Luigi Mangione’s shifting defense strategy. A victim’s lover takes the stand. Plus, Keith Morrison's new podcast.

Okay, let's jump in. You're listening in to the Dateline story meeting. There's finally been an arrest. Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news. There's great footage of the couple and these lavish parties they attended. The defendant is anxious to talk. So, did he poison the Brussels sprouts? Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Andrea Canning. It's June 25th, and here's what's on our docket. In San Diego County, California, prosecutors argue a wife's affair drove her husband to hexes and murder. Her lover takes the stand. He was messaging Maya that basically his life is screwed up, his world is screwed up, he's screwed up, everything is ruined. In Dateline Roundup, former Bardstown, Kentucky, police officer Nick Houck enters a plea to a perjury charge less than a year after his brother Brooks was convicted of killing Crystal Rogers. And the notorious missing child. The missing child case of Eitan Pates gets a ruling from the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court essentially reversed the reversal. Plus, Keith Morrison is here to talk about his all-new podcast series, Five Miles From Home. The compounding issue of what teenagers can sometimes do to each other for no apparent reason. It was just something I couldn't get out of my mind. But before all that, Luigi Mangione's defense team switched up its strategy and then switched it again. Luigi Mangione recently appeared in a New York City courthouse for what was to be a routine pre-trial hearing ahead of his state murder trial. Mangione is accused of gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson back in December of 2024. It turned out, though, that that routine hearing revealed some major news. The judge overseeing the case announced that Mangione planned to use a psychiatric defense, asserting that he was emotionally distressed. He was disturbed at the time of the shooting. Then, 24 hours later, Mangione's attorneys withdrew the psychiatric defense. It was a head-spinning couple of days, and here to help us make sense of it all is NBC News legal analyst and defense attorney Danny Savalos and Dateline producer Mike Nardi. Mike and Danny, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thanks, Andrea. All right, so Mike, you produced the recent Dateline episode on the case with Lester. Give us a quick reminder about what happened in those days. Early morning hours on December 4th, 2024. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot dead outside the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan while he was on his way there for the company's annual investors conference. A days-long manhunt came to an end when the manager at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, called authorities to report that some of the customers there thought a man resembling the alleged gunman was eating breakfast. There, police took 28-year-old Danny Savalos. They called Luigi Mangione into custody, and he was eventually charged in connection to Brian's murder. Okay, so Mangione has entered a not-guilty plea for all the charges against him, including federal stalking charges and state murder charges. Danny, before last week's hearing, we had some hints about where his defense strategy was going. Yes, we did. And I would say the highlight has been their motion to suppress evidence. These motions are virtually never granted. And yet, they got some items suppressed and kept out of evidence, even though they lost on some of their other motions. So their strategy so far appears to have been, try to keep as much evidence out as you can as we approach trial. Yeah, they kind of failed when the judge ruled that a gun found in Mangione's backpack, as well as some of his writings, could be seen by the jury. So, Mike, take us into the hearing that took place last Wednesday. So Mangione came into the courthouse in downtown Manhattan. He had his head down. He was in handcuffs. And as the hearing got underway, the judge overseeing the state case made a stunning announcement. He was unsealing a notice from Mangione's defense team that they would be using the affirmative psychiatric defense and emotional disturbance at the time of the killing. I guess they filed this back in September of 2025, but it had been sealed from the public. What does it even mean, the psychiatric defense, in a case like this? This particular psychiatric defense, extreme emotional distress or disturbance, or EED as I'll call it, all it would do is lower the level of the crime to first degree manslaughter versus second degree murder. And that, of course, would reduce the prison time that he would be exposed to. One of the keys to EED is you have to admit that you committed the killing. So you would have to admit to the killing and then hope against hope. Against hope that you can establish this distress and the best you'll get out of it is a reduction in your penalty. What would Mangione's defense team have to prove to be able to prove this? So under the jury instructions, essentially, he'd have to prove three things. First, he must actually be extremely emotionally disturbed. It's got to be so extreme that it resulted in a loss of self-control. The second is that there has to be an explanation. For this extreme emotional disturbance that is reasonable. And then third, the defendant has to show that he was under the influence of that extreme emotional disturbance when he committed the homicide. Not now, not during his perp walk, not in his writings in any manifesto, but at the time of the killing. OK, so maybe Mike can help us out here. Mike, did you find anything in your reporting with Lester that would give us any insight? Into Mangione's state of mind and why he may have been emotionally disturbed at the time of the killing? Most of the people we spoke to, in fact, all of the people we spoke to, described Mangione as a normal young man. He certainly did not come across as being obsessed with the health care industry. You know, we even looked into this back ailment that he had suffered from. There was speculation that maybe the injury is what inspired the killing or maybe would have caused. This disturbance. But we found no evidence of that. You know, in fact, Lester spoke with a yoga instructor in Honolulu who had taught yoga classes to Luigi. And he told us that Mangione certainly didn't come across as someone who was in debilitating pain. We also spoke with a professional soccer player who met Mangione at a bar in Bangkok. And he told us that they did discuss America's health care system. But he said Mangione was not particularly angry or resentful. Mike, you reported that there was a time when Mangione was off the map. Friends and family couldn't account for his whereabouts. Is there the thought that that could have been where things changed for Luigi Mangione? Certainly. Certainly. And like you said, we just don't know what he was doing. We don't know what his mental or physical state might have been because he stopped posting online. His family seemed to be out of contact as well because we understand he missed. A good friend's wedding. And we know that his mom filed that missing persons report in November just before the murder. And Mike, you read through all the writings inside his backpack. Right. What stood out to you? You know, he does write directly about the health care industry in these writings. In a letter addressed to the feds, he writes, These parasites simply had it coming. The U.S. has the number one most expansive health care system in the world, yet we rank roughly number 42 in life expectancy. United is the fifth largest company in the U.S. by market cap. And he goes on to say it has grown and grown, but it has our life expectancy? No. Danny, when it comes to a potential psychiatric defense, how do writings like this fit into that, if at all? These writings are certainly interesting and they could help the defense. But unless it can be shown that it was close to the time of the shooting, it may not be relevant. In fact, more relevant to me. Is what we mentioned about him going off the grid because it's so much closer to the time of the shooting. That's the kind of thing I would think would be even more helpful to the defense. As we mentioned, the defense withdrew this psychiatric defense the next day. What happened? Originally, I suspected that it was possible that Mangione himself was changing his mind or engaging in last minute decisions. Since then, I now think it's possible that when they came into court, that they may have filed this notice to hedge their bets, which is something you do as a defendant. You want to keep every option open. And then when the court said, well, going forward, we're going to have to release all this information. I think what happened was the defense thought it's not worth it because the benefit of this extreme emotional disturbance defense, it's really only a reduction in punishment. It's not really a defense. So what is next for Louis? Do we have any idea? Their defense at this point is the same as any other defense. They're awaiting trial, preparing, putting together the evidence they plan to contradict or fight and maybe some of their own evidence. The emotional disturbance defense, technically, it's something the defense could revisit. But I would be surprised if they did, even though it's not evidence. The mere fact that federal and state prosecutors are now aware that on some level. Mangione was considering admitting to the killing is going to be problematic. It's not something they're going to introduce as evidence, but it's something that certainly galvanizes both the federal and state prosecutors to probably feel convinced they have the right guy. All right. Thank you, Danny and Mike, both of you, for being here and bringing us your unique insight into this latest development. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up, bombshell testimony from a missing woman's lover as prosecutors try to prove she was murdered by her husband. Over the last six weeks in San Diego County, California, prosecutors have laid out their case against former Navy optician Larry Miliette. They say that in 2021, Larry killed his wife, Maya, and hid her body, a crime they say he committed after first hiring a spellcaster to put a hex on her. Prosecutors argue Larry killed his wife because she wanted a divorce and was having an affair with a married co-worker. On Monday, prosecutors called to the stand their most anticipated witness, the man Maya was having the affair with, Jamie Laird. Here to bring us the latest is NBC7 investigative reporter Alexis Rivas. Hey, Alexis, welcome back to the podcast. Hi, thanks so much for having me. So before we talk about the latest testimony, remind us, Alexis, what authorities are alleging happened. So, first of all, let's talk about the latest testimony. So, first of all, let's talk about For years now, prosecutors have said that Larry Meliate killed his wife, Maya, five years ago because she disappeared from their home, right? The last footage of Maya is walking into her house and there's no known video of Maya ever leaving. They say he killed her and then found a way to get rid of her body in a way that no one has ever been able to find. So, Alexis, the prosecution says Maya was in love with her co-worker, a man named Jamie Laird, who has really been at the center of all of this. So, let's talk about the latest testimony. So, first of all, let's talk about the this. What do we know about him? We didn't know very much, honestly, and that's why everyone was waiting to hear him take the stand. The room got hacked. I mean, within a very short amount of time, a lot of people were trying to get in and were turned away at the courtroom doors. Everyone just wanted to hear from him for so long. And now we're learning a lot more about kind of how this affair really began and just how close Maya and Jamie were and how often they talked up until and including the day she was last seen alive. What did Jamie say about his relationship with Maya? So let's take it back to the beginning. He started working at the same place as Maya in the summer of 2019. About six months later, he said Maya started texting him, and soon after that, this relationship gets physical, and it stays a highly physical relationship for about a year. Jamie said that they met up in cars, at hotels, and very early on, they were caught. They both got called into their boss's office. They both basically agreed that they were going to deny this for a while. They lied to their boss, to co-workers. And this is on a naval base, right? I think it's important to note, Maya was his supervisor's supervisor. So this is the kind of a relationship that could have been problematic for both of them had it come to light in the office. Alexis, the fact that Maya and Jamie were confiding in each other, and this feels like it got pretty deep emotionally as well. Why was that important for the prosecution's case? Well, they had these kind of codenames for their spouses, and they had all this kind of behavior that they did to try to keep their affair secret. Part of that, Maya's codename for Larry was V, as in V for Voldemort. And Jamie also testified that in general, he was really worried about Maya. He had never seen someone so desperate and so controlling and trying to save the marriage. He was referring to Larry. He knew Larry would also control when Maya could drive. Larry would drive her to work and drive her home. Yeah. And one thing that was really important is Jamie told jurors that Maya had told him that she wanted to divorce Larry after this trip to Big Bear for her daughter's birthday. Yes. She had all these plans. She was telling people she wants to have this birthday party, and then she wants to file for divorce. And that trip to Big Bear, obviously never happened because Maya disappeared. Jamie also read a letter to the jury that he wrote to Maya. Yes. That was the part that I'd say was probably the visibly hardest part for Jamie to testify to. He struggled reading that letter. This is when Maya got another job at a different office. So he sends this kind of goodbye letter. He calls her beautiful. He's also saying he wants to get this tattoo that she got on her wrist. Maya had gotten a tattoo of a bracelet Jamie got her. Jamie seemed to be very, very forthcoming in court with a lot of personal information. Here's the thing that I think was kind of one of the bigger wow moments of his testimony. We had learned from Maya's friend. She said, yes, we had the affair, but we ended it months ago. Well, Jamie's testimony contradicted that. It didn't end months before Maya vanished. In fact, they were still seeing each other and talking to each other the week Maya vanished. Jamie testified two days before Maya vanished that Larry had called Jamie's wife. And told her about the affair. So Jamie's telling Maya through messages that he's essentially freaking out that his wife can't find out about this. They're trying to get their story straight. He says they agree basically to kind of give each other some space. He's going to focus on his baby. Maya's going to focus on a divorce. And then the day Maya's last seen alive, that afternoon, she's texting Jamie and saying, you know, I brought up divorce with my oldest child. It went pretty well. The defense wanted to use Jamie's story. And so they're trying to get their story through. And so they're trying to get their story as possibly what, like a red herring, you know, in this to create reasonable doubt or an alternate theory. But before the trial, the judge said that they couldn't suggest that anyone other than Larry could have been responsible for Maya's death. That is tough for the defense then to try to, you know, point to her lover as a possible suspect in this. They couldn't even ask what his alibi was. They couldn't, you know, even really go very far in terms of why he deleted. So many messages between him and Maya or why he never replied to Maya the day that she vanished. The defense, of course, was able to cross-examine Jamie. And they asked him about his behavior after Maya disappeared. They were still, you know, kind of trying to point the finger at him without crossing the line. Yes, it's such a delicate balance, right? But they had to show him his interview with police like a dozen times because he couldn't remember certain things. He changed his story so often. And the defense argued even the police were pretty aware of that this man was lying to them a lot. Jamie's ex-wife is also on the witness list. Do you think we will hear from her? The prosecution promised the jury we would. And you have to think that we will. So Jamie told friends that his wife, his now ex-wife, would kill him if she found out about the affair. Now, you can take that literally or you can take it as people just say things like that, you know. She'll kill me. But, you know, it was brought up in trial. Some of the last things he said to Maya in general, he's freaking out. You can see Jamie unraveling. Larry calls his wife. His wife is crying on the couch. He was messaging Maya that basically his life is screwed up. His world is screwed up. He's screwed up. Everything is ruined. What else can we expect to hear this week? I think for the prosecution, they're wrapping up. It's week six now. We know we need to hear from the ex-wife and we probably just need to hear from a few more people in Maya's life. And then the big thing is what happened to her is still a mystery, right? So I suspect some of that is still to come in this trial. Thank you so much for joining us this week, Alexis. You bet. Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup, a major decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in the murder case of six-year-old Eitan Pates. And we go back to the Crystal Rogers case in Bardstown, Kentucky, where a former police officer appears in court on a perjury charge. Plus, a special appearance from my friend Keith Morrison, who has a preview of his all-new podcast, Five Miles From Home. Welcome back. Joining me for this week's Roundup is Dateline field producer Alex LeRae. Alex, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. First up, we are headed to Bardstown, Kentucky, for the latest in the case of Crystal Rogers. She is the mother of five who vanished back in 2015 over the Fourth of July weekend. It has been more than a decade. And Alex, there are still new developments happening, it seems, all the time. Right, Andrea. As you know, this has been a long road to justice for Crystal's family. Crystal disappeared from her home almost 11 years ago. Her car was found on the side of the highway, but Crystal hasn't been seen since. Crystal's dad, Tommy Ballard, was murdered a year and a half later in a case that still hasn't been solved. In 2023, Crystal's former boyfriend, Brooks Houck, was arrested for murder. And in 2025, he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for killing Crystal. And then earlier this month, Brooks' brother, former Bardstown police officer, Nick Houck, was charged with perjury. Remind us of the details surrounding Nick's perjury charge. Sure. So Crystal's family has always believed Brooks had help from his family in Crystal's disappearance. And at Brooks' trial, prosecutors continually called his brother, Nick, and their mother, Rosemary, unindicted co-conspirators. Now, prosecutors say Nick made false statements under oath, though there hasn't been any confirmation from the police about what those statements were and how, if at all, they relate to Crystal's case. Alex, last week, Nick appeared in court for his arraignment, and there were some bizarre moments, including Nick coming to court without his lawyer. Here's the judge talking to him about that. Mr. Huff, were you able to get a hold of your attorney? I did. He told me to go in and just proceed on without him. Proceed on without him. So they did go on assigning him a public defender for the hearing. Here's Nick talking to the judge again, this time about the charges against him. I've been charged with perjury, and I have no idea why you guys have charged me with that. First of all, I don't charge people with perjury. I'm just saying the state police or whoever involved. The public defender, Alex, entered a not guilty plea on Nick's behalf. What did the judge say about Nick's original attorney, the one who wasn't in court? The judge said that he needed Nick's attorney to be present going forward and instructed him to retain an attorney by the next hearing on July 2nd. Crystal's mother, Sherry, she has been such a big part of this case every step of the way. Did she have any response to the arraignment? Yes. So according to NBC affiliate WLEX18, Sherry Ballard was present at the hearing. She said afterwards that she's been pushing for perjury charges and is hopeful that the truth will emerge about her daughter's death. Okay. We will keep you posted on that one. Next, we have an update out of Utah involving the case of murdered, right-wing activist, Charlie Kirk. Charlie was shot and killed last September while speaking at a debate on the campus of Utah Valley University. The defense team for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk is trying to get the death penalty taken off the table, Alex. So 23-year-old Tyler Robinson is charged with felony aggravated murder along with several other crimes connected to the murder. And prosecutors have made it clear that they aim to seek the death penalty if Robinson is convicted. He has yet to enter a plea, but out of here, hearing earlier this month, his defense team asked the judge to remove the possibility of the death penalty because of the statements the prosecution made to the media. What were those statements? The comments centered around a preliminary ballistics report regarding whether or not bullet fragments from Kirk's body matched Robinson's rifle. The report was inconclusive and one of the prosecutors on the case spoke to several media outlets about it. That prosecutor, Christopher Ballard, testified earlier this month that there was a lot of misinformation out there about the ballistic report and he was not sure if he was just responding to the media inquiries. But Robinson's defense says the comments violated a pretrial publicity order from the judge and that potential jurors might have been prejudiced as a result. They argue that the remedy is to take the death penalty off the table. That brings us to a pretrial hearing that happened on Monday. What did the judge have to say about the defense's death penalty request? The judge delayed making a decision and said he's weighing holding the prosecution in contempt for the comments to the media. He delayed the contempt ruling until Friday, leaving the death penalty question up in the air. For our final story, we are going to the nation's capital where there's been a major Supreme Court ruling in the case of Eitan Pates, the six-year-old boy who went missing from New York City in 1979. Yeah. Eitan Pates disappeared on his way to the bus stop on May 25th, 1979. He was one of the first missing children to appear on milk curtains and the anniversary of his disappearance became National Missing Children's Day. So I actually covered this case that went up Unsolved for Decades when there were new developments back in 2012. A man named Pedro Hernandez, who worked at a convenience store near Eitan's bus stop, confessed to killing the boy. Right. So after a mistrial in 2015, Hernandez was eventually convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 25 years to life. But Hernandez has said he was going through a period of mental illness when he confessed to the crime. And listeners might remember that last year, Hernandez's conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court after he was sentenced to 24 years in prison. His defense argued that the judge in his trial gave a prejudicial answer to a question from jurors about his confession. The case made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices issued a ruling on the appeal on Monday. Alex, what's the news? They said the federal appeals court exceeded its authority in overturning the conviction in state court. So Hernandez, who's now 64 years old, will not get a new trial and will continue to serve out his sentence. Thank you for all these updates, Alex. No problem. For our final story this week, we are joined by a very special guest, Keith Morrison, to talk about his new podcast series, Five Miles From Home. It is about the disappearance of 16-year-old Michaela Costanzo, a popular high school track star from a small desert town in Nevada. It has obsession, jealousy, high school drama, and a riveting jailhouse interview. Keith, thank you for coming on to talk to us today. We'd like to talk about your latest podcast. Thank you for having me on, Andrea. I am already hooked. I've listened to the first episode and then part of the second episode. And it is, as always, all your podcasts are extremely riveting. Well, thank you. And this one, Keith, you have been following since 2013 when Dateline first covered Michaela's case, or Mickey, as everyone liked to call her. And that was in the TV episode Under the Desert Sky. What drew you back to this story all these years ago? This story has always fascinated me and it's a dark story. It's Shakespearean. I kept thinking about Shakespeare tragedies as I was working on this story before and it's what drew me back to do the podcast. It's a story where something happened and you're not sure exactly what for a long time and you're not sure who did what and you're not sure who is going to take the blame for what happened. It's one of those. And even the setting of it is interesting. You paint such a vivid picture of West Wendover, Nevada. It has five casinos. I had to look up the giant grinning cowboy because of the way you described it. It doesn't disappoint when you look at pictures. And then as you head toward the outskirts of town of Wendover, there's just desert for miles. Exactly. It's an outpost at the edge of Nevada. As casino towns go, it's pretty cool. I liked West Wendover. And the people involved in this particular tale are just lovely people. You know, that made it both harder and more compelling. And you could just tell how much they loved Mickey and how special she was. This was a girl who wanted to be a writer. She spent time tutoring. And she was a runner. She did everything well and was pretty and was popular in the whole nine yards. But she had a friend who wasn't really a boyfriend. He was a buddy with whom she'd grown up in the same proximity, Cody and Mickey, for a minute or two when they were 12 or 13, they thought, well, we could be boyfriend and girlfriend. But, of course, that didn't last. He went on to become a six-foot-six dude who planned to join the Marines when he got out of high school. And he fell in love, fell hard for a fellow high school student named Tony when they were in about grade 11, I guess. And by the end of grade 12, he was living with Tony Fratto and her family. And they were planning to get married. And that's when things happened. We're going to touch on a little more of that. Not too much of a spoiler, because this is Dateline, but sadly, we learned pretty quickly in the podcast that Mickey has been murdered and buried in a shallow grave in the desert. Her sister, Christina, told you what it was like hearing the news from a detective that Mickey's body had been found. Let's take a listen to that. It's hard to hear. We have found a body. So we called off the search because she's the only one in Elko County that's missing. And I guess out of hope, I says, well, can you see her? And he says, no, we can only see a small square inch of flesh. I says, well, then you don't know it's her. And he says, you're right, Christina, she's the only one missing. So we're pretty sure it's her. You go on this emotional journey, Keith, with the family. It starts out as every parent's worst nightmare. Sorry for the cliche, but it is. Where you have a high school student or, you know, a child, and suddenly they're not responding to calls or texts. No one has seen them. She was last in school. She was an unusual girl who would call to report where she was and what she was doing every 15 minutes. And she was always in touch with family. This is a very close family. And when she didn't phone, they knew after a matter of half an hour or an hour, something bad must have happened. And the whole town was out because she was she kind of became the, you know, the Westwood. West Wendover sweetheart. And they were just determined, hoping they might find her alive, but suspecting they wouldn't. And sure enough, they didn't. Yeah. The why is really just hard to fathom because she's 16. She's a good girl. She's trying to make something of herself. And someone would kill her at that age? I've been fascinated in a scary way by these stories over the years. The first one that I encountered was a story. It became a television program. It ran on one of the streaming services a couple of years ago. But we did a piece on it years and years ago in Victoria, British Columbia called Under the Bridge. I saw it. I saw the show, the drama. Yeah. And it was a bunch of teenagers who, for reasons nobody could fathom, killed one of their classmates. It's the strangest thing. And I wondered whether this was one of those kind of incidents. But it was a little more than that. It was a little more Shakespearean. It was a little more the personal drama, the personal tragedies of these three people. Keith, the last episode of the podcast just came out, and we want to share a snippet of the finale. You sat down with Cody's then-fiancé, Tony Fratto. Let's take a listen. I was too much in fear. I was scared, terrified. Even if I tried to get away, drove off, he would still come and find us, and it'd be 10 times worse. Why would he kill you? The only thing that I can even think that I would be next was because I was a witness. That was one of the stranger interviews I've done in a long time. Yeah. You know, the bar is so high, I feel like, Keith, for these podcasts. They're all so good. This one had kind of bugged me for a long time, the compounding issue of what teenagers can sometimes do to each other for no apparent reason. It was an amazing story to me, subtle in many ways, but it was just something I couldn't get out of my mind. Keith, thank you for being here. The series is called Five Miles From Home, and all episodes are available to binge now wherever you get your podcasts. We appreciate you, Keith. Appreciate you, Andrea, and thank you very much for this. That is it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium. And coming up this Friday on Dateline, Lester has a special report on the devastating Texas floods in the United States. that ripped through Camp Mystic last summer, leaving a wake of death and destruction. Lester has interviews with victims' families and with survivors, including a camp counselor who saved everyone in her cabin. They had said to me, this is crazy. This is crazy. I don't know what to do. I remember thinking in my mind, you don't know what to do? I have 16 little girls behind me, and I'm just as afraid as they are. Watch After the Flood, Friday at 10, 9 central on Dateline. On NBC. Dateline True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, Kiani Reid, and Rebecca Glazer. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone-Groth and Aria Young. Our senior producer is Allison Orr. Veronica Mzeika is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline. Bye, everyone. © transcript Emily Beynon