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One early morning In April of 2012, a man was walking through the woods in coastal France. He lived nearby, and he had just seen a column of smoke coming out of the trees in this area. And so he was just coming out here to make sure there was not a brush fire or something. And so he walked through the woods and eventually he reached the source of the smoke. It was in this clearing. And right away he felt relieved because what he saw was just the remains of a bonfire and it was just smoldering and now there was just some smoke coming up off of it. He was about to turn around and go, maybe get some water and douse it out completely, but he smelled something like it was a weird smell that clearly was coming from the fire. And so curious, you know, there's nobody else around. He just began walking to the fire to see what was making this smell. And as he got close enough, he realized there was something in that fire. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format and you come to the right place, because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the follow button a nice fresh burrito. But don't tell them instead of using ground beef, you used cat food. Okay, let's get into today's story. Been sitting on a business idea. My advice? Don't overthink it. Just take that first step and make sure you have the right tool, a robust selling platform like Shopify to help turn your idea into something real. Shopify checkout takes just one click, so it helps more of your customers finish their purchase. And when they come back, their details are already saved. With Shopify, nothing stands between your idea and a real business. So. So go make it one. If you're ready to stop putting off your business and start hearing Cha Ching, then you're ready for Shopify. Start your free trial@shopify.com MrBaun today. You heard that right. Start your free trial today@shopify.com MrBauln Again, that's shopify.com MrBauln Auto insurance should not be one size fits all, especially for people whose lives definitely aren't. That's why USAA Auto insurance offers coverage designed for the military and their eligible families. When when your life demands precision. USAA gets the details right, like helping you find savings on auto insurance when you switch. Visit usaa.com autoquote to see how much you could save. Membership eligibility and product restrictions apply and are subject to change. USAA means United Services Automobile association and its affiliates. San Antonio, Texas. On the night of April 26, 2012, a 39 year old bouncer named Lionel Varanaz opened the door of a nightclub in Chambery, France, and he led a woman inside. And as this woman came in, she stopped and made a point to look at Lionel and smile at him and thank him by name. So Chambery was a small city up in the Alps, and Leonel the bouncer was a fixture in its nightlife scene. Pretty much everybody in town who went out to the bars and clubs had either seen Lionel standing at the door outside or or partying inside when he was not on the clock. And it was not just the locals who knew who this guy was. Leonel was also well known among the rich and famous tourists who often vacationed in Chambery. And even sometimes he would pick up side work as a bodyguard for these rich and famous people. And for Leonel, I mean, his career as like sort of this fixture in the nightlife scene was fun and pretty glamorous at times, but it also could be dangerous. In fact, just a few months ago, he got into this huge fist fight protecting one of his clients. And in fact, he actually got arrested for it. But tonight, Leonel was just trying to get through a shift without any trouble. There was this long line of people who were waiting outside the club, waiting to get in, and leonel checked their IDs one by one and let them in. And then finally, when the line started to clear, Leonel saw a familiar face walking toward him. It was his good friend Mike Bouff, who Leonel often went drinking with multiple times a week. And at first, Leonel was just really glad to see Mike. But as Mike got closer, Leonel realized that Mike actually looked really mad. And so by the time Mike actually reached Leonel, Leonel just said to him, like, hey, what's going on? You look pretty upset. And Mike would tell him that he had just been at his friend Philippe's house and Philippe had told him that seemed really, really weird. So Philippe Perrier, Mike's friend, the guy whose house he just came from, was extremely wealthy because his family ran this world famous winery near Chambery. Now, Lionel had never actually met Philippe himself, but he knew of him. His family was incredibly well connected in town because they're so rich and they had this winery and Mike was friends with him and often talked about him. And so now Mike explained to Leonel what this really weird thing was that he heard when he was visiting with Philippe. So Apparently, Phillipe's house had been robbed the day before, and Philippe believed Leonel, the bouncer, was the one who had done it. Now, Leonel immediately acted totally taken aback and began to ask Philippe, like, why in the world would he even think that? But Mike, you know, his buddy here just cut him off and he's like, leonel, don't play dumb. Like, Philippe knows you're sleeping with his wife Natalie, and Natalie is actually the one who's blaming you for this robbery. Now, at this, Lionel went from the sort of shock and awe reaction to actually just feeling really nervous. He actually began to sweat because, you know, he knew it was true. He had slept with Natalie. He'd met her at a club one night a couple of months ago, and they'd hooked up in the coat check room. But Leonel realistically had a lot of flings with a lot of different women, and he'd actually pretty much completely forgotten about hooking up with Natalie since it had just been like a casual thing and he hadn't seen her in weeks, and then. And so he had no idea why now suddenly she would be accusing him of theft. Like, it doesn't really make any sense to him. So Lionel, I mean, he was genuinely stunned. I mean, he knew what he had done. He had slept with Natalie, and that's problematic. But he told Mike very truthfully that he did not break into Philippe's house. Like, there was nothing going on between he and Natalie. That was just a fling. It was nothing like, I really didn't do this. But Mike, despite, you know, being friends with Leonel and knowing him quite well, did not appear to believe him. He just sort of narrowed his eyes and nodded and said, okay, I'll pass that along to Philippe. Three days later, on the night of April 29, Leonel sat in a chair in his living room in Chambery, finishing up a phone call. So he lived in a small apartment with his mother and also his nephew Julian. However, Julian was just four years younger than him, so in many ways they were more like brothers. And so as soon as Leonel hung up the phone, Julian, who was sitting in the room with him on the other side on the couch watching tv, immediately asked Leonel, who were you talking to? Leonel got up and he walked over and sat down next to Julian on the couch. And then he said to him, oh, that was my friend Mike. And he had just called to see if I wanted to go out tonight for a drink. And so Julian's like, okay, cool. And then there's a little Bit of silence. And then Leonel was like, actually, I want to tell you something. And then he filled in Julian on the weird conversation he had had with Mike just a few days before, where basically Mike was saying that, you know, Leonel was being accused of robbing this rich guy's home, Philippe's home. And so Julian, when he heard this, he was sort of like, this seems like a big deal. But Leonel, despite being the one to bring it up and being the one to indicate this could be a big deal, he quickly downplayed it when he saw the reaction and was just like, you know, it is what it is. I didn't do it. And, you know, me and Mike were back on good terms. This whole thing was just, you know, a misunderstanding. Everything is back to normal now, just a weird thing that happened. And so Leonel and Julian, they shifted the conversation and chatted about whatever for the next couple of minutes. And then Leonel's phone buzzed. And at the same time he saw there were headlights pulling up outside. So Leonel grabbed his jacket and he told Julian he'd be back in a few hours. Then he went out the door. Two days later, on the evening of May 1, 2012, Leonel's nephew Julian walked into the Chambery police station. He had spent the past two days very worried and stressed because Leonel had not come home after hanging out with Mike that night, and he now was not answering his phone. And Leonel was never gone for this long. Without giving Julian or his mother a heads up, Julian had tried to convince himself that he was just overreacting to this whole thing and that Leonel could take care of himself. He was an adult. He was a. A tough adult. You know, he could, he could handle himself. However, when he found out that Leonel also hadn't been at work for the past couple of days, Julian knew something was wrong. So Julian, after getting inside the station, he walked right up to the front desk and told them, I need to report somebody missing the following afternoon. So, May 2, 2012, Captain Florent Mazarin walked into an interrogation room at the Chambery police station. He was leading the investigation into Leonel's missing person case. And sitting inside of the interrogation room at the table was so far the only suspect they had in this case, Lionel's friend Mike Bouff, who he had gone out with on the night he had disappeared. So it had only been a few days since anyone had seen Lionel. But Mazaran was already sure that there was foul play involved. Chambery was a small town. And a lot of the officers on the police force there knew Leonel. And a couple of them were pretty much adamant that Leonel was just not the kind of person who would just leave town with no warning. Julian, Leonel's nephew, had said the exact same thing when he reported Leonel missing. He also was the one who told police that the last person Leonel was with was Mike on the night he went missing. And Mike also, they found out, had recently accused Leonel of robbing someone's house. So Mazarin was really eager to get in there and hear what Mike had to say. So into the room he went, he sat down across from Mike, who seemed calm, but also definitely curious, like he wasn't sure even why he was there. And when Mazaran started in by asking him about the robbery that supposedly Leonel was involved in, Mike just nodded and explained that the break in had happened about a week earlier at the home of his good friend Philippe Perrier. And when Mazaran heard that name, he sort of raised an eyebrow. Because like basically everybody else in Chamberree, Mazaran knew who the Perriers were. And he was surprised that someone so rich and so powerful would be running in the same circles as, you know, sort of traditional working class men like Mike and like Lionel. However, before he could dive in and ask some basic follow up questions about how he knows the Perriers, Mike went on to say that he ran an electrician business and he had a warehouse that was right next to Philippe's winery. So they saw each other all the time. And he said that Philippe knew Mike was friends with Leonel. And so after this break in and robbery happened, he had asked Mike to talk to Leonel about it cause he was suspicious that he had done it. But Mike said when he actually confronted Leonel just a few days ago and brought up the break in, that Lionel had sworn he didn't know anything about it and Mike had passed that on to Philippe. And as far as he knew, that had been the end of it. Like they were not going to continue to assume that Lionel had anything to do with it. Now Mike was being so earnest as he told the story that Mazaron thought there was a good chance he was simply telling the truth here and that this robbery thing was really just a big misunderstanding. However, when Mazaron asked Mike where he had been on Sunday night, when Leonel was last seen, presumably with Mike, Mike's whole demeanor changed. He began to visibly shift in his seat and began looking down at the table instead of eye contact with Mazaran. And then he just said that he had been home all night with his girlfriend. He did say at a certain point he had called Lionel to try to make plans with him for that night, but they'd never actually met up and they didn't see each other. Now, at this point, Mazaron was pretty confident that Mike was lying. Not just because of Mike's very obvious change in body language, but Leonel's nephew had sworn he had seen Mike's car outside their building on that night, that Mike is saying he did not meet up with Leonel. Now, it was possible that Julian had been mistaken, but if Mike was lying to the police about having been with Leonel on the night he disappeared, well, that made Mike seem very, very suspicious. And so Mazaran just put Mike on the spot and said, okay, give me your girlfriend's name and her contact information so I can confirm your alibi. And so he did. He handed it over. And then Mazaran got up, left the interrogation room, and went to go give her a call. Everybody learns a language for different reasons. Maybe you just want to watch K dramas without subtitles, or you want to talk with family members, but in their native language. You your life is unique, so your language learning should be too. I remember trying to learn a new language before a trip, and most of the systems that I tried felt pretty generic, but with Rosetta Stone it was completely different. It adjusted to how I was learning, so it felt more like I was actually preparing to use this language, not just, you know, learning how to regurgitate it. Rosetta Stone Sapphire is designed for personalized learning, helping you go beyond generic lessons and focus on the topics that matter most to you. 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On the evening of May 2, 2012 so, just a few hours after questioning Mike Bouff about Leonel's disappearance, Captain Mazaran drove up to a big house in a quiet, wealthy suburb just outside but of Chambery, France. Now, by this point, he had already spoken to Mike's girlfriend, who had confirmed what Mazarin was already thinking, which was Mike was lying about spending the whole night of Leonel's disappearance at home with her. In fact, she said that Mike hadn't been home at all. She said she had been at home by herself all night. She had watched a movie and then at some point she had fallen asleep maybe around midnight. And at that point, when she fell asleep, Mike still was not back from wherever he was. So right now, Mike was not only their sole suspect, but he was also their best suspect. Mazron knew that a few days before Leonel's disappearance, Mike had confronted Leonel about this supposed robbery at Philippe Perrier's house. And so now Mazarin was at Philippe's house to see what he had to say about the whole situation. And so Mazaran pulled his car up in front of the house, he parked, he got out, he walked up to the front door, and he rang the doorbell. And a moment later, Philippe himself opened the door. And he seemed genuinely surprised to see Mazaron standing there. And so he quickly asked Mazaron if he was here to follow up on the robbery investigation. And Mazaron said, sort of. Mazaron said for now, he just wanted to know if he could come inside and they could chat. And for a moment, it seemed, at least to Mazaran, that Philippe sort of hesitated, like he didn't necessarily want to do that, but then he sort of relaxed and nodded and said, sure, and he let Mazaron inside. And so Maseran, he stepped inside of this beautiful house that was very well furnished, and he was led to the living room, and Mazarin took a seat. And then after Philippe sat down as well, he asked Philippe to walk him through what had happened with the supposed robbery. Philippe explained that his wife Natalie, had come home one afternoon, and when she had come into the living room, she saw one of the windows had been shattered. And then Mazaron said that, you know, after seeing this, they searched the house, and they eventually went downstairs to the basement where their safe was. And they found their safe had been broken into as well, and a lot of cash that had been in there was gone. Philippe said he had called the police about it and they'd come out to investigate, but so far he hadn't heard anything. And so Mazarin, after hearing this, asked Philippe if he thought he knew who was responsible. And Philippe immediately nodded and said yes. Then he repeated what Mike Bouff had said. It was Lionel Varanas. And the reason he knew that was Lionel was having an affair with his wife, Nathalie. And Nathalie said it was Lionel. Mazarin looked really hard at Phillipe because this was huge, huge. If Phillipe knew that Lionel was having an affair with his wife, that gave him Phillipe plenty of motive to want Leonel dead. And as of right now, Leonel was gone, and no one knew what happened to him, so maybe he was murdered. And so, operating on a hunch, Mazaran followed up by asking Phillipe if he had any weapons in the house. And to his surprise, Philippe said yes. And so Mazaran asked if he could see see them. And so Philippe got up and led him over to the stairs that went down to the basement. And when they got down there, there was this huge gun safe with a few plastic firearm cases stacked around it. And so Philippe, once they got down there, he sort of stepped out of the way so that Mazaron could look around. And almost as soon as he did begin walking around Mazaran and began opening up these cases, he discovered that one of those cases, which had space for two weapons in it, was empty. And so Mazarin asked Philippe, like, hey, where are the two guns that go in this case? And Philippe said, actually, those were stolen during the robbery. However, after hearing this, and as Mazarin is staring at this empty gun case, something just was not adding up. Philippe clearly had a motive to want to hurt Lionel as he was having an affair with his wife, and he happened to have two missing guns. Now, of course, at this point, Mazaron did not know if Leonel was definitely, you know, dead and therefore couldn't know if he had been shot or not. But still, this was really suspicious. But at the same time, Phillipe was from this very wealthy and highly respected family. He didn't really seem like the kind of person who would go around murdering or kidnapping people in revenge. And if he had, let's say, done something bad to Lionel, it was just odd that he would just so readily admit to clearly having a motive to harm Lionel and to show the detective a basement full of weapons, including a gun case that was missing weapons. And so, basically, until Mazarin was able to figure out what actually happened to Lionel, until that time, he would have a really hard time proving that Phillipe had anything to do with it. The next morning, Captain Mazaran was in his office at the police station going over the notes from his interview with Phillipe to see if there was anything he missed. At this point, Mazaran's theory was that either Mike or Philippe, or maybe even both of them, had gone to confront Leonel about the affair and about the robbery. And then things had turned violent. But just then, there was a knock on his door, and Mazarin turned and he saw his door was open and there was this woman standing there and. And her face was stained with tears. And when she walked into the room, she sort of was heavy and stumbling, like she was maybe on drugs or maybe drunk or maybe on heavy medication. And she sort of stumbled into the room and then introduced herself as Natalie Perrier. So Mazarin had actually earlier called on her to come in and speak to him, both to verify her husband's story about what happened, the robbery, the affair, and also to see what else she might know about Lionel. And also, since she clearly was involved in this whole potential love triangle here, he had to also consider her as a potential suspect in whatever happened to Leonel. So he gestured for Natalie to take a seat, and then once she had, he asked her to tell him all about how she had met Leonel. Natalie, at this point, really clearly could not sort of keep herself together. She kept apologizing and kept explaining that she was on prescription medication. That made it really hard for her to keep a grip on her emotions, and this whole situation had really rattled her. But eventually, after the sort of setup about how sorry she is and what a mess she is, she eventually tells Mazaran that she had met Lionel at a nightclub and that, yes, they had hooked up a few times, but since the last time, they hadn't seen each other, and it had been quite a while, like it was, it was nothing. When Mazarin asked her about the robbery, she said that Leonel had told her about having serious gambling debts from playing poker. And so because of that, she had just sort of naturally suspected that he must have robbed them. She also added that, just to be clear, her and Philippe were both at their home all night on the evening that Leonel disappeared, and that if Filippe had gone to confront Lionel at any point, she did not know anything about it. And so at this point, Mazaron sat back in his chair and just considered what he was seeing and what he was hearing. Natalie seemed genuinely devastated by this whole situation. To Mazaran, it seemed like she was believable that she was coming in here telling the truth, and so he really doubted that she directly had anything to do with Lionel's disappearance. However, while Nathalie's emotional state certainly made her seem less likely as a suspect, Mazron wondered if maybe her tears were a clue. By her own account, she'd only had a fleeting relationship with Lionel, not some, you know, passionate relationship or something. So maybe the reason she's this upset is because she actually knows that her husband was involved in what happened to Leonel. The story of Southern New Hampshire university started in 1932. Above a small storefront. Almost a century later, SNHU offers over 200 degree programs online. 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And right now you can try it for free@ziprecruiter.com Ballen their powerful matching technology finds qualified candidates quickly and these candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested in your job. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the 1 rated hiring site based on G2. Save time and meet great candidates sooner with ZipRecruiter, 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com Ballin that's ZipRecruiter.com BallIn meet your match on ZipRecruiter. A few days later, Captain Mazeran walked through a wooded rural area near the coast, 220 miles away from Chambery. An officer from the Marseille police was walking a few steps ahead of him. This officer had called Mazarin yesterday to tell him that a body had been discovered in these woods just after dawn on April 30th. So less than 10 hours after Leonel was last seen by his family, and after running the body's fingerprints through the database, they had identified the victim. It was Lionel. And Mazarin was baffled by this. Marseille was more than a four hour drive from Chambury, and as far as Mazarin knew, Lionel didn't know anybody in Marseille and did not go there with any regularity. And there was just plenty of other wooded areas closer to Chambury, so why drive all the way out here? It just didn't really make any sense. And so Mazaron continued following this officer and at some point, they stepped into the small clearing, and Mazaran saw there was a pile of burnt logs and branches sort of lying in the grass right in the middle. And the other officer said that this was the spot where Leonel was found. And then the officer pulled out a folder that had photos of Lionel's body. And so Mazaron was being brought here just to see exactly where it had been found. And so Mazaran looked down at the floor, and what he saw was, you know, in this spot that he was standing near, there was this smoldering bonfire. It was clearly out, but there was still smoke coming off of it. And then in the middle of all these logs was clearly a charred corpse. The officer that brought him here explained that the medical examiner had found a gunshot wound in the back of Leonel's head. So it did appear that he was actually killed before he was set on fire. And so as Mazarin was taking all this new information in, everything just started to make sense. So this was exactly how drug trafficking gangs in France typically disposed of bodies. The police even had a name for it. They called it a barbecue. The gangs would shoot their victims in the head and then burn their bodies over a bonfire to make them harder to identify. Mazarin had assumed that Leonel's murder was a revenge killing, but now it actually looked more likely that this could have been a gang execution. None of Lionel's family or friends had ever mentioned that he was involved with a gang in any way. But Mazarin knew that Lionel worked in nightclubs and had a history of breaking up fights. So it was definitely possible that he might have crossed paths with the wrong person. Also, there was the fact that apparently Lionel had these huge debts from gambling. There's just sort of a seedy underworld that potentially he was. That could have led to him being killed this way. Also, if this was gang related, it would sort of explain why he was all the way out here in Marseille, because Marseille was a city that historically had a lot of issues with drug trafficking and gangs. And so Mazarin realized he could have been wrong about this case basically from the start. Maybe Mike and Philippe actually had nothing to do with it at all. Around 10pm On May 5, 2012, about 100 miles from the spot where Leonel's body was found, Captain Florent Mazarin pulled into the parking lot of a gas station. He got out, he walked inside and told the clerk that he needed to look at the security camera footage. So during the four hour drive from Marseille back to Chambery. So after Mazarin had gone out and seen where Leonel had been found during that ride home, he'd been going back and forth between his first two suspects, Mike and Philippe, and this new theory that a gang had killed Lionel. And so he wasn't really sure how he was gonna navigate, like, what to do here with running these two sort of simultaneous investigations. But as he's driving, as he's on his way back home, he realizes there might actually be a way to prove whether or not either Mike or Philippe were involved in this killing. There were only two roads that connected Chambery to Marseille, and so Lionel's killer or killers must have driven down one of them at some point during the night of April 29. So Mazaran had been checking the cameras at every toll booth and every gas station that he passed on his drive to see if any of them had captured a glimpse of Leonel. So far, he'd just been disappointed because most of the cameras didn't even work or the footage had already been erased or written over. And so now, as he followed this clerk into the back room and was shown to their computer to go ahead and look at the footage, Mazarin was expecting that this stop would be the same as all the others. A big disappointment. However, as soon as they fired up the computer, right away, Mazarone saw that they did have footage, and the footage did cover the time period he was looking for. However, when he began scanning the footage around the date of April 29, April 30, at first, nothing stood out. However, when he reached the early hours of April 30, where he would normally stop and say, okay, I didn't see anything. It is what it is. For whatever reason, he decided to just keep on scanning the footage, just keep on watching more of April 30th. And eventually, he did see something of interest. At 5:43am on April 30th, a black Volkswagen vehicle pulls into frame and it actually parks in the gas station parking lot. And this car, its license plate ended in 73, which meant this car was registered in Chambery. He's watching. This car comes into the lot, it parks, and the driver gets out. And right away, Mazaran pauses the video and he zooms in on the driver's face. But the video was just too grainy. He couldn't tell who the driver was. But then something in the passenger seat of this car catches his attention, and so he zoomed in on the passenger seat, and when he realized what he was looking at, his stomach just dropped. Based on that video, forensic evidence, and interviews with witnesses, this is what police believe happened to leonel Veronese. On April 29, 2012, Around 10:15pm, the killer sat in the backseat of a car as it drove through the streets of Chambery with a gun resting on the seat next to them. Now, the killer had told the driver that they were not planning to use the gun tonight. It was just there for intimidation. However, the killer's emotions were really running high, and they honestly weren't even sure what they were going to do when they saw Leonel. And so the car kept on driving along until eventually it came to a stop outside of an apartment building. And then a few seconds later, the passenger side front door opened up and Leonel climbed inside the car. As the driver put the car back into gear and started driving down the road, the killer from the backseat confronted Leonel about something that had really been bothering them. And it gradually turned into a very heated argument. And then at some point, the killer raised that gun they weren't going to use, aimed at the back of Leonel's head, and fired. The driver immediately whipped around and looked at the killer and just stared at them. They seemed completely shocked by this crazy, sudden escalation here. But they didn't stop driving. Instead, they stepped on the gas and sped down the road until they reached a house. And then the killer and the driver both went inside of that house, and they formulated a plan for what would happen next. So the plan was the driver, along with another accomplice who was in the house they went to, would drive down to Marseilles. They would find a secluded spot out in the woods. They'd make a bonfire, and they would burn Lionel's body. That's how they dispose of it. And then on the way back, their plan was to toss all the evidence into the river. As for the killer, the one who actually pulled the trigger, they were going to stay at this house. They were not going to leave. The driver and the other accomplice agreed that the killer had already caused enough trouble for one night. So the killer just went upstairs into their bedroom. They slipped on a robe, and they watched from the window as the other two got into the car and drove off. The killer was Philippe's wife, Nathalie Perrier, the woman Leonel had had an affair with. To Leonel, their affair had been meaningless, just a fling. But for Natalie, she wanted more. She had gotten bored of her quiet life as a luxurious housewife in the suburbs, and. And she'd quickly fallen in love with Leonel and the seemingly very exciting life that he lived. And so when Leonel stopped paying attention to her, she'd gotten so mad that she took revenge. She went with Mike to pick up Leonel on the night he was killed so that she could confront him. But moments after Leonel got in the car, her emotions got the best of her and she shot and killed him. And this was definitely not the plan that Mike had agreed to. Like he and her had discussed what was gonna happen. It didn't include murdering Leonel. But after the murder, Mike didn't say, I'm gonna go to the police. Instead, he and Natalie went to her husband Philippe for help. And Philippe agreed to dispose of Leonel's body and cover up the crime. On the security footage from the gas station, what Mazaron saw in the passenger seat of that black Volkswagen was Phillipe. He was sitting there, just right in the passenger seat. And it would turn out the driver of the car was Mike. Natalie was ultimately convicted of Leonel's murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Mike was sentenced to six years for kidnapping and destroying evidence. And Philippe was sentenced to three years for helping get rid of Leonel's body. He and Natalie are now divorced. And also as for that robbery, that played seemingly a central role in the story at the beginning, we actually don't know if the robbery ever occurred or if it was simply a fabrication. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Locasio. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher. Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Van Hus Evan Beamer Abigail Shumway Camille Callahan Alex Paul Ben Facciano Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio and Jordan Stidham Production support by Antonio Minotta and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Claugston Kiner Theme song Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and at ad free. You can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast plus on Apple Podcasts or visit siriusxm.compodcastplus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. Your outdoor space is where you unwind and make memories, so make it count. Belgard pavers are designed to elevate your outdoors. Design forward and built to last. Learn more@belgard.com that's B E L G

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a-r d.com hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions, millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter. Angie the one you trust to find the ones you trust. Find a pro for your project@angie.com.