And I'm Sarah.

Welcome to the Ship Show, a half asked true crime podcast.

Sarah just started this by telling me it was okay to start speaking with finger guns.

I think that's all I ever do you?

Yes, because I'm still a child, So I mean, who doesn't like finger guns?

All?

All right, let's start over.

Hi, welcome to this week.

We're recording late yep, because well it's partially because I had a weird work schedule this week, but the other part of it is also that I ditched the planned recording day to go to a Shania Twin concert.

And I do not fault you for that.

It was a good time, but I got covered in poison IVY.

How is the venue?

Was it like handicapped friendly?

Do you mean like could you walk there?

Like?

Am I going to pass out?

As they're seating?

They were seating, you could run.

I don't know if you could bring your own launchairs because we had lawn seats, but there was seats that you could buy, but the like, it was a small venue, so the lawn seats were doable and you can rent chairs if you didn't bring one.

Okay, I'm still probably never going, but okay.

I wanted Sarah to go with me, but she wouldn't.

I I was very worried about passing out because it was supposed to be really warm that day, and Hi, Hello.

I don't like to leave sid, I don't leave, I stay home.

But yeah, so anything eventple happened at the concert.

I got poison ivy.

Yeah that's very unfortunate.

Yeah it's not great, but I'm still glad I went.

I'm glad you went too.

I don't even know.

I don't know what today is.

I don't know what yesterday was, today's Monday.

It's my last two weeks have just kind of.

Flown by and been as slow as fuck at the same time, and you know, I know we're I'm probably gonna be like not as consistent with some stuff when it comes to this because somebody very close to me just got diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer.

So you know, I'm going to be out, you know, helping with that a lot.

So That's where I've been at and I'm kind of a mess.

So I don't have my career about it either.

So so to recap we are a weekly recording, Yes, because of shitty life circumstances.

I'm still blaming the divorce, the move and all of my jobs and a Shade Twin concert.

The Additionatey Twain concert was worth it, sorry to our listeners, but it No, it was definitely worth it.

I just I think my biggest concern that we said before we started recording was that you've seen all the fail like videos of her concerts, and I was so scared that, like, if I committed to something like that right and then it sucked, I would be so heart was it was.

It last yearly or before that?

Like on TikTok it was like she had pink hair and was, yeah, do another stuff.

I don't really know.

No, this was like normal, Yeah, exactly what I exactly what I wanted, exactly what I needed.

I shout saying all of it.

I am slightly tell us, No, it was a great time.

I don't have fear missing out, but now I have regrets.

But yeah, it's I got.

I had an eye appointment today and when the doctor brought me back to see me, he's like, oh, you know, what are you And for him, like, well, just my yearly check up, you know, make sure my eyes are okay.

He's like, he looked at the computer and then looked back at me, and he's like, give me a year and a half.

Excuse me, sir, I've been busy.

Why so much sad?

You know?

She said, okay, thanks for calling me out.

Yeah, and then he's like, are you taking.

Your contact out regularly?

And I'm like, yeah, every night.

He's like, then, how are they last stay as long as they've lasted?

Order us some offline too.

Yeah.

I think this is the first time I ever went to an appointment and didn't text you to ask about my glasses.

So hopefully that I was a surprise.

I didn't know you were going.

They didn't really have a ton of selection this time, and I just so I just grabbed.

I'm pretty sure one of the ones I grabbed or you already have, so I have like from like three years ago.

But my prescription did change a little bit, so I can't, you know, like at our change them.

So before te Lisa jumps into her case, I will go ahead and do our socials.

You can find us on Facebook at The Shit Show, a True time podcast.

You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok YouTube at The Shit Show TCP, My Brain just did not read when I told it to.

You can send us email at SHOWTCP at gmail dot com.

Please subscribe and review on Apple podcasts, like in comment on Spotify, and obviously follow us everywhere and share us with your friends and your family.

I don't know why I said that, share us with friends and family.

We are a family podcast.

No, we're not.

One of my Facebook friends posted the other day they were asking for podcasts or true crime podcast recommendations for their girls car because it was her and her two daughters and that card I did not recommend us.

I swear too much for two little girls to listen.

Oh my gosh, that just rounded me.

I think we've talked about this before, because I think this is not the first time I've listened to this.

But I was listening to a story about a murder, obviously, because it's what I that's how I spend my time the tracks.

But the victim's sister was named Talsa, no shit, and I have never met of anybody met of met anybody with my name, heard of it ever, whatever, So every time they said Talise on this podcast, I like jumped in and I was like, what the fuck.

And then I was like is this what Sarah feels like?

Or somebody we had a more normal name whenever they hear.

Literally at my appointment today, I was out waiting for them to check me out, and there was another Sarah in the back being called, and I'm like, wait, did they forget something?

And then I realized it just it wasn't It wasn't for you.

No, I've never had that experience before.

Usually if it's hey, Lisa, it's.

Me right Hi.

You finally got to experience.

It was so exciting.

It was like the closest thing I've had.

I've ever had to getting a personalized It literally was thinking that was it spelled the same?

I don't think so.

I think it was t a l I say, but I don't care.

Yeah, did you email?

And he like, hey, can we be friends?

We have name like the same name.

Well, this case happened in the eighties.

I think I just kidding you.

I don't know that took a turn.

It did.

Okay, I have not yet named this episode because I'm like, behind, let's just say, I guess I'm going to tell you about an affair.

Okay, I don't even remember, Like I again, these last two weeks have been.

I don't even I don't know what it is.

Did you tell me what it was going to be?

I don't think so, okay, I like struggling through getting this done, so.

I've I don't know, all right, do you tell all right, let's do it, okay.

Seven in the morning on February eleventh, twenty ten, a man drove into a fancy pants community of Houston, Texas named bel Air.

He turned onto South Street and stopped in front of a two story, five bedroom house owned by Jeffrey Stern and his wife, Yvonne.

Jeffrey was a pretty successful personal injury lawyer, and he and Yvonne had a fourteen year old daughter and a twelve year old son.

So they are like Yvonne's fifty two, Jeffrey's fifty four.

Oh so they had kids a little bit later.

I feel like that's more what it is now.

It is definitely normal.

But no, I'm from the Midwest, so no, if I if I didn't pop out a kid by the time I did, there's something we'd beat something maybe wrong.

She was twenty one.

I wasn't even old.

I'm sorry anyway.

The driver of the car took out a handgun and fired two shots at the house.

One went through the living room window, and then the man drove away.

Jeffrey was out of town, but Yvonne and the kids were sleeping upstairs.

She was Yvanne was wearing earplugs and didn't hear anything, okay, which, like, ma'am, I mean, some people don't even need earplugs to sleep through a literal fucking tornado.

True, I have to have like a fan on, like all the povy pitch black'd.

Be completely perfect.

Her daughter was awakened briefly, but she thought that a painting had fallen from the wall.

Like just I don't know, toto teenagers.

I love that.

I'm assuming that.

She didn't get up to check.

No, just like went back to sleep, right.

The neighbors did hear the gunshots, because they're like us, no, and they called the police.

The the Starns were completely bewildered when officers arrived at their house because hyatts the middle of the night, okay.

All they could imagine, they said, was that maybe some teenagers from another neighborhood had shot at their house as part of a prank drive by.

And I wrote, excuse me.

What kids are just going around shooting at people's houses.

That's not a normal occurrence, no, right, and especially like.

They're in a like I would assume being in like a wealthier neighborhood that would be more shocking.

But they were just like, Okay, well that was weird the tracks.

Yeah, this Texas, right, it is Texas.

Two months later, at ten thirty e at night, another man with a gun drove to bel Air.

He got out of his van, walked up to the Stern's house and rang the doorbell at ten thirty at night.

Nobody's answering that the man saw her through the glass pane, smiled, pulled out a gun and fired at her.

Jesus christ Yvann moved out of the way like just in time, and the bullet missed her and her son by inches.

The man sprinted to his van and sped away.

Guys, don't enter your door to night.

No, then that's why we have not that I'm like victim.

That sounded victim, blame me, no.

No to yourself safe as well, just door.

So, once again police were unable to find any leads.

Jeffrey hired a security company to install bulletproof glass in the windows, put up iron gates, around the front door, set up surveillance cameras, and put floodlights on the roof.

I guess.

He also bought a German Shepherd slid solid choice.

He also bought a Toyota Sequoia and arranged to have armored plates installed.

That seems extreme, but okay, but you have somebody actively shooting at your family, I guess we just play a hideout.

Is this Sequoia a van?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

I'm like, wait, a person like the truck of No, that's a Tacoma rights.

I'm pretty positive that is a van.

He even hired a former Navy seal to teach the family how to respond if another gunman came around.

Okay, which the guy was probably like, don't answer the door, attend right.

Let's start there.

Also, why are we letting the wife go to the door, Well, letting.

Listen.

I got married for a reason, and it's to not do the scary shit.

I'm yelling.

I'm sorry, I'm yelling.

What why are you yelling at me?

He even had a private investigator help the police try to figure this out.

We are not We're taking this very seriously and we're gonna figure it the fuck.

Out because police and Jeffrey's private investigators investigator.

To my knowledge, there was only one believed Yvonne was the target of the last shooting.

The couple decided that it might be safer if she secretly moved into a luxury apartment a few miles away called the Maritage.

I think the kids went with her.

Not sure.

How was it safer to move her out of the home that we just prepared.

That's a very good point, this.

Like, oh, let's put you away alone so they can go find you there where there's no fucking you.

I didn't really think about that.

I was like, okay, so, but she was, I mean really and I don't know if I say this later, I don't.

Oh, we were talking about Sorry, we had to take a quick break about how moving her to the Oh yeah.

Yeah, moving her to the apartment seemed like a not smart one.

I think she was kind of going back and forth.

Ftcha, I don't know, Okay.

On the morning of May fifth, Yvonne took the elevator from her apartment down to the Maritages parking parking garage.

Wow.

That was in New England, missing our whoa.

She was headed to her friend's house who had invited her to meet a California jewelry designer who had flown to Houston to show off his latest collection.

These people were rich in fancy, I guess, so I would never make it.

Okay.

A man wearing silver aviator glasses, a black jacket and a black turtleneck was waiting for her.

That's the jewelry person, no, although I could see that being the outfit of He aimed a gun at Yvonne and shouted, give me your fucking money or I'll kill you.

Frantic, she held up her purse and turned it upside down, and the man shot her in the stomach.

Other places say that she might have been in her car, ok So, I don't know if she was in or out of her car next to it.

Whatever, the bullet clipped her liver in colon and lodged in her right hip.

She managed to drive to a nearby Syco station, stumbled inside, and collapsed lying on the floor.

She actually got her phone out and texted Jeffrey and said I've been shot.

Okay.

Jeffrey ran out of his office, got into his black Maserati and raced to the gas station, arriving just in time to see his wife being loaded into an ambulance for the third time.

With no suspects or solid leads, the investigation hit a dead end.

I thought this was an affair.

Oh, we just haven't gotten there yet, she says, crazy.

Did she make it?

Hold?

Please?

Okay, we're not at that part of the store yet, Sarah, my brain needs to be there that.

On May twenty seventh, detectives received a phone call from a man who is waiting deportation at an ice facility.

He had seen pictures of Yvonne on the news and just so happened that he knew all about the plot to murder her, and he would be happy to share it and talk about it if he could just pretty please stay in the United States.

Okay, so he told friends.

Nope, he told detectives that a childhood friend named Richard Gutierrez had approached him weeks earlier and asked him if he knew want to murder somebody?

Yeah, as friends, do you know, Detective trekdown gutierras he worked for a record service, and he just started talking about this woman named Michelle Geiser, who worked as an office manager of a small law firm in Houston since January.

He said, she'd been asking him to recruit hit men to kill Yvonne Stern.

She never gave any indication like how she knew Yvonne or why she wanted her dad, but she was determined to have her killed.

Richard said that she told him that she would pay twenty thousand dollars for a successful hit.

Jesus.

So they're like, okay, so yeah, we got to get in a resta warrant and all that stuff.

They went to Michelle's office and they arrived just as she was walking out of a meeting.

So she's like in her late thirties.

Okay.

They stopped and kind of just like, oh my god, stared because the man standing behind her was Jeffrey Sturn.

This is the affair part, okay.

So the law office that she managed is his law office.

Yes, but not the big successful one, oh okay, Okay, So let's talk about Jeffrey.

Jeffrey was raised in a strict Jewish household in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where his father owned a chain of liquor stores.

After college, he went to Houston to attend the South Texas College of Law, and in nineteen eighty two, a friend set him up on a blind date with Yvonne Flores.

She worked as a paralegal for a pen and law firm, was raised in Houston's North Side, and she was a single mother who had recently divorced her high school sweetheart.

But Givonne said that with Jeffrey it was just love at first sight.

To please him and his parents, she decided to convert to Judaism, and in nineteen ninety one, Jeffrey proposed her over dinner at the Rainbow Room in New York City, and they were married in Milwaukee four months later.

I wonder, but were they practicing?

Maybe that's it, maybe like you need to identify this, but we don't actually really practice.

And why do you have to identify as these are things I don't understand.

So by then, Jeffrey's law practice had kind of taken off.

He wasn't as famous as like so, but he was making a small fortune, working mostly with clients who had been in car accidents.

The state bar and rival attorneys periodically accused Jeffrey violating the rules of professional conduct by aggressively recruiting potential pay patients.

No potential clients because he's a lawyer, not a doctor, and I wrote clients.

Why did I say patients?

I don't know.

He was never reprimanded or successfully sued for this though, so I don't know.

He was just like, I don't know what the rules are for recruiting clients, but apparently I don't know, like popped out from undneath their car sick.

He used his earnings to buy a mansion in the Piney Point Village area of Houston, and they filled it with French and English antiques and had like fancy old paintings in the living room and just living a life that I don't understand.

I was gonna call it them pretentious, but that's just really shoody of me.

The Sterns had two children in nineteen eighty five and nineteen ninety seven, and a few years later decided to move to bell Air, which was only six miles away, so they could be closer to their synagogue and the kids private Jewish school.

Oh so they were practicing.

Okay, yeah, if you was just what happened to her kid from her first marriage, didn't you say she had.

To know if he was like older, Okay, doesn't play a role in Okay, any of it.

What happened to what happened to the first kid, He just disappeared.

Jeffrey found a home on a street that was full of kids.

He always attended his kids' sporting events, school programs, and no matter how much work he had to do, he was home in time for family dinner.

So like a really involved dad.

He also treated Yvonne's son from her first marriage with the same kind of affection whatever the situation was, so they were still still involved.

Yeah.

The Sterns gave generously to charities and helped the victims of child abuse and domestic battery.

They gave a Houston orphanage more than a hundred bikes, almost had a million bikes.

I'm having a breakdown.

They even coordinated a bone marrow drive for a friend who was suffering from leukemia, and regularly volunteered at the a Ashell House, which provided rent free apartments, kosher meala, and supplies for families who came to Houston to be treated at the Texas Medical Center.

Good people then, Yeah, very involved in like they had money and resources, but they gave back to their community.

Their friends would adamantly say that if there were signs that the Stearns' marriage had problems, they never saw it.

Their friends adamantly declared that if there were any signs that the Stearns' marriage had problems, they never saw it.

They would recall how Jeffrey and Yvonn were so compatible that they would finish other's sentences, and how Jeffrey had a neck for knowing when Yvonne wanted a doctor Pepper before she even asked for it, which is probably like always.

Yeah, I mean, especially back then, wants a doctor pepper back then.

I don't know the last time I've had a doctor pepper, though, I don't.

I just don't feel like it'll be the same, not that I'm an adults.

I had it was a weird flavored doctor pepper that I put rumen.

Oh yeah, that was really good.

Okay, I did do that, so I guess that probably can Does that count if it's a strawberry cream one or whatever, it's not a true doctor pepper.

So he had the magic to know when she wanted a doctor member.

Yes, no one knew that Jeffrey was actually having an affair since two thousand and eight with Michelle Geyser, so about two years.

Okay, well, I guess if she's in your office, that's how.

You have time.

I mean, I think that's when they officially started like banging.

Now we need the visual for you because too weird hand motion.

Sorry I'm in a weird move right now.

Okay.

So.

Michelle Geyser was born in the Philippines in nineteen seventy two.

She was twelve years old when she moved to Houston with her mother and siblings to join their father, who had arrived several years several years earlier, to work as an accountant for an oil company.

After high school, she was hired by a personal injury law firm to be their receptionist.

Eventually, she went to work for other personal injury lawyers as an office manager, where she met clients, made sure their medical reports were complete, and wrote demand letters to insurance companies.

Since sound fire, it doesn't it sounds terrible.

Michelle's colleagues described her as pleasant, incompetent, and competent, okay, which I think that's like I feel backhanded, doesn't it?

Okay?

So I think, like, first of all, no one is calling me either of those.

I am competent and like hmm you say, like t Lisa's funny and gets shit done right.

Yeah.

No, If they were saying competent, it's I don't like this person and she's she does it.

They said that she was well spoken, well mannered, and always professionally dressed.

Also things that would never be said about me.

Okay.

Because her pay was based partly on the number of cases she settled with the insurance companies, she put in long hours at the office.

After the death of her father in two thousand and five, she began supporting her family, who lived with her in her three bedroom home.

She was responsible for two carloans and helped pay for her brother in college's Nope, her brother and sister's college tuition.

Wow, okay, which.

Is a lot.

She dated allegedly a number of men, whatever that means.

We're here, We're not here to judge, but she never married.

One of Jeffrey's close friends said that he met Michelle like a decade before all this happened, and said she was very flirty and asked him out for a drink, which I think is fine.

Another lawyer told this guy to be careful because bitches be crazy though, which is like already married though I don't know it was the Jeffrey's friend married.

It didn't sound like it, just like she was like, no, no, I said she was hitting on jeff No, this is Jeffrey's friend saying like, oh, I met Michelle a while ago.

Okay, she was super flirty and asked me out for drink.

Can you imagine a woman asking a man out for a drink?

My god, shut the fuck up.

And this other guy's like, hey, watch out, she's insane.

Which are things that have been said about me?

The fucking I see.

I completely misunderstood.

And for some reason, I thought you said that she was hitting on Jeffrey and I was like that, and then You're like, oh, what's wrong with that?

And I'm like, oh, so high what?

No?

But yeah, if it's a friend, then what a fucking weirdo.

He's the weirdo, not her like that.

It seems totally normal.

I don't know.

Yeah, there's nothing really showing that she had any issues prior to meeting Jeffrey.

Okay, like right, actually being bitch, just be crazy.

Yeah, just that she had the audacity to ask a man out for her drink.

The confidence is too much with men.

Michelle met Jeffrey in the late nineties when he came into the law room that she worked at.

I guess they would sometimes refer cases to his firm or something, Okay, something wary.

He tried to pursue her by sending her tickets to sports ball games and stuff like that sports ball game, I brought that for you.

Okay, they said, like the name of some team, and I was like, I don't I could look it up to see what this is baseball maybe because that's what Sarah says to me.

Yeah, which is funny because I'm not actually like totally illiterate when it comes to sports, but.

It's just the running joke.

Yeah, if I'm watching hockey, she asked, how many touchdowns my team has I do?

Just because I'm so funny.

I insert laughter here, laugh track.

In two thousand and four, she broke up with a boyfriend and then started taking Jeffrey up on his offers to meet up for lunch and drinks.

Jeffrey, you fucking whore.

She said that he sent expensive gifts like diamond hoop earrings and tried to pay off her credit cards and offered to buy her a new car.

Okay, I'm not mad at her for like inn shit, paid, but like Jeffrey, what the fuck?

Okay then, and this is according to Michelle, like this part is like Michelle's take on it.

Jeffrey let her know that she was no that he was going to Las Vegas with his son, and this was going to be at the same time that she was going to Las Vegas coincidence.

He came to her hotel room one night and they what did you call it?

They rolled in the buckwheat.

I have used that expression before.

They banged for the first time.

On that trip.

Michelle said that she saw a maserati at a dealership that she said was beautiful, and Jeffrey bought it for himself on the spot and had it shipped back to Houston.

You think it's cool, I'm gonna buy it over myself.

Yeah, what a dude?

What do Why shouldn't be a fucking victim in this?

And I'm just an asshole.

I'm not gonna say anything at all.

I'm not ruining my own story halfway through?

Okay.

They were soon meeting up for the banging at hotels and at each other's offices and at Jeffrey's home when Yvonne and the kids were away.

What a sick fuck.

He told Michelle that he didn't love Yvonne and claimed that she had cheated on him, that he did his own thing, che did hers, and they were only together for the kids.

For the kids, Sarah, you should stay together.

No, the fuck you should for the kids.

Best thing my parents ever did get divorced.

But even still, it's not like they discussed, from what I'm gathering, an open relationship, which is what he says there have.

But it's not an open relationship if it's just you cheating.

Yeah, that's not really how that works.

That's up.

So I'm trying to They talked about open relationships on one of the reality TV shows I watch, and they kept calling it something else.

I can't remember what it was.

Yeah, no, it was like, what is that consensual cheating?

Basically?

I mean basically, but they kept saying it was consensual whatever.

I'm like, just stop it.

Michelle and Jeffrey would talk on the phone after his family went to bed about his fantasies.

Insert what's your fantasy by ludicrous here.

I and started a lump in my throat because I didn't want to think about Jeff's fantasies.

That's unterrible.

I'm done.

No, I felt like throwing up.

As soon as you said Jeff's fantasy.

These conversations would start, you know, like run of the mill, gross, vanilla white eye stuff.

Probably I don't know.

This guy pisses me off.

So I had kind of the same reaction.

I got to that.

I was like, what are his fantasies?

Like some probably very the most vanilla thing.

I don't be pete on.

Somebody out there's like, but I like to get pete on.

Anyway.

Then it turned into kind of a weird thing where he was like, oh, yeah, it would be really hot if she caught us, Jeffrey Michelle, if Yvonne caught Jeffrey.

Michelle fantasized about that, and then he asked her to imagine fighting Yvonne, and later phone calls he pushed Michelle to talk about dragging Yvonne down the stairs, pulling her by the hair, and then killing her.

Jesus Christ, according to Michelle, just fucking divorce.

What in the that's wild?

Like you can you can grow out of love or not, Like I want to be with your wife anymore?

Cool, that's fine, Get a fucking divorce and don't involve her in it anymore, like you don't have to be crazy.

Also, imasure being on the phone, right, I know I was, and like having that conversation.

I'd be like, I have to Oh, what's that mom?

Mommy needs the phone?

Okay, click and then pick the phone back up and be like hello, nine one one.

I would like to report a crime.

The crime is I had to hear it.

That's the crime that is wild.

She claimed that by you know, after their refair had been going on for a little while, Jeffrey controlled almost every aspect of her life.

He not only paid all of her bills, but told her what to eat, what kind of clothes to wear, how to do her hair like he preferred it straight.

She said that he opened a small law firm at the edge of bel Air under another lawyer's name and had her run the office.

And that's where the police were like, hey, okay, that's a lot to go through just so you can continue fucking your secretary.

That is a lot to go through.

And she wasn't his secretary when they started fucking.

She was somebody else's what's the saying.

If he wanted to, he would.

He also had her move out of the house where her family lived, and into a townhouse that he rented near his office so they can meet up whenever he wanted.

Imagine somebody trying to tell you what the fuck to eat.

I'm sorry, still.

Holding on to the house.

Answers like I have some kind of defiance disorder over like that's not gonna okay.

So then Michelle claimed that Jeffrey was so controlling that when he was like, hey, I need you to find someone to kill my wife, she was like, yeah, I'm obviously brainwashed or something.

No problem, I will one thousand percent do that.

That's that's that's not how wow that works.

What do you mean like if you were if you're brainwashed, you're not gonna know that your brain Well, she didn't really say she was brainwashed.

That's just me, okay.

She was like, he's so controlling that he said find someone to kill my wife, and I just did it.

And I just did it because of how he told me what to eat for breakfast and then I straightened my hair.

That dude, And yeah, fucking for one, I almost said that earlier.

What like, I'm complete, I have curly hair.

I'm assuming she probably has curly hair.

Since she's straightening it.

If I tell him I'm going to straighten my hair, he was like, I'm gonna pour water on it so it's curly again.

So I have not just pissed me off when guys are like, I prefer your curly hair to be straight, because that takes fucked on a word.

Not for me.

I just wake up like this, but it takes me seven million years in all of the shoulder muscles to curl my hair, and then it doesn't even stay.

Okay.

So at the law firm did Jeffrey set up for Michelle, Michelle would pay record truck drivers to get in with people that had been in an accident and might want to file a lawsuit.

That's smart.

I think that might be one of the legal things that he was doing.

Maybe that's the aggressive Is it actually illegal though, I don't know, or is it just they were mad?

Maybe it's ethically not yet right, So she would start her search for a hitman with these drivers because they have tattoos and look like they would.

I don't know why.

I couldn't imagine want get up to anybody and being like, hey, right, you want to marry somebody for me?

Right?

No?

You act like, I just know, how could you ask me about my gosh?

Okay.

One driver the driver that she approached Richard Gutierrez that we talked about a little while ago.

Rich wasn't a hard and criminal, but I mean he did have some charges for cocaine possession.

It just bit a low coke, right.

He was intrigued by her offer though, because his dream in life was to buy like a new toe truck of his own and start a record service.

So he was like, yeah, I'll kill whoever for a new truck and whatever.

I forgot that's what we were doing.

You were like, okay, get your truck, can get your bag, bro, And then I realized what it was for.

Don't do that right, I actually it's spiled that.

He was like, you know what?

Hell yeah.

Meanwhile, me and you have been like, are the feet picks really a thing that we can sell?

Right?

Let us know if you're interested?

You know what?

Joking?

Jk okay.

So Richard went to his younger brother Adam and was like, Hey, would you like to do this and then we could split the money.

And I was like yeah, dude, for sure.

And then Michelle gave a picture of Yvonne in her address.

Richard said that she never mentioned Jeffrey or said that she was working with anyone else.

Okay, which is a smart thing to do, right, but whatever.

Richard would later tell police that when Adam fired into the Stearn's living room window in February twenty ten, he had no intention of killing yvon He just wanted to make Michelle believe Yvonne was dead so he and his brother could get the money and then get the record service.

How how did they think just shooting into the house was gonna she had to die.

I shot one bullet into the house, right, I totally got her.

I don't know.

When Michelle learned that Yvonne had survived, Richard begged her to give him another chance, promising that he'd find a better hitman than his little brother Adam.

I love it, Richie.

Rich is just out here outsourcing, and he.

But he can find multiple people?

Is the other thing?

Right, which is like kind of terrifying.

Yeah, I don't.

I don't think I could ask anybody.

That's what it always like.

That, Richie.

Rich also splitting twenty thousand dollars, you're not gonna be able to afford the truck.

Just so you know, sorry, listen, they thought just firing into a house would be humansana, I don't know.

Richard took about a week off from his actual job to try to find a better hit man.

He talked to the person that blew them in at the ice facility, and then he went to see his tattoo artist named James Lowry at the Brass Knuckle Tattoo Studio because if you have tattoos, yes you're a hitman.

Oh no, So Richard actually got a tattoo okay, and then was real casual and asked James if you would like to get in on the job.

James had been charged for aggravated assault after he attacked an ex girlfriend, but he was like, no, I'm not going to kill some random ladies.

So you can buy any record truck that's solid.

James very good.

But a few days later he was like, you know what, Hell, yeah, I'll do it for twenty grand a gun and a car to drive to bel Air.

This expense report is getting very high.

Richard checked in with Michelle and she agreed, and they bought James a used green Toyota for about fifteen hundred bucks.

This is wild, James Forot to mention that he was actually subcontracting the job out to a man named Nat Noyan must have slipped his mind.

Whatever.

Nat was a gang member from Boston who had just spent twelve years in prison for killing a rival gang member.

He was newly at a prison and had moved to Houston to start a new life.

He told James that he would do that job, but he would not be driving a beat up camer into the fancy Bellaer neighborhood because that would draw too much attention.

Yeah, he would instead drive his own car, which I guess was a much nicer car.

He's like, I'm not driving your piece of shit.

No, I wrote in honestly same.

I hate going anywhere and not having my car so I can just leave when I want to.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

One article said that Richard just gave the Toyota to his mother because she needed a car.

Well, that was sweet, okay.

So Natt was the driver that shot Yvonne through the door and barely missed her and her son.

He would later say that he never intended to kill anyone, and he was just hoping to get a few grin for just getting a shot off, which is not how hit manning works.

Instead, he just ended up with some gas money and an offered to try again, which he defined, I mean, but.

Yeah, that's technically you didn't complete the job that you were hired for.

It's a shitty job, but it's not like you still get paid per bullet fired from the gun.

So yr Vonn's friends asked her who the hell would be doing this to a mom and volunteer, you know, like while like all these random people are trying to shoot her.

They asked her if Jeffrey could be having an affair, and she was like, no, absolutely not.

They asked if she was having an affair and she was like no, Like, could you know, are you having an affair with a married man and the wife is Maddie?

You?

Is Jeffrey having.

An affair and trying to get rid of you.

Jeffrey also made it very clear to anyone who asked, including the police, that he was not involved in any extra marital affair.

He wishes people would stop asking him about it.

He told the cops and his private investigator to look at a flooring subcontractor who had angrily claimed that he hadn't been paid for work that he had done.

At the Stearns's home.

He also suggested that they talked to a Vander Holyfield, who had recently gotten into a He did dispute with Jeffrey over like a five hundred and sixty thousand dollars loan after Jeffrey claimed that Vander never made a payment and he took possession of this guy's home.

He was like a boxing a famous boxing guy.

I meant to look him up.

Let me look him.

I meant to look him up, and I forgot Evander holy Field, a professional boxer.

Oh he looks really Yeah, you probably know who he is.

Yes, So that guy's home was put up for collateral on this loan.

Jeffrey's like, hey, you didn't like what are you some kind of loan shark or what is happening?

He said?

Or maybe one of his former law partners Wow Hot Hot had suggested that the shootings could have been carried out by a client that they represented, who maybe suffered a head injury in an accident, and was like.

Okay, I mean possibly it seems like a stretch.

That seems like something out of a movie.

Yeah, Like, I guess they could see if it was somebody who didn't get the result that they wanted for going to court for whatever accident.

But other than that, I think, oh, maybe he had somebody with a head Injuri decided to just come.

I don't know, yeah, I mean people are obviously sitting around being like what about this?

Yeah?

Could it possibly be that.

At this point, Michelle said she approached twenty six year old Damien Flores, who was a tow truck driver and wore a large medallion of Santa Morte, Saint of Death around his neck and had like some shrine built in his house.

Okay, and she's like, you look like a hitman, okay.

According to Michelle, Damien said that he wanted fifteen thousand dollars up front and then twenty five thousand dollars after the job was complete.

She took the offer to Jeffrey, who agreed, and a few days later, Jeffrey called Michelle and told her to send Flores to the apartment parking garage and wait for Yvonne.

Yvonne said after she was shot, she slumped over and played dead so the gunman wouldn't shoot her again.

At the hospital, she told detectives that the shooter looked kind of like her foring subcontractor.

I'm going to go ahead and say that Jeffrey might have planted that thought into her head, but that man came up with an airtight alibi, and detectives went back to the hospital.

They told Jeffrey they were out of suspects and asked him again, are you having an affair with a woman who might want to kill yavan answers yes.

According to the police report, Jeffrey raised his hands in the air and said, here we go again.

Then he turned pale, and his speech became incoherent, and when he leaned, then he leaned over in his chair as if like he was having a stroke, and the nurses actually signaled a code blue and he was rushed to the emergency rum So you like tantrumed his way out of it.

I think he might have had a small panic attack.

Oh yeah, So, like was Jeffrey overwhelmed with worry that he hadn't done enough for yvon Like he went to the synagogue right after the apartment.

No, he went to the synagogue right near the apartment where Yvonne was shot to see if they had any security footage to help catch whoever did this.

But on the flip side, Michelle says that he was overwhelmed with worry that he was about to be arrested.

Yeah, she said.

After the shooting, he wanted to meet up in parking lots that didn't have cameras.

He drove borrowed cars to make sure police weren't following him, and told her to throw out her SIM card and her phone, hide gifts that he had been given her.

And also, hey, it would be really cool if you could ask a friend to pose as your lesbian lover to confuse the police because this affair never happened.

Oh great, Yeah, yeah, lesbian lover.

He doesn't want you to have a male friend pretend to.

Be yourself to be a lesbian Okay.

I mean we should also really feel bad for Michelle because she was very stressed out.

No, I wish he did cameras for this today.

Listen.

The Adam guy, the little brother that shot at the house.

He wanted money to maintain his silence.

Yeah.

Stressful.

She was also having to deal with the crazy Demian Flora's guy, who she claimed head asked her to bring him a piece of Yvonne's clothing to put on his death trine and to pray to finish the job, because eight days after the shooting, Yvonne came home from the hospital.

Fine, she's fine, Okay.

They had police watching the house night and day.

Let's send her back to the apartment where she's all alone.

Sorry, okay.

In early June, Richard was like, hey, Michelle, I have a new hit man.

We need to talk.

Oh we're still doing that.

We're still doing it.

Oh okay, it's not over.

Okay.

At the meeting, Michelle said that first she wanted the new hitman to kill Richard's brother.

She's like, sorry, bro, I know it's your brother.

He's got to be killed.

I just can't deal with them like he He's trusting me the fuck out and is saying he's gonna go to the cops.

You got to get someone to kill your brother, to.

Pay somebody else to kill the problem.

So let's create a new problem to kill a problem.

Right, she's putting out fires everywhere.

Just hand them the money, she said.

Then the new hitman could go after Yvonne.

Yeah, but he could take the money and then still talk.

True, does Adam die.

What Michelle didn't know was that Richard was wearing a wire all right, Richard coming thrill.

Detectives had already gotten to Richard and he had confessed.

They needed more proof that Michelle was involved, though, and Richard was the key to that.

I almost just explained how like setting up to do a wire thing goes, which we all know, they tape it.

They tape it to his chest.

Yep, make sure that he leans in so he can get all the sounds.

I don't think you really have to do that part.

But Michelle just forgot to be like, hold on, let me pat you down.

Yeah.

Maybe she was like, I'm not allowed to touch you.

I'm a less span though, I'm When detectives arrived at Michelle's office to arrest her, they also are rested Jeffrey for unlawfully carrying a weapon after he told them he had a handgun strapped to his right leg and another in his briefcase.

He said that his concealed carry license was in the mail, but he was just carrying the guns to protect his family.

Sure, sure?

Or is he afraid of all of the hit men?

Yeah?

On all of the money.

Yeah.

From jail, he called Yvonne and obviously she was mad.

That's an understatement.

Just yeah, you know, obviously really upset, Like, imagine that's how you find out your husband's having an affair.

And to top it off, the police are like, yeah, they're also trying to kill you.

The calls are coming from inside the house, just like the rumbles in Sara's stomach right now.

Oh my god, did you eat today?

I don't know, I don't remember.

Okay, yeah, yeah, the calls are coming in inside the house.

I imagine.

That's imagine you find that out.

Well, it's the jumbo Tron all over again, except she had to get shot.

We didn't talk about the jumbo tron.

It is the JumboTron all over again.

It's the Coldplay concert where the fucking CEO is fucking head of HR.

Sorry that was very cross.

I mean that's what was happening.

Yeah, it's that all over again, except maybe they were copying off these people because this was first.

I don't think they were, because I don't think the jumbo tron thing has a hitman involved in it.

Who knows.

Give it time.

Okay.

So Yvonne went to Aspen for the summer because hi, she's stressed out and can do that.

She went to a few therapy sessions there, and she said, well, I found myself telling the therapist over and over how Jeffrey was such a good, generous, loving father, and how in the thirty years I'd been with him, he had treated me with the utmost loyalty and respect, nothing but tender, loving care.

The therapist asked her to take a legal pad and make a list of pros and cons about Jeffrey.

The list of pros was so long that Yvonne decided to go back to Houston and work on her marriage.

No, I can't judge because I don't live that life.

But god damn, I mean he can still.

He's not an ill keepers and honestly, I know he can't be.

He's a piece of shit.

Like you almost died.

You got shot in the fucking stomach, hitting your liver, which like when that bitch bleeds, you're lucky to be alive.

So like, no, no, Yvonne.

Wrong, you know, Okay.

So, while Yvonne Jeffrey are putting their marriage back together, they knew that a criminal case was being built against Jeffrey.

Yvann even went to the assistant DA to ask them to drop it, saying that she was the one that got shot and she didn't think Jeffrey had anything to do with it, so why should anyone else in the d DA was like, that's not how this works, that's not at all how this works.

Yet, do you think at some level Yvonne was just trying to do preserve her security because they were so well off and like she's used to that type of lifestyle type.

Thing, Like maybe he had an affair.

We've been together thirty years, we've bet we get two kids, Like, maybe we should just try.

I think that that's a choice that some people do make.

I just think it's not something I could imagine, not the choice I could imagine making, especially with multiple hitmen being hired, yeah to kill me.

Yeah, even if Jeffrey had nothing to do with it, let's.

Say, yeah, but then how do you ever trust him again?

Like, how do you ever know?

Like you literally had the world's worst affair where your girlfriend and it was years long affair.

Yeah, it wasn't like it was an oops I slipped into her once.

Oh my god, you mean you canceled the whole show.

We're done.

I don't know where it's going with that now.

Okay.

On the last weekend of January of twenty eleven, the Stern celebrated their son's ber Mitzvah at the synagogue.

Jeffrey and Yvonn held hands.

They went back to this fancy hotel and had a James Bond theme party, and the following Monday morning, Jeffrey's grand jury indictment was made public and Jeffrey turned himself in with Yvonne at his side.

Okay, so let's talk about some of the trials, because now they've tracked on all of the people.

The people.

Yeah, Damian Flores's first trial on attempted capital murder ended in a mistrial.

He was sent to prison for twenty years.

James Lowry and Richard Gutierrez also pled guilty in the case.

Each were sentenced to fifteen years.

Nat Noyan was sentenced to forty five years in prison for shooting at Stern in her home.

I don't know if it's because he had just gotten out of prison for killing.

Were to say that it's extreme because he didn't actually, but.

I think with like his Yeah, these other guys have records of like I had cocaine five years ago.

You're right, Yah, would assume it was probably tied to whatever previous crimes.

He had committed.

Michelle accepted a plea deal for twenty five years in exchange for her testimony against Jeffrey Stern, but the charges against Jeffrey were dropped citing insufficient evidence, so she ended up just pleading guilty and getting twenty years.

I also read something about Michelle trying to hire a hitman from inside jail to murder Jeffrey and Yvonne.

She wrote letters to an inmate that was getting released with like the addresses of what she knew.

Yeah, and she said she paid twenty thousand dollars.

Nothing ever came from that, and I didn't see any additional charges.

Okay, but yeah, it's Jeffrey and Yvonne remained together.

Charges against him were dropped.

Yvonne did sue Michelle.

Oh okay, I forgot to put this in here for like a hitman and no, like you know, pain and suffering medical extenses like all that stuff.

And the article that I read about that made it seem like that was kind of like a ploy to get more information for Jeffrey to use in his defense.

Oh okay, Yeah, so I don't know that anything really came of that either.

Yeah, it probably not as if they got dropped or his charges in the churchy got dropped.

Yeah, but yeah, that's the story of an affair and seventy five hitmen thanks at it fucking wild.

So do we believe he had nothing to do with it?

Or I think that he probably had to have something to do that.

Where was she getting all the money?

I'm going to assume he probably gave her some sort of credit card with some sort of ulmited balance or you know, like a high balance or something.

I don't know.

Maybe didn't or maybe he had a big account for her, or maybe she planned on using the office that she worked.

For the money pulled in from there.

I don't know.

I'm honestly pretty torn on whether he had anything to do.

Really, yeah, I think he did.

I think either way, he's like the biggest piece of shit because he cheated on his wife but and then got her fucking shot.

And think it's a trauma that was putting your kids through.

It, okay, and the kids like his son could have gotten shot.

See that's kind of where I'm like, did he know?

Because he did seem to truly care about his kids and like therewell being and things like that, But then like you said, did he move her to the apartment effects it's too close of a call with his kids.

That's yeah, I mean that's possibility.

Like here, you're who's there after?

Let's move you away for I is like, I know, I just secured this whole house, but are we going to kill you?

This is all secure?

Yeah, I don't know.

I am kind of torn on whether he knew or not.

I still can't grasp how the fuck she was able to go back to him and like stay with him.

Yeah, that's not I don't think that's the same choice I would make.

Oh no, absolutely not.

So anyway, my sources were a Texas monthly article named sex Lies and Hitmen by Skips Pollinsworth, Houston Culture Map had an article by Sarah Ruffka, and ABC had one million articles and they all in this I'm not even joking.

No byline from ABC by ABC for ABC.

Okay, ABC, don't let your writers have any credit, right, I've never heard that one before.

That's wild.

Well, I so I go.

I was thinking last week we made a comment, I mean the last episode, we made a comment about how we keep doing really sad cases, like when we said, like when was the last time we had done a case that didn't have an actual murder in it.

So I went home and I was like, Okay, TSA, let's buckle buckle down and do this.

And I was like, well, you know what cases might not have actual murder is Hitman cases, like yeah, failed Hitman failed whatever fall.

So then I that's how I found it was by my Google history has got to be the weirdest stuff.

I was just thinking, maybe I'll try to look up a Hitman case and then then I'm going to be on a list with you.

We're always list together.

I've one life was already on the left right.

Yeah, that's wild.

I still just cannot wearing my brain around like her being able to be with him.

Still, I would never be able to like not look over my shoulder, like is this the time he's gonna have you shot again?

I maybe this is me thing.

I don't know.

I just couldn't imagine sitting across the dinner table and looking at him.

Yeah, or like every time you got undressed and you see the scar in your stomach or the probably last d health issues you.

Would have for something like that.

Yavon really truly, genuinely does not believe that Jeffrey had anything to do with it.

So, oh yeah, that was an interesting one.

Never had I heard it before.

You're welcome.

We hard he did the socials.

Please wash your water bottle, and if you've got one rolling around in your car, just throw it out.

Oh just throw it out.

Well, I mean if it's water, and it should be fine.

You could reach the fuck out of it.

Yeah, whatever, take care of it.

Drink your water.

Yeah, after you wash it, not before, and not during the bleach process.

Oh my god, I'm going to cut that all right.

Yeah, I think we gotta shut this off.

All right.

That is all we have for this week.

Thanks for listening.

Hey bye.