Episode 364

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That's She'sBirdie.com. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. First of all, when you told me that he transported a dead body, that should be your first clue. This is Sword and Scale, Season 13, Episode 364, a show that reveals the worst monsters. Are real. It's cute how some of you think that people are just these docile little sheep, these sweet little babies. That won't do. It won't do anything to harm you. It really is kind of cute. Almost like a thing you have to do to make yourself okay. It's better than the alternative, I guess. Sword and Scale Episode 362 Sword and Scale In a small pocket of Fleming Island, Florida, there was a group of women. They called themselves the British Club. This club was a collective of sharp, dry-witted expats who met every week to talk about one thing they all shared. Their home in the UK. But in October of 2019, one of the members of this British Club went missing. She was a sweet old lady, a 65-year-old widow, named Sue Mauldin. One of the ladies in the club hadn't heard back from Sue in two days. Her phone kept going to voicemail and the landline rang and rang. So, she sent her husband to Sue's house for a welfare check. Inside Sue's clean, quiet home, not a thing was out of place. Her blue cotton gardening shorts were laying out, waiting to be worn. Her car was in the driveway. Her purse in the dressing room. In the dresser. It was as if Sue and her cell phone had just vanished without warning. Neighbors confirmed they hadn't seen Sue outside in a few days. She was an avid gardener and was always outside weeding her yard. Sue's loyal friend in the British Club called the police. Something was terribly wrong. All right. I won't give you guys nothing this season. I'm going to tell you what happened. vision on one thing and we're looking at anything. Whatever we can do that could give us a percentage chance better to find her. That's what we're doing. It wasn't hard to find Sue's contractor. His real name was Corey Binderum. He was a 44-year-old husband and father of two girls living in Fleming Island, Florida. And he looked exactly like that. Somebody's dad. The kind of man who knew drywall better than most. Picture Tim the Toolman Taylor, basically. Detectives located him on a job site and started chatting. Corey was forthcoming. Yes, he'd been working for Sue Malden. In fact, he was at her house just a few days ago to get everything sorted because he knew she was unhappy with the progress of his work. He'd been working for her for a year and a half. And then she took about a month and a half to figure out how she wanted to bond it. I went and got it. Then it came time to talk about a tub and fixtures and all of that. She just couldn't make a decision. So, fast forward, I was taking a job here with the team and then she was frustrated that I couldn't come in right now and she was ready. And so it just got to the point where it was just better for both of us. I just refunded her her money. I went about my way. Corey's explanation made sense. He said that on the morning he went to Sue's place, she invited him in and they went over all the details on the cancellation of their contractor-client relationship. So we went through the paperwork and I wrote a check and I had some stuff still there. I had a tool bag with some plumbing tools. I had a bin with some plumbing parts. And then there was a trash bag still there. So I loaded that in my truck. And she held the door for me. Corey said that he wrote Sue a check for the money he owed her. He showed the police the receipt from a check just over $1,200. She gave you $1,200, right? $1,200. It was only $1,200? Yeah, it was only $1,200. For the whole event? Yeah, well, I don't take any money for labor. Corey said Sue's friend was mistaken. The amount was $1,200, not $12,000. He didn't take any upfront cash for labor. Corey's story made sense. Sue was elderly. Maybe she'd gotten the number wrong and spread that information to all her friends. Corey was cooperative and calm. He shook the detective's hand and said he would be there if they needed any additional help. Well, I appreciate your time, man. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I mean, look, if there's anything, I don't buy it, you know? Yeah, that's good. That's good to know. Like I said, you're just, at this point, you're the last guy to talk to. That's why I'm going to make sure we check all the boxes. Yeah, absolutely. All right, buddy. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yes. Does this follow up or anything? Anytime. Give me a call. Absolutely. I mean, she's very lovely. Thank you. Detectives went back to Sue's house to look around to see if there was anything out of order, anything they missed, anything to suggest foul play. That's when they spotted it. A tiny pinprick. Of blood on the living room floor. How could they have missed this? The detectives brought in luminol and suddenly the house lit up. Blood that had been cleaned up in the kitchen and on the lampshades and in the hallway. Now, the detective knew this wasn't a rogue elderly woman who went missing. Sue had died in that house. And they needed to find out how. The birdies are the ones that are going to die. And because it's lightweight, rechargeable, TSA-friendly, and easy to clip onto jackets, bags, strollers, bikes, or keychains, it actually fits into real life without being a problem. It doesn't matter if it's being bulky or complicated. Go to She's Birdie dot com. Again, that's She's Birdie dot com. 65-year-old Sue Malden had mysteriously disappeared from her Fleming Island home in the fall of 2019. If it hadn't been for her social group, it could have been weeks before anyone noticed the widow was gone. Sue had an uneventful life. But as police pried, they found out that she'd been in a dispute with her contractor, Corey Binderum, who she'd hired to remodel two of her bathrooms. After talking with Corey, the police secured school bus camera footage that showed his truck at her house the morning he said he visited her. But Corey assured them that he was there to return her money and settle their differences. He said she was alive when he left. Then the police found blood at Sue's house. And Luminol revealed a possible cleanup job. But with no trace of Sue, these were all just theories. Corey had to be further investigated. There was something about Corey. His too-cool demeanor. His friendly affect. Was it real? Or was this all a put-on? There was one woman who knew him, perhaps better than his own wife. And her name was Leanne Locklear. My name's Leanne. I am a dispatcher and then I own an appliance repair company. I worked a lot of jobs always. And one of my jobs was I was a bartender. And that's actually how I met Corey. Leanne is a single mother who runs her own business. But back in 2019, she was bartending at a local spot that Corey liked to frequent after work. They became friendly, like bartenders and regulars often do. And after he fixed a door in her house that needed replacing, she invited him out after work one evening. He came into the bar. You know, he just joked. He's like, how's your door? We're holding up. You know, I was like, oh my God, it's great. It's great. Thanks. It's phenomenal. I really owe you big time. Thank you. He had a few drinks. I got off early and some of our other friends came up there that we had mutually in common. And then we all just went out for the night. You know, we went out drinking, had a blast. You know, you realize he's a really cool guy. He fit in with the group really well. And that's really what started our whole friendship was he'd be like, hey, what are y'all doing tonight? We're like, well, this is what we're doing. Do you want to go? And he'd show up or he wouldn't. He wasn't like the person that came around starting problems or anything. He was just super chill. Leanne learned more about Corey and his life as they spent nights out drinking together. She knew he ran his own business and had a wife at home. It always struck her as odd that he was hanging out with her and her friends as much as he did seeing how many responsibilities he had in his life. And I used to ask him sometimes when we would all stay out really, really late and I'd be like, you don't get in trouble when you go home? Like you've been out all, he's like, no, she doesn't care. He's like, as long as I don't drive drunk and I get home right after the bar's closed, she's usually okay with that. She doesn't care. Leanne and Corey developed a strong friendship and soon it developed into something more, of course. You know, being a single mom, you're always looking for extra work. So I was bartending, I was doing appliances, I was doing a little bit of everything. I don't even remember how it got brought up, actually. He said something about he's like overloaded at work. And I was like, well, if you need some help, you know, call me, I'll come help you. I need to be able to help you. I need to make extra money. Like, I'm in, totally down. And he just randomly, like two days later, hit me up and he was like, hey, do you want to work tomorrow? I'm like, absolutely. Get me out of this house, I'm going crazy. So we started working together and then he started, you know, my birthday party, he was there and, you know, he just started being in everything involved that was going on in my life at that time. Leanne started working with Corey on his home remodels. She was happy to learn a new skill and make some extra money. And with her buddy, no less. Yeah, working with him was great because, you know, when you're really good friends with somebody and you're going to hang out all day, it's like, oh, it doesn't even feel like work. So it was all just home improvement stuff. And every customer we worked for really acted like they knew him forever. And I guess that was just the demeanor he put off with him. We didn't have standard hours. It wasn't like eight, five. He'd hit me up day four and day, all right, I'm going to pick you up at this time. He'd pick me up, we'd work three or four and then we were at the bar drinking beer. So it wasn't like, A hard job or a very demanding job is. Actually, probably one of the easiest jobs I had. Leanne saw Corey a lot. If they weren't working together mudding drywall, she was serving him a beer at her bartending job. Or they were out till the wee hours of the morning partying together. She got to know him really, really well and became a confidant in his life. Hey, I thought that's what a wife was for. But yeah, we were definitely close because there was times like him and his wife would have an argument and he would just call me and he'd be like, Leanne, she's really mad at me. And I'm like, well, what'd you do? You know, we would talk about it like, all right, well, just go get flowers and tell your son, just don't do it again. Or he would tell me what was going on with the kids. So it was definitely like another, you know, another brother that you got that you got to sit here and go, oh my gosh, don't do dumb stuff, you know, be a man and fix it. So he was definitely like one of my brothers. And yeah, I definitely think that we were very close at that time. Corey and Leanne were busy and she knew that there were jobs he was going out on alone. After all, she had her bartending job and several other side hustles. On one job, Corey and Leanne were using a jackhammer all day. And the next morning she woke up unable to move. I tore my rotator cuff. So I called out of work. I don't remember if it's Wednesday or Thursday. I told him, I said, I can't work. I'm going to go to the hospital and get this thing checked because I've definitely tore something. Leanne went home and rested, but called Corey the next day, ready to get back at it. Well, then the next day when I'm like, okay, I'm at the hospital. I can work. I just, I can't do the jackhammer anymore. I got to do light stuff. He's like, all right, I'm going to pick you up in the morning at this time. But you could tell he was very frazzled. Like, kind of like when my anxiety gets high, like I'm all over the place and very spastic. And you could tell he was the same way, like very spastic. He's like, I'm picking up tomorrow at this time. And I was like, okay. So he didn't show up and you know, I'm blowing his phone up. And I'm like, bro, where are you at? Are we not working today? If we're not, I'm going back to bed, but I don't want to go back to bed. And then you'd be like, oh, where are you at? Are we working or not? And he's like, yeah, I'm coming. I just got to run some errands. Corey arrived late. And when Leanne got in the car, she wasn't greeted by the same old Corey. This guy was distracted and distant. But aside from that, there was something even more glaring. Corey's truck, which was normally filled with trash and tools, was spotless. Because I was like, hey, you got the truck cleaned. I said, it's about time. I said, this thing was disgusting. And he's like, yeah, I went and got it all cleaned yesterday. And, you know, like, nothing's wrong. But you could tell his mind was not, like, he's driving and he's just staring at the road. Instead of our casual, let's talk shit and have conversation, he's just so focused on the road. His hands are still around. He's just very focused. Like, you could tell something was bothering him. So I was like, well, maybe he got himself in trouble with the wife again. Or, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Leanne and Corey worked all day. But there was no fun banter, no laughing, no inside jokes. Corey was focused. Corey was focused with his head down and his mind elsewhere. And then he took me home. That was it. He did that. We didn't have a long day, a red day. We didn't go to the bar and have drinks. We didn't go somewhere cool and eat lunch and talk smack. You know, we didn't do any of that. It was like, I gotta go. This all happened the week Sue went missing. But Leanne didn't know that. In fact, she'd never worked at Sue's house. That job was one of the ones that Corey handled alone. At that point, no one was connecting the dots. Not yet, anyway. The detectives didn't want to get tunnel vision, as they put it. Corey wasn't an obvious suspect. He was a business owner with a family. His daughters were successful, with one away at college. They'd been married for decades. On the surface, it looked solid and stable. The kind of life that didn't raise alarms. But then they met with Sue's close friend, who wasn't in the British club. And she gave them a list Sue herself had written. It was a detailed diary of notes about the months-long back and forth between her and Corey. And this list from Sue changed everything. Other than in here, what all has she told you about that contractor? Everything that's there. I mean, I can't even remember exactly when this job was supposed to have started. But I know it's been going on for months, okay? So I, like, Sue and I met every, generally every Wednesday at her house, okay? She was retired. So I leave from here and go down to her house every Wednesday at noon, around anywhere between 11.30 to 1.30, somewhere in that time frame for an hour. And every week, she gave me an update on, I called him Jackrabbit, okay? She gave me an update on him. And then we talked several times through the week, okay? So, and I kept talking. And I kept warning Sue that there's an issue. According to his friend, Corey had lied. He told police he never took money up front for labor. But she confirmed he'd taken far more than $1,200 from Sue. Then he gutted her bathroom down to the studs and just stopped. When Sue asked when he'd return, there was always an excuse. A sick relative, a looming divorce, even a. bizarre story about having to transport a friend's deceased family member for a funeral. I said, Sue, first of all, when you told me that he transported a dead body, that should be your first clue that that would be an issue. Nobody takes a dead body unless they're in that business. So when he said he had to go get a family slash friend's body and transport him from one state to another state, the reason for him not showing up. showing up for a while with you, there should have been your first clue that somebody else needed to be involved. Right. Uh, I said that's. I've never heard of that in my life, where you could take a dead body unless they die in your car and you're taking them to the hospital. To the hospital, right. As Corey's excuses became more and more alarming, Sue realized she may need to find someone else to finish the work he had started. Sue was very strong-willed and confrontational. If you got in her face, she could. She could be that way, okay? So she, um. She said, well, Phil, you know, he's the best at it. And he came and showed me all the pictures of what he can do. And he actually, um, showed me that. And he gave me the contract where I had to give him. The whole total job was supposed to be $19,000, okay? And he needs $12,000 of that up front. And within three to four weeks or two to three weeks, whatever, I think, he could have my jobs done. The job was to be a guest bathroom in the hallway and her master bedroom, a bathroom in the master. Both of them were to be redone completely, okay? Corey did have credentials. And he had worked at Sue's house before. The whole reason she'd hired him was because he was a subcontractor on her kitchen remodel. She already knew him. Sue may have been strong. But she was a trusting and fair woman. Even though her friends all warned her something wasn't right. Something was a little, you know, off about this guy. She wanted to give Corey a chance to finish what he started. So then he came in one day. Every time he's supposed to show up on. Oh, sorry. Every time he's supposed to show up on Monday, he always texts her, you know, back and forth. They text. Okay? He'd always text her with a new excuse. So he never really could show up. But one day, just a few weeks back, he shows up. And he goes in her house. And he tells her how good she looks that day. Okay? And how old are you, Sue? And she said, I'm 65. Just turned 65. We're going to turn 65. And he said, man, you look good. Are you widowed? And she said, yes, I am. And he said, well, he said, man, you're looking good. He said, I was wondering, could I get a loan? She said, a loan? Corey, you got 12 grand of my money. I have no money to give you. You've done nothing for me. Now, this is her story to me. That was the final straw. Sue firmly told Corey no. She had already given him more than half of the cost of the entire job up front. And he wasn't getting another penny. No. Oh, he just told her, I'll go to the bank and get a loan. That was his attitude after. He kind of turned the other direction and left her, okay? So that's what happened at that point. So then, she told me that week, sometime during that week, I feel I'm really uncomfortable with him now. I said, Sue, I told you, I think there's an issue here. The police now knew that Corey had lied to them about the money. They were able to track all of this with Sue's bank account and checkbook. So they returned to Corey asking him if. They could look into his storage unit, where he kept most of his construction supplies. He opened up the door and. The police let their canine dog roam the small, stuffy space. The dog popped his nose in and out of every shelf, every box, every random paint can. Then, when he got close to Corey's tool bag, the one he had with him at Sue's house, the dog started barking, freaking out, alerting them of decomposition. But the cops. The cops didn't tell Corey this. They thanked him, and they left. A few days later, they showed up at his house with a warrant for his truck. Here's the deal. Obviously, I talked to you before about this whole thing. And we've been following up because we still haven't found her. Susan. So we don't know where she's at. So you're checking boxes? Checking boxes. That's what I'm doing. Going through and making sure. What can I do to, what do you need? So what we need is your truck. Because your truck was the last one at the house. Okay. As far as we found her. Do you need to take it? Yeah. I don't know. Guys, they want to take my truck. Well, here, let me finish. You don't have anything to hide. Let me finish talking. Okay, all right. Let me get the keys. It's okay. We're going to take the truck. I have a separate warrant for it. So it's coming with us. I'm just trying to let you know what we're doing. Okay, that's fine. Corey played it cool. He said he had nothing to hide, and his wife repeated that from behind him. I know you're in construction. You do all sorts of things. Construction stuff. Got all sorts of nicks and scratches all over you. I noticed the other day when I talked to you, you had one on the inside of your arm that looked pretty fresh right here, above your tattoo, right here. What's that from? I do demo work. It's from all kinds of stuff. Would you be okay if I took a picture of it real quick? Yeah, that's fine. That would be awesome. You got a. Cassidy, then we're going to take pictures of my arms now. Can I take, can I bring her with me so she can have access? Hey, are you okay with me? Yeah. Can I take a picture of your arm? You know what? Do you have to take, do you have to ask your wife? No, I mean, that doesn't upset me. All right. You can, you can. That's fine. Yeah, take all the pictures you want. Take a picture of him first, sir, so we know whose arm it is. On the front lawn of his suburban neighborhood, more cops began showing up with their paperwork, cameras, and a police tow truck. Corey was slowly becoming the neighborhood's spectacle, and his easygoing persona started to crack. All right, well, while we're at it, so we can eliminate it, and then maybe I don't have to talk to you again after this in any way, shape, or form, since you look like you want to cooperate, and I want to believe everything, would you mind if we take a DNA sample and eliminate you? Because you have been in the house, that way we can wipe that out. Yeah. You're okay with that? Sure. All right, cool. So, what I'm going to do is get a tow truck to come over here, because I don't want to drive your truck. I would prefer if you drove it, but now that all my neighbors have seen this, I guess it really doesn't matter. And then I'm going to get a CST to come over and just do a quick swab. That's fine. That'll be an elimination one, and then that'll probably be the end of it. My DNA's in the system already. I'll get your truck back to you, and then we'll be done with it. My DNA, fingerprints, everything's already in the system. Okay, perfect. Can you get your keys for me and stuff? Sure. Corey kept repeating that his prints were in the system, as if he was trying to say the thing the cops already knew out loud, so that he wouldn't be caught lying. Because even though Corey Binderum had been a decent citizen for most of his adult life, there was something that happened decades ago that he could never escape. Something that haunted him. Something that informed others about his character. His true character. It haunted his marriage. It really affected his life in a way that even those close to him didn't realize. Now the police knew about it too. You see, when Corey Binderum was just 17, he stepped into something he should never have. The court records say he and a friend met three AWOL Army Ranger trainees at a hotel, setting up a gun deal. Corey wasn't the supplier, he was the middleman. His job was simple. Pick them up, drive them deep into a remote Florida swamp, and lead them to a stash of weapons. They did exactly that. A quiet pickup, no small talk, then a long drive into the dark. The soldiers? The soldiers were ready, dressed in wetsuits, wading into the murky water to retrieve the package. But halfway across, everything flipped. Corey opened fire. Bullets tore through the swamp as soldiers tried to escape, trapped and exposed. One managed to run and kept going until he reached a house and got help. Corey and his friend disappeared into the night. Two soldiers nearly died. The only reason they didn't was because the third soldier was still alive. It was clear that Corey had intended to murder all three of these men, whilst pocketing the money for the whole shindig. It didn't take long to find Corey. Young, reckless, and now facing real adult charges, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and ten years probation for aggravated battery with a firearm. Now, standing in his front lawn—a father, a husband, a business owner—Corey's past was staring him in the face as police prepared to take his work truck into evidence. Corey reassured the cops he was an innocent man. But what else would a murderer claim? Well, I certainly hope so. It was 27 years ago. I certainly— I was 17. Listen, Corey, I certainly hope so. I really do. And if it is, I assure you, I promise. I'll be the first one to come back and shake your hand. I certainly hope so. Are you going to go door to door and say, "Look, I was wrong. I embarrassed this man." Absolutely will. 100%. I will do that. Corey didn't look scared. He looked furious. His wife, angry and being escorted to a police station. His daughter, just home from college, watching it all unfold. And now the neighbors were watching, too. That's what he felt most: humiliation. The display that you guys put on. Yes, sir. This isn't fair. I didn't do what you think I did. Yeah. And this is absolutely not fair. So can you tell me what happened to her? I don't know. I don't have any clue. We shook hands. I left. That's it. That's the last I know of. I don't have an explanation. I don't have anything. Yeah. I mean, I got— I got— I mean, the guy was mowing the yard and mowing the lawn across the street. She shook my hand in the doorway. Yeah. She clearly shook my hand in the doorway. Yeah. Yeah. She clearly did not want to talk to you anymore. She was done with you. I know. She had an extensive, extensive, meticulous, detailed list of things and why she did not want to talk to you and why she was done with you. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Corey thought the tension between him and this seemingly family-less widow would stay just that between the two of them. He didn't count on her having a circle of retired, watchful, fiercely protective friends tracking every detail and being uber-curious about her remodel. Her best friend, the one who handed over the diary, told police everything she knew. Old lady gossip was now becoming evidence. Then she was beating herself up for giving him that and that. She said, "Well, I'm going to get my money back." "I've been talking to the lady next door's daughter, Lynn, and she's going to help me get an attorney, and I'm going to get the police and them involved, and I'm going to see if I can get my 12 grand back because he's done anything. You think I should pay him a little something for ripping out the bathroom what he's done?" I said, "Give him nothing. The man's caused you nothing but grief, Sue." Sue had found help getting a lawyer and was making plans to get the authorities involved. Still, she wanted to do this the right way. Without lawyers. She gave Corey one last chance, and he promised he would bring her her money back. So he shows up with a business check, okay? She told me, he said, "Here." She said, "I'm not taking that business check. You've been lying to me. I will accept nothing more than a cashier's check." He told her at that point, "I really don't have that 12 grand, but I'm going to have from now until next week to get it. I'm returning the bathtub and the shower stuff he bought." Sue said to me, "He said he's returning the bathtub, and I said to him, 'It's only $900, Corey. We're talking 12 grand.'" When Sue refused the business check, Corey admitted he didn't have the funds in his account to pay her in full. But he'd return some supplies and he'd get her the money, he said. He was desperate to get this woman off his back. "I went to her house. I said to her, she was supposed to show up that day. She had told me over the phone, you know, 'Hey, he's coming Wednesday morning between 8:00 and 8:30.'" I said, "Well, Sue, is he going to have your cashier's check? Yes, he is. Because he knows better." He said, "Okay." So when I got there at 12:30 that day, when I get there for our luncheon, I said, "Sue, did Jack Rabbit show up today?" She said, "No, but he called me." She said, "And I told him. What's your excuse?" He said, "Sue, I'm going to be there with your 12 grand. I'm going to bring it in a cashier's check or whatever. I need till tonight between 6:00 and 6:30 to get it there to you. I'm in St. Augustine Court, something to do with his divorce." But Corey wasn't getting divorced. He was piling lies upon lies to everyone in his life. And the facade was cracking. To Sue, he had one set of excuses for his inadequacies. And to his wife, another. He was burning the candle at both ends. Juggling jobs, staying up all night drinking at the bar, passing off one debt to cover Another, a contractor Ponzi scheme, happens more often than you think. He was drowning in a circus act, and at the center of it all, the problem he couldn't solve was a stubborn 65-year-old widow who was now putting her foot down and putting it down hard. So, like I said, you know you lied to me, right? About what? You said all you owed her was $1,294.54, and that's the carbon check that you showed me dated for 10-24. That's the check that I wrote her to reimburse. You owed her $12,000, and I have all the checks that she wrote out to me, along with her meticulous detailed list of the money that she gave me. Why would you lie about that? Corey had no idea that the police detected human decomposition in his storage unit. They kept that card close to their chest. They had also secured security footage from Home Depot showing Corey buying numerous bags of concrete after he was at Sue's place. You truly protest in your innocence, and you truly go on trying to, you know, comply and go a long way to show that you didn't have anything to do with it. But I'm just telling you, without throwing all this stuff in here, there is a lot that says you do know more than what you're telling. Not necessarily that you did anything. Not necessarily that you did anything to her, but you know more than what you're telling me. I can tell you what else I'm confident in. I have nothing to do with her being missing. That's what I am very confident in. Yeah. I certainly hope so. I really do. Detectives didn't have enough on Corey to arrest him right then and there. So, they took his truck, shook his hand, and left him to sweat it out alone on his front lawn. That's when police got in touch with Leanne. They took her down to the store. They took her to the station and started asking her about Corey. But she had zero clue what was going on. They didn't even tell me really why I was there. They just kept asking me, like, all these questions. Like, how long have you known him? What were you doing on this day? What was he doing on this day? And I'm like, okay, where are we going with this? Like, what's going on? It literally took, like, hours into this for me to figure out what they were actually looking for. And then at that point, I'm like, no. Not possible. Like, there's no way. The thing is, it's not possible. From the outside, Corey was not suspicious. He was a loving father, a businessman, a fun guy who would foot the bill for beers and treat his employees like gold. But something dark had entered Corey's life again. And only Leanne was privy to it. Corey had started doing cocaine. When he first started using, like, that house party he went to, you know, he was doing cocaine. It was more of like a party thing. Like, I want to be up all night. I'm not ready. Go to bed. It wasn't like an everyday I have to have it thing. It was, I'm going to go party the night away and then go to work tomorrow and do my normal job. And it was like every once in a while, like probably once a week, twice a week. It wasn't an everyday thing for him. But like all addictions, it did progress. Corey may have been able to manage his business, his family, his wife who he kept disappointing, and his late night partying with friends. But once cocaine entered the picture, things became. A lot less manageable. And what Leanne didn't know was that Corey had been to rehab for cocaine addiction before. Years back, he had snorted away his family's finances. His wife found out, sent him to rehab, and he promised to never touch the stuff again. They were still building back the trust that had been lost all those years ago when Corey started partying again in secret. But it did progress. It progressed heavily. And then I did see a difference in him. Like, he would get irritated faster. You could kind of see it in his face that he was really tired. He was just really drained. He had a very short temper. Not with me and not with anybody else that I saw. But just like when we're working, if he dropped something, he'd be cussing like, oh my gosh, damn it. Where before, I don't feel like he'd drop stuff and he'd laugh it off and keep going. Leanne says Corey was not an angry man. She only saw him explode one time when they were out drinking and a miscommunication. Left him stranded at a house party with strangers. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be around someone that shows real emotion, whether good or bad, all of the time. Than someone who holds it all in, bottles it all up, and it's all just optics. Until one day, they explode. He's screaming in the phone, you need to fucking come get me right. Fucking, like, just screaming. And me and my sister and everybody, because we all rode together. We're like, what is going on? He's going off, like, off the rails. So he's saying something about these girls invited him over and then a whole bunch of dudes showed up. I don't, I don't know what happened at that house party. He wasn't there very long, but he ended up calling his wife because the next day he told me he called his wife and his wife picked him up. Then, you know, you kind of think like, was there just alcohol involved where the guys may be rude to him and hurt his feelings because he was very soft hearted. So it was like, maybe somebody just hurt his feelings. He took things very personally. And I think that's why he made sure to stay in shape and things like that. Maybe he was, felt bullied a lot. So you could tell, like, that was just his demeanor. He didn't, he needed to feel like he was included in places. It was hard for Leanne to grasp that Corey could have murdered someone. I mean, think about it. Imagine someone you know, someone that you're close to. Now imagine that they killed someone. Like, for real. How do you reconcile that? But as the hours ticked by and police slowly reopened, Leanne realized that maybe her sweet, chilled buddy, Corey, could have something to do with this. Though she'd only seen that one outburst, she had seen it. The genie was out of the bottle. She knew he was using drugs and something had changed in him. The day that Leanne called in sick because of her torn rotator cuff was the day that Sue went missing. The next day on the job, Leanne was in the hospital. Corey was distant, strange, and completely detached. Leanne remembered that day because she'd never seen Corey like that. It was all starting to click together, and she didn't like that feeling. They kept saying all this stuff, but when they told me, like, about the glass and things like that, and how they had pinged his phone the day of there, and I knew that was the day I was off work, I started thinking, wait a minute. Aside from the bus footage and the smell of decomposition detected in Corey's storage unit, detectives uncovered two things far more deliberate. One was some shards of glass in Sue's driveway, and they needed Leanne to confirm where this glass came from. Then, I guess, the guy's house we were working on at that time, we were working on a few people's houses, but this one guy in particular, when we took the glass door out of the shower down to the truck, it slipped out my hand and it shattered. It shattered everywhere, like in a million pieces. And, supposedly, that was one of the things that we were working on. One of the things they said is they found that glass in her driveway, and they had asked me, did we do anything with the glass? And I was like, yeah, we had a door break, but we cleaned it up. But, I guess that's what got left in her driveway the day that he was late picking me up. Secondly, the detectives had surveillance from Home Depot showing Corey there the very morning he went to Sue's house buying bags of concrete. Not tools, not tons of materials for a visible build, just concrete. And a few random items that looked like a clear cover-up. He told police it was for a job, but Leanne knew his jobs, his materials, his patterns, and this wasn't part of that. There was no project that called for concrete. So detectives had Leanne call Corey on a recorded line and ask him about the concrete, casually, like it didn't matter. But by then, it mattered more than anything else, because they still had no body. Hey. Hey. Hey. They're gone. They're gone. Okay. See, I wasn't, I told you it wasn't that bad. It was exhausting. It was exhausting. You did not kill that woman, did you? No. God knows. I'm going to start calling you murderer or bender. No, don't do that. Put that on the phone. I'm probably going to kill you. I highly doubt that. They even killed her. They even asked me, they wanted to know exactly what materials we were using on the job site. And they kept asking me over and over about concrete. So I asked him, I said, what is this about you buying concrete? And he said, yeah, I bought concrete. I said, what'd you buy concrete for? He said, remember, we're building a step at that last customer. We were at a different customer. And I said, Corey, nowhere. We're not. I said, we've never used concrete. What are you talking about? He's like, you don't remember the step we're building? I'm like, no. And then he turned it. He's like, oh, I forgot. You weren't there that day that they requested that to be done. And I was like, oh, yeah, because I've never, we've never bought concrete. We've never dealt with concrete. So I don't know nothing about no concrete. Yeah, where do they think I dropped her at a fucking river? Are you serious? I don't know, but I bet that's why they're asking. And I, they must think that I knew about the concrete because they literally kept asking me. And then they would look at me funny when I would say no. we don't use concrete. They just kept looking at me funny. And I bought a bag of concrete. They know. I also bought four bags of leveler and little waltzers. I bought all kinds of stuff. That's why they kept asking. That's why they asked you about the concrete I've had. And you should have seen how they looked at it. I've been nowhere near the river. But at that point, I'm getting a little terrified. I'm like, why are you pushing this so hard? Wait a minute. Then it started kind of hitting me. Like, why are you lying? If you're lying, there's a reason you're lying. Why are you lying? Before the police were done with Leanne, she divulged one thing that made them stop dead in their tracks. It was a thing that would change the entire course of their chase with Jack Rabbit. I mean, Corey. She told them that one time they were at the dump getting rid of construction materials. And Corey joked that the dump would be a perfect place to hide a body. What a strange thing to say. The light bulb went off. The detectives had access to Life 360 Data, which is an app that Corey's wife made him keep on his phone so she could keep track of where he was at all times. It was a deal they had struck after he got out of rehab and promised to change his ways. So Corey had the app on all morning, the day Sue went missing, except for one hour. After she disappeared. That is when he went to the Rosemary Landfill. And detectives knew what they had to do. But then the unthinkable happened. Corey skipped town. But not before cashing a check he had secretly stolen from another client about a week prior. Like I said, Contractor Ponzi Scheme. It happens all the time and it happened to me. A contractor named Justin Jones. He promised to do some work for me, took $17,000 and disappeared. I had to sue him. And when I did, I found out he owed over a million dollars to various other victims. At the end of the day, I was just out $17,000. Because even though I did sue him and won, he had no assets of any kind under his name. No credit. No nothing. What a piece of shit. Anyway, watch out for these contractors. They can really take you for a ride. And never turn your back on them. The guy's house that we were working on, where I tore my arm using the jackhammer, one of the days we were there, I guess the last day we were there after all this happened, he went in that man's office and stole a check out of his checkbook. And that was his money to get him out of town. When he went on the run, that's how they caught him. He was in the bank cashing that check he wrote to himself. And he hauled ass with that. That's how he was getting out of town. Corey had been playing it cool with the cops, his employees, his family. But inside, he was panicking. The detectives were trying to hunt Corey down. His wife and children were helping, giving the cops tips every time Corey called them to check in from another random burner phone. Footage from the Rosemary landfill showed Corey, showing up that morning. He took in a load that was about 300 pounds and dumped it. When the cashier weighed his truck on the way out for the dump, he'd shed all that weight. But when he spoke to Leanne, he told her he had 120 pounds of concrete to dispose of. So when they looked at the amount of concrete he bought and the weight of her body and added them together, that's exactly what he took to the dump. The exact amount that went into the dump. Because they weigh it. And you go in. But finding Sue in a landfill wouldn't be so simple. The construction rubbish had been transported to a new site in Georgia called the Cheshire Island Road Landfill, about an hour away. When the detectives spoke with someone at the landfill, they said that the dump load was fresh. Nothing else had been put on top of it. If Sue's body came from the Rosemary landfill, she'd be in that pile. So, over the next week, in tandem with the FBI, 90 employees searched an area of the landfill about the size of a baseball field. They turned over every piece of trash, desperately trying to find any trace of Sue. Individuals in white hazmat suits poked and prodded at every little piece of garbage, while excavators ripped through the mess. The media was there, capturing each painful, hopeless second of what was akin to the end of the world. Until looking for a needle in a haystack. Then, on the ninth day, after sifting through 7,300 tons of waste, someone found a piece of what appeared to be a human jaw. Then, more pieces emerged in the rubble, all tangled up in a shredded concrete bag. Amongst them were women's clothing, two fingernails, and a tarp. Dental records soon confirmed it was, in fact, Sue Malden. The serial number on the concrete bags was intact, and it was an exact match to the receipt of Corey's purchases. The police got in touch with the client who Corey said he bought the concrete for, and she knew nothing about a concrete step being built in her home. So the detective asked me about that, and I told him that there was nothing here, that required any concrete work. The client also confirmed that Corey never finished the job he began at her place, giving her similar excuses like he had to Sue. He had to go to Mayo Clinic, and he had to go to the doctor for this, or, you know, or something. There was always an excuse, and then at the end, he just vanished, and my work was never completed. It had been almost four months since Sue's friends at the British club had reported her missing, and now finally, they had her body. Corey had accused the police of tunnel vision from the jump, but they were right all along. They soon captured Corey. His attempts to run were futile, especially since he tried to cash the check he stole and wrote to himself. Now Corey would have to face the police again, but not from his front lawn as a free man. He would be in handcuffs at the station, and there was. evidence that he could not refute. Mr. Too-Cool-Corey Binderum had painted himself into a corner that he would never. escape. He was a man of his word. have anything to do with it so well we can prove otherwise okay i get that and you can you can maintain that all you want i understand that i'm just here to tell you that i don't need you to say anything at all ever because the evidence is there the physical evidence is there the whole thing is laid out and just so there's no misunderstanding you do realize we found susan mullen we positively identified her we found her in the chesaro landfill okay so you understand yeah i understand okay cory sat in his orange jumpsuit lips pressed thin he'd been here before but that was when he was 17 when recklessness could pass for ignorance and excuses came easy now he was a grown-ass man a husband a father someone who had been given a second chance and burned straight through it whatever he once hid behind was gone what remained was simple and brutal a grown-ass man who murdered a defenseless widow someone so physically frail she needed help starting a lawnmower there was no chaos no confusion no youth to blame just his own selfish choice and it was pathetic what my mind goes to is i want to know why i'm not asking you to tell me anything obviously you already invoked but that's that's the real reason for me that's what what keeps me up at night i just want to know why so maybe at some point down the road we can have a conversation and just find out why because at this point we're past if you did it that's a lock what is important now is why cory wasn't going to answer that question the detective knew it from the moment he asked it but it had to be said out loud because this question hung over the case over every interview every piece of evidence it settled into the lives sue left behind while it seeped into cory's own home into his wife and daughters into his co-workers forced to carry the weight of what he'd done the why haunting leanne i guess he tried to be calm with her like hey okay just give me a chance to fix this and she blatantly said you know i'm going to call the police department and i don't know if that triggered something in him where he'd already been to prison instead of going okay i'm just going to get us you know have to pay the money back i think his mind went to i'm going to go back to jail so then they she pretty much he kept trying to talk to her and say hey just can you work with me can you help me you know we'll work this out she was very adamant about no i've had enough i've tried for months i i want my money i want my money now i'm calling cops and then supposedly he had his tool bag in the house and he was like i don't know what to do with this house now mind you i was not there this is just what i took from it um and she had blunt force trauma to the back of her head and he you know always has hammers in his bag and that's where that came from is what i gathered is that he struck her in the back of the head with one of the tools um and and i almost feel like you know i could see him now just pacing around like how do i figure this out and it's just sad that you know she wasn't really aware of her surrounding at that point to say let me keep him in my vision because somehow he got behind her i don't know if she was sitting on the couch or what but she didn't keep him in her eyesight for him to hit her in the back of the head like that an autopsy later revealed that cory had struck sue in the back of the head then he strangled her until she died detectives theorized that cory then cleaned up the house as best he could apparently doing more work than he did and he was able to get her out of the house and he was able to get her out of the work than the remodel would have taken he grabbed the tool bag that sue had been holding hostage and took her body to his storage unit but they never say anything about chopping things up they just said that he put her in this rubber mate thing put it in concrete went to the dump dropped it at the dump as cory's arrest and arraignment spread through the local news leanne grappled with what had happened that day in october her torn rotator cuff cory's strange behavior in the truck the stolen check it had all happened within her presence and she had no clue so it was terrifying for me that i was sitting right in the truck with a man who just killed a lady and i'm sitting in that same truck right after he dumps her body at the dump i get in that same vehicle oh and then in the vehicle there was a gold ring in the door and i asked him about it and he said i don't know what he did and i said i don't know what he did and he said who's is this and he said it was one of the girls one of his daughters but the police department told me that he said it was mine and i don't even wear jewelry when i do it's not gold so i was like that is not my ring they showed it to me and i guess that was supposedly her ring so it's really creepy you know i'm sitting in this car a dead lady's ring is right next to me and it doesn't it's so like it doesn't feel real it feels like this is a movie this is not actually happening leanne thinks that cory lived under the crushing weight of his own lies especially when it came to the lack of trust with his wife but i think he was almost like the kid in the relationship like he felt like he had to really prove that he was good to her or he had to prove that he was worthy like he always had this mentality like i don't want her upset with me and i don't want to think i did something wrong kind of like you know your children do they always want their parents to be proud of them so i think he was so terrified that she was gonna find out that he screwed up again that i think between that and then going back to jail i think he lost it cory would continue to protest his innocence as the prosecution prepared for trial many more things were revealed about cory's crumbling life his drug addiction had escalated from cocaine to percocet and steroids cory didn't even have enough money in his business account to cover the check he'd written to sue for 1294 dollars he had purchased the concrete an hour before he went to sues this was all planned he knew he was going to kill her that day disguise her in concrete and toss her into a dump and he thought he was slick enough to get away with it that's the perplexing thing about cory it was like he assumed the cops would give up on sue because she was just an old single lady with no family and no one to really care if she was gone her life you know didn't have enough to dig into at least that's what he thought it took almost five years for the trial to officially begin between the court closures of covid that absurd fiasco the complicated evidence and the fact that cory was facing the death penalty this was a standard time lapse but to sue's friends it was an eternity leanne was also going to testify and she said it wasn't by choice they pretty much threatened me that i was going to jail if i did not go in there like they did not give me an option they were not very nice to me at all leanne skipped the first day of court she just couldn't do it but she showed up the next day ready to give her testimony and terrified to see her old friend cory looked different his skin was pale he'd gained about 30 pounds he looked awful like someone had sucked the color out of him and then blown him up like a big fleshy beige balloon gross i definitely had mixed emotions because part of me is like you know part of me still wants you to be the good person part of me wants to say he really didn't do it but the other part of me has to go come on there's the evidence he did it so it was hard because you know they make you point at them to say are they in the i knew like i still saw that nice guy that was my buddy i didn't see this monster that came out that day you know i just saw poor cory sitting there feeling like a little kid who's in trouble again and i i mean it was just sad i mean i hate it and i just i know he did it and he deserves everything he gets for it everything but it was just hard when you look at someone and i think i understand now why moms who have sons and stuff that do this why they kind of have that mixed emotion because they're not going to be able to do it because they're not going to be able to do it because you see that person for who you knew them to be you don't see them for what they're being what they really are so i did and i answered the questions and i hot tailed it right out of there as fast i could to the public cory was a disgusting monster who murdered an elderly woman for 12 grand but leanne saw someone else she saw a situation she could have helped prevent i feel terrible for her that this happened and i also feel terrible like that he i don't know i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him i don't know if i can help him control his own emotions like why did you do that why could you not just say okay that's fine do what you want to do and i'll walk out and i'll figure it out tomorrow like i feel bad that he didn't feel like he had another option like why did you make such a poor choice it just you're an adult you have to know there's consequences why did you make and i guess i feel bad because i didn't really see it coming either so maybe part of that is me going i wish i would have known he had so many issues like money and things like that because then maybe we all could have got together as friends and helped each other out but you know he didn't say anything so Kind of feels like, you know, you're just hanging out with all these people and you don't even know what's going on in their life. Imagine hearing this whole story and thinking, I should have lent him money. Corey's trial was a slam dunk for the prosecution. He was given life in prison and not death. He was spared death by only one bleeding heart vote. Some juror who had somehow gotten the whole morality thing upside down. Or maybe they just didn't want to deal with it. Personally. But apparently the jurors, in general, felt bad not for him, but for his two adult daughters who wrote in a desperate plea to the court to spare their father's life. The defense clung on to the fact that there was another piece of male DNA found on one of the fingernails at the dump and blamed Corey's diagnosed CTE for his impulse control. There's always some kind of condition or psychological trauma that they blame and pretend like it's an excuse. In the end, it was all fruitless. Corey's tricks and schemes throughout the entire five months of the investigation were so obvious and despicable, he had put his own life above Sue's. Plain and simple. He convinced himself her life was expendable. Just another cost of untangling the mess he'd made of his own. Corey was taken away in handcuffs. Sue's friends rejoiced. But everyone who knew and loved Corey was nauseous and broken. Because Corey did have a lot of people in his life who adored him. Leanne included. Even now, she's barely able to break through the facade to accept the fact that her buddy is a convicted killer. Well, and I think too, when people do something that bad, you don't see it in them. So, I mean, when I look at him, I see Corey. I don't see, like, when, you know, when I look at Ted Bundy, because that's all I know about him, I see, you know, the monster. But I didn't know him. And I guess when you know them, you don't see that monster unless that's all you know. It's hard to say if Corey was truly a monster. He raised two successful, loving children. He ran a business. He had friends and family who loved him. But when the cocaine crept back into his life, everything started to come apart. Like a truck losing its wheels at full speed. The balance he'd maintained for years wasn't effortless anymore. It collapsed. Suddenly and violently. And the truth is, the capacity had always been there. Just below the surface. As a kid, he did a very bad thing and served seven years for it. Not nearly enough time. Somewhere inside him was the instinct to put his needs above everyone else. And that never went away. That flash of darkness that led him to do something evil, bury it, and keep going like nothing ever happened. When pressure hit, he didn't stand up and face it. Like a real man. It's hard not to see him as a boy who never fully became a man. A man takes responsibility. A man makes decisions. A man makes amends. A man faces his problems dead on. Addiction, money, whatever the fuck it might be. Especially when he has a family. Corey chose what felt good in the moment. And he was willing to destroy the people around him for it. Sue Malden was an innocent widow. A sweet old lady who just wanted her bathroom remodeled. Instead, she was killed and discarded in a landfill by this man. By this fuck. But thanks to you, the audience, listening to her story, she is not forgotten. And her memory lives on through her friends. Especially the British club. And everyone else in her life who loved her. And her case, as dark as it is, made history. The first successful FBI-assisted landfill excavation to recover her life. To recover human remains in a murder investigation. It's a brutal ending. An unsatisfying one, if you ask me. But it is one that will always be remembered. But it is one that will never be forgotten. It is one that will never be forgotten. It is one that will never be forgotten.