Hey prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mister Ballin podcast one month early, and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's episode is a fan favorite. It's called Shenandoah on Fire. The audio in the story has been remastered for today's episode. On September 6, 1988, a middle aged woman named Cindy Borton was washing dishes in her little house in Shenandoah, Iowa. As she did this, she heard a knock on her back door. She glanced at her watch and saw she only had a few minutes before she had to get ready for work. And so she just hoped that whoever was at the door was not expecting a long visit. A few hours later, the Shenandoah police would arrive at Cindys House and they would discover a crime scene so gruesome they had to call in a special investigative unit just to process it. This story includes graphic descriptions of violence. As such, listener discretion is advised. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do.

And we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please ask if you can borrow the follow button's phone to make a quick call. But as soon as they hand it over, don't make a call and instead just log onto their facebook page and change their relationship status from married to it's complicated. Okay, let's get into today's story.

From wondery. I'm Raza Jaffrey, and this is the spy who. This series we open the file on Ayman Dean, the spy who betrayed bin Laden. In 1990, 416 year old Ayman wants to die. He heads to war torn Bosnia to join the mujahideen and save his fellow Muslims. He hopes to become a martyr so that he can be reunited with his dead parents in paradise. Instead, he's about to be confronted by a cruel and bloody reality. A reality that'll lead him to turn his back on terrorism and become the west's top spy inside al Qaeda. Follow the spy who on the wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can binge the full season of the spy who betrayed bin Laden early and ad free with wondery. Plus.

Ellis, your favorite murrays. Be honest, Andy. Number one, Colin. Number two. I take that Judy. Judy three, I'm happy to be above Judy. I don't even put me above Judy. Judy's a better person than me.

I don't think I'm putting you above Judy.

I think you're in at number three. I was being polite, and I will. There are other murrays out there, so I will absolutely take that. But number one on your list was Andy Murray. Seeing as he was number one in your list, we'll scrap the idea of doing a three part podcast on me and your sports, and instead we'll do it in Andy Murray, the hunt for the holy Grail, which is, of course, his first Wimbledon.

I'd quite like to do a three part series in your sports career.

Age twelve, Belfast.

And Colin Murray can't find his boot back.

It would be awful. This one isn't all be great, because Andy Murray when Wimbledon was one of those seismic moments in our lifetime in sport.

Yeah, huge.

Yeah. And so much to do talk about in this three part series. So subscribe on wondery plus or wherever you get your podcasts.

The state of Iowa is known as the corn capital of the world. But Iowa's 3 million residents do a lot more than produce billions of bushels of corn every year. They also personify some of the best qualities that America has to offer. Located in the midwestern part of the country and surrounded by two rivers and six other states, the people of Iowa take pride in being friendly, considerate, law abiding, hardworking, and just plain nice. The state is one of the safest in the country, and every year, national surveys show that Iowa residents are among the most polite Americans you will ever meet. And if there's one place in Iowa where you are guaranteed to be treated, quote Iowa nice, it's the little town in the southwest corner of the state called Shenandoah. At one time, Shenandoah was considered the seed and nursery capital of the entire world. They no longer hold that title. But residents of this town are still surrounded by some of the most beautiful flowers and trees on the planet, along with some of the best tasting fruits and vegetables. And back in 1988, if there was one person in Shenandoah who absolutely embodied the town's spirit of friendliness, hospitality, and local pride, it was 39 year old Cindy Borton.

If you were a visitor to Shenandoah back in the late 1980s, Cindy would be one of the first people to run right up to you to introduce herself and offer you directions or recommendations of where to go in her little town. And if you were one of Cindy's friends or neighbors, she would drop anything she was doing to help you. And it didn't matter if it was day or night. Unlike many of the town's 5500 residents whose family had been living in the town for generations. Cindy and her husband Robert and their son John had moved to Shenandoah later in life. Cindy was born on May 22, 1949, in another small Iowa town called Garwin that was located three and a half hours to the northeast of Shenandoah. There, she and her brother had grown up playing outside and helping their parents with daily chores. After high school, Cindy went to work at a local restaurant, which is where she met her future husband, Robert. He had grown up in another Iowa town about 30 minutes away from her. Robert was a stocky young man with horn rimmed glasses and brown hair that he swept back from his receding hairline.

And when he met Cindy, he was instantly charmed by the smiling and laughing waitress with thick, dark hair and shining eyes. A year after meeting, Cindy and Robert got married. And one year after that, they welcomed their first and only child, a baby boy named John. Early on in their marriage, Robert enlisted in the US Navy, and so he was gone a lot of the time. As a result, Cindy stepped up and became the anchor of the family, always putting the needs of her husband and her son over her own. She also began working multiple part time jobs to supplement Robert's military income, which was just not that much. However, she only took jobs that did not interfere with her ability to spend quality time with her son John. In 1977, after Robert left the military, the Bortons moved to a town in Illinois called Evanston. There, Robert enrolled in a private seminary so that he could fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming an ordained pastor. In 1981, Robert graduated from the seminary, and a year later, he got an offer from a little church in Shenandoah, asking him to come be their pastor. Robert and Cindy were thrilled.

And so after Robert accepted the offer, the little family packed up their belongings and then made the eight hour trip west back to their home state of Iowa and into the pretty little town of Shenandoah. Once in Shenandoah, Cindy immediately threw herself into her new role as the pastor's wife. She was naturally outgoing and empathetic, and so she pretty much instantly became a favorite, not just with Robert's congregation, but with the rest of the town as well. Even though Robert had landed his dream job, it was not a high paying job. And so, like Cindy, he needed to go out and pick up some extra work to make ends meet. Robert would get a part time job at a car dealership where he washed and cleaned cars. And Cindy, after arriving in Shenandoah, worked as many as three part time jobs, including her main one at a donut shop. But despite how much Cindy and Robert were forced to work every week, they were very happy people. In fact, when most people described Cindy when she was living in Shenandoah, they would talk about her laughter because, one, she seemed to always be laughing and smiling, and two, because her laughter was incredibly infectious, and anyone who heard it couldn't help but laugh themselves.

But the Borton's seemingly perfect life would go off the rails. In 1987, five years after the Bortons had arrived in Shenandoah that summer, Robert's church, which had been struggling financially for years, was finally forced to shut their doors. And so Robert's job was gone, and so, too, was his main source of income. This loss was devastating, both emotionally and financially for the Borton family. By September of the following year, 1988, Robert had not had any luck finding another pastor gig in town or nearby. And the income they were making between Robert's car dealership work and Cindys various part time jobs was just not enough. And so the couple began talking about relocating. However, they both loved Shenandoah. It was their home. And John, who was 18 at the time, he was about to start his senior year in high school, and so they really didn't want to pull him out until he was done. And so Cindy and Robert decided that they would just stay in Shenandoah and they would weather the financial storm they were in. And then maybe after John graduated from high school, they would think about moving. But when John's senior year actually began that September, the Borton's 18 year old son suddenly developed a serious case of senioritis, meaning he didn't want to go to school.

And on the morning of Tuesday, September 6, just a few days into the new school year, John walked into the family kitchen and announced to his mother that he did not want to go to school ever. Cindy had to argue with John all by herself because Robert had already left that morning for work. But luckily, John eventually just gave up because he knew his mother was not going to budge. She wanted him to go to school. And so, begrudgingly, John ate his breakfast. He gathered up his backpack, and he followed his mother out to her car that was parked in the driveway. On the drive to school, Cindy reminded her son that she'd be working at the donut shop that afternoon, and so he'd have to walk home. When they arrived at Shenandoah High School a few minutes later, John, who was still very annoyed with his mother for forcing him to go to school that day, he got out, and he slammed the car door before mumbling a barely audible goodbye to his mother. As Cindy drove the short distance back to their house, she tried to tell herself that, you know, John's behavior was just typical teenage behavior, and once the school year really got going, John's attitude would surely improve.

Still, it was something she intended to talk to Robert about when he came home that afternoon for his lunch break. Once Cindy was back at their home, she parked the car in the driveway and walked through the back door and down the short hallway into the kitchen. After cleaning up the breakfast dishes, she caught up on a few household chores and made sure that the clothes she planned to wear to work that afternoon were clean and ready to go. Then she glanced at her watch and headed back into the kitchen to heat up some spaghetti sauce and pasta for lunch with Robert right at 12:00 p.m. that afternoon, just a half mile away, Robert would tell his boss that he was headed home for his 1 hour long lunch break. A few minutes later, Robert pulled his pickup truck into the driveway of his modest little house. He turned off the engine, and he walked up the steps to the front door. As he stepped into their small living room, he called out to let Cindy know that he was home. After she called back to him from the kitchen, Robert went to the first floor bathroom to wash up before he, too, headed into the kitchen to join his wife.

As Cindy served him a hot plate of spaghetti, Robert listened as Cindy told him about how John had not wanted to go to school that morning and how upset he was when she dropped him off. And Robert would agree with his wife that, you know, this did seem like typical teenage behavior and that, yeah, probably as the school year wore on, his attitude would change. The pair would chat about John's behavior for the bulk of their meal, and then, at about 1245, Robert put his dishes in the sink. He thanked Cindy for his lunch, and then he told her he'd see her that afternoon after she got home from her shift at the donut shop. A few minutes after Robert had left the house to return to work, Cindy was already washing the lunch dishes when she heard a knock on the back door. She glanced at her watch and wondered who would be visiting her in the middle of the day. A little over an hour later, at around 02:00 p.m. robert received a call at the car dealership where he worked. When his boss handed him the phone, Robert heard the voice of cindys co worker at the donut shop.

Sue Rogers, told him that Cindy had not shown up for work, which was unlike her since she usually arrived for her shift early. Sue had tried calling the Borton house, but no one had picked up. Robert told sue that, you know, maybe Cindy had taken a nap after lunch and shes just overslept. An hour later, at 03:00 p.m. robert got another call from the donut shop. This time, sue sounded worried. Cindy still had not shown up for work, and a co worker who went by the Borton house had stopped at the back door to call out for Cindy but didn't get an answer. And they noticed that the door was open. But this co worker didn't want to go inside without being invited, and so they left. Robert called home, and when Cindy did not pick up the phone, he asked his boss if he could leave work to go check on his wife. Just after 03:30 p.m. robert pulled up to his house, and the first thing he noticed was that Cindys car was still in the driveway. After parking his truck just behind her car, Robert walked up to the front door and let himself in, calling out his wifes name as soon as he stepped inside.

When there was no answer, Robert began walking from the living room, where he came in at the front of the house toward the back of the house where the kitchen was. As he walked, he kept yelling out for Cindy, but it was silent. When Robert finally reached the kitchen and got a view of the kitchen, he came to a complete and sudden stop. Backing slowly away, Robert reached for a nearby phone on the wall, and he called 911. When they picked up, he would tell police to come to his house right away because his wife had had a terrible accident. After hanging up the phone, Robert grabbed the family dog's collar off of a nearby hook, and he put it on the dog and led the dog outside to the backyard, where he tied the dog up. And then Robert walked around the outside of the house to the driveway in front, where he leaned against the side of Cindy's car, and there he waited patiently for the police to arrive. When the local police and ambulance arrived at the Borton house a few minutes later, Robert stepped forward to meet them. Then he stayed outside while the police and the medical technicians entered the front door and made their way into the kitchen in back.

What they saw inside was so shocking and so gruesome that the chief of police, Richard Hunt, he knew this was not a crime or a crime scene that his local police force could handle. He needed serious help from the state, and he needed that help right away. The kitchen was covered in blood and lying on her back in the middle of the floor was Cindy Borton. She had been stabbed 29 times with various bloody weapons that were found near her body on the ground. Based on the sheer violence of the attack and the fact that the back door had been unlocked and undamaged, Chief Hunt was sure that this crime had been personal. He knew the crime statistics. In Iowa, 85% of all homicides in the state were committed by people and family members who were close to the victim, which meant that right away, Cindys husband Robert and her son John were at the top of the list of potential suspects. And so as chief Hunt and the rest of the local police force more or less waited for the state law enforcement to arrive so they could actually begin processing the scene, Chief Hunt decided to just go outside and speak with Robert.

And so he went outside, he walked down the front steps, and he made his way over to Robert, who was still near Cindys car. And Chief Hunt would ask him, Robert, do you have any idea who could have done this to your wife? After Robert said no, he didnt. The police chief was shocked when Cindys husband went on to insist that his wifes death must have been an accident. But before the chief could continue questioning Robert, they were interrupted by the arrival of the Borton family's son John, who was walking down the road towards the family house on his way home from school. John slowed down as he approached the house and took in the sight of the police cars and an ambulance parked along the curb and the yellow crime scene tape along the perimeter of their yard. When John reached his father, Robert told him that something bad had happened to his mother and that she was dead. But as Robert reached out to put his hands on his son's shoulders, John dropped his backpack and just turned around and started running. Later, he would tell law enforcement that the news was so shocking, he just couldn't handle it.

And so that's why he ran. When John did return to his house almost 2 hours later, personnel from the state's division of criminal Investigation had finally arrived, and they were dusting for fingerprints and gathering evidence inside of the Borton house. And local law enforcement had fanned out around the neighborhood to ask the Bortons neighbors if they had seen anything unusual or suspicious that day. By then, Robert had also told police exactly what he had done that day, starting with him leaving the house at 06:45 a.m. to go to work and then arriving at work at 07:00 a.m. and then coming home again at noon for lunch with Cindy and then leaving again and getting back to the car dealership at 01:00 p.m. robert also described the calls he got from the donut shop, saying that Cindy had not shown up for her 02:00 p.m. shift. And he would describe to police what it was like when he arrived at his house at 03:30 p.m. to check to see if Cindy was okay. After John was back at the house, he would tell police that he had been at school from the time his mother had dropped him off in the morning until school let out at 330, and then he had walked home.

When the state investigators asked John if anything about that morning had seemed out of the ordinary, at first, John said no, but then after a few seconds, he changed his answer to yes. He said that he and his mother had been arguing that morning because John didn't want to go to school that day. But he told police this was not anything serious. By the time John and Robert left the Borton property to go stay that night with friends that they knew from Robert's old church, word had spread throughout Shenandoah that something unspeakable had happened to one of the town's most popular residents. Early the next morning on September 7, there were police officers waiting at Robert's car dealership to check on Robert's alibi. And while Robert's timesheet confirmed the timeline Robert had given them, Robert's boss added one detail about that day that Robert had left out. When Robert arrived back at the dealership after his lunch break, he had apparently changed his clothes. When asked if that was unusual, his boss would say, not really. Robert's boss would say that on Tuesdays, the car dealership's commercial cleaning service would come by to pick up dirty uniforms and rags.

And so Robert's boss thought that, you know, maybe Robert had come to work that day in his work clothes. He had gotten a full morning of work in, and then when he went home for lunch, he had changed. And then when he had come back, maybe he had dropped off those dirty clothes from the morning with the cleaning service. While this seemed totally plausible, investigators couldn't help but think that if Robert was involved in the murder of his wife and if there was any evidence from the murder on those work clothes, well, that evidence was now being destroyed by a commercial washing machine. Meanwhile, investigators who had arrived at Shenandoah High School early that morning to check John's alibi also had some questions. It would turn out John's alibi was not as straightforward as he had made it seem his teachers at his high school told police that, yes, John had come to school the previous day, but he did not have any classes between one and 03:00 p.m. and no one could really verify his whereabouts at that time. And it just so happens that that was likely the timeframe when his mother was killed.

And later that afternoon, a neighbor would tell police that they had seen a teenager running through the Bortons backyard around the time that Cindy would have been killed. The neighbor couldn't give police much of a description of this teenager, except to say that the teenager was a boy and that he had a thin build and it looked like his hair was brown, which was basically a perfect description of John. And so, two days after Cindy's death, detectives brought John into the police station for questioning. When pressed about the one to 03:00 p.m. gap in his alibi, John would adamantly state that he never left school grounds during that time period. He said he had been at school all day from the time his mother dropped him off until he walked home and discovered the police and ambulances in front of his house. When asked about his parents relationship, John admitted that there was some tension there and that sometimes he heard his parents arguing, mostly about money. But John also told police that his mother and father were very committed to each other and had been quite happy in the past. And so no matter what problems they might be having, John was confident that his parents were not even close to getting divorced.

He believed they would look to find a solution that kept them together. As for his own relationship with his mother, John told police that his mother had been everything to him and that it totally crushed him, that his last interaction with her was that stupid fight about him not wanting to go to school.

Em, what do you look for in a globally massive pop star?

Oh, I want sensationally inappropriate outfits, incredible glamor, and an almost unapproachable cool.

Well, for the latest series of terribly famous, would you settle for some plaid shirts, ginger hair, and an acoustic guitar? No.

No, I won't.

What if there's a loop pedal?

All right, keep talking.

That is actually it.

It just sounds a bit ordinary.

Emily, this is Ed Sheeran. You really won't believe the twists and turns his story takes.

Okay, fine. Sell me ed.

Addiction. Shame spirals. Family interventions. Grief. Massive court cases. Obsession.

Okay, okay, I'm listening.

Ed mapped out his whole career when he was just a teenager, and he has followed that path to some very strange places.

How strange?

Jennifer Aniston's sun lounger just an ordinary guy. Follow terribly famous wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad free on wondery. On Apple podcasts or the wondery app.

Hello, I'm Emily.

And I'm Anna. And we're the hosts of terribly famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities.

And just a warning, our latest season will feature a lot of accents.

Can I just check? What accents?

Because I can't tell this story without going all in.

Okay, I'm scared to ask, but can.

You give us a clue why Ayman.

Oh, ant and or death?

I'm afraid not. And it's not Alan Shearer, either. I am talking about a young woman plucked from obscurity who rose to become the nation's sweetheart.

A woman who's had a lot of.

Surnames and has ditched them all to become just Cheryl. Love it, girls allowed fans, strap in. We're gonna follow Cheryl from her girl band Glory days, getting together with Ashley Cole and the many scandals and humiliations that followed, not to mention a near death experience.

Oh, she's been through a lot, and.

She has needed every ounce of her northern grit to see her through. I promise you, it's going to be an emotional rollercoaster.

Follow terribly famous wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad free on wondery. On Apple podcasts or the wondery app.

Despite Robert and John continuing to deny that they had anything to do with the murder, 48 hours into the investigation, the father and son were still the prime suspects. Three days after Cindy's murder on September 9, the results of her autopsy came back. Based on the fact that the spaghetti she had eaten for lunch on the day of her murder was completely undigested. Police were able to narrow the time of her death down to about 01:00 p.m. meanwhile, investigators questioning teachers and students at Shenandoah High School were starting to believe that John had been telling the truth, that he really had been on school grounds on the day of the murder. From one to 03:00 p.m. at Cindys Memorial service on September 13, six days after her murder, investigators were waiting outside the church before scratching John off of their suspect list. They wanted to talk with Johns best friend, Jim Bettis, to see if he could offer any additional insights into Johns relationship with his mother. Jim had been a frequent visitor at the Borton household, and since Cindys death, he had been spending a lot of time with John, comforting him. And so police were hopeful that if John was involved, you know, maybe Jim would have picked up on it, and maybe Jim would be willing to talk about it.

But according to Jim, there really were no problems between John and his mother. He said John loved his mother and that he would never hurt her. And as for that fight that they got in over John going to school or not that morning, Jim said that was totally insignificant and not a reflection of John and Cindy's actual relationship. After speaking with Jim and a few other friends of John's that came out of the memorial service, investigators felt satisfied that John really was not involved, and so they crossed his name off the suspect list. So with no other new leads and no further information on any teenager running across the Borden's yard on the afternoon of the murder, investigators were now sure that the killer had to be Cindys husband, Robert. So about one week after the murder, investigators brought Robert into the interrogation room in the basement of the local police station. And then once he was sitting down, a special agent from the state's division of criminal investigation leaned in close to Robert and said, bob, let's quit playing games. We both know Cindy was dead when you went back to work. But for the next 3 hours, Robert, who showed very little emotion and no signs of grief, refused to change his story.

He said he had nothing to do with his wife's murder. He said that Cindy had seemed totally normal when he left for work early on the morning of the day she died. And when he came home for lunch that day at noon, she was alive. And she was also still alive when he left to go back to work at 12:45 p.m. before leaving the police station, Robert agreed to have his fingerprints collected, and he agreed to take a lie detector test. So the very next day, a special agent drove Robert 150 miles northeast to Des Moines, where Robert was hooked up to a polygraph machine that would measure his physical reactions to a series of key questions. Questions like, did you hurt your wife or did you kill your wife? And Robert would answer these questions the same way he had the day before in the basement interrogation room at the police station. No, I didn't hurt my wife. No, I didn't kill my wife. But this time, the polygraph machine showed that Robert was not being truthful. He didn't fail his test by much, but the results convinced investigators that despite Robert's denials, he must be the killer.

And so the agent who had administered the lie detector test pulled Robert aside for another round of intense questioning, telling him, hey, you failed this test, so you gotta tell us the truth now. But Robert continued to say that he had nothing to do with it. And he even fell asleep during this interrogation. Even with this failed lie detector test, the police lacked hard evidence that linked Robert to the murder. And so even though they wanted to keep him, they couldn't. They had to let him go. And so a special agent drove Robert back to Shenandoah. And on the drive, he turned to Robert and he said, you know, bob, when this is all over and you've been arrested, charged, tried, and convicted, I would be honored if you confessed to me. But a week later, two and a half weeks after cindys murder, investigators got another piece of bad news. When the state's crime lab reported that they had not been able to lift any fingerprints from the various murder weapons that had been found in Cindy's kitchen. They also were unable to pull any prints off of any other physical evidence that had been sent off for testing.

As September inched towards October and police had still not made any arrests, the residents of Shenandoah were outraged and scared. Every day they called the police station and the mayor's office seeking updates, and local gun stores reported a serious uptick in sales. And in November, Robert, who was being questioned by police nearly every day and was being shunned by residents who now walked across the street. To avoid talking with him, he packed up the family's belongings and moved with John to the town of Gladbrook, just outside of Des Moines, where he and Cindy had actually gotten married. Around this time, local reporters began asking the question that was on everyones how was it possible that in a town as small as Shenandoah, police could not figure out who had committed such a heinous crime? And on top of having a murderer on the loose, Shenandoah also had an arsonist on the loose. Around the time Cindy was killed, someone had been intentionally setting fires around town, damaging an elementary school, as well as destroying a pickup truck. And while the arson attacks didn't appear to be connected to Cindy's murder, it did seem odd that there would be two violent crimes happening at the same time in a town that saw almost zero violent crime.

And so some investigators began to suspect, just because of the rarity of violent crime, that the arson attacks and the murder had to be connected. And on November 30 of that year, their suspicions seemed to be confirmed. On that day, there was an arson attack at Shenandoah city hall. Except this time, the arsonist left behind a note. On this note, the arsonist warned police that the school fire and the truck fire and the murder of Cindy Borton were nothing compared to what was coming next. At the end of this note, the arsonist identified themselves as the night stalker. The night stalker was the name of a notorious murderer in California who had been captured three years earlier. But what really caught the attention of law enforcement was the fact that whoever had signed the note also left behind a fingerprint at the very bottom of the piece of paper the note was written on. While investigators waited on the results of the fingerprint analysis, they returned to the scenes of the earlier arson attacks. And on a bridge near the school fire, police had found the letters NS painted on a concrete support. They believed these had to be the initials of the night stalker.

By early December, the mayor of Shenandoah had received more than 200 calls from terrified residents demanding that the police find the arsonist killer before they murdered anyone else. But the nightstalker lead came to an abrupt end a few weeks later, when the fingerprint analysis not only failed to match Richard Borton's fingerprints, it didn't match any prints on file in any local, state, or federal law enforcement database. So, unfortunately, both the arson cases and the murder case began to grow cold. It wasn't until five months after Cindy Borton's murder that local and state investigators would get the tip they needed to break the murder and arson cases wide open. Around dinner time on the cloudy, cool night of January 30, 1989, the Shenandoah police chief, Richard Hunt, got a call from one of his officers. There was a teenager who had just walked into the police station, and he wanted to talk with someone about the murder of Cindy Borton. A few minutes later, Chief Hunt was sitting in his office, looking across his desk at 18 year old Jack Johnson, one of John Borton's best friends and classmates, and one of the boys investigators had talked with back in September, when they were confirming John's alibi for the time of his mother's murder.

Jack told Chief Hunt that a few days earlier, on January 26, Jack had been talking to someone, and during their conversation, Jack had asked this person what was the worst thing they had ever done. And this person paused for a moment, and then they said to Jack, I've done something that I'm pretty sure God will never forgive me for. Jack would go on to tell police all the awful details of what this person claimed to have done that God would not forgive them for. Based on Jack's testimony, this is a reconstruction of what really happened to Cindy Borton. Back on the day that Cindy died, September 6, 1988. She and her husband, Robert, were sitting in the kitchen, eating spaghetti and talking about their son's recent bad behavior. After Robert was done eating, he put his dirty dishes in the sink. He thanked his wife for the food, and then he headed out the door to go back to work. As Cindy began washing the dishes, she heard a knock on the back door. Glancing at her watch, she saw it was already almost 01:00 p.m. which meant she didn't really have a lot of time to visit with whoever this was before she had to step away and get ready for her 02:00 p.m. shift at the donut shop.

And so, feeling a little bit flustered, Cindy turned off the faucet, and she dried her hands. Then she walked around the counter, and she walked down the very short hallway that led to the back door of the house. And as she walked down this hallway, she looked through the glass of the back door, and she saw who her visitor was. And even though she was pressed for time, she couldn't help herself. She smiled. She was happy to see him. However, she was a little bit concerned that her visitor was not in school. But she opened the door, and as soon as the door was open, her visitor immediately reassured her that he understood he was supposed to be in school and he'd be there soon. He was just stopping by because he was hoping that Cindy wouldn't mind being a reference for a job that he was going to be applying. And so Cindy said, yeah, of course I'll be a reference for your new job. I'd love to hear about your new job. Come inside. Let's talk about it. And so her visitor stepped inside, and as they walked down the little hallway towards the kitchen, the visitor asked Cindy if it was okay if she got him a glass of water because he was really thirsty.

And so Cindy said, yeah, no problem. Come in the kitchen. I'll get you water, and we can talk about this new job. And so they start walking down this hallway, and the visitor reaches into his pocket, and he unfolds his pocket knife. And right as Cindy is stepping into the kitchen with her back to him, he walks up behind her. He reaches around the front of her neck, and he digs the blade into the front of her throat, cutting her neck wide open. Cindy instinctively reached up and tried to grab her neck to protect herself, but her attacker grabbed her hands, pulled them away, and then with the knife, he dug another trench across her throat. And then the attacker backed up a couple of steps. Cindy, who was now pouring blood out of her neck, stumbled forward into the kitchen. And then she whipped around, clutching her throat, looking at her attacker. It was 18 year old Jim Bettis, her son's best friend. But she didn't have time to process who was attacking her, because before long, as she was staring at him, he lunged at her again, slashing and cutting her. And so she put her hands up over her face to protect herself.

And he was digging the knife over and over again into her forearms and her hands and all over her body. And eventually, she kind of slumped onto the kitchen counter after being stabbed and cut so many times, at which point, Jim walked away from her, and he walked over to a drawer that he knew from all of the visits he had made to this household to visit with John, he knew that in this drawer were kitchen knives and other utensils. And so as Cindy is laying right near him up against the counter, pleading with him to stop, and she's bleeding everywhere, he reaches into this drawer, and he pulls out two of Cindy's sharpest knives, and he sets them on the counter. And then he pulls out two long serving forks that each had very pointed prongs at the end. And so he turns around to look at Cindy, and Cindy sees what he's doing. And so she tries to make a run for the phone to call 911. But before she could get there, Jim grabbed the two knives that he had just taken out of the drawer, and he leapt in front of Cindy and began stabbing her over and over and over again on her sides, her front, her face, her hands, her legs.

Anywhere he could, he would stab her. And Cindy the whole time, is trying to hit him and push him back, but there's nothing she can do. She's helpless. And then at some point, she kind of falls to the ground, but she's not dead yet. And so at that point, Jim put down the two knives he had just taken out of that drawer, and he went back, and he got the two serving forks. And then he went back over to Cindy, who was now crawling across the ground trying to get to the phone. And he began stabbing her in the back, in the back of the neck, on the side, over and over and over again. Despite multiple puncture wounds to her vital organs, Cindy was not dying. She was bleeding profusely. She was likely mortally wounded at this point. But she kept trying to move forward. She kept trying to fight back. She was doing anything she could to save herself. But eventually, Jim overpowered her. He flipped her over onto her back. And then, kneeling next to her, he got his tools lined up next to him, the two knives, his own knife, and the two serving forks.

And systematically, he began using these tools to begin cutting and slashing and digging into the front of her torso. And he would continue to do that until Cindy finally stopped moving. And when she did stop moving, he picked up one of the serving forks. He raised it up over his head, and then he brought it straight down into her neck, plunging it deep inside of her. And then he let go of the handle, leaving the fork stuck into her neck. Then he wiped off the handle of that fork, as well as the other handles of the other murder weapons, which he just left on the floor next to Cindy. With the exception of his folding knife. He would take that. Then Jim stood up and walked into the small bathroom near the kitchen. And he washed his hands and face, leaving faint traces of blood in the sink but wiping his fingerprints from the faucet handles. Then Jim retraced his steps to the back door. He stepped outside, and he paused for just a minute before taking off at a run across the Bortons yard, he would be seen by that neighbor, except the neighbor would only be able to describe him as a thin teenager with brown hair.

3 hours later, Jim and his parents would be out driving around when they passed John, who had just bolted from the scene and the news of his mother's death. Jim's parents slowed the car down, and Jim leaned out the window. And he comforted his friend, asking him if he wanted to come into the car and talk about what happened. You know, did he need a ride anywhere. But John, who was in a state of shock, would just shake his head and keep on running. Five months after killing his best friend's mother, Jim would confess his crime to his other best friend, Jack Johnson. Not only would Jim tell Jack exactly where he had disposed of his pocket knife, he would also draw a diagram for Jack, showing him exactly where Jim had left Cindys body inside the Bortons kitchen on the night of January 30, which was the day that Jack Johnson had gone to police to tell them about Jim. He presented Jims hand drawn diagram and pushed it across the desk to Chief hunt. On February 2, 1989, police asked Jim Bettis to come to the police station for an interview. Once inside the interrogation room, Jim denied everything, saying he had never had that conversation with Jack Johnson.

But after agreeing to let police collect his fingerprints, police determined Jim's prints matched the one found on the note left by the night stalker. After another round of questioning, Jim eventually admitted to being the arsonist. But it wasn't until he conclusively and massively failed his polygraph test that he would admit to police that, yes, he had killed Cindy Borden, it would turn out Jim had nothing against Cindy. The person he really hated was his own father. According to Jim, his father had spent years deriding and criticizing him. For a while, Jim had taken out his anger by setting fires around town. But for the last several months, he'd come to despise his father so much that all Jim could think about was killing him. But Jim was afraid of his father and couldn't really imagine himself besting his father in any kind of physical confrontation. And Jim wasn't even sure he could go through with killing anyone. So he decided what he needed to do was practice. He needed to find someone who would be easy to kill, someone vulnerable, someone who trusted him, someone who loved him. And the one person who fit that Bill was his best friend's mother, Cindy Borton.

As far back as Jim could remember, Cindy had been the one person he knew who was always glad to see him and who always had time to talk with him and who always offered him encouragement. She would be the last person to suspect that he could ever hurt her. And so he told himself, if he could kill Cindy, maybe he could also kill his father. The police were able to finally prove their case against Jim when they found his pocket knife that he had tossed under a local bridge. The knife still had Cindy's blood on it, along with Jim's fingerprints. On November 13, 1989, Jim Bettis, who was 19 years old at the time, was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. In a letter Jim wrote from prison, he told a relative that when he, quote, killed that lady, I guess I went too far and pretended that she was my dad. By 1992, years after Cindy's murder, Robert and John had moved again, this time to Eldora, Iowa, a town of 3000 residents located about three and a half hours northeast of Shenandoah. Robert would remarry and he would find work at a plastics recycling plant.

State and local law enforcement in Shenandoah defended the intensive investigation techniques they used with Robert, saying that from the start, he was their only viable suspect. Now 52 years old, Cindys son John wants people to remember his mother for her life, not her death. He would tell reporters in April of 2022 that she was a wonderful, wonderful person, and I only miss her on days that end. In the letter y.

Thank you for listening to the Mister Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed todays story and youre looking for more bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts. Theres this one Mister Ballin podcast Mister Ballins Medical Mysteries. Theres bedtime stories and also run fool. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts and these will all pop up. To watch hundreds more stories just like the one you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mister Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time.

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Survey Nancys love story could have been ripped right out of the pages of one of her own novels.

She was a romance mystery writer who happens to be married to a chef.

But this story didnt end with a happily ever after. When I stepped into the kitchen, I could see that chef Brophy was on the ground and I heard somebody say, call 911. As writers, we'd written our share of murder mysteries. So when suspicion turned to Dan's wife, Nancy, we weren't that surprised. The first person they look at would be the spouse.

We understand that's usually the way they do it.

But we began to wonder, had Nancy gotten so wrapped up in her own.

Novels, there are murders in all of.

The books that she was playing them out in real life. Follow happily never after Dan and Nancy. See on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts, you can binge all episodes of happily never after Dan and Nancy early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.