Hello, 2020 listeners. This is David Muir. Thank you for making 2020 one of the top true crime podcasts. We're doubling the number of episodes for you with the 2020 True Crime Vault. In addition to our weekly show, every week, we're also bringing you a second, unforgettable story from our archives. Thanks for listening. Coming up. 911. I think I need an ambulance. A beloved son crushed to death. The truck fell on my stepson. Oh, my God. But years earlier, another mysterious death. Was it a family curse, or was there a cold-blooded killer at the dinner table? To think that you can drop a 5,000-pound vehicle on your child and watch him die? A new wife goes undercover to learn the truth. I asked you if you pushed the tie. Family ties. Plus, he checked in, but he never checked out, except in a body bag. It was pristine. It was his business stuff, his stuff with his wife. That was it. Detectives are stuffed until this PI takes the case. Wouldn't somebody mention something about a gun? That's the part they'll remember. The mystery of room 348: I know what you did. I'm John Quineones. Sometimes we get that feeling in our gut that things aren't quite what they appear to be.

But uncovering the truth can take months, even years. Coming up, three stories of crimes that almost went unsolved, if not for the sheer determination of some unlikely sleuths. First, a family plagued by a series of tragedies. It seemed like a streak of bad luck. But as David Muir first reported in 2013, a son's death would galvanize long simmering suspicions and lead to accusations of murder. It was a cold November in upstate New York. There was leaves vanishing in the wind, and a young father about to suddenly vanish too. It wasn't unusual to find 23-year-old Levi Carlson tinkering away in the garage under a pickup truck. He was very good working on cars. He was very mechanical. And on one of those crisp fall days back in November of 2008, that's exactly where his father, Carl, and stepmother, Cindy, found their beloved son. Only this time Levi wasn't working under the truck. He was trapped under it, and this was their desperate plea for help. 911. I think I need an ambulance. What's going on? The truck fell on my stepson. The truck fell on your stepson? We just got home and I don't think he's alive.

Levi stood little chance against the three tons of metal. That pickup truck that had been propped up had come crashing down. Do you know how to start a CPR? Do you know a CPR? His chest is crushed. His chest is crossed. His chest is crossed? Oh, my God. I don't know how long ago they've been in there. We've been gone since noon. Okay. Oh, my God. You can hear the cries on the 911 tape, an unthinkable tragedy for two parents who just found their son. Police responding to the scene, Seneca County Sheriff Lieutenant John Cleare. It was right inside this barn here? Yes. At first, it didn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary. No. It appeared to be an accident. Horrible accident. Very tragic. The parents were upset. Oh yeah, absolutely out of their minds. So many twists and turns long after that 911 call, years after that horrific accident first hit the local paper in Seneca County. The gateway to the sparkling finger lakes of upstate New York. In fact, down this rambling country road from the Carlson home is Seneca Falls, long thought to be the setting that inspired the 1946 American classic, It's a wonderful life.

But piece by piece, it would soon become clear that this had not been a wonderful life for that young man found in the garage. Four years after what seemed to be an accident, a bombshell call to police, a call on the tip line from a member of Levi's own family, telling that investigator, Follow the insurance money. So you were the one who answered the call? Yes. And this investigator was soon on his way back to that family farm. Do you remember the call to this day? Oh, yeah. The Lieutenant telling us the clues were immediate. Red flag number one. They discover a brand new insurance policy for Levi taken out just 17 days before he died. There was this large insurance policy that was collected on over $700,000 that was taken on only 17 days before the death. For the young man in the garage. Is that typical that someone that young would have an insurance policy? It seems unusual that a young man in his early 20s would have one that large. And then red flag number two. But who was the beneficiary? His father, Karl. Why would you name your father the beneficiary when you have your own children?

I think we were asking that same question, David. And they were soon asking something else. Just listen to red flag number three. You discovered a note written by Levi? Yes. That Levi had left. Saying what? His father was going to be the sole executor of his estate and control, basically dispersed the money to his kids and that he did not want to be resuscitated. When was the letter notarized? The day of his death. The very same morning. And while investigators now believed the evidence was damning, Carl Carlson planned his own son's death, the Holt town tried to wrap their heads around the sinister plot. A plot Levi's sister, suspected from the very start. My father is a sassy pack. The only one that matters to him is him. Well, we were just bonds in his game. Aaron's brother's death, she insists, was cold-blooded murder. He didn't die instantaneously. He had time to sit there and understand what was happening to him. And then the killer she long suspected inside their own home, their father. For years, Aaron says they grew up in fear of their father. And unlike his sisters, Levi stayed in that small town where they were raised.

He had two young daughters of his own, but he was still under the thumb of a father who Aaron says he was desperate to please. He was basically an indentured servant to my parents, and they were... I don't know who they were controlling everything. He wanted more than anything to just have a close relationship with our father. He was really striving for that. But she is convinced that as her brother tried to build that relationship, her father was crafting something else, the plan to kill his son. You know, to think that as a parent, you can drop a 5,000 pound vehicle on your child and watch him die. It's absolutely unimaginable. Especially as a parent myself, I just can't even begin to imagine. We head to the local scrapyard, where Levi's pickup truck was taken after that accident. His truck destroyed long ago. No one knows exactly how that pickup was jacked up, but Joshua Trout, who knows the family, also knows the weight of one of those trucks. I mean, would you go under this pickup truck? I would never go under a truck. I don't like going underneath trucks when they're sitting all four tires on the ground.

Investigators do believe there was a railroad jack that day holding the pickup truck up, but they're unsure if there was anything else. What they do know is that truck came crashing down. You wouldn't stand a chance. You're gone. I mean, you're gone. And just when investigators begin asking how a father could do this, the evidence of a pattern, they say, begins to mount. That Carl Carlson had cashed in on insurance claims before. August 1986, car fire. The cause, electrical. The insurance payout, $10,000. November 2002, a barnfire that killed three prized horses. The cause, also electrical. The insurance payout, $115,000. But investigators were also learning the biggest bombshell. What happened to Karl Carlson's first wife, Levi's mother? After all of the evidence you found right here on this property, what then did you make of what happened to his first wife? Suspectious. When we come back, another insurance policy, another horrific tale, almost impossible to believe. Karl Carlson's second wife, feared she was next, and what she was willing to do to trap her own husband. So you send her in through this parking lot? Yes. And she has a wire on where? Underneath her clothing.

What she got on tape when we come back. When Lieutenant John Cleare reopened the investigation into Levi Carlson's death underneath that pickup truck, finding what he says is evidence his father was out for the insurance money, he never expected the dramatic turn the case was about to take all the way across the country in a small mining town in the Sierra foothills of California. While you're investigating everything that happened here, you discovered the story of his ex-wife. Yes. Could you believe it? It certainly raised a lot of concerns. The stunning discovery. Levi's mother, Christina, Carl Carlson's first wife had died in a 1991 house fire. And who just happened to be the beneficiary of a $200,000 life insurance policy? Her husband, Carl. She'd been a vibrant, doting mother. You can see her here in home videos holding one of her three young children, Aaron, Levi, and Katie. She literally did everything for me. She was just an amazing woman. But Aaron claims her mother was trapped in that marriage. My father had a very horrible temper, and it didn't take an awful lot to set him off. And my mother would take the brunt of it.

She would not allow him to take it out on us. The sister of that first wife remembers asking her the same question over and over. I kept asking her, Why aren't you leaving him? Why aren't you leaving him? And I almost had her convinced to leave. We were this close when the fire came through. It was New Year's Day, 1991. The children were napping, Christina was in the bathroom when their home suddenly lit up into a kerosene-fueled inferno. I remember waking up and going to my bedroom door, I saw the flames. So I woke my sister up. My father burst through the window and got us out. Never once did he look panicked or frantic or frazzled, not even confused. He was just very calm and just go. In the fire report, Carl Carlson told investigators that just three days before that fire, he repaired a broken window in the bathroom by boarding it up with a piece of wood and 17 nails. That window would have been his wife Christina's only way out. Then just a week after the fire, Carl hit the road, leaving California with his three young children, returning to upstate New York to be near his family.

We all raised our concerns that we thought the fire looked very suspicious. That was 18 years ago. Now, two deaths, mother and son, each with the big payout for Carl Carlson. Was he a man cursed with family tragedies? Was he murdering his own family members for money? A lot of people have said when this guy needed money, a family member would die. There's definitely a pattern there. Authorities in California begin to re investigate, reopening the case of Carl Carlson's first wife, who was about to help take him down. Carl Carlson's second wife, Cindy. You're about to see her play a critical role in the arrest of her own husband. You find all these red flags and you decide we're going to call the wife, Cindy. And what did she say? The first thing she said was thank God you called. She said thank God? Yes. Investigators say Cindy Carlson feared she could be next and had moved out of their home. She was afraid. Yeah. She was seeing a pattern. Was she convinced there was a killer in her own home? I think that she suspected it. She believed that there was an insurance policy on her.

On her too. When you asked her to help you out, she said yes, she agreed. It was called Operation Abigail, and it all went down at this local restaurant, known more for its chicken wings than Undercover Stings, and 2020 was taken right through it. So they walk in as a couple, and she's got the wire on where? Underneath her clothing. And what does he think he's walking into? He thinks he's coming to talk to his wife about getting back together. About reconciliation? Yes. But she has no plan to get back together? No. She's here for you? Yes. Cindy sat down with her husband, that wire tap hidden, with one intention: to catch Carl Carlson on tape, confessing to Levi's murder. A confession she had told investigators he'd already made to her once before. So as they're sitting there at that table, how many other undercover investigators are here in the restaurant? There was a total of four. And this is what they got. I understand. You're sorry about it, right? Every minute, every moment. Okay, Carl. I asked you if you pushed the truck and you said yes. I didn't push the truck. I said.

I said I did nothing to do. But I said, I took advantage of the situation once it happened, and that is exactly what I said to you. Carl, you told me that you didn't set it up that way, but when you were in there, you saw the opportunity. After it had happened, then I saw the opportunity to where what you wrote. That's exactly what it says. One of the most significant remarks was that he took advantage of the opportunity. Opportunity, a very strange word for a father to use about a son's death. I would find it very unusual that a parent would refer to the death of their child as an opportunity. Carl Carlson agrees to meet his wife again, but Cindy and that team of investigators have other plans. So you're all set? I'm upset, okay. So he thinks he's coming to meet her again? Yes. But you're waiting for him this time? Yes. And you haul him in for questioning? Yes. How many hours? About nine and a half. Almost four years to the day after Levi Carlson was crushed to death, Carl Carlson, now sitting inside this interrogation room across from investigators.

What killed him? The truck. How did the truck kill him? It landed on him. And I had nothing to do with the truck landing on him. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You haul him in, and you begin asking questions. How many different stories did he have? Three. Version one, Carlson says he and his wife come home from a funeral and a dinner afterward to find Levi dead under the truck. But soon, version two. He was now saying that he and his wife were preparing to leave for that funeral when he discovered his son in the garage pinned under the truck. The truck had already been fallen over and I found him dead. So this was around noon, just before noon, you found him. You went out there and the truck was rolled over on him. Yeah. I panicked like... I don't know. I don't know. So you panicked in what regard? Just I left. So you saw him, did you run over and call medical help? Call 911 and get a help? No, I didn't do anything. I. Now, was there a phone in the garage or a cell phone? No. You run back to the house and called 911.

I went to the funeral. So he saw his son trapped and dead under the truck and still left for the funeral? Yes. He says that father didn't return until four hours later. And then several hours into the interrogation, Carl Carlson appears to be on the verge of yet a third version of his story. I never heard him. I couldn't. You're that close, man. You're close. Come on. Let it out. Let it out. Let it out. I'll walk with you, man. I'll walk with you. Was it just a split second thing? I couldn't have heard him. It was just an accident. I opened the truck door. Okay. When they did it, they just walked in. Now you see how it's happened. We've gone from he was there. You walked in there to now that the following you open the door. I know. So take the final step. There is no more. I stepped in the truck and the thing fell. And I was just scared. His son trapped by the truck, and yet they still leave the house? Yes. Does that make any sense? No. I can't imagine walking away and leaving your child dying on the floor.

They were going to a funeral? Yes. And yet many would argue he had just created one right here in his own garage. It's fair to say that. But Carl Carlson continued to insist he's innocent, opening up to the Syracuse Post Standard about his son from inside the county jail. Well, Levi, I mean, When he was younger, we had problems with him. School was hard for him. Losing his first mother was really traumatic. It would be for anybody. He talks about Levi as a young father that he took his son back in after Levi's divorce. He became responsible. He had manners. He grew up, and he realized that mom and dad were not to make his life miserable. He got life back into him. Carlson, now charged with murder in the second degree, entered the Seneca County Courthouse to enter his plea. And in a shocking moment of truth, he pleads guilty to killing his son, Levi. Judge Dennis Bender, sentencing Carlson to 15 years to life. Levi's sister, Aaron, and her aunt, Collette, say they're relieved, but still hopeful investigators in California will charge Carl Carlson in the death of his first wife, too. I believe Carl killed my sister and he killed my nephew, and it's all linked to money.

I want to hear those words come out his mouth. I want him to look me in my eye and tell me exactly what he did. And then I want him to go away for the rest of forever. In 2020, nearly three decades after the death of his first wife, Christina, a California jury found Carl Carlson guilty of first-degree murder by arson. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. As of 2023, he is appealing his California conviction. When we return, a suspicious death in a hotel room. It was pristine. It was his business stuff. It was stuff with his wife, family. That was it. It wasn't from natural causes, and it wasn't suicide. No one else was even in the room. So how did he die? I think I know when it happened. I think I know who killed him, and I think I know how we're going to catch him. Stay with us. Now the story of a family man who checked into a hotel but never checked out. As David Muir first reported in 2013, the mystery of how he died might never have been solved, except for a determined widow and the private eye who saw what others missed.

Drive along Interstate 10 long enough, and eventually, you'll run into Beaumont, Texas. Home to Big Steer, Big Oil, and one big mystery. It happened here at the Allegante Hotel, not exactly the Four Seasons. Although Greg Plinigan didn't mind it, he liked it here. But on September 15th, 2010, the oil man and devoted husband, seen here on hotel security footage, walked in and headed to his room. Hours later, he would check out in a body bag. He'll be missed, and by us that loved him and such a good guy. When the sun rises that morning in Texas, Greg Flanagan does not, Detective Scott Apple is sent in. So you remember getting that call that Thursday morning? Yes, sir. And it just came in as a deceased person at one of our local hotels. With no clear signs of foul play, at first, the veteran detective thought this was going to be a routine. You'd heard heavy smoker had been a drinker in the past. Yes. A lot of steak. Yes. So and never saw a doctor. So you thought this guy might have had a heart attack? That's what we had just figured it must be at the scene.

Detective Apple heads to room 348, and inside that door, 55-year-old man, face down on the carpet. You open the door and you see Greg Flinican on the floor. Right there. Yes, sir. In fact, there's nothing to suggest this is a crime scene at all. Plingin's cash is still in the room, candy and cigarettes on the bed, a soda on the table. At first, at a glance, it looks like this must have been death from natural causes. This room was his home away from home. Greg Flinican had lived a good life. He had a great wife, success in the oil business, many friends, and few, if any, enemies. He gave you not only a shirt off his back, but the shoes off his feet. Friend, Miles Martin, met Greg in the fourth grade in Louisiana, and those boys from the bayou maintained a friendship ever since. I thought, Well, those damn cigarettes, they finally snuck up on him. Inside room 348, Detective Apples says his initial investigation indicated that the victim had a regular, rather humdrum routine. When again at home with his wife in Louisiana on the weekends. But during the week, he would live out of a small suitcase here at the Allegate, doing pretty much the same thing every night.

He'd set up, and that was his routine for the evenings. He had his phone to communicate with his wife for business. It seemed a traveling oil man had settled in for the evening. He just ordered Iron Man 2 on pay-per-view. He was a creature of habit, and that was his routine. With this Cajun cowboy, he had taken his last ride to Texas. All that was needed now was the medical examiner to list a cause of death. Everyone thought the case would be closed. So his body is taken away to the medical examiner? Right, and pending if he can just essentially confirm that it was a heart attack. Doctor Tommy Brown, a fast-talking Texan, was the medical examiner here. He was about to add a shocking twist to the case. Brown would find that Flinnican's body suffered severe internal damage, broken ribs, lacerations to the liver and scrotum, and a hole in his heart, all caused by blunt-force trauma. But from what? And from whom? Nothing had happened to him at work. Nothing had fallen over on top of him in that room. There was no accident or anything happen to him on the way to the hotel.

No accident. In fact, the medical examiner was now ruling this death a homicide, convinced that someone had killed him. Did you ever think the ruling would be homicide? No. Detective Apple is a trained sniper, and he was now taking aim at multiple theories. Could he have been seeing another woman? Or maybe there's a jealous husband? But that's not Greg. Detective Apple wants to know if anything odd happened at the Allegante Hotel that night. But aside from a circuit breaker needing repair in Clinican's room at 7:30 PM, it was business as usual. Apple questions the hotel guests in nearby rooms, but their answers offer little help. And who were they? They were some electricians out of Wisconsin down here at work in one of our refineries. That's electrician Tim Steinemitz and his colleague, Lance Mular, entering the hotel with beer. They're later joined by fellow electrician, Trent Passano. You asked them had they heard anything that night? They said, Oh, we hardly ever saw him. We don't know. Flennigan's cell phone records show nothing but a dutiful husband. It was pristine. It was his business stuff. It was stuff with his wife, family. That was it.

The detective works tirelessly, but all he has is a dead guy, a bunch of dead ends, and as the days drag into weeks, a very angry widow. She would vent and yell at me. I can take that. I understand that. With the investigation seemingly losing steam in Texas, the grieving and frustrated Susie Flennigan is desperate for answers. We need to know if anybody heard anything, saw anything, knows anything. Things were basically stalled, and until she took control over the situation at that point, and she hired her own investigator. And not just any investigator, but a former New York cop and federal agent now living in Florida. His name is Ken Brennan, a man with a passion for crime solving, Motorcycles, fine cigarettes, and yes, golf. So your phone rings. So my phone rings. Do you remember where you were? Yeah, I was on a golf course. What does she say? That it's getting to be a cold case going on the back burner. And she wanted to see if I could find out who killed her husband. The private eye is off to Beaumont, Texas, to get a better feel for the case. First thing you want to do is meet with the lead detective on the case.

Scott's one of those guys. He's just a real cop's cop. And we hit it off really well the first night I met him. I'll start on the carpet, you can start in the back. This dynamic duo, starting from scratch, reviewing the case file, going through the hotel room like housekeeping, even taking a closer look at the victim. Alcohol? No. Drugs? No. Hills? No. Nothing? Nothing. The only thing the guy did was smoke. I need candy bars. That was it. With more than a thousand dollars in cash still left in that hotel room, they rule out robbery. So instead, the investigators are now examining the security camera video, the broken circuit, some photographs, but none of them really feel like clues. There's simply no compelling theory. That is until Ken Brennan has a classic aha moment, and then shared it with his partner. That detective, stumbled. I said, I think I know how this guy died. I said, I think I know when it happened. I said, I think I know who killed him, and I think I know how we're going to catch him. The private eye convinced he's got it. Have you figured it out yet?

When we come back. Every hotel has its rules. Here at the Elegante, they're actually written in stone. A 10 Commandments monument near the lobby reminds all, Thou shalt not kill. But somebody broke that rule and Greg Flennigan ate the price. There should be more people in this world like Greg Flennigan. Unfortunately, he was stolen from his wife. Yeah, exactly. By the time private investigator Ken Brennan rolls into town, the body is cold and the leaves are even colder. Investigations are like a puzzle. A puzzle has many pieces, but each and every one of those pieces has to fit, and they have to fit perfectly. While the who done it remains a mystery, the private investigator hones in on the when. This happened between 8:30 and nine o'clock at night. He loved the room ice cold. His wife, always said that he liked it like a meat locker. It was Flinnican himself, who, while watching Iron Man 2 and making some popcorn in the microwave, tripped the circuit breaker. Part of the hotel goes dark. I said, When they came in to reset the circuit breaker, I'm sure they shut everything down to reset the circuit breaker, so they shut off the air conditioning.

It had to have happened in that window right after the maintenance guys left. He was killed before he realized that the room got warm. Because he was so adamant about keeping the room freezing cold. Ice cold, exactly. And when detectives discovered that body, the room was boiling. No one had turned that air conditioner back on. Brennan theorized that perhaps the hotel blackout could have led to an argument between Flennigan and another guest who might have been ticked off. He must have had a confrontation. I said, We're going to find out that it was probably the two guys next door. Dead men tell no tales, but Brennan knows the living, tell all sorts of stories. I know that if the guys next door had anything to do with this, they're not going to keep it to themselves. If they were involved at all, if they got in a confrontation, they're going to tell all the coworkers. Detective Apple goes to find all of the coworkers of those three electricians staying next door to Flennigan: Tim Steinman, Lance Mular, and Trent Pasano. No one knows anything, except for a supervisor who says he does recall hearing some story about a gun going off.

The details don't seem to match the Allegante killing, but Brennan perks up. Anytime anybody tells a story, when somebody mentions something about a gun, that's the part they'll remember, the gun. More than eight months into the case, it's the first time anyone has ever mentioned anything about a gun. Detective Apple thought that was just crazy, but Ken Brennan said, No, we have to go check this out. They returned to the scene of the crime, room 348. They saw this indentation in the wall. In fact, maintenance records show that the wall in Flennican's room, room 348 had been repaired, but the indentation was noticeable even in those crime scene photos. You noticed some patching on the wall. Yeah, so I said it's too big for a bullet hole, but let's see what looks like on the other side. So now you're going into room 349? Correct. And that's where the electricians were hanging out. Let's go from the other side of the wall, put the dowel through the wall from where the bullet would have came from, put a laser on the end of that and see what we have. You saw that laser. Right. Go through the wall.

Right across the top of the bed, right at the head of his pillow where he'd been laying. Straight at the bed. Straight at the bed. Clear shot. -clear shot. I just got this shot. At that point, we know exactly what happened then. So I said, We got to get these guys. If you think someone must have fired a gun through that wall, someone has discharged around through that wall. But has that private eye reached too far? Remember, the autopsy never mentioned anything about a gunshot wound. The medical examiner listing the cause of death as blunt-force trauma. The medical examiner? Dr. Brown? Yes, sir. He's been doing a long time. He's done some real good work. He's trusted. And what he says is the gospel. Respectfully, they now have to explain to the medical examiner they're rewriting his Gospel. So you tell him your idea, and at first, he's not buying it. He's not buying it at all. And he says, Hey. He says, This guy was not shot. This guy was beaten to death. But Brennan keeps sliding the proof or the medical examiner, all of the photos, making his case that all of that internal damage from the groin right up through the heart was caused not by a kick from someone, but from a bullet.

I go, Doc, that's a bullet hole. Come on. And he just looked at me and goes, Oh. But while the cause of death has suddenly changed, will these men now change their stories? Convinced that Greg Flanagan was killed by a bullet, fired from the neighboring hotel room where those electricians from Wisconsin were staying, Detective Scott Apple and private eye Ken Brennan traveled there for a new round of interviews. They meet up at a local police department with electrician Tim Steinman, who once again appears courteous and curious. So what happened to this guy? Did you guys ever find out what- Time and time again, they ask him what he remembers. He didn't hear anything. He don't know anything. Absolutely no idea. No idea. Steinemann sticks to his original statement that he, Lance Mular, and Trent Bosano did nothing out of the ordinary that night. No mention of any gunshots. And Steinemann doesn't just tell that story. He swears to it in writing. I said, Let's get a notary as well, and I have a notarize, so it looks even that much more official. You swear everything that's a statement, the truth, the whole truth, so I'll be honest?

Yes. But just when he thought he was off the hook, investigators pulled him back in. It was their plan all along. Is that it? Hang on a second. It wasn't until you sign that statement. Now you got a problem. You don't think that we know the story? That we don't know what the hell went on here close? We know. What are you, a moron? We know. Because you just made a false police report, that's why. You want to go to jail for that? Tim, we know what happened. We know everything that happened down there. I realize you're trying to be noble and protect a friend, but you're about to get your whole family in a bind, and it's not worth it. And after the guy started thinking about that, and he says, Okay, I'll tell you the truth. Well, then tell us what happened. Steinemitz begins to reveal the pieces of the puzzle, explaining how the evening was fueled by alcohol. Steinemitz and fellow electrician, Lance Mular, entering the hotel with that beer. They're later joined by electrician, Trent Basano. And the heavy drinking begins next door in room 349. It was an accident. It really was.

It turns out Mueller has a handgun in his truck, and at some point for some reason, Steinemitz says the third electrician, Trent Bessano, goes to fetch it. We were in the room and Trent brought Lance's freaking gun out there. And Lance was with that gun and he went and loaded it, pulled the freaking trigger and the gun off. Later that day, they tracked down the third electrician, and Trent Bessano corroborates the story. Listen, as he explains how he nearly became the victim in this case, saying the bullet just missed him. And he goes, and he goes, and I went, Oh! This? I'm a bitch. And I looked and there was a hole and it was smoking. It turns out that private eye was right. The bullet, slicing through the wall in room 349 and heading directly for Flinnican, striking him in the groin area and shooting straight up to his heart. All while he was sitting there watching Iron Man II. All of that internal damage caused by a single shot, that nine millimeter handgun. Afterward, Muler quickly packing up the gun and returning it to his truck, exiting the hotel with a bag, then returning moments later without it, and never telling anyone.

Those electricians try to cover both their tracks and that bullet hole. And what was it they put in there? Toothpaste. They put toothpaste in the hole, thinking no one would ever notice. Exactly. No one went to check on Greg. No one alerted the front desk. Never bothered to knock, never bothered to put the area to the door, heard any moaning or anything. Nothing. The next day, even when they see a body carried out on a gunny from the room next door, they say nothing. This is not an accident. This is a murder. Hold that freaking tour, sat right there while I can do it. The only man missing at Confession Central was the shooter himself. Watches Apple and Brennan have Steinemann call the gunman. Steinemann urges Mueller to turn himself in. I said they probably are going to come and get your ass. I don't know. But now that they know the truth and everything, you should probably try to make some effort, you know? Listen in as Mueller realizes they've figured it out. He pleads no contest to a charge of manslaughter, a judge sentencing him to 10 years in prison. The others are not charged.

I don't think he did the right thing. I don't think anybody did the right thing. Inside that courthouse, Susie Flanekin, watching on, saying it all could have been avoided had they simply checked on her husband that night. Had he simply come forward, this would have been a completely different quote, accident. She was disgusted with their behavior. She felt like they basically disregarded him as a human being. Susie did not want to go on camera trying to preserve that quiet life she and her husband once shared. But she did tell us of that private eye she hired, I would trust him with my life. What did Susie say to you? She was determined that there would be justice, that you would find out who killed her husband, and she was successfully able to do that. Next, the charming English boyfriend. Was he too good to be true? He was an international businessman, you say. With me, he was an international speed climber. A liar caught red-handed, and a group of women hell-bent on revenge. He needs to be stopped. Stay with us. You might say the man you're about to meet had a way with the ladies, until that is, someone uncovered his little secret.

And as nick Watt first reported in 2012, they took payback to a whole new level. Hello. This is the moment caught on camera when a love rat and con man named Simon Reed met his match, confronted by four audacious women, four of the who knows how many ladies he's lied to, cheated on, taken for a ride. A friend called Paul filmed the face-off and provided a bit of muscle in case things got ugly. I think you've got something to explain me today. I certainly have. Well, go on then get on with it. He does. But first, let us explain what led to this extraordinary showdown in a living room in England. I first met Simon in June of 2008. Because I'm fond of Englishmen, I'm an Anglophile. That's Andy, a massage therapist from Minnesota, and the glue that binds our story together. Simon met Andy on an internet dating site and told her hes owned a construction company. By the time our second day rolled around, I was pretty excited to see him. Andy and Simon even talked marriage. Then one day, Simon just vanished. Bled back to England, leaving Andy bewildered. Back home, he soon hooked up with Joe, who got a very different version of Simon Reed's life story.

With me, he was an international speed climber, and he was setting up his own business. He borrowed nearly $30,000 from Joe for the alleged business and never paid her back. And what was he doing with the money you gave? Spending it on June. June, of course, was another girlfriend, part of the welcoming committee that night. A little further down the overlapping line of relationships meet Nicola, who also met Simon online. The dates were quite erratic because he was an international businessman, you see. Oh, of course. He was an account manager. Simon Reed was whatever he thought a woman wanted him to be: a devastating casanova in a chameleon's skin. We gathered our Simon Reed survivors together in New York for a chat about the dastardly man they have in common. One of his initial stories was that he'd had a huge stroke and he'd learnt to walk and talk again. They were all initially drawn to his beautiful teeth. Not a trait the English are famed for. Each would eventually find out those teeth are also false. He told me he had been in an explosion when he was in the army and his teeth had knocked out.

He told me they were veneers. He told me he lost them playing ice hockey. I spoke to his wife about the teeth and she said, Yeah, that's a bit of a sore point with me. She said I bought him those. Oh, yes. Did we mention Simon had a wife? She called Andy after Simon disappeared, and turns out they only live a few miles apart. Simon would tell his wife he was working on a construction site overnight and spend that night with Andy and vice versa. Andy had heard enough. I decided to take matters into my own laptop. Andy wrote a searing posting about Simon on her blog. According to his wife, I ain't the first, she wrote. I am but one in a long parade of girlfriends he's had since they married seven years ago. Joe and Nicola stumbled upon the blog while Googling Simon, trying to find out just how deep his lies went. I nearly fell on the floor. I was like, Why? Why did he do this? Joe discovered the truth when she saw a recurring number on his phone bill and dialed. It was Simon's dad's house. Simon had, of course, told Joe that his dad was dead.

He said he's a pathological liar. Simon's own father said that. Yeah. I suppose I've been like this for years. The lying is just much easier than whatever the truth is for me. He needs to be stopped, and we all agree. They decided to confront Simon, the love rat, with the help of Laura, Simon's latest, Peramour. So 48 hours after Laura thought Simon was her soulmate that they would marry, she's staging a sting in her living room, inviting him round supposedly for a quiet night in. I'm sorry to everybody. I just... For someone who's so eloquent with his shit that you can't get rid of. You've got very little to say, haven't you? This confrontation, I mean, he sounds like he just rolled over. He did. We locked all the doors. But he never asked to leave. I defraud him. You have all of this money. I mean, are the police coming? Oh, yes. Simon Reed was sentenced to 30 months in jail for fraud for that money he borrowed from Joe under, of course, false pretenses. But this story may not be over. I don't really know what the truth is for me anymore. I know it's wrong when I'm doing it.

I just don't seem the to stop myself. Do you think you'll do this again? Definitely. Yes. Run for the hills. Cheers. To Simon. To Simon. To Simon Reed. As of 2015, Andy reports that she and the other women remain in touch. And she finally found that Englishman she always wanted. They are now married.