Husband Pins Wife’s Murder On The FBI?! The Unbelievable Case Of Mindi Kassotis

[MUSIC] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kendall Rae. Thank you so very much for joining me today, and if you're new to my show, then welcome. Thank you for joining me and make sure that you click subscribe, or follow if you're listening on Apple or Spotify, and that way you'll never miss an upload of mine. So obviously, I'm in a completely new setup if you're watching here on YouTube. I have a brand new studio. I am so, so excited about it. I'm actually filming out of my office now instead of my home studio, which is just going to be so much better for me as my house is getting louder and louder with two children and nine animals. So this is much better. Also, I put more work into the design of this studio than I ever have into any of my past studios. Me and my team have been working on this setup and thinking about every piece that you see and the wall color and just trying to really create a vibe that felt like me and feels comfortable, and kind of homey and comforting as obviously we talk about some very heavy topics on this show. I'm just thrilled with how it's turned out. This just feels so much better. I can't even tell you, and I hope you guys like it as much as I do. My only regret is that my lily, my kitty cannot be here with me. I am not going to drag her out of her house every single day and bring her to the studio because she is like 14 or 15 now, and that's just not good for her heart. It's not good for her stress. She would be very unhappy. She does not like to leave her home. So that is the only bummer she's not here. Although my dog, Bernie, you might see him walking around. I don't know if you can see him on the floor, but of course, I have an animal with me. But anyway, friends, I hope you enjoy this studio as much as I do. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it below. So leave me a comment, tell me what you think. And I think this is a start of a brand new fresh chapter for this show. Like I said, I got kind of emotional in my last episode because it felt like such, you know, the end of an era. But yeah, I'm really excited for what the future holds for this show. We have a lot of really cool things planned. And yeah, the future is bright. But let's go ahead and get into today's case, you guys, because this one is going to take us on a wild ride. Okay. This case is absolutely absurd. Now I just wanted to start out by saying if I were to tell all of you that there was an FBI agent controlling my life, like literally everything from where I live, how much money I spent, how my money was managed. But I couldn't produce a shred of evidence that this person actually existed. You would think I was a bit wackado, wouldn't you? I mean, surely you would have to, right? Because that is just absurd. But that is exactly the type of craziness that you are going to be hearing about in today's case. Today's episode we're going to be covering the murder of Mindy Kisotis and the unbelievable betrayal that she experienced in the last several years of her life. And I know I have said this about cases in the past. But this one, I really think I'm trying to think back to all of the hundreds of cases I've covered. But I think this one really does take the case as far as the most outrageous defenses that I have ever heard in my life. Before getting into this episode, I just wanted to thank you all for listening to and supporting my show and also any of the mile hire media shows. Your support makes it possible for us to continue funding grants through my foundation Higher Hope, which supports victims of violent crimes, their families and like-minded nonprofits. And with that, let's get into today's case. Because we do have quite a bit to go over and I will just say this is when you're going to want to really lock in on because it gets very complicated at points. I mean, we're talking about FBI agents that may or may not actually exist. And I'm pretty sure you're going to guess or already have whether this FBI agent exists or not. Okay, so I want to start by telling you about Mindy because she was a pretty fantastic woman. And someone I think I would have gotten along with really well. And before Mindy was Mindy Kisotis, she was Mindy Mabain. And she was born on February 22, 1982 in Seminole County, Florida. And she was one of three children to her parents Betsy and Frank III. She had two brothers, Frank IV and Matthew. And she has been described by her loved ones as an incredibly thoughtful kind and also very hardworking person, not to mention a very smart woman. She got her bachelor's of arts from Armstrong State University, followed by her masters in public and international affairs from Virginia Tech. And then in her adult life, she worked as a legal secretary, followed by working in the non-profit space. And I know this probably doesn't apply to everyone working in the non-profit space, right? But everyone that I have met that works in non-profit is just such a soul to the earth, wonderful human. And I always love being around people that work in the non-profit space. So I feel like I would have liked her plus. She also was a podcaster, which I think is another thing that maybe we could have connected on if I had the opportunity to have ever met her. And she had come up with an idea for a podcast that I think is so cool. I would have loved to be able to listen to it if she was still around and able to do her podcast. But it was called compelling women, which I think is such a cool concept. But she planned on interviewing, compelling women, of course, and elevating their stories. I sadly couldn't find a copyright-free clip of the audio to play for you guys. But you don't need to hear it to know that she was genuinely interested in the lives of others. And for a long time, you guys, Mindy's life appeared to be going very well. And she seemed to be happy from what most people in her life could tell, especially after she met Nick Kassodis on a dating app in September of 2015. They actually met on OKCupid. And after talking online for a week, they met up at a restaurant in Alexandria, Virginia, where they totally hid it off. So much so that a little over a year later in October of 2016, they got married. And according to two of her close friends, Mindy could not have been more in love. They described her relationship as, you know, a fairytale ending that she had always wanted. The only thing missing for them was children. But friends say that they were talking about starting a family soon. Now, Nick was married before Mindy to a woman named Heather. And their inability to have kids is actually one of the reasons that their relationship fizzled out. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that, but basically Heather says that while the early days of their marriage was good, it became more of a friendship over time, sort of a, you know, turn into roommate sort of situation. She explained that she had gotten pregnant once and sadly had lost the baby. And things weren't really the same for them after that. But at least in the early days of their divorce, things between them were fine. Heather said the split was amicable and even said that she was very happy for Nick when he and Mindy got together. Now, you will come to find out here soon that things definitely didn't stay amicable, but just for now, know that their split was mutual. Anyways, though, another crucial thing to understand, in this case, a really important piece is understanding Nick's background, particularly his work history. Okay, so he had joined the Navy in 2008, and then he eventually became a prosecuting attorney in the Jaguar, which is the dedicated legal branch of the US military. And he was initially stationed in Virginia, but he would end up traveling quite a bit. He was deployed twice, once to Central America, and then another time to Iraq. And he and Heather also lived in Italy for a few years. After that, they moved back to the States where Nick got a job working in the Pentagon as legal counsel to senior naval officers and military leadership. And while working there, he was simultaneously going to school for his masters in national security law at Georgetown University, with a focus in cyber security and privacy related issues, which is interesting. Okay, so he ended up leaving active duty in September of 2017, a year after he married Mindy, but he continued working as a lawyer. So on paper, we're talking about a very intelligent person, right? Well, book smart does not always equal street smart. And I just have to say, Nick is sodas is one of the dumbest motherfuckers I have ever had the displeasure of learning about. So like I mentioned, Nick and Mindy really appeared to be living the, you know, fairy tale romance, at least to most people around them, but close friends of hers who were a bit more in the know of what exactly was going on in their lives say that things began to shift about two years in. The couple began moving around from state to state. There was a lot of, you know, chaos to be moving constantly. And it became increasingly more difficult to get in contact with Nick and Mindy for her friends. In fact, the only way that they could communicate with them was through the encrypted messaging app called signal. And I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with signal. I have talked about it. I think in a couple of episodes now, but one of her friends Morgan said that Mindy once told her, "If you knew everything that was going on, this is something that would be a best selling novel or movie." And she wasn't wrong because according to what Mindy was telling her friends and family, the closest people to her, she believed that she and Nick were victims of some kind of international spy/hacker campaign. And I'm sure you have a lot of questions about that right away, and I will reveal more details as we go on here, but essentially her understanding was that their bank accounts had been hacked by a dangerous group of people, and that she and Nick were being watched and their lives were in danger, which obviously sounds very, very scary. And I want to be clear, for Mindy, this was very real. She wholeheartedly believed that this was actually happening and that they needed to live in fear, hence why she basically ended up becoming over clues, which is really sad that the end of her life was lived this way. And regardless of where they were living, and like I said, they were moving all the time, but she would stop leaving the house and her communication with the outside world was continuously diminished. She also stopped working and really just stopped being herself, but I'm sure you're wondering why was this happening to them? Well, according to what Nick was telling everyone, including his wife, of course, it had to do with his time in the Navy. He says that he had worked on something highly classified and basically long story short, a memo with his name on it got quoted in a Washington Post article, which caught the attention of an overseas hacking group. And somehow that translated to them becoming targets. The paranoia about all of this began sometime around September 2017, and over the years, it got a lot worse. And when I say that they were moving around a lot, I'm talking a lot. I'm talking over 50 moves. Sometimes it would just be the two of them living together in Airbnb type rentals, and then other times it would be them living with family members of Mindy. For example, there was a time when they were living with Mindy's brother and his wife, and also their daughter. And most recently in the fall of 2022, they were living in Savannah, Georgia with her parents. Now, the exact saga of where they moved and when is pretty complicated, and I'd argue not entirely pivotal to understanding this case. However, the detail of them living with her parents in Savannah does matter because not only were they able to later corroborate the chaos that was going on in their daughter's life, but they could also speak to the circumstances surrounding their daughter's death or both of her deaths, I should say. And I'm sure that makes absolutely no sense to you, but it will hear in a moment. So on December 1st, 2022, Mindy's parents returned to their shared home in Savannah after having been gone for a few days while Frank III, her dad got hip surgery. And when they got back, Mindy was not there. And that's because according to Nick, she was in the hospital. Now, the reason that she was hospitalized changed across his different stories, but generally speaking, he said that she was having health complications. And even though Mindy was normally too afraid to even leave her home because of the threats against them, Mindy was said to have been about eight months pregnant at this time. So her mom and dad didn't question the idea that she would have sought medical care if she needed it, right? But later that evening, Nick revealed the horrible news. After receiving a call from the doctor saying that she was ready to be picked up, he said that he arrived at the hospital only to learn that she had unexpectedly passed away. He said that the doctor told him that Mindy was unplugged from the monitors to use the restroom, but when she came back, the nurse was no longer there. And before the nurse was able to return and hook her back up to the monitors, Mindy had a stroke. And she died. Now, of course hearing this was just beyond devastating to all of Mindy's friends and family. I mean, Mindy had made such an impact on the people in her life. She was so loved. And despite having a difficult last few years, nobody expected that something like this would ever happen. Plus, the fact that she was supposedly going to be giving birth in January, it just felt like twice the loss understandably. Here's the thing though. When Mindy's friends heard the news, they actually had a weird feeling right away that something was off about what Nick was saying. I mean, the details didn't really make sense. And then when one friend tried pushing him for proof that Mindy was gone, he completely ghosted her. In fact, Nick ghosted everyone. Soon after Mindy died, he helped move her parents out of that house in Savannah into a place in Hilton Head. And in February of 2023, they got an email from Nick's employers stating that he had been in a terrible car accident. Then that email was followed by another email not long afterwards, which said he had died. Now, keep in mind, Nick and Mindy's parents were actually quite close. They had spent a lot of time with Nick over the years. So this now meant that they were grieving a third loss. And they weren't the only ones shocked by this. Heather, Nick's first wife was very surprised to hear this news. But the difference with her was, she wasn't necessarily heartbroken. She felt similar to Mindy's friends and believed that something was off here. Something was fishy about the whole situation. And the reason for that had to do with $1.5 million. After getting divorced, it turns out Nick had agreed to pay Heather $1.5 million as part of a court-ordered judgment. However, that money was never received. So for nearly two years, Heather had been trying to track his ass down and get what she was owed from him. But if you recall, Nick and Mindy were very difficult to reach and constantly moving. So with the help of a private investigator, who was actually a friend of hers, she had roughly estimated that he was somewhere in the South, but never was able to figure out an exact location. Now, she had heard of Mindy's passing back in December, which, regardless of her issues with Nick, she said that she was just genuinely sad to hear the news, especially because she was another woman who was around her age. And of course, it's just horrible to hear that a pregnant woman died in such a sudden and shocking way. But when she heard about Nick's death, something just felt off to her. And it's a damn good thing that Heather was as curious as she was. During her quest to figure out what the hell was happening here, what happened to her ex-husband? She stumbled across a forensic sketch that was released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. And when she looked at this sketch, she thought to herself, huh, that looks just like Mindy. And the original poster says the Georgia Bureau of Investigation Statesboro Office is seeking the public's help in identifying this woman. A body of an unidentified white female was found near Jones Road in Riceboro, Georgia, Liberty County, on December 2, 2022. The remains appear to have been placed in the area sometime after November 18, 2022, the victim had no scars, marks, or tattoos. And ultimately, Heather ended up contacting the office to let them know that their Jane Doe resembled Mindy Cassotes, even though Mindy supposedly had died on December 1 in a hospital. And I'm sure you can already see where this is going, but it turns out Heather was right. Investigators confirmed that this Jane Doe actually was Mindy through DNA and genetic genealogy testing. But obviously, this leaves one glaring question, right? If the remains belonged to her, what actually happened to Mindy? Because if she died in a hospital, there's no way her remains are gonna end up being found out somewhere in the wild. Well, in order to answer that, I'm actually going to have to rewind a little bit. So stay with me. But on December 2, 2022, two men were out hunting at the Portal Hunting Club in Riceboro, Georgia, when after shooting a deer and having their dogs try to locate it, they stumbled across a human torso just off of Jones Road. And at first, they actually thought it was a mannequin, but pretty soon they realized that they were actually looking at dismembered human remains. And near her torso, they had also discovered two large plastic totes, a black plastic trash bag, clothes, over a dozen cleaning wipes, and a Milwaukee brand red handled utility knife. Then over the next few days, as investigators continued searching, additional body parts were found scattered over a three mile radius, including, and this is disturbing you guys Mindy's head, which was the only part of her that had actually been buried. And shockingly, no DNA turned up on anything at the scene, and obviously, they were unable to figure out who she She was sooner because she wasn't in any kind of law enforcement system, and since her family and friends believe she was already deceased, it's not like they were looking for her when she disappeared. And Nick had also told everyone that Mindy was cremated, so even if they had somehow come across the news of a dismembered woman, I'm not sure that they would have had any reason to suspect it was her. And that's why it took until May of 2023 to officially determine who this Jane Doe was. However, in those six months, investigators were able to determine some very valuable information as they were working to identify her. They determined that their victim died on or around November 27th and that she had suffered at least nine wounds to her skull in addition to defensive wounds on her arms and stab wounds to her stomach. And what's really odd is the night that was found at the scene was not determined to have been involved in her murder or her dismemberment, yet still, without any physical evidence linking Nick to the murder, investigators believed he was guilty. But I'm sure you're saying wait a second here, Nick is supposed to be dead, right? He died in the car accident, right? Wrong. Investigators learned that not only was Nick not dead due to a car crash, but he was living in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, under a new name, and not just a new name, he also had a new wife. The dude had started a new life. His new name was Nicholas Killian James Stark, and he was married to an author named Samantha Cole Yeznik, and what's weird is she's written a few books, one of which is called True Crime. And I'll get more into their relationship later on when it makes more sense, but I just had to share that, very odd. So anyway, investigators tracked him down in Pennsylvania, and on May 12th, he was arrested on the charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and removal of body parts from the scene of death or dismemberment. And he was questioned that same day, and that's when his story first came to light. Now, I've already shared some of the details with you, and again, this is probably a bit confusing, but it's sort of how I have to lay it out for it to make the most sense. In order for you guys to truly understand the insanity of all of this, we sort of have to go back to the beginning. And luckily, both of Nick's interrogations were recorded, and I am able to play those clips for you guys. And honestly, this is just one of those cases where you have to hear his account directly from him to grasp it, but I will be guiding you through it a bit as well because it's just a lot. Let's go back to 2017, 2018, okay? Now that exact year varies across his story, but that's generally when the beginning of when, according to Nick, their lives were turned upside down by the so-called "international hacking group." He explained that it started with vandalism to their property and money disappearing from their accounts. And then he said it escalated one night when he was attacked with a baseball bat in his own home. And when he was asked who he thought was behind it all, Nick said his own father, Wayne. Well, actually, first it was the "international hacker group" and then it was his ex-wife, Heather. And then it was his dad who was part of the hacker group if you're following. So he was clearly blaming a lot of different people. But anyway, Wayne, his father, was the one he settled on as being the person pulling the strings. Let's go back to, let's say, 2018. Okay. What happened in your life in 2018? In 2018, we started, we started undergoing the campaign of harassment. We started with money going missing from our accounts and escalated to vandalism at the house of our vehicles, threats against us. And then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international" community. And then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international hackers group" and then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international hacker group" and then we started with the "international security team acted as an advisor to Nick and Mindy's safety. Nick would go on to later explain that over the years not once did he ever ask for any kind of documentation that this Jim McIntyre person was actually who he said he was. As you heard, he thought Mindy had looked at Jim's credentials and so he just trusted that the FBI had sent someone to protect them, not making sense already, right? And if you're wondering why the hell the FBI would even do that, you're not alone. And these investigators, you know, I think they're sensing bullshit right away but they were trying to understand and that's when Nick explained his background in the Navy and how that Washington Post article had kicked off this entire saga and according to Nick, Jim was the one who convinced him that his father was behind it all. He actually said that Jim convinced him his father wasn't even his father at all. And to boil it all down, I guess sort of, Nick alleged that Jim controlled every single aspect of their lives from where they were living to who he was working for, to who they were able to communicate with and how they spent their money. He claimed that they genuinely lived in fear every moment of their lives since this began and that they wholeheartedly believed that Jim McIntyre was trying to protect them and their assets, which is why he says they did everything Jim McIntyre told them to do because of the apparent risk being found Nick explained that Jim McIntyre would only allow them to communicate with him or anyone else via signal and that they were told that they had to move houses often to avoid being discovered. Jim would supposedly message them that they were in danger and then his security team would organize their next move. And he literally said that this team would handle everything from coordinating the location of the move to physically moving all of their belongings. And he said that they would move anywhere from every few days to every few weeks. So pretty chaotic way to live, right? Now these details came out in both of his interrogations, the second of which took place at the end of May after he was extradited back to Georgia. I feel like the clips from the second one are slightly higher quality, so you'll be hearing that moving forward, but the information is the same. But anyway, in both of these interrogations, obviously the question that everyone really wanted to know is what really happened to Mindy. How could Nick possibly say that she died in a hospital when literally the next day her dismembered remains were found? And to answer that, I'm going to play a series of clips for you where he explains how he came to find out that Mindy was supposedly dead. To be clear, Nick says he now believes that he was lied to about everything including her death, but he swears up and down that these events occurred and that he legitimately believed that she had died. And the beginning of his story starts the week of Thanksgiving, 2022. Nick says that he was out of town and while he was gone, he received a message from Mindy stating that she was checking herself into a clinic. And in my research, the term clinic, Drs. Office and non-traditional hospital have all been used to describe the location of this. So if you hear me use those words interchangeably, that's why. But anyway, he claims that they were messaging over a signal, of course. And even though he offered to come visit her, she supposedly told him not to. And here's Nick describing exactly what happened next. - 10 you're back today and you're back out with another shot. Yeah, I can call you. I don't have somebody, I've got a phone call, I've read it from here, I don't know if it's something I'm not asking if I could, I don't think it was something I knew, asking if I could tell him to pick her up that afternoon around, I think around three, but I'm not exactly sure. I left and was driving there and had it that very far and got all the same, it was actually a little bit later. - Okay, I don't think I'll do it. - I believe it was somebody from the office, okay? At that point, I was really sure what to do. In terms of my time, I drove out, I think I drove out towards that way a bit and then I went and ran a couple of errands about emergency during. - I think I went to the pet store. I'm not sure where else I'm gonna go on. - So how far is it from the pet store to the doctor's office? - I think 10 to 15 minutes. - And from the place you were residing, how far would you say it would be the doctor's office? - I'm not sure, I only drove it coming back at a memorable and clear on how long it took. - So you had to drive there and you got to circle the mic several times? - Yeah, yeah, so that was the design of that two hours or-- - I think it was potentially longer. I just said I'm just messing around with our call, okay? So with the doctor, your office being in the cement area. - Oh yes, absolutely, absolutely, I'm messing around. - Cutting in here real quick because Nick's lack of memory when it comes to where this took place is one of the biggest red flags in this whole story. And what's outrageous too is that you'll hear that he remembers very specific details about very unimportant information. But when it comes to where his wife died, the name of the doctor who treated his wife and other things like that, Nick, all of the sudden can't come up with anything. Hmm. - So what you arrived was I pulled in and there was a man, I could see a man standing behind the door. - Okay, it's a glass door. And as I stopped, he opened the door. - Okay, he came out and he had a gesture towards me. I walked in, he brought me a short distance. I thought it was all less media from the door to, an additional door on the right hand side. - Were there other patients in the way you learned it from? - Not that I noticed, but there might have been. I didn't walk through the way you were, I kind of came directly and then they all had, I mean, he sat me down, I assume that was going to get some sort of instructions. She can do this, she can't do that. - So what did they, why is it like, so what did he say in there? - So I sat down and he said that he was very excited to tell me that he passed away suddenly. - He got, but he wasn't at the doctor. - I assumed he was the doctor. - So he said, me and he had passed away, so I was not there. - No, I was, I was just trying to understand, I was, I thought I was coming there just to, just to get there and then the doctor, he said, he said he wasn't sure what had happened that they were about, that they were going to find out, 'cause I asked what happened, he said he wasn't sure, they weren't sure what happened, whatever it was, it happened very suddenly. And he said that, he said that they were going to find out, I don't know how long I was there, and I was really upset, I don't feel like it was too long, but I'm not sure when I left. - But, before he left, a bit of a checkered bike was here. - They did not. - He had asked the same. - I asked about kids here and DPP said not right now. - I thought it was because of D, maybe like the autopsy or something. I seem to have been a chance to see their multiple times, I know her head. Did you get any copies of what they were, what you did, what you did, what you were doing? - Now, I signed it, I think I was, I was, I was, I was extremely upset, I didn't know what to do. I went straight back to her parents and told them. - Convenient how he magically has no documentation of her death, either. - Okay, dude. In all seriousness though, shout out to these interrogators because they called out his bullshit the entire time. - You go to this doctor's office to tell you, why I've died, you don't ask to see her, you need to leave, I did ask you. You don't get to see her. You don't force me to go to any further to see her. You just take them at work, you don't let her name you, you don't let her address you, don't let her return there, whatever it is, leave. - Did you carry what? - No sir, okay, I swear I don't know what to do. - You did not give you, I didn't know what to do. - No sir. - Now, his story only gets more absurd from here you guys. Remember how earlier I said that Nick said that Mindy was cremated? Well, he claimed that that was accidental. Yeah, while supposedly waiting for the autopsy to be completed, he says he got a call that they'd mistakenly cremated her remains. Then he explained that he received a phone call from a man saying that he could pick up her ashes if he paid $5,000 in cash. But it wasn't a doctor's office or a funeral home or a crematory where he picked her up. No, of course it wasn't something like that because this story is coming from Nick. So he said that he actually picked them up from a man on the side of the road in Montgomery, Alabama. I mean, you cannot make this shit up. Well, I guess you can't if you're Nick, but you know what I mean. Like this story is just so ridiculous. And to add to the ridiculousness, Montgomery, Alabama, wherever he says he picked up her remains was a five and a half hour drive, by the way. Although actually he wasn't driving from Savannah to Alabama, he was coming from Jacksonville, Florida, which is a six hour drive. Because Nick said that he had gone to Jacksonville after her death to pick up some beer because he was part of this beer club, I guess. And while he was there, he got a call about her ashes. So then you go to the new Florida. Is it possible? You guys are Florida. And when you go to Florida, to pick up the beer. Yes. And then you have to come to Florida because they're going to be Alabama's. And you can't just to check for $5,000. So that's the cash withdrawal. Cash withdrawal. Yeah, I think it looks like that. You can't say shit, yes. That you get $5,000. You make some cash on the side of the road and Alabama for many disasters. But what Nick didn't know at the time of this interrogation was that investigators already had some very damning evidence against him to say the least. It turns out that the water pump station located not far from Mindy's remains had a security camera on it. And it just happened to capture a green Ford Explorer driving towards the location of the dump site on November 29th, just three days before her torso was found. And then about two hours later, that same car was seen leaving the area. And I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that that is the exact same car that Nick was driving at the time. Keyword being at the time because that car magically caught on fire in May of 2023, just a few months before this interrogation. And naturally, Nick had, of course, an explanation for being seen on camera. And surprise, surprise, it all goes back to Jim McIntyre, the mystery man. On the morning of November 29th, conveniently, Nick says that Jim's security team reached out to him to tell him that it was, once again, time to move. Mindy, according to his story to be clear, was already at the doctor's office. And they had been communicating over the last few days via signal. He said the last time he physically saw her was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which would have been the 26th. Anyway, after supposedly learning that they had to move again, he says he packed up their belongings in plastic totes, which he was then directed to drop off at a location provided to him by the security team. And remember, part of his story is that anytime they needed to move, this security team would move all of their stuff for them. [MUSIC PLAYING] So he tells investigators that he was given the GPS coordinates of a house. And then he was instructed to deliver their belongings to this house. However, he was supposedly told by Jim, of course, to turn his phone off on the drive there. And then to navigate his way, he used one of those Garmin or Garmin GPS devices. for your car. I'm not sure the pronunciation on that doesn't really matter, right? A GPS device, which conveniently this GPS device burned in the car fire. And that, he says, is why his car must have been seen driving past the water pump station. But here's where things get even more ridiculous. And yes, they do get more ridiculous because that security footage wasn't the only footage captured of Nick that day. Uh-uh, because earlier that morning, he was seen on surveillance at Home Depot, buying a red-handled Milwaukee brand utility knife. Ha! If you remember, that's the same knife that was found near Mindy's torso. And then earlier that month, he was also seen at Home Depot, buying a shovel, which aligns with the fact that Mindy's head was buried. But don't worry, of course, Nick can explain. He says he actually just bought that knife to repair a mosquito net at their Airbnb because even though they were allegedly moving that day, he wanted the place to be in the best condition it could be. You know, he's just being considerate for the rental owners or whoever's coming next, right? Okay, yeah, top priority. Make sense, dude. And here's Nick talking about dropping the bins off with that man and his weird ass explanation about the mosquito net. The day that you bought the knife and traveled down the road, where's you going? I left. I stepped for gas. I stepped in Home Depot. I believe I stopped and talked to Jim with Mindy's money in the car. No, sir. No, sir. And then I drove out there, out where? I don't know. I believe I had an address to the church and then I had a GPS location out. Well, what do you do there? I stopped. The gentleman came out of the house. The 40 minutes that you were dead, there's no house at that 40 minutes that you stopped live. So I think we can cut the house out if he's alive. So you don't have to remember a house because there was no house. I stopped at a house. How long did you set? I don't know exactly sure. If you talk to me for a couple minutes about something he was doing, he had some suddenness right now. So what else did you do? I said, how do you go to the bathroom? I peed out of the tree. He directed me over there. I moved the thing was from the back of the car. What were the things left you said you were moving from the car to the house? What were they there? My stomach around. Yeah, he said he would. He said he would take care of that. That you'd go ahead and get a bath to prepare the misguided things. No, you're fixing to leave the area. Yes, sir. We wanted to leave it in the last condition. And here's what really trips me up about this story you guys through it all. Nick continuously is making these claims over and over again that they were terrified for their lives. They didn't even want to leave the house yet. He has no problem going to Home Depot. It's things like that that just reinforced to me that he wasn't actually afraid. Even the stuff about those plastic bins just enrages me because it's like you just happened to bring those bins the same area where your wife's body was found, which you said was you delivering your belongings to some strange man who was supposedly moving them. And then identical bins with her blood on it happened to be found in that area. How stupid can Nick get even worse? How stupid does he think these investigators are not to mention that bullshit about Jim McIntyre telling him to turn off his phone. If they were so worried about someone tracking him that way, why wasn't it off when he was at Home Depot? And why was he driving his own vehicle? Nothing he said was adding up clearly. And investigators, yeah, they definitely weren't buying it really from the jump. Instead, investigators believe that he went down to Riceboro to dump Mindy's remains, which they think were transported in those tubs. And as we know, Mindy was dismembered. And even though that Milwaukee brand knife wasn't determined to have been used, there was additional evidence that circumstantially linked Nick to dismembering her. Just before her murder, he purchased a hunting knife set at a Bass Pro Shop in Savannah. And some of those knives would have been capable of cutting bone. Investigators never located his exact set, but when they tested the same knives that they independently purchased, they couldn't be excluded as a match. They also uncovered evidence pointing to where she was killed. And that was at the Airbnb that Nick was actively moving out of. Just after his arrest, forensic experts scoured the property and luminol testing showed blood in several areas. Most of it appeared to have been cleaned up, except for one area with a stain too big to get rid of. The futon in the living room had visible blood stains, which were conclusively matched to Mindy. And it's believed that that's where she was sitting. When Nick struck her, a minimum of nine times. There is quite literally no explanation for how that could have gotten there. Even Mr. I can explain everything had no explanation for that. He could, however, explain that set of hunting knives. According to Nick, Mindy told him that her younger brother Matthew was really into hunting and that for Christmas, they should get him a new set of knives. But when asked where those knives were, Nick said they must have gotten lost during one of his moves, because of course they did. And as for the Milwaukee brand knife, he said that his knife wasn't the one at the scene. His was either in a storage unit or burned up when his car caught on fire. So basically, he has all these explanations, but no ability to actually prove anything that he is saying is actually true. And every excuse comes back to this international man of mystery, Jim McIntyre, who he also can't prove exists. But of course, guys, Nick says he can explain this. Nick said that they only communicated to be a signal. Plus, he said that Jim was constantly changing his phone number all the time. And also he said that shortly after Mindy died, his car was broken into and someone stole two laptops and a cell phone, all of which had their communication on it. And by April of 2023, the contact with Jim ceased to exist entirely. My question is, though, if Jim McIntyre cared so much about protecting Nick and Mindy and did everything Nick alleges he did for years, where is he now? Why wasn't he and his security team rushing in to prove that this was all real to prove that they are real? Maybe it's because Jim McIntyre isn't fucking real. And the icing on the cake is, Nick must have known how absolutely absurd his story sounded. And that's why he took the approach of, I think Jim was lying to me. I touched on it for a second earlier, but throughout his interrogation and later, during his trial, Nick of course played the victim card. He still insisted that Jim McIntyre was real, but he said that he was starting to realize that Jim may have been lying to him about everything. And that he, Jim, was the person behind Mindy's murder after all. You don't even know what happened to Jim McIntyre. Even your car should have cleared where you were at. Down this long dirt road, it just happened to pass the camera. So you can continue with the web of lies and the stories. There's always a reason in for things. It's a reason that you're just a vicious killer in the side of your life, or that you're getting some kind of argument. Yes, that is right. He is now blaming Jim McIntyre for murdering Mindy. And also, speaking of his motive, that obviously was all hashed out during his trial. So let's just go ahead and jump forward to that, because I could really spend all day dissecting that interrogation. It's just so ridiculous. I have so many thoughts, but yeah, we would be sitting here all days and we still have a lot more to go over. So moving into the trial here, Nick's trial began in August of 2025. And it was as ridiculous as you would imagine. The defense presented their opening statements first, and it was argued that Nick was not the killer of Mindy, but rather a victim of, of course, Jim McIntyre. His attorney explained how Nick and Mindy lived every day in fear based on Jim's word, and that his client was tricked into following his every backing call. Ladies and gentlemen, my client, Nick Cassodus, is not just an accomplished attorney and decorated Jag Officer, who served his country and Iraq and in the Pentagon. He is also a man who lived in fear, relentless, all-consuming fear. His wife Mindy also lived in fear. Mr. Cassodus is accused of the unthinkable, but the truth, what really happened, is far more complex. Mr. and Mrs. Cassonis were told that they were targets. You will hear testimony that a man calling himself Jim McIntyre. Who knows if that is his real name? Claiming to be with the FBI, told them that their lives were in danger, that they had to disappear, follow orders without question and trust no one, not their family, not their friends, not their loved ones. Every move they made, every lie that they both told. Every strange decision, and there were quite a few that you will hear about in testimony, were driven by that fear. Mr. Cassonis lied to his friends. He lied to his family. He lied to Mindy's loved ones. He lied for years, not because he wanted to deceive them, but because he believed that their lives depended on it. You're not going to hear testimony that Mr. Cassonis killed Mindy. You will hear testimony that he tried to protect her, but he was manipulated, controlled, terrified, and that fear, real and overwhelming, shaped everything that he did. But what is so ridiculous and laughable about the defense's strategy to me personally, is that it all hinges on the belief that Jim was real, which they cannot prove absolutely wild. Like, yes, you can say that the only reason Nick lied to people and behaved the way he did was because Jim told him to. They presented zero physical evidence during the trial that he is a real person because he's not. Literally, all they had was Nick's testimony. That was their proof of Jim McIntyre existing. And that testimony walked the jury through everything I've shared with you this far. From the early days of being harassed, to Jim showing up on their doorstep, and all of the things that he allegedly made Nick and Mindy do to keep themselves safe, I'll be playing clips of his testimony as we go on, but to spare you, I'm not going to replace some of the same parts of his story that we've already heard. Now, as for Nick's lies that were mentioned in that opening statement, I'll point them out as we go, but basically, the defense argued that Nick can't be blamed for things that Jim told him to say. One example, being his death. Remember guys, Nick died in a car crash, right? Well, according to the defense, he was told to say that because it would keep him safe. And therefore, the jury was supposed to just believe that poor Nick was the victim in all of this. But for the prosecution, he was anything but. They argued that he was deliberately manipulating his wife, his friends, and his family into believing a story so absurd, so impossible that the outcome of that manipulation and of his lies was Mindy's murder. December 2, 2022 is the week right after Thanksgiving. That weekend for South Georgians is a big hunting weekend. It's a dear season. And you're going to hear that there were hunters out. You're going to also hear that quartle hunting club is a dog club. That means is that when they hunt, they use dogs to do the hunt. And the dogs run out into the woods, and the deer run, and then the hunters shoot. You're going to hear that one of those hunters shot a deer. And the dogs that he was using went to retrieve the buck. The dogs just weren't acting right. So he went to look to figure out what was going on. He did not expect what he found. But the torso wasn't all that was found on that first day of December 2, 2022. Crime scene's going to talk about what they recovered there. And that investigator recovered not just the torso, but the tubs that were used to transport it. And I submit to you, you're going to hear testimony about the blood that was found inside of those tubs. And they're going to tell you also about the knife. You're going to hear about that knife. A Milwaukee orange handle, black sheathed knife. And that knife, ladies and gentlemen, had a cleansing wipe wrapped around it. Those wipes were everywhere. There were lots of them that were recovered. Because the killer didn't want to leave behind evidence. I submit to you, that killer was a prosecutor. I submit to you that the evidence is going to show that he would have known to clean up. And I submit to you that there's more evidence. You're going to hear why everybody believed Mr. Cassotus. Council just told you all these wonderful things about his crime. Decorated military veteran, prosecutor, judge advocate general with the Navy, two law degrees. It's not just her family that believed him. Everybody believed him. And then you're going to hear the statements from the defendant. And I submit to you, you should listen to them very carefully. There's a lot of information in there. And it's information that law enforcement was able to run down. It's not just lies. It's things that are impossible, I submit to you. Much of her case was built on the contradictions that I've shared and the evidence I went through earlier. But one thing I've yet to mention is his motive. Because despite his denials, Nick certainly had one. And according to the prosecution, that motive pointed back to his first wife, Heather. Remember that $1.5 million judgment that Nick owed her in the divorce? Well, I'm sure a lot of you have already put this together. But the state argued that the reason he and Mindy were on the run was actually for him to try and avoid making that payment. And to be very clear here, I don't believe and the prosecution didn't believe that Mindy was in on it. They think Nick genuinely convinced her that their lives were absolutely in danger, and that Jim was helping them stay safe. And to help prove their point, the state called Heather to the stand who testified about her and Nick's relationship and their divorce and how she spent years trying to reach him in order to get that money. And early on, before he was impossible to find, Nick even appeared in court to discuss these funds. But back then, he had an excuse for why he couldn't pay. The judge was very upset after he heard Nick testify under oath that he not only had money, he had more than enough of the money, and that he just was refusing to pay it. So the judge was not very kind. He admitted having how much money? $32 million. And he'd tell the court he was having difficulty accessing that money? Yes. What did he tell the court? He told the court that his wife, his current wife, Mindy, was holding his funds and that he thought that she had a claim to it because it was earned during his marriage with her and that he was pursuing other actions with her. But the judge was like, well, I can't bring her into court but you're here. So you need to put a move on it. And I want this done. I want to see movement in a week. Otherwise your liberty is at stake. Now, the point Heather just made about the $32 million is another key piece to this case. Throughout all of Nick's interrogations, as well as testimony during his trial, he alleged that Jim managed his and Mindy's finances. Mindy stopped working when she became too paranoid to leave the house, but Nick, on the other hand, said that he got a job working for a company called A Pist Limited, which was some kind of AI software developer. He claims that Jim employed him and that he worked all day every day for this company, which is how he and Mindy earned their living. But rather being control of what he earned, he swears that Jim McIntyre managed all their bank accounts. He said if they had the money in their accounts, it would disappear because of the hackers. And the thing is, he can't produce any documentation that any of his work or money even existed because he never actually received a paycheck. Instead, Nick explained that he was paid in stock options because it was safer. And if that was true, why not just pay Heather, right? You owe her a ton of money. Great question. So according to Nick, he has an answer for that. He says he thought he did pay her. He thought he did, you guys. And in this explanation, he blames who else Jim McIntyre once again, and he testified saying that Jim told him that the $1.5 million was already transferred. Do you know why Jim McIntyre would help you find a job? I believe that he was helping me because of our situation. And as I had talked to him and I was hoping to find something that would allow me to work from home, because despite his reassurances, he did not think at that time we were in real danger. I was very uncomfortable leaving Mindy Home alone. What was your role within APIS Limited? I was an attorney, kind of a general general counsel role, though it carried with it a lot of kind of other stuff. Were you still with this company in 2019? Yes, I was. And that's about the same time that Heather is coming out, finally bringing it to a head to collect this divorce obligations that you've failed to perform? Yes, so when you agreed to pay her one and a half million dollars, what made you think that you had one and a half million dollars? Mr. Jim McIntyre told me I did. If I could back up just a little. Please, because that year, a lot, the year 2018 into early 2019, a lot had happened. In May, we were asked, we were told to leave our house, he said that there were arrests being made and that there was nobody. It was a holiday weekend, I believe it was Memorial Day weekend and he was worried we would not be safe if we stayed there. That somebody might do something rash and we were terrified. We kind of grabbed our dog and we went down to Williamsburg, Virginia. We kind of huddled down there for the weekend and came back thinking that everything was over. It was not over, obviously. Things continued if anything, it picked up pace. Why would Jim McIntyre know how much money you had? Because there was a large sale or licensing agreement that was completed at some point. I wasn't getting paid by this company, I was paid only in stock options and I was told that this large sum of money was being given to me. But we had real issues with getting a large chunk of money because we couldn't put a couple hundred dollars into our account without it going missing within a matter of minutes if not hours. During that time, he set up a trust, he showed a extensive documentation where it would be invested and care would be taken of it and it wouldn't be anything that we could touch until it was safe to do so. Eventually you go into court in Virginia because Heather's attempting to get this million and a half dollars from you, correct? Yes, this million and a half was something that Jim had suggested to me to make an offer to her. Why would you tell the judge that Mindy was the impediment to you paying the million and a half dollars? At the time, that's what I was told. And you heard the judge warn you that you better come up with that money in the next week, correct? Absolutely. And what did the judge tell you would happen if you didn't come up with that money in the next week? That I'd be held in contempt and arrested. Did you come up with that money in the next week? I believe that didn't. Why did you believe you did? Because when I returned home, both Mindy and Jim McIntire were there, Jim said that this was kind of his last investigative step into Heather, into Mrs. Thomas. And he said that she was not involved in what was going on, that he had wired the money. I had a wire confirmation and I had bank documents later showing that money coming out of the trust and I assumed that everything was settled. Do you have any of that documentation right now? I do not anymore. Why not? Because we left that house later that year and I don't know if we left it there or if it has something that we lost over time, but we moved a lot. And what's just so infuriating when it comes to this case and Nick is that everything had an excuse. I mean, he could blame Jim for everything that happened and he could come up with something to explain why he couldn't prove it. Things were stolen, lost in the moves or burned in a fire. I mean, you would think a former prosecutor, which don't forget he was, would know how important evidence is. But no, not this dummy. You were on trial for murder, correct? I was not. In anticipation of today and your testimony, you knew you were on trial for murder, correct? Yes, ma'am. And you didn't bring a single court document with you. Well, ma'am, I believe the testimony is fairly clear that I was lied to about Mindy's death and that I did not have a document because there were no documents. You worked for APIS Security, correct? I believed so, ma'am. No W2, right? At some point, I saw W2, but. But you didn't bring one. No, ma'am, I believe there was one in discovery, but I don't recall. You do. You believe there was one in discovery? I believe so, ma'am. Can you tell us what document that was? I can't recall. I believe it was a tax document. Was there a W4? I don't recall. I'm not sure what a W4 is, ma'am. What about tax records? You got paid, right? It was paid into a trust, ma'am. For five years, you worked for a company and got zero money handed to you. Handed to me? Yes, ma'am. And believe it or not, you guys, the money stuff gets even more fucked up because a woman named Cameron, who was in the Navy with Nick, took the stand to testify. And she said, Nick was actually really helpful to her when she got diagnosed with cancer and was unable to perform some of her duties. Well, long story short, it was her money that he was spending the entire time. So early on in his scheme, Nick had told Cameron that his bank account was hacked, of course. So she was nice enough to give him a credit card. I think mainly because she sort of felt like she owed him for the help he had given her in her past. And he had racked up, you guys, nearly $200,000 worth of charges on her card. But obviously, Nick denied being the one to do that. In fact, he said it was Jim who was spending it. In fact, Nick testified when he discovered that Jim was spending Cameron's money. That was the moment he first learned that Jim was not actually in the FBI after all. Why did you believe Jim McIntyre was paying for all these places? I believe that the money was being paid for us. I believe that he was protecting us because of this investigation. How did Jim McIntyre get Cameron's credit card information in order to have Cameron pay for all of this? I have absolutely no idea. Did you provide it to him? I did not. But Cameron provided you with her credit card information correct? Yes. Cameron provided me with a physical credit card as well as the billing address. That I believed we were using for food from time to time and two initial rentals when we had first left our home. I did not think that we were putting anything else large on that card so we did not talk about it for some time. You gave Jim McIntyre access to your financials? I gave Jim McIntyre access to literally everything. I believed because of the investigation and that it was necessary. Financials, you know, my bank accounts, my email accounts, my social media accounts, absolutely everything. And it was at this time that we learned that Mr. McIntyre was not a federal agent. How did you learn that? I had a conversation with him as to why he was charging a friend of mine's card. Why wasn't there either coming from our own money or some sort of official fund? You know, why this was happening? And I made some reference to wanting to speak to his superior and he said, you know, Nick, I'm not an FBI agent. Why would you think of that? Did you continue to maintain your relationship with him after you found out about this? We did after following, you know, probably the worst argument that Mindy and I ever had. But you didn't cut ties with Jim. No, Mindy felt that Jim was our angel. She said he'd made mistakes, but we would be in the position to fix all those mistakes. And if we stop working together, then who knows if his resolve to see this end in our favor was going to go away? Did you inquire of Jim McIntyre why he was doing all of this work for you if he was not with the FBI? Absolutely. What did you learn? I learned that he was the majority investor in this company that I was working for. He also said that he had worked extensively with the FBI and, you know, I had many phone calls with people I believed to be, you know, even following that FBI agents. And speaking of money, Nick actually did earn $400,000 in June of 2022, which was separate from his so-called job at APIS Limited, which also the name APIS. Interesting. Okay. But that brings me to the next big saga of events here having to do with his third wife. Yes. So something that Nick used to do in his free time since he had a lot more free time than he would have liked people in his life to believe, but he would write these short stories for Reddit. And one story called my mother-in-law is poisoning me and then I found out why somehow caught the attention of Sony Pictures. And I know this sounds crazy, but this actually did happen. So the story that he wrote itself is this strange dark tale about a woman who thinks she's being poisoned, but it turns out to be the husband who was actually trying to kill her. And the mother-in-law was the hero. Anyway, so Sony did purchase the rights to this story for $400,000 and Nick received about 300,000 after taxes and whatnot. And I bring this up for a few reasons, right? For starters, Nick's whole story was totally contradicted by this money. Even though Jim said it was dangerous for him to have money in his own account, this money was somehow fine. Which obviously makes no fucking sense, but I digress. I also bring this up because Nick's hobby as a Reddit author is. is also how he met his third wife, Samantha. And this part of the story is where a lot of his lies I mentioned earlier come to light. So it all started in September of 2022, which is when he and Samantha began communicating. Now mind you, this is before Mindy dies. According to Nick's testimony, he struck up an online friendship with Samantha, who was a fellow author. And although it was flirtatious, he claims he never had an affair. The thing is though, Nick told Samantha that Mindy was already dead. And of course, his reason for doing that is because Jim McIntyre told him to. He testified that he did have an emotional affair with a woman named Joy, but he only did that because he thought Mindy was dying of COVID. - Do you recall telling Samantha called Yesnick that your wife had died prior to her actual death? - I did. - Why did you tell her that? - This goes back to the fall of 2020. We were in Beaufort and Mindy got sick. And within a day or two, took a COVID test and it was positive. This was pre-vaccine and we called Mr. McIntyre. He had somebody come and pick her up and take her to the hospital. And I was told within a matter of days that she was not expected to live. And I was using social media to talk to people. I was a wreck and I started communicating with an old friend of Mindy's or by the name of Joy. And it became much more romantic in nature. - But when you told Samantha called Yesnick that Mindy had died, that was in October of '22, I believe? - Yes, following this Mindy recovered in late December 2020. It was very, very unexpected and Jim was, frankly, he said he reviewed. He had not been reviewing my social media as closely as he had at the beginning and was, frankly, extremely livid with me that I had been talking to people that I didn't know well that I had been saying. Outside of signal, I had been saying where I was, what was going on with Mindy. I was, frankly, trying to survive. Following that, he said he had some new rules for us that we, you know, he said that since I had told so many people that I was married, that I had to start saying that Mindy had passed away that she had died of COVID. - I mean, for a guy that wasn't cheating on her, he moved on very fast, don't you think? (gentle music) (gentle music) - So in mid-December of 2022, only two weeks after Mindy died, Nick went to Pennsylvania to see Samantha and then in February of 2023, they got engaged and by April of 2023, they got married. So things moved extremely fast with them and before that, they were already talking about buying a house and starting a family. And Samantha herself took the stand to talk about all of these things and how she was duped by Nick, who, if you remember, was going by another name. Before Mindy died when the two of them first met online, he was going by Nicholas Killian James Stark. And she actually did ask him to send proof of his identity and it was later determined that he showed her a Photoshopped ID. He also showed her a letter from Epis Ltd, where the last name Stark was used, but he didn't legally change it until after Mindy's death. And of course when he was asked why he would lie about all of this, Demas Nick pointed the finger right at Jim. And apparently, it's because Jim said it wasn't safe for him to use his real name anymore. And another thing that Nick lied to Samantha about was his marriage history. He said that Mindy was his first and only wife because Jim told him to say that. So for several months, poor Samantha was completely in the dark and truly believed that they really were starting a life together. And that included buying a house and starting a family, all things that she was looking forward to. But when it came to buying a house, they ran into a major roadblock when Nick said that the cashier's check he'd obtained for the purchase of a house burned when his car caught fire. We've seen pictures of your burned up Ford Explorer. What happened, sir? On March, I think believe it was March 20th of 2023, I was driving the Ford Explorer. I had left the rental we were staying at, driven north to run some errands, and also to, I believe, pick up a cashier's check for the purchase of a home. And shortly thereafter, I was making a turn onto another road. And the car was kind of fighting me a little. Like it was taking more force to turn than I thought it would. I continued down the road and was smelling something odd. And I stopped at that point. I realized that there was smoke in the interior of the car. I got out, crossed around to the passenger side to get my phone out, but opened the door, and the fire kind of just came right up at me. It was the car went up extreme with us. What happened to the goods that were in your vehicle? Everything was destroyed. You mentioned picking up a cashier's check to purchase a home. Yes, tell me about your home purchase. Sam and I had been looking for places to live and we had settled on a house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Where was the cashier's check from? I believe it was from Citizens Bank, but I did not physically draw the cashier's check. You say you didn't draw the cashier's check. Who drew the cashier's check? Somebody that Jim McIntyre worked with, who he had me meet and pick up that morning. And what happened to the check? The check burned along with my car, bits of me, and everything I had in the car at the time. What'd you do about the destroyed check? I talked to Mr. McIntyre within, I don't know the exact time it was pretty shocking. I was driven back to the rental by a police officer and I called him while I was still in the police officer's car to say, I need a new cashier's check. And he said, I think that might take a while. I think that's a problem. I bring this up because the prosecution obviously argued that this was yet another lie. Instead, it was argued that Nick intentionally burned the car because it linked him to the crime scene. The car fire also served as a perfect excuse as for why he couldn't produce certain evidence. And another thing the prosecution argued was that his desire to start a family quickly with Samantha spoke to his other motive. And that had to do with the fact that Mindy wasn't actually having his baby. When they performed the autopsy, they determined that Mindy was not actually pregnant. And I definitely have some questions surrounding this because Mindy herself did tell her friends and family that she was expecting and the baby was supposed to be here soon. And even her dad testified to the fact that he believed she was pregnant. So I don't know if maybe she had a miscarriage at some point or maybe she just told everyone she was pregnant when in reality she wasn't. I've thought maybe she was fearful of Nick in a way and faked the pregnancy because of him. Just who knows, who knows if she even faked the pregnancy, it really could have been a miscarriage. But I think that's an important detail to mention here is a big part of the trial. But either way, the prosecution believed that having children was so important to Nick that he killed her when he found out that that wasn't going to happen. And this is really brutal to think about. It makes me very upset, but they pointed to the fact that her abdomen had sustained such brutal wounds. Maybe he was upset about the lack of pregnancy. Maybe he felt like she duped him or something like that and he took his anger out on the area where she would have carried his baby. And even Heather, his first wife, testified about how having children was really, really important to him. And she said she had even gotten pregnant once during their marriage, but she lost the baby. And after that, things just weren't the same. But anyway, motive or no motive, the evidence really points at one person and one person only. And that person is not Jim McIntyre. Nick's car placed him near the scene of her remains. Nick admitted to turning his phone off during the time it's believed she was dumped. Nick was the one scene by multiple knives and a shovel leading up to her murder. And Nick had the knowledge as a former prosecutor to wipe down the bins and knife at the scene. Not to mention, it was the Airbnb Nick lived in with Mindy where forensic experts found her blood on a futon. And Nick was entirely unable to provide a scrap of physical evidence to corroborate any of his claims. And yes, while the prosecution's case was largely circumstantial, the pieces of the puzzle they put together told a story that was not only believable, but probable. Meanwhile, the same cannot be said for Nick and the defense. In order to believe he's innocent, you would have to believe that Jim McIntyre is a real person. And I don't think the defense proved that. Hell, the only Jim McIntyre that the authorities could actually locate in Savannah was some old guy who sold dental implants. And so the prosecution closed their case, hoping that the jury would see him for the monster and the liar that he is. The defense, however, was hopeful that Nick would be seen as the victim that they tried to paint him out to be. And in the end, thank goodness, the jury decided they couldn't believe him. And after only one hour of deliberation, they found Nick guilty. on all charges. Then at his sentencing, several people spoke on Mindy's behalf, and the statement that I want to highlight today came from her friend Morgan, who spoke about the pain that this loss caused. "There are people literally all over this world that have been impacted by Mindy's life, and I'm here to speak on behalf of them. I always say my world's collided with Mindy. Not only was she my high school friend, but after moving to Savannah, all of my college friends became her friends too. This entire trial has rightly been focused on what happened to Mindy, but Mindy was so much more than what happened to her. She was a bright light, vibrant, generous, funny, caring, a defender of others, passionate, trustworthy, and so much more. If anyone in her life would have been in her position, she would be standing right here today speaking for them. Nick, you slowly and strategically tried to dampen her light, isolating her from the people she deeply loved, robbing her of time, laughter, creating memories, and peace, always living in fear and isolation. She loved you and trusted you to tell her the truth, and yet you were the one that she needed protection from. Her death has had and will have an eternal impact on those that left her, but it's not just me and her friends that will miss out. This entire world is impacted by the ending of her life too soon. There are compelling women whose stories she will never get to tell on her podcast. There are strangers who will never know the beauty of the sound of her laughter or the impact of her most fiercestiral. Your conviction can't bring her back. It just means that you can't do it to anyone else. But every person you heard from on the stand and the many who are watching right now from a distance will never stop keeping the truth of who she was and her memory alive. You may have taken her life, but you will never be able to take her legacy and she wouldn't want you to know that today. And surprisingly, Nick's parents also spoke despite the fact that he had once blamed his own father, but they stood up there in support of him. He heard a lot of things in this court room this morning. Last over two years have been held for all of us, including Nicholas. Although I don't agree with the verdict that was reached in this court that the jury reached, I do respect the process. They have no idea who Nicholas was. Nicholas is a kind, gentle man that has touched thousands of lives both as a civilian and as a military person. He is truly a wonderful, kind person. And from the beginning, when this all broke, from the lives that Agent Sand told the family members, we never believed that this was possible, and we still don't believe that this is possible. We know the person sitting there, our son, as a kind or gentle person, that would not do this. And there's really no evidence that showed that he did. I just want you to be considerate and look at the man who he is and who will also be Thank you, Your Honor. Thank you Mr. Presence. Your Honor, I would like to say first how incredibly sorry we are for Mindy's family that they had to go through this. But Nicholas was not responsible for this. We know him to be a kind and gentle person. He is a good and kind and gentle person. The thought that he could take someone else's life is just unbelievable. Honestly, I respect the jury's work that they did, but they got this one wrong. I'm sorry. But when all was said and done, Nick was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus 25 years for Mindy's murder. Now, it's no surprise to you where I stand on this and I will be pretty shocked if there's many of you that stand on the other side of things. But I want to hear from you if you think the jury got this one right. This whole case is just such a mind-fuck not to mention extremely disturbing and upsetting and the depths that Nick was willing to go to to manipulate so many people is just the sickest kind of evil. And just thinking about what we know Mindy probably went through in the time leading up to her death, not to mention all the things that we probably don't even know about. It's just, it's horrific. I mean, she was just psychologically tormented for all that time and she. God, I just don't even. Sorry, I'm getting emotional, but it's very hard to think about what the very end of her life was like. She really sounded like such a great person and it's such a shame that Nick ever ended up being part of her life and she did not deserve to be murdered, especially in the way that she was. I mean, it's just sick. And she wasn't his only victim. Heather was certainly a victim. Samantha was a victim. And Mindy's friends and family, I mean, the amount of pain and stress and trauma that Nick caused so many people is just it's despicable. They all experienced the monster that lives inside of him and I'm just happy that that monster will no longer be able to hurt anyone else. And I hope he spends the rest of his miserable life thinking about all of the people he hurt. But he seems like the type to probably still somehow convince himself that he is the victim and probably has no remorse. But I definitely want to hear what you guys think that is it for me today. This case, wow, just blew my mind and also just made me very, very sad. I will be back next week to discuss another case next week's case is also just wild. So get ready for that. But yeah, that's going to be it for me today. You guys, I will see you next week. But until then, stay safe out there. (upbeat music)