unplugged the router. She stares at the blank screen.
00:05:24
The safe is massive, and she thinks about what's inside. Family rings, collectibles, and dozens of firearms kept for years.
00:05:33
She starts a list in her head. She writes it down. She tells herself she can pull serial numbers when she gets home.
00:05:42
And then she calls the sheriff's office again to make sure they got the videos. She tells her parents she needs to go back early.
00:05:50
Okay, so... Did you get all the videos? I sent you 22. I not sure if I got 22 but I got a lot of them And I not sure of them I not sure that I been all the way through all of them Well the five one shows Stephen face full face
00:06:06
And what cracks me up is he looked in the bedroom and he saw the camera, but the other guy distracted him and he forgot all about anything.
00:06:16
And you called into the sheriff's department yesterday evening. Okay. and so do you think the other guy is Nathaniel?
00:06:25
I do. Because I know his voice and it sounds like his voice. She only recognizes the voice
00:06:32
of one of the suspects. But the other? She saw his face and put a name to it. Stephen White.
00:06:43
Deputies find him outside in the driveway at his parents' place in Scott County.
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the officer took Stephen away from the house to a garage where his maroon four-door sedan sat
00:06:55
wearing a gray t-shirt and dark sweatpants Stephen presented as nonchalant smoking a cigarette and waving his arms as he spoke with an open posture
00:07:06
after having his rights read to him he gestured for his dog Hank to move along and then he took off running
00:07:15
not running with his legs so much as his mouth. So do you understand your rights?
00:07:23
Yes, sir. Okay. Hank, go on. So you have any idea why we're here today? Well, they said that y'all got me on camera last night burglarizing the place.
00:07:33
Okay. And my husband. If that's the case, you know anything about it? No. Okay. My husband and I set up last night until about 4 o'clock in the morning watching Note.
00:07:44
He's off work today. He works at Gym Pack. He started the movie a couple weeks ago.
00:07:47
Haven't had time to finish it. I personally think I have strep or something. I've been running a fever.
00:07:54
My tongue is all swollen and sore, and my mouth is red and white, so just letting y'all know that.
00:08:01
I've been having diarrhea shits all night. Our kids were at school this morning.
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That was about it. I stood up on the balcony and said, bye to the kids so they don't get sick.
00:08:11
They're at school right now. Stephen may have been sick and his kids may have been at school right now, but that didn't account for earlier that morning.
00:08:24
The officer went on to tell him that he and possibly his husband had been positively ID'd in the video.
00:08:33
I've been a police officer for a minute, all right? And one lie always leads to a second lie.
00:08:39
Second line, and then a third line, and a fourth line. It's going to make it look a hell of a lot worse, all right?
00:08:45
Same. And it'll save embarrassment whenever I show the video or show the pictures,
00:08:50
and you're like, well, you know, what can I say to that? Because there it is. I'll try to see the video.
00:08:55
Okay, I do too. Because I got three. Well, I got a picture here. So the officer showed him the picture.
00:09:01
And I really do not have a hat. I don't even have a fucking hat. What about the car?
00:09:07
The car that you're in there, I don't know. This is my car. Somebody fucking stole it from me on Sunday night.
00:09:14
And how'd you get it back then? Because I found a police report and we found it over here.
00:09:19
But I had three keys for this. And I had my one set of keys in there. The other keys I'm putting is in my seat somewhere.
00:09:26
So listen. I have my second. So listen. I just want you to know, okay? That there's more than just that picture.
00:09:36
All right? He went on to explain that the most important thing was to return the stolen items to the owner.
00:09:43
And if the owner was happy, Stephen might avoid charges. We either get the stuff back, or I think you know probably what's coming.
00:09:51
You just go to something jail and sit and rot. You get the stuff back and go to jail and sit and rot.
00:09:57
Stephen was ready to talk. Some more, that is. I just took another cigarette. I don't expect the whole thing. It's ugly.
00:10:04
because that lady is the lady who told me to go get the shit. Her name's Marsha Buckson.
00:10:13
And she asked me to go get that shit because her husband, Harold Allen, passed away in December.
00:10:21
Okay. And according to her, she needed that life insurance money. But she did not get that life insurance money
00:10:30
because the policy was set to go to his brother. How old is the lady that you're talking about?
00:10:34
Marsha Buxton? 50? 50? 51? Does she live there? Yeah. In that house? She got it because whenever she married the man.
00:10:49
You know where it's at? She signed a free town, I reckon. She gave me an address.
00:10:53
She said, hey, I need you to go up in here. I need you to grab someone and go up in here.
00:10:58
And she's trying to meet this dude up there. And I did. and I went over there. She wanted us to get rid of it.
00:11:05
This woman has hated me for years. I'm best friends with her daughter. She needed the life insurance money,
00:11:13
but Harold's death certificate said he died of natural causes. He'd had a heart condition
00:11:19
that was getting worse in the weeks before he died. It happened at about 2 in the afternoon
00:11:25
on December 20th the previous year. 911. I'm on. Yeah, this is 3287 North State Road 135.
00:11:35
My husband's in our bedroom floor. He's nonresponsive. And I need anyone to leave.
00:11:40
Okay, what's your address again? 3287 North State Road 135. Okay. How old is he?
00:11:52
He's 52. Okay Did you find him like that Yeah um I work from home and I went back there to check on him because he been sick
00:12:08
And then when I went back there, he was just laying the floor like he was trying to get
00:12:12
up and go to the bathroom or something. And he's not breathing. Okay. Do you want to start CPR if I help you?
00:12:22
Yeah, I could do that. Go ahead. You just do your CPR and you keep me on speaker, okay?
00:12:34
Marsha called for a medical emergency. Her husband was dying, or likely already dead.
00:12:42
But this was anything but a natural death. Sure, the medical report read cardiovascular disease, calcifying constructive pericarditis,
00:12:53
severe coronary atherosclerosis of the left anterior descending artery. But his death was way more complicated than all of those big complicated fancy words.
00:13:08
It was murder. Someone had murdered Harold Allen. The End 52-year-old Marsha Allen was out of town in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with her parents
00:13:59
while cameras monitoring her home in Freetown, Indiana started sending alerts about motion inside her house that shouldn't have existed.
00:14:11
She saved 22 clips, and around 6 o'clock, the feed suddenly went dead. She called police, turned the videos over, and gave a name.
00:14:21
It was someone she recognized, a friend of her daughter, Ashley. When officers tracked the burglar down, he gave them far more information than they were ready for,
00:14:34
accusing Marsha herself of staging the burglary while she was out of town. He claimed that she directed him to pick up a guy named Richard on that very date and carry out the heist.
00:14:45
according to Stephen she was upset that she didn't receive the life insurance money she was entitled to
00:14:51
after her husband died she was upset that it went to her brother-in-law instead now she was afraid her brother-in-law was going to take the only inheritance she had left
00:15:03
a safe full of jewelry and expensive guns so instead she would have her daughter's friend Stephen
00:15:11
who already had a criminal history steal them sell them, and give her the proceeds while taking a cut for himself.
00:15:20
But the story was growing a bit out of control, as you'll soon learn. She told me, and I already deleted all the messages, like she asked.
00:15:30
She said, hey, I'll give you $3,000. You can go to my house, gave me the safe code.
00:15:36
Marsha did or asked you? Yes, Marsha did. She said, you can go down there, you can get this,
00:15:41
and I need it all taken somewhere, please, because his brothers is trying to get into my house
00:15:48
and they want to take me to court and take all of Harold's guns and everything. I said, Marsha, I'm a fellow and I cannot have guns.
00:15:56
Right now, I'm sick of shit. I'm really sick of shit that was on my way to the doctor.
00:16:01
Because I told her, listen, bitch, I'm pardoning my French. No, you're fine. But I said, listen, bitch, I'm not fucking, I got two kids.
00:16:09
My husband is schizophrenic. My dad is running for air. We got a lot of shit going on.
00:16:14
I am not about to drive guns across this town. If you have shit that's antique, so be it.
00:16:21
I don't want no bullets and no motherfucking weapons in my car. And she took everything apart and she set everything exactly where it was supposed to fucking go.
00:16:29
And I got what I could get. She told me to go on Monday night and Tuesday night.
00:16:34
And it sounds to me like she set me up real quick. Stephen, being the sassy-ass bitch that he is
00:16:41
was a felon and couldn't be caught with weapons also, he had a lot going on clearly
00:16:49
a lot of problems, issues kind of a fucked-up life already, it sounds like but in the same breath, he said he did it anyway
00:16:59
I heard the exact words I want this to be removed from the house before I get back from Tennessee
00:17:03
and set up my cameras because I need to be able to tell his brothers that all these things were gone
00:17:12
because they're mine, and I don't want them to try to fight me in court over it,
00:17:17
over an inheritance. You know what? This was all done. Probate court. This was all done in the text.
00:17:21
Yeah, from a text now number that she had. Stephen already admitted that Marsha hated him.
00:17:28
Apparently, she was a racist who didn't like him and blamed him in some way for coming between her and her daughter.
00:17:37
Allegedly, that is. So, was she setting him up? Or did she just want the inheritance she felt she deserved
00:17:46
and knew he could get it for her? Or was it even Marsha that texted him in the first place?
00:17:53
Are you sure that Ashley not the one that messaged you to go do that I not Because the information that we have or that we getting could be a little bit conflicting on that part
00:18:07
Like, Ashley, and if it is Ashley, just tell me if it's Ashley. No, I'm not. I'm really not sure if it's Ashley or Marsha.
00:18:12
That's the thing. They've been like this a whole fucking life. But do you have your phone, is it labeled as Ashley if she was to text you?
00:18:20
No, not at all. But the person that texted this is Marsha? Well, she called me on my TextNow number.
00:18:27
She said, in your favor, I said, who is this? And I got a call from a TextNow number.
00:18:30
This has been, look at me, a couple of months ago. And then it was supposed to go down on this day?
00:18:38
Yes, pretty sure. Because it was TextNow, the call was on TextNow. But to be honest with you, Marshall and Ashley look just alike, sound just alike, dress just alike.
00:18:46
They're the same kind of psychopath. Now, in case you don't know, TextNow is an app that allows you to text people from an anonymous number.
00:18:56
It wasn't sure if it was Marsha or Ashley, but whoever was on the other end of the phone wasn't finished giving orders.
00:19:04
And tonight, I was supposed to go back and completely get it and burn the house down,
00:19:09
because apparently when she was young, she burned her house down in deputy. She burned her house down in deputy?
00:19:16
Yeah, she took her five-year-old daughter to her grandparents and burnt a house down in Debbie.
00:19:22
But you were supposed to go back tonight and burn the house down. Yeah, I wasn't going to burn that damn house down.
00:19:26
I'm not doing that. I was like, look, I'm not going to do that. So if you don't burn it down, you need to make it look like you've broken in there and make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money.
00:19:36
Stephen's accusations were getting wild. And he wasn't stopping. This woman has hated me for years.
00:19:44
But I'm best friends with her daughter. Okay. What's the daughter's name? Ashley Jones.
00:19:49
Okay. I'm just saying you're being awful truthful. I am. I'm telling you my truth because this woman's a murderer.
00:19:56
To be, you know, contradicted by this woman is a fucking murderer. Okay. I know that.
00:20:02
I've not gone to nobody and said anything because I don't have no fucking proof on it.
00:20:06
This woman's a psychopath. And I'm telling you guys that right now. Harold Allen wasn't her husband.
00:20:12
She set a life insurance policy for him. Went and married him. I don't know when she married him because since I've left, I've been away from it.
00:20:18
This woman straight came to my house one day and sat me across the face and told me, at 26 years old,
00:20:25
and told me if I ever talked to her daughter again that she was going to kill me.
00:20:29
I better watch her. You better watch her fucking foot. I was right up there at the house. I was like, what the fuck?
00:20:34
She got in her little car and she dipped off and left. Well, that was a fun little story.
00:20:39
The kind of Lifetime movie someone of Harold's demographic would just eat right up.
00:20:44
It's important to state that as far as we know, and as far as the police know, Harold Allen died of natural causes, and all this verbosity about murder was just nonsense.
00:20:57
What they did know was that this very vocal character was caught in the act of burglarizing Marsha's home on camera, and now he's got a whole lot of stories about what other people did instead.
00:21:12
Whataboutism? They call it. Marsha's not stupid. Here's what I do know. Because she done killed her husband and her mother-in-law and got away with that shit.
00:21:20
So here's what I do know. And I do know how that happened, too. And if you need me to ask these guys to go move to, like, inside or go somewhere else,
00:21:30
but what I do know is that we need that stuff back. Now, it was Marsha who not only killed her husband, but also her mother-in-law as well.
00:21:41
Right. If it were only that easy. They recovered the property and interviewed Marsha the next day,
00:21:48
so detectives could pin down the how and who behind the heist. I'll tell you that we recovered these rings.
00:21:59
We made to the rest in this case. That would be Stephen White, the other guy. Marsha only recognized Stephen because, according to Marsha,
00:22:08
he was too stupid to cover his face, and he ran his mouth the whole time. She recognized the other man's voice
00:22:16
and would later learn that he was a longtime friend of Stephen's. If you could get his phone,
00:22:22
I guarantee it's going to be my daughter and you text him the combination of that safe.
00:22:27
So, and I was going to ask you a little bit more about that. Three people in the world knew that safe.
00:22:34
It was me, my husband, and my daughter. Only one name was linked to both the family
00:22:40
and the suspect. And that was Marsha's daughter, Ashley Jones, a friend of Stephen White.
00:22:49
She knew the players, she knew the layout, and she knew the safe's code. Plus, she was smart.
00:22:58
Well, relatively. Logic solved the mystery. It was actually no mystery at all. The real mystery was connected to Harold's death.
00:23:08
This is the detective who led that case. I would step over to kind of help them, guide them with it.
00:23:42
And this one just kind of worked out to where I ended up being the lead investigator on it
00:23:47
because we had had another murder within probably six months of this one. So this kind of was up my alley.
00:23:56
You know, one of the things I like to do, the putting pieces together, fire, patterns, the human behavior. Adam remembered that Harold Allen was someone that everyone
00:24:06
seemed to like. Through the, you know, the investigation of talking to family and friends
00:24:12
and co-workers, I mean, everybody basically said the exact same thing. Like he was a very caring,
00:24:18
loving man. He was a good, good husband, loved his wife. Everybody at his work, you know,
00:24:26
enjoyed being around him and nobody had any complaints about him at all and like everybody
00:24:31
was really just sad for him you know like because they could only imagine what he had been through
00:24:37
and but yeah no ill words or anything about the guy he was just everybody thought he was super
00:24:44
and here's what a friend said about Harold on his memory page I'm heartbroken by Harold's passing
00:24:52
He was a wise mentor and very skilled teacher to me, although he was too humble to admit it.
00:24:58
Harold was always giving me advice both professionally and about life in general.
00:25:02
I continue to follow his guidance to this day. He could be rough around the edges, but you'd quickly realize that he was the most kind and most caring person you would ever meet.
00:25:14
I find comfort knowing that he found love and met his wife, Marsha, who he spoke often and fondly of.
00:25:21
My deepest condolences to you and your family. Everyone who knew Harold praised him and believed he died of a heart condition.
00:25:31
But back in the interview room, the detective was about to rip that apart with Stephen's accusations,
00:25:38
starting with Marsha's alleged involvement in the burglary. And this is where it gets interesting.
00:25:44
OK, I'm going to go ahead and make sure you understand this. Some of this is going to be accusatory towards you because this is what he said.
00:25:51
OK. So you're not under arrest. You are free to leave anytime you want. But I just want to make sure you understand that he's accusing you of some stuff too.
00:26:03
So here's what he says. And I may have, it was a lot. So if I get some of it wrong, I apologize.
00:26:13
So he says that he received a call from a text now number. and he says that it was back in i think he said like in may or june so it'd been a couple months
00:26:27
ago and that basically it was a female on the other side he thought it was the line he said
00:26:34
he thought it was you but i think he may have said something to the effect that you and ashley
00:26:38
sounded like so it could have been ashley and he said that um basically something to the effect and
00:26:47
I could get some of the facts wrong in this, but something to the effect that all these guns,
00:26:54
something about when your husband passed away, that all these guns, maybe some family members were wanting them or something.
00:27:03
Well, what he's saying is basically that you said that you would give him $3,000 to go in the house
00:27:12
and take the guns and have him take the guns and take them back to his place. He's a liar. I did not do that.
00:27:20
Okay. And he also said something about burning down the house. What? Burning down your house.
00:27:28
He better not. I don't know if he was saying he was going to. I would have to go back because I recorded the whole interview.
00:27:35
Oh, wow. I have to go back to see exactly what he said. Wow. Because there was a lot that he said.
00:27:41
He wasn't exaggerating, and she was not prepared for what came next. I'll tell you what else he said.
00:27:48
He accused you of murdering your husband. I did not murder my husband. Okay. Something to the effect of some kind of, I don't know,
00:27:59
some kind of seeds or something and basically poisoning his drink. That would show me a toxicology report if that happened.
00:28:07
Was there an autopsy done? Yes. There was an autopsy. Autopsy and toxicology. He died because he had pericarditis that was undetected.
00:28:15
He had what? Pericarditis. The heart has pericardium around it, the lining of the heart that protects the heart when it beats.
00:28:26
It went undetected, so it wasn't going on so long that the pericardium around the heart hardened and it stopped his heart.
00:28:34
And he had a little bit of blocked arteries. That's an autopsy report. Okay. Well, if that's what the autopsy said, that's what it said.
00:28:44
But she was still being accused of setting up the burglary. Do you, because I don't know, and I haven't been able to talk to her yet,
00:28:51
do you think Ashley would have, I mean, because you said that only three people...
00:28:56
Because the guns are worth a lot of money. Do you think Ashley would have had something to do with this?
00:29:01
She had to have. She's the only one other than me would do the combination, and I would never give it out to anybody. Ever.
00:29:08
Ashley and her fiancé had lived with Marsha and Harold for a while, but now Ashley was living in Missouri.
00:29:16
The only way to get to the bottom of this was to call her. At the same time, detectives scoured Stephen White's phone and found some shocking evidence.
00:29:26
Messages between Ashley and him that confirmed the burglary conspiracy. This is a montage of some of the things Ashley said.
00:29:35
I do have access next week to her home with a lot to steal and sell it would be as simple as I load
00:29:43
the truck you go sell it we look for more rinse repeat I mean 100k worth of guns lol I already
00:29:50
stole my guns to keep she owes me I about to grab the coins too I just get it get her out of the house he only has AD and it will not pay out for natural causes Only thing they can do is say yeah you don get it or where do I send the 200K lol
00:30:09
This was enough to bring Ashley in from Missouri for questioning. Meanwhile, detectives had access to Stephen's and Marsh's phones.
00:30:18
The case went quiet for a few weeks. What surfaced wasn't another clip or a rumor.
00:30:26
It was an online order by Ashley with a shipping label in the family name Lynn Allen,
00:30:33
all pointing to the Freetown address with dates, size, and price attached. And the item in the center of those records hinted at a much larger crime.
00:30:45
Was Stephen telling the truth? The burglary thread had become a lead. The paper trail pointed back to Harold and to his murder.
00:30:57
When Marsha returned on October 16th, the first question was the order. Who bought it? Where was it shipped? And what phone number was on it?
00:31:10
The detective shows her the paperwork. So it was ordered through a place that was called Kimboys, LLC.
00:31:18
What's that? It's some company that this definitely is like what it was ordered from.
00:31:25
It says the order source was Peach Pay, so it was paid through Peach Pay. Do you have a Peach Pay account or anything?
00:31:30
I don't know what Peach Pay is. Okay. Even though the order was sent to Lynn Allen, the address is Marsha's.
00:31:39
See what I'm talking about where it says it's billing to Lynn Allen. That's your address, right?
00:31:44
3287, State Road 135. It says shipping Lynn Allen on your address again. The phone number that's associated with that, 812-521-2671.
00:31:55
Is that Ashley's number? I don't know. The next day, they sat face-to-face with Marsha's daughter, Ashley.
00:32:03
While Marsha was fairly animated, facial expressions, a tone of voice that suggested disbelief or curiosity,
00:32:10
Ashley was extremely subdued and poised, almost quietly defiant. We're not going to talk to you about murderers.
00:32:20
Okay, that's not what we're here to talk about. We actually talked to your mom yesterday for four or five hours.
00:32:31
We had to talk to her about some things. She answered some questions for us. So we're going to talk to you about some of that, okay?
00:32:38
Before we do that, I am going to read you your rights because you're in custody.
00:32:41
All right. Make sure you understand that. A lot of what we talked about was about the death of Harold.
00:32:50
We have some text messages from your mom's phone. She can send it to a download.
00:32:58
And there was some text messages on there that we had some concern about, the meaning of those text messages.
00:33:06
We have an order where some ethylene glycol was ordered on December 13th, I think it was December 13th, December 14th.
00:33:15
The ethylene glycol arrived at the address of your mom's out in Freetown, 3287 North State Road 135.
00:33:25
On December 19th, on December 20th, your herald ended up passing away. Do you know anything about the ethylene glycol?
00:33:37
No, sir. Ah, ethylene glycol, otherwise known as antifreeze. It's a sweet-tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubby's drink.
00:33:50
And the best part is he won't even notice until he's dead. I guess he won't notice when he's dead either.
00:33:56
In any case, it's the murder weapon of choice for those who don't like guns. You know, women, for the most part.
00:34:05
The detective had screenshots of the ethylene glycol order being sent to that address under the name Lynn Allen.
00:34:13
This was Marsha's middle and last name. They also had messages from Ashley to her mother asking for money for this particular order.
00:34:23
According to Marsha, she knew nothing about it. it was Christmas time. Ashley, her fiance, who was also named Ashley,
00:34:33
and the kids were all living there, and packages were just flooding in. Who can keep track?
00:34:39
At least 10 packages a day came in that family. I understand, but there was only one thing
00:34:43
that definitely liked all the time. Right. There's a lot of packages that probably come
00:34:47
at Christmas time. I get that. I mean, we do the same thing I did. I'd rather shop online than go to a busy store.
00:34:53
But I would remember a thing of ethylene glycol coming to my house if I got it. The day that it does come, which is the 19th, and we know what day it was delivered, we have the tracking number,
00:35:12
there's a message from Ashley saying we have a delivery. The focus closed in on mother and daughter.
00:35:21
one bought the poison and used it on Harold did the other know did the other help
00:35:30
so you know and part of this stems from also talking to somebody who gave us some information
00:35:38
and saying that Harold the information we got was Harold did not die of natural causes
00:35:44
basically that he was poisoned really yes so when we follow up on that and we get these
00:35:52
your mom consents to phone download and we get all these text messages and we start going through these text messages and it between you and your mom right And like I said one of the things just one there a lot of them
00:36:06
One of them is on December 13th, December 14th, around that time frame, ethylene glycol was ordered.
00:36:14
I think you texted to your mom, if I remember correctly. and that tracking number matches the same tracking number that our other detective was able to get
00:36:26
of the ethylene black hole that arrived at the house on December 19th. The information we received was that there was root beer floats that were made.
00:36:38
It was put into the root beer float and that Harold drinks it. And obviously the end result was that he died.
00:36:46
Marsha denied having any involvement in the poisoning. She denied everything while her own daughter continued to point the finger at her
00:36:55
in her calm, unbothered tone of voice. If you know that your mom did something that she probably really shouldn't have done,
00:37:04
I mean, your mom told us quite a bit yesterday, so if you know that, or actually,
00:37:12
I mean, do you think your mom's capable of doing something like that? Well, I don't know that she did, but I mean, she's capable or whatever. She's very intelligent.
00:37:28
If Marsha was intelligent, Ashley was a genius. I'm being somewhat facetious here.
00:37:37
Detectives had already confirmed that Marsha had nothing to do with the burglary.
00:37:41
Ashley felt cheated out of her share of Harold's life insurance, and she was going to recoup in whatever way she could.
00:37:50
Still, detectives pressed on with Marsha. This is the word, and the same day that this is delivered, there's Ruber floats.
00:38:00
And then the very next day, Harold's dead. I did not kill him. Who did? As far as I know, he has heart condition dead.
00:38:11
Okay. Let's, we get the results back. Yeah. And it says there's ethylene glycol in his system.
00:38:19
How did that get there? If you didn't know anything about it, how did that happen?
00:38:24
We both made the root beer floats. So I did not put anything in anyone's drink. I didn't even know he had anything like that there.
00:38:34
Is there ever a chance when Ashley could have put something in there? I have no idea. She lived with me.
00:38:40
Did you watch her? No, I did not watch her. That's what I'm asking. I did not watch her the whole time. No, I did not.
00:38:47
Marsha was aware that Ashley was growing marijuana in the house. Okay, no big deal in 2026, I guess.
00:38:56
But that wasn't the only botany Ashley was experimenting with. She was also into all sorts of new-age domestic white woman horseshit,
00:39:04
like saging and cleansing, amulets and crystals, demons and things that would attach themselves to people,
00:39:14
even convincing Marsha that something evil had attached itself to Harold. Not because he was unkind, abusive, or controlling,
00:39:22
but because he was sick a lot. Surely that meant he had some sort of demon attached to him.
00:39:29
And it was no wonder Harold was sick a lot. he did have a heart condition after all
00:39:35
but was it natural or was it because he was slowly being poisoned from the time Ashley temporarily moved in months before his death
00:39:46
Marsha remembered Ashley asking strange questions about poison plants under the umbrella of good parenting
00:39:53
according to Ashley she wanted to know which poisonous plants surrounded the house
00:39:59
you know, so she could tell her little girl what to avoid. So looking back on all that...
00:40:05
She asked me stuff like, what plant should I... I'll watch out for her because if I let it outside play
00:40:15
and I don't want to get hurt if she tries to eat something because the elephant sticks everything in her mouth still.
00:40:22
Say that again, she would say like... I want to know what the poisonous plants were around the region,
00:40:28
so she would make sure Violet didn't get into it and stuff. Violet has an immune problem since she was a preemie.
00:40:39
Her kidneys didn't develop properly. And if Violet gets around certain things, she gets sick or she breaks up and has it,
00:40:48
and she can't pass to having emergency doses of steroids because her body doesn't produce the response to five things.
00:40:56
Mm-hmm. Right. Has she ever gotten into anything like that before? She has, and she ended up on steroids.
00:41:06
Hmm. Fox glove seeds? Is she a witch? Does she float? I'm starting to think the Salem witch trials weren't such a bad idea.
00:41:17
The fox glove plant is native to North America and grows in shady, damp areas. If ingested, it causes dangerous heart arrhythmias.
00:41:26
It can lead to death. foxglove scenes is talked about yeah she doesn't know about that crap all the time
00:41:33
of course I never thought about it but maybe she did think about it when he went to the hospital
00:41:41
because he went to the hospital twice something yeah or maybe once or twice face was numb
00:41:46
bleeding anal bleeding actually I think diarrhea all that kind of stuff She told me you just had the dream from facing and throwing out out Well same thing You know they did a blood draw Is there any
00:42:06
Is there going to be a good chance that that blood is going to have fossil in it?
00:42:13
Probably so, yeah. Okay. Why do you think for sure? And just be honest again. Just be honest.
00:42:19
Because she was ordering plants. Okay. Fossil plants? I think so. I know that she tried to get a hold of some mugwort, which I didn't know what that was.
00:42:29
Okay. Tell me about the foxglove and where it was ordered from. I think that she found some on Etsy.
00:42:41
This was Marsha's response. You said, I need foxglove seeds. And she says, I think, or you said, I think I can get them at Walmart.
00:42:51
They're pretty flowers. And then she said, thank you, we are watching a new movie on Netflix with the kids and those are traceable.
00:42:59
The entire foxglove plant is poisonous, so it could have been easy enough to believe that Marsha wanted seeds to plant because of the pretty flowers.
00:43:09
Still, when Ashley followed up in a message saying, those are traceable, detectives knew this was bigger than they originally thought.
00:43:19
the rest of the messages gave plenty of clues but that was just it they were clues
00:43:27
what became clear was that Harold had been sick for weeks and the reason was becoming apparent
00:43:33
neither Marsha nor Ashley seemed to care about his misery either all they cared about was their own
00:43:41
Marsha messages Ashley saying she's irritated and she can't sleep she needs for this to be over
00:43:49
she says it's hanging on by threads it's so long because he's big meaning something is taking too
00:44:00
long because of his size and weight marcia and ashley often referred to harold as it by the way
00:44:07
so that gives you a clue into their character ashley answers marcia it moves slow and has to
00:44:15
build. Marsha then says she wished it would, quote, reach its climax and be done, LOL. He's snoring on
00:44:25
and off. And if he moved around, it would go faster, end quote. Then Ashley responds, yes, if he got
00:44:34
moving, it would be faster, but we know he won't. Marsha went on to explain that Harold's stomach
00:44:41
was hurting, but his face was better. Yet he wasn't presenting like the stories, just vomiting and
00:44:49
diarrhea. Ashley answers, we also have God knows how many that aren't reported or know how it grows,
00:44:58
only the stories of the self-inflicted. And we will see. If not, we will do something else, but
00:45:05
I think it's slowly doing it. The detectives were shocked by what they found, and when they questioned Marsha, she had an explanation for everything,
00:45:16
even if it didn't make sense. Ashley, on the other hand, just kept pointing the finger at her own mother,
00:45:22
even though they were clearly both involved. Probably the most shocking thing of all was the possibility that
00:45:29
this wasn't the first time one of them had poisoned someone. Ashley was currently engaged to a woman
00:45:35
and her previous partner was also a woman but the father of her only child was a man
00:45:44
well obviously, because you know, biology anyway, guess what, he died in his early 30s
00:45:51
from a supposed stroke his name was T.Y. now ain't that a coinkydink and then you wonder why people can't find a date in 2026.
00:46:04
So there's something along the lines like talking about how much he weighs and it's taken longer because he weighs a certain amount
00:46:15
and Ty's brought up and how much Ty weighed. You said, love you too. I just want it done. LOL.
00:46:24
She said, me too, like beyond over, laugh out loud, but we got it. You said, like, what's taking so long?
00:46:31
He's off balance, said he had trouble getting out of the car. She said, the weight.
00:46:36
It takes 12 hours for a woman at 180 to fill anything. You do the math. Laugh out loud.
00:46:42
It's slow. And previously, Ty was only 120, LOL. So what's the weight? You said, so it's going to take a while?
00:46:50
She said, 48 max. We will know. Also, he's high still. I gave him a lot of weed butter.
00:46:58
Yeah, I think she made brownies. You don't know what he has because of that. Oh, well.
00:47:05
Could be nausea happening and everything. Except how loud he's making me mad. He gets stupid when he's high.
00:47:14
In case you didn't hear, Marcia says he gets stupid when he's high. So, it looked like Marcia and Ashley were slowly poisoning Harold.
00:47:24
and they couldn't really track his so-called symptoms because they were giving him weed-infused food
00:47:30
to help with the pain and nausea. How kind. But then she mocks him for being stupidly high.
00:47:39
While Marcia deflected, played dumb, and spun the texts in her favor with detectives for hours,
00:47:46
Ashley very simply maintained that this was all her mother's doing. I mean, I'm just going to kind of get to the odds, okay?
00:47:55
I mean, we know what happened to Harold. Yeah. We've got evidence of that. Your mom come in yesterday.
00:48:03
She told us a lot. We've got months and months and months of text messages from your mom's phone.
00:48:10
And, I mean, it's obvious that, you know, something happened to him. And, you know, I mean, basically, now is your chance to tell us what you know about what happened there.
00:48:27
because, I mean, like I said, these text messages, the order, where this stuff came from, the confirmation numbers,
00:48:40
I think at some point she probably dragged you into something that you didn't want to be in,
00:48:45
or there was something to do with those demons or something, you know, with that.
00:48:51
But we just want to know the truth. I mean, is your relationship with your mom good?
00:49:01
Yes and no. I kind of just put up with what she does. She's always trying to drag me into whatever she gets into.
00:49:11
She's always trying to drag me into stuff, you see? Anytime I get any type of financial gain on my own,
00:49:17
you know, like how I sold my house, she wants it. This was a complete lie told by someone who had taken a large amount of money from her mother, not once, but twice.
00:49:30
I can't imagine what you feel being betrayed by your daughter. And I can't imagine what it would feel like if I knew my kid had done something.
00:49:40
you know but at this you know at this point i mean there is so much content there and i would almost call it evidence and like you said we didn't go into detail
00:49:54
in there what we make of those messages um but i mean we have more than just the messages
00:50:01
we have the some of the results in the hospital when he went to the hospital back in
00:50:08
um november and the symptoms that he was experiencing which remind you is the same day
00:50:16
that you the or within the same time frame let's say that day that the fox gloves are mentioned
00:50:22
and the symptoms of fox gloves see what happens is the you know the bleeding and the stomach and
00:50:30
the face that you guys are talking about and then one thing that he didn't get to all the
00:50:37
way down was on the 19th. Whenever the Ethylene Bicol gets there, the conversations
00:50:45
then, you know, like it's there, then there were some pictures, you know, like I said, the rubier and things
00:50:49
like that. Detectives gave Marcia every opportunity to point the finger back at Ashley or just come
00:50:57
clean, but she refused. I'm not going to be shocked at this point. To be shocked, you would have to
00:51:05
not believe any of the messages between you and Ashley to be shocked that it wouldn't be in a system or you wouldn't
00:51:14
believe any of the stuff on the Google search that was never Google. I mean, and what Stephen
00:51:19
tells us, I mean, he says root beer float and that's what we find, right? You know, not long
00:51:25
after ethylene glycol is ordered, sent to your house and the name that's addressed to is Lynn
00:51:31
Allen, but your middle name is Lynn, and it's your address. And so, I mean, I know we've already told you all this,
00:51:41
and you already know all this, but that's why we're where we're at. I mean, and I know you're smart.
00:51:48
I mean, you know how you say you already know how this looks. I mean, this stuff doesn't look good.
00:51:53
And then to have this on top of it, and, I mean, there was enough, you know, The courts and judge and prosecutors have issued more for the phones.
00:52:06
During the interviews, detectives went back to the phone copy. They saw gaps. Marsha had deleted a lot of texts.
00:52:17
This is Detective Adam Nicholson again. And after she submitted to the phone downloaders or consented, she actually deleted the messages in the interview room between her and Ashley.
00:52:29
because Clint had to step out of the interview room for a second and grab the consent form for her to sign.
00:52:36
And he couldn't take her phone with him because she hadn't signed it yet, but she had consented.
00:52:44
And while he's gone, she's going through her phone. She's deleting things. She told him that she was just deleting pictures from her security camera of her in the house
00:52:57
where she was in her underwear and stuff, and she didn't necessarily want us to see that,
00:53:02
which was understandable. But when she gave us the phone, I thought, there's no way that there's anything on that phone.
00:53:10
There's no way she would have gave it to us. So I think that she thought by deleting those messages that she was probably free and clear,
00:53:17
and then she didn't hear back from us until October. That was September 20th. We showed up early in the morning on the 16th of October.
00:53:27
uh, this would have been 2023. And, uh, we had search warrants for her house for all electronic
00:53:33
devices like, um, laptops, computers, old cell phones, uh, memory sticks or flash drives,
00:53:41
hard drives, things like that. She didn't, she didn't know we were coming until we knocked on
00:53:46
the door. Yeah. We knocked on the door early in the morning. She had just got out of bed. It
00:53:51
appeared she was like in her um still like pjs and you can tell then she was shocked and uh i read the warrants to her And the warrant actually mentions to seize the property for evidence of murder for the crime of murder
00:54:10
And I remember her face is like, if you watch that video, you can tell she knows them.
00:54:17
And she agreed. So she, me and Clint took her back to the sheriff's department while the other officers and detectives completed the search warrant.
00:54:28
And so I think that was probably her first moment of like knowing like, yeah, they know something.
00:54:36
They knew Ashley and her mother had discussed how long it would stay in someone's body, how no one would notice and how to make it ready for use.
00:54:48
by saying, I need something that crushes this into powder. They also had testimony of Ashley's partner,
00:54:56
recalling that Ashley was grinding up something she put in Harold's brownies, throwing the grinder away afterwards,
00:55:03
and telling her lover not to say anything about it. On October 17th, Ashley interviewed with detectives from jail
00:55:11
after being arrested for the burglary. They were surprised she said anything at all,
00:55:16
because when they picked her up in Missouri for the burglary, she immediately asked for an attorney.
00:55:22
I'm proud of Detective Burcham and the job he did and myself. And, you know, it was just one of those, though,
00:55:29
that couldn't be at our best because our hands were tied. You know, like we knew with Marsha because we were told,
00:55:37
the prosecutor told us if we didn't get a confession, we couldn't arrest her. I mean, we kind of went, you know, like I wanted to know that if she told me to,
00:55:45
you know, go screw off that, you know, I could arrest her, but I didn't have that in my back
00:55:51
pocket, you know, so I had to sit there and play dumb, play nice, you know, try to go along with
00:55:58
what she was saying, try to act like I was believing what, I mean, because if I, the moment
00:56:03
I started pushing on her, she got very upset and I could tell that she was close to probably saying,
00:56:10
you know, like I want an attorney. And if she would have said, you know, I want an attorney,
00:56:14
then game over. That's the law. And we respect that. You can't, you can't keep questioning
00:56:20
somebody once they say that. So we had to be very, very careful on how we approach that interview.
00:56:26
You know, knowing how hard it is and having it happen to me before, like how easy it is for
00:56:33
somebody to say, I want an attorney, like you're done. And we'd already been told like,
00:56:38
you can't arrest her if she doesn't confess. So we didn't get an arrest. And it was the same
00:56:43
thing with Ashley, except we already had that experience with Ashley once because she was,
00:56:48
when she got arrested in Missouri, me and Clint Bertram, the detective had also went out there
00:56:53
and they brought her back to their sheriff's department. We went in to talk to her just about
00:57:00
the burglary, not about the murder at all. Like we were just there to talk about the burglary
00:57:05
and didn't want her to even know that we knew about the murder. And, uh, she requested the
00:57:11
attorney like almost immediately. They said, you know, she wanted an attorney. So when she got
00:57:15
brought back to Jackson County, you know, we had hopes, but they weren't very high. Like we thought,
00:57:22
you know, as soon as we go in there and tell her, you know, hey, we don't want to talk to you about
00:57:25
the burglary. We don't, we can't talk to you about that. You request an attorney, but we want to talk
00:57:30
to you about the death of Harold. Like I thought a hundred percent, she was going to say, I don't
00:57:36
want to talk to you, but she did. During that interview, Ashley talked. But her words mainly
00:57:43
implicated her mother, which was no surprise. But the detectives had an unfortunate
00:57:51
surprise for her. So, I'm here to talk to you about something completely different.
00:57:57
Okay. Something to be an easy conversation, okay? After your mom was here yesterday and spoke with us, we got a call to go check on her welfare at her home, and she's passed away.
00:58:15
What? She passed away. What happened? Without going into a lot of detail, she appeared that there was something in jested possibly,
00:58:31
and passed away. You're serious? I'm 100% serious, yes. She killed herself. That is what we...
00:58:48
That's what we believe happened, yes. I'm in shock. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. There's nothing to apologize for.
00:58:58
I felt it was necessary to let you know that. I'm very, very sorry for your loss.
00:59:14
In hours of tape, Ashley stayed flat, measured, careful, clinical almost. the only crack comes when detectives tell her
00:59:27
Marsha, her mother, is dead that's when the mask suddenly slips her voice wobbles
00:59:36
her breath catches and for one minute the room feels human again it's a strange tragedy
00:59:45
mother and daughter so tightly bound together that they eliminate the person they feel is getting in the way
00:59:52
Harold they talked of plans to sell the place and move in together But then the pressure begins mounting Marsha knows that Ashley will likely be in prison for a very long time
01:00:09
And they're coming for her next. So, she takes an easy exit. If her daughter could betray her so easily, she would do the same.
01:00:21
What Marsha couldn't have known was what Ashley would do next. 57-year-old Harold Allen died at home in Freetown, Indiana on December 20, 2022,
01:01:12
five days before Christmas. His death was first certified as natural. Months later, a September 19, 2023 burglary at the same house drew detectives back.
01:01:27
Marsha Allen, Harold's wife, had been out of town when home cameras captured Stephen White,
01:01:33
who was happy to spill all the tea in the world, with plenty of dramatic flair, I might add,
01:01:39
and phone messages tied the break-in to Marsha's daughter and friend of Stephen, Ashley Jones.
01:01:47
Detectives then shifted from burglary to death Records showed an online order shipped under the family name to the Freetown address
01:01:57
And interviews on October 16th and 17th, 2023 Focused on whether that chemical ended up in Harold's drink, a root beer float
01:02:06
Marsha had denied the order Ashley had pointed to Marsha But soon, evidence tied them both to the murder
01:02:18
Just before detectives would have arrested Marcia, they found her at home, dead in her bed of suicide.
01:02:26
As for Harold, toxicology later reported ethylene glycol, and the death certificate was amended.
01:02:34
Review of Marcia and Ashley's text messages alluded to an even bigger mystery. Was this Ashley's first attempt at poisoning?
01:02:44
Detectives found it beyond strange that, get this, Ashley's ex-husband also died of supposed heart conditions.
01:02:53
Or a stroke. Hmm. Suspicious. Wouldn't you say? He died at a very young age, just days after he received an inheritance.
01:03:06
Could that be a coincidence? Ashley Jones was arrested and charged in October of 2023 with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and burglary tied to Harold Allen's death and the September 2023 break-in.
01:03:24
She later pleaded guilty in 2025 to level one felony conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to 50 years in Jackson Circuit Court.
01:03:35
But Ashley, being the wonderful, well-adjusted human that she was, wasn't finished getting rid of people.
01:03:43
After only a few months of incarceration, she hatched a plan. It involved a jailmate named Anita.
01:03:52
Detective Nicholson just happened to know Anita. You know, I worked in the jail for like five years prior to becoming a deputy in 2005.
01:04:03
So from 2000 to 2005, I was a jail officer. So I'm familiar with a lot of the inmates that are in and out.
01:04:12
And this case had been in the news a few times, so I'm sure that Anita probably knew that I was the officer that was working it.
01:04:19
And she reached out to a jail officer to let her know that she wanted to talk to me.
01:04:26
I actually knew that Anita was going to be getting released pretty soon. And she wasn't on like any real serious charges.
01:04:35
And Anita and Ashley were in that cell together. Well, word traveled pretty quick when Anita came in because Ashley had already been in jail.
01:04:44
And when Anita came in, word traveled pretty quick about who she was and who her connections were.
01:04:52
And there's a I hate to even call it a gang because it's really not a gang. And if they were a gang, they're not into like killing people.
01:05:01
It's not that kind of gang. But I think Ashley started, you know, seeing like she's never been in jail.
01:05:09
She didn't she didn't know, you know, Anita. She didn't know what this gang was about.
01:05:15
And she just heard the word gang and thought, well, I could, you know, sweet talk her and, you know, befriend her and in jail here.
01:05:23
and then get her to have these people that she's friends with in this gang go and kill the people that are mentioned in my case
01:05:32
and going to testify against me. Yep. She was going to have someone in this so-called gang go and kill them all.
01:05:44
She basically wrote a letter that was going to go out in Anita's mail and she gave
01:05:54
Anita the letter to put in with her mail and instead of sealing it Anita took that part of the letter out and hit it and then waited till she could see me And she
01:06:08
provided me with the letter that Ashley wrote. And it was the letter that she wrote to
01:06:13
so-called hit man, you know, that she thought was a hit man. And the driver was wanting him to
01:06:20
go all the way to Massachusetts and kill her fiance and kill Stephen and Nathan that were in jail.
01:06:28
Then there was some other people and I can't remember exactly who else, but yeah, she was
01:06:32
just trying to get people taken out before they'd have a chance to testify on her.
01:06:37
If you thought the texts between Marsha and Ashley were cryptic, wait until you hear about
01:06:42
this hit letter. She pretended it was a list of people she wanted prayers for, a prayer list.
01:06:50
How spiritual of her. A lot of things have been on my heart and mind, but I feel the best way to overcome and be set free from it is some prayer.
01:06:59
I would like the following people to be added to the prayer list as soon as possible.
01:07:04
Have the church lift these people as high as can be to the Lord so everyone may find rest in peace.
01:07:11
She then lists out all the people with their first, middle, and last names, as well as exact locations and what they had done to her,
01:07:22
saying that prayer knows no bounds. I mean, you've got to give God GPS coordinates for each person you're praying for, right?
01:07:32
Here's just a snippet of the inmate's interview. I wanted you to know that we heard, or that we thought we heard,
01:07:39
I just want to make sure that there was a high-powered rifle mentioned and maybe two shots to the neck.
01:07:48
Okay, right here. She said, you hear people get guns, scopes, high-powered rifle.
01:07:56
Right here, severs every nerve and kills you instantly. Right here. Okay. So that's how she was wanting these people to take them out.
01:08:05
Actually, specifically. Okay, right here. and right here. Okay. She points to the base of her skull
01:08:14
and to her forehead, saying those are the two places Ashley said would cause instant death
01:08:20
when struck with a bullet. Who was she wanting her to shoot? Ashley did as a shoot is to take out the little girl.
01:08:26
I don't know if you guys heard that. And I don't know if you guys heard that. Ashley told Anita to take out
01:08:36
Ashley, her fiancé, and her fiancé's little girl. That would be the same little girl who lived with both Ashleys.
01:08:48
You see, Ashley Jones hated, hated her fiancé's little girl. So why not take her out too while you're at it?
01:09:01
In some of the text messages with Marsha, Ashley said, Let her starve. I hate the kid.
01:09:07
She just sits and just does nothing, looking fat, ugly, and stupid. Remember when they used to make fun of family values and the bigots that promoted them?
01:09:20
Those were the days. Let's all just hope Ashley sits in prison for the next 50 years doing nothing but looking fat, ugly, and stupid.
01:09:29
In the meantime, Detective Adam Nicholson is writing a book on this murder. And who knows, if he digs harder, he might find even more bodies full of poison left in Ashley's wake.
01:09:41
There's already speculation that she may have killed her ex-husband as well. Yeah, he's dead.
01:09:49
Detective Nicholson told Swordscale that this was one of the most bizarre cases he'd ever been involved with.
01:09:56
Or that there wouldn't have even been a murder case at all. We would have never found out.
01:10:02
Like if it wouldn't have been for Ashley's greed and if Ashley wouldn't have, you know, had to have set up this burglary at her mom's house and Stephen getting caught.
01:10:15
So what led me to Stephen was the burglary. It was Ashley's greed. Ashley wanted this burglary to take place and she trusted that Stephen would do it.
01:10:27
She had no idea her mom had installed a security system. and um you know marcia would have never reported that the burglary had she known that stephen knew
01:10:40
about the murder if she knew that stephen had been told by ashley about the murder there's no way that
01:10:46
marcia would have called in on stephen and turned him in ashley's genius knew no bounds the strong
01:10:53
independent woman that she was her master plan from inside the prison hire total strangers to
01:11:00
cross state lines and kill people for her for free. Smart. Real smart. You know what else is smart?
01:11:09
Ordering your murder weapons off Amazon. You know what else is smart? Telling your flamboyant and loudmouthed gay friend that you and your mom murdered someone.
01:11:19
You know what else is smart? staging a fake robbery with that same friend who can't stop talking to steal from your own mother
01:11:31
and murder accomplice because you're a greedy, narcissistic, and self-centered piece of shit
01:11:37
how's that saying go again? there is no honor amongst cold-hearted cunts I forget
01:11:45
oh, and before some Karen out there sends me an angry email lecturing me and calling me a sexist
01:11:52
for using that forbidden word. Realize that words are meant to describe the universe we perceive around us.
01:12:00
We can effectively communicate. Even the four-letter ones. And I can't think of a better word to describe Ashley.
01:12:10
She's what that word was made for. Hope you liked that. And by the way, last week we put up a video explaining how I fucked up all the pricing for Sword and Scale Television.
01:12:32
Well, YouTube demonetized us. So there's only one place on earth you can find Sword and Scale Television now, and that's swordandscale.com or our app.
01:12:42
And we lowered pricing to $10 to get access to it. which means that you can now get the audio only version of sword and scale,
01:12:52
the podcast on Apple podcasts for just eight bucks. How do you like them apples?
01:13:16
Thank you. .

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
    Most intense
  • 90
    Most surprising
  • 90
    Biggest twist

Episode Highlights

  • Marsha's Surveillance Setup
    Before leaving for a trip, Marsha installs security cameras to watch her home.
    “I got the security surveillance cameras because every time I hear a noise, I jump.”
    @ 01m 44s
    June 07, 2026
  • Accusations of Murder
    Stephen claims Marsha orchestrated the burglary to retrieve her husband's life insurance money.
    “This woman is a psychopath.”
    @ 02m 00s
    June 07, 2026
  • Panic During the Break-In
    Marsha receives alerts of movement in her home while away, leading to a frantic response.
    “She starts counting, and she'll end up with 22 videos by the time this is over.”
    @ 03m 19s
    June 07, 2026
  • The Investigation Unfolds
    Detectives uncover connections between Marsha, her daughter, and the burglary suspects.
    “Only one name was linked to both the family and the suspect.”
    @ 22m 40s
    June 07, 2026
  • Harold's Legacy
    A heartfelt tribute to Harold as a mentor and friend.
    “He was a wise mentor and very skilled teacher to me.”
    @ 24m 52s
    June 07, 2026
  • Accusations Unfold
    The detective reveals shocking accusations against Marsha.
    “He accused you of murdering your husband.”
    @ 27m 48s
    June 07, 2026
  • The Poisoning Revelation
    Details emerge about the ethylene glycol order linked to Harold's death.
    “It's a sweet-tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubby's drink.”
    @ 33m 46s
    June 07, 2026
  • The Shocking News
    Ashley learns her mother has died, leaving her in disbelief.
    “What? She passed away.”
    @ 58m 16s
    June 07, 2026
  • A Deceptive Prayer List
    Ashley disguises a hit list as a prayer list, revealing her sinister intentions.
    “I would like the following people to be added to the prayer list.”
    @ 01h 06m 59s
    June 07, 2026
  • A Bizarre Case
    Detective Nicholson reflects on the strange twists of Ashley's case.
    “This was one of the most bizarre cases he'd ever been involved with.”
    @ 01h 09m 56s
    June 07, 2026

Episode Quotes

  • And I thought maybe one of them would have died or something.
    Episode 354
  • This was all done in the text.
    Episode 354
  • That would show me a toxicology report if that happened.
    Episode 354
  • It's a sweet-tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubby's drink.
    Episode 354
  • I'm in shock. I'm sorry.
    Episode 354
  • You know what else is smart? Ordering your murder weapons off Amazon.
    Episode 354

Key Moments

  • Marsha's Trip00:37
  • Stephen's Accusations02:00
  • Break-In Alerts02:45
  • Heartbreak24:44
  • Accusations27:48
  • Mother's Death58:16
  • Hit List Revelation1:06:59
  • Bizarre Case Reflection1:09:56

Tension Over Time

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown