Missing Florida Woman Found Murdered in Georgia Landfill

fall never arrives all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross thursday morning when i started calling her her cell phone went straight to voicemail and i looked in the garage windows i thought dang her car's here i told dan my husband i'm worried about sue i said oh nothing's happened with her a widow well-loved very involved in this close-knit florida community she just suddenly disappears out of nowhere this is something that just doesn't happen on october 24th susan malden was reported to be in a car accident and was taken to the hospital they made it sound like you did it yeah they're investigating me you did not kill that woman did you no not no i'm gonna start calling you murder or bender him no don't do that if i say on the phone they're probably listening so susan malden's close friend phyllis yates had gone to the home and noticed that her vehicle was still in the garage that the tv was on but that susan was nowhere to be found phyllis's husband used susan's key to find the car and she was able to find the car and she was able to find the car and to open the door and come in when he unlocked the door and opened it the chain or the latch up top was still in place so he actually had to reach in and unlock the chain with his hand and when he went inside he saw that her bed was unmade which was unlike susan malden she's very meticulous in how she kept things in her home so they were concerned and worried and that's when they called the sheriff's office when we first arrived and we started assessing the scene we eventually observed a couple things that looked out of place including the picture frame that was on the wall and a couple figurines and a table that were a jar in the living room as well as the water in the sink in the master bathroom now susan was making some improvements to her home so some mess was to be expected but phyllis knows her friend better than anybody she would not have left her house in this condition we noticed she had a like a little home office set up in one of the rooms to the side of the bathroom that had been demoed i noticed that malden's laptop was missing her phone was missing law enforcement immediately began an investigation to try to locate susan malden susan malden seems to have vanished out of nowhere it is so strange investigators they immediately speak with her friends and her neighbors to learn a little bit more about her susan malden was a 65 year old british widow who was living in fleming island florida at the time she went missing while she didn't have any close relatives that were living nearby she did have a very close-knit network of friends susan was very social she was part of several different clubs the main club that she was a part of was the british club so she was a prominent figure in that club everybody loved her in there she was a jacksonville jaguars fan friends described her as outgoing bubbly great personality from a detective's perspective the first thing you want to do in a missing person investigation is rule out that they didn't just take a trip and decide not to tell anybody so it was beneficial to learn from her friends that she was a creature of habit she did talk to people on a regular basis so it was completely unusual for her to just disappear and not talk to anybody or respond to calls in fact she had a doctor's appointment that day that she was supposed to attend that she missed as well so and all of that was out of character investigators follow up with phyllis yates again this is susan malden's friend who originally reported her missing sue and i met generally every wednesday at her house and every week she gave me an update on i called him jackrabbit okay what all has she told you about that contractor now dan and i both don't know this cory guy from adam all we've heard is he's in his 40s and a strong guy don't know the man one of the key takeaways from yates interview with the police was that she told them about the difficulties that malden was having with her contractor cory benderum susan entered into a contract agreement with cory benderum so she hired him he requested an upfront payment she gave him about twelve thousand dollars a little more so he took that money he demoed her bathroom and when i say demo he tore the sheetrock off down to the studs removed the toilet and the sink and cabinets and then he just left it there and every time she tried to get him to come back to finish the job he always had an excuse every time he's supposed to show up on monday he'd always text her with a new excuse susan was extremely meticulous and detail-oriented in her interactions with people and she had a calendar that every time she talked to cory she would write down the date the time and what he said for instance his sister died and he had to go to another state and pick her body up and bring her body back himself he fell on the back of his truck and hurt his shoulder and he had to go to the hospital there was always an excuse why he couldn't come back and do the job and that was very frustrating for her she said you'll never believe what cory did now phil he may be really uncomfortable one day just a few weeks back he shows up and he goes in her house and he tells her how good she looks that day and how old are you sue and she said i'm 65 and he said man you look good are you widowed fall never arrives all the time all at once first the air then the light and slowly the things you love begin to find each other a jacket meets a dress a hoodie slips beneath a blazer an old cap finds a new scarf because you don't simply step into the season you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall find fall your way at ross hi there i am fully charged and here to tell you toy story 5 is now on disney plus it's been too long cowboy woody buzz and jesse are back for a brand new adventure with some seriously cool new tech what holy butterscotch you said it jesse so save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home and the best part it's perfect for the whole family power up your movie night and watch disney and pixar's toy story 5 now streaming on disney plus rated pg and she said yes i am and he said man you're looking good he says i was wondering could i get a loan she said a loan cory you got 12 grand of my money i have no money to give you you've done nothing for me now this is her story to me the description is concerning one we start to think that he was finding a way to try to take advantage of a woman that was older than him and perhaps by complimenting her he'd be able to get her to provide additional money it also may have indicated that he was kind of testing whether she lived alone whether she lived alone whether she lived with him whether she lived with him whether she lived with him whether it would be easy for him to potentially steal things did she say that he was upset or anything about that no oh he just told her i'll go to the bank and get a loan so then she told me i feel i'm really uncomfortable with him now i said sue i told you i think there's an issue here the man's done nothing she said well i'm gonna get my money back yates informed law enforcement that malden made a decision that she was going to confront bindrum demand her money back and if you refuse to give it to her that she was going to get the police involved she was angry and Wednesday at him so i knew if he showed up and he didn't have a cashier's check it probably wasn't going to go real well for him yeah not realizing it maybe wouldn't go well for her and at that point who knows what took place she was adamant if something did happen to susan corey definitely had something to do with it i'm looking for my buddy and i'm praying to god i'm praying that she comes back a and if she's angry with me for getting somebody to go through all her stuff i will hug her cry with her and then slap the snot out of her because i'm going to be angry yeah absolutely a good friend's doing exactly what you're doing yeah and if she would ever get angry that then you know what i can live with it and i can live with her not being my friend at that point after i get her back safe exactly after speaking with phyllis yates investigators immediately dig deeper into Corey Benderham was a local Clay County resident, grew up there, went to high school there, had lots of friends. Corey's wife Cassidy and their two daughters, by all accounts, lived a normal everyday American life in small town Clay County. She worked for CSX. He worked as a self-employed contractor. The kids did well in school. They were in a fluent neighborhood, doing well for each other. - All right. I just want to follow up with you with a couple of questions, if that's okay. I mean, I will answer your questions. Yeah, I mean, I know it's about. What's it about? It's about Sue. Okay, what about Sue? The detectives came to my house Saturday and asked me a bunch of questions about Sue because I was in contact with her last week. Apparently still missing. Yeah, she is still missing. We are concerned about her, and that's what I want to talk to you about. When was the last time you saw her? It was Thursday morning. We got there about 8. Was she inspected? Yeah. This contract has been going on for a very long time. I demoed the customer. She took about a month and a half to figure out which house she wanted. She bought it. I went and got it. Then it came time to talk about the tub and fixtures and all of that. She just couldn't make a decision. He painted a picture that Susan was an extremely difficult client to work with, that she was routinely changing her mind. A complete opposite picture of what Susan had been painting to Phyllis about what was going on. Fast forward, I was taking jobs again and she would get frustrated that I couldn't come to work right now. She was ready, and so it just got to the point where it was just better for both of us. If I just refunded her money, I went about my way, she'd find something else. That was the conversation, so we went through the paperwork and I wrote her a check and I had some stuff still there. I had a tool bag with some plumbing tools. I had a bag with some plumbing parts, so I loaded that in my truck. He loaded those up in the back of his truck and he left and that was the end. Last time he saw her and she was completely fine. She gave me $12,000. That was $1,200. It was only $1,200? Yeah, yeah, it was only $1,200. For the whole event? Yeah. She's only given you $1,200? Yeah. And that's what I gave her back. Law enforcement knew from Phyllis Yates that the cost of the contract was $12,000. So they thought it was interesting that Benderum gave her a check for $1,200. And said that that was it. I'm straight up with you, I think all weekend we've been looking for a good finder. You're the last person to talk to. I understand that. And if I don't check that box, somebody's going to be like, "Oh, why the hell do you have to check that box?" I mean, look, if there's anything, I don't mind, you know? I mean, she's a very lovely lady. Since Benderum was the last person to see Susan alive, investigators keep a close eye on them. And that is also when they go back to Susan's house. And they come upon new evidence. Sergeant Calhoun noticed a small drop of what at the time appeared to be blood on the living room floors. Our forensic analysts came in and they located more blood spatter on the lampshade next to where that blood drop was found. And then through the course of process in the home with Luminon, we found signs of blood cleanup in front of the kitchen sink, on the floor, in front of the kitchen cabinet, where we had also found a small droplet of blood as well. Finding traces of blood indicates that this might not just be a missing person, but something much more sinister. When we found the blood in her home, I mean, that left no doubt in my mind at that point that something horrible had happened inside that home to Susan. And Corey was the number one person of interest. Investigators turned their attention to Benderum's storage unit. He had taken the tools that he removed from Susan's home to his storage unit. At this point in our investigation, we're considering that Susan is deceased. So we had a cadaver dog come out, and the cadaver dog went into Corey Benderum's storage unit and gave a positive alert for the presence of human decomposition on the bag that Corey had removed from Susan's home in close proximity to those tools. Investigators never found Susan. Fall never arrives all at once. First, the air. Then the light. And slowly, the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it, layer by layer, until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross. Hi there! I am fully charged and here to tell you Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+! It's been too long, cowboy. Woody, Buzz and Jesse are back for a brand new adventure with some seriously cool new tech. What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jesse! So, save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home. And the best part? It's perfect for the whole family. Power up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney+ rated PG. Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney+! When we got the data back from the search warrant on his phone, it was consistent that there was actual communication going on between them. And once we got looking into that data on that particular day, the 24th, it was obvious to us that he had deleted data off his phone associated with that time frame. So, detectives head to Cory Benderum's home to question, but they are also armed with a warrant to seize his truck. Hey, how are you? Oh, hey, sorry. What's going on? I don't like what I meant. This is, oh. This is my wife, Cassidy. You're Captain Fryer. Nice to meet you, Cassidy. Hey, nice to meet you. Hey. What's going on? Y'all about to have dinner or something? No, my daughter just came home from college. Oh, really? Okay, okay. Yeah. Can we talk for a second? You already met? Sure, yeah. Just him? Yeah, is that okay? I know, I know why I was worried. He talked to me outside in front of his home, explained to him we were taking his truck, why we were taking his truck. You're on a long pier right now, and you're coming to a short end. So, I'd like to talk to you. Yeah, I'd like to talk to you about that before we get to the end of the pier, if you'd like to do that. I haven't done anything wrong. I'm not saying you did, but. Well, you're saying chicken boxes, but I don't necessarily believe that. I think you guys have pegged me and think you've got tunnel vision. You've talked to me twice. You've looked at my storage unit. Now, you're more than welcome to take my truck, regardless of whether you have a warrant or not. I don't have anything to hide. I know you're in construction. You've got all sorts of nicks and scratches all over you. I noticed the other day when I talked to you, you had one on the inside of you. Yeah. You had a little bit of a scratch on your arm. I see your arm that looked pretty fresh right here above your tattoo. What's that from? I do demo work. It's from all kinds of stuff. I noticed that he had a pretty significant scratch on his arm right above his hand. And knowing in these type of potential violent confrontations that, you know, a victim can, in the process of trying to defend themselves, scratch their offender, you know, I asked if we could document it digitally, and he agreed. Pardon me. It's my wife. Hey, they're still here. I'm going over this search warrant. Hey, honey? Yeah? What's going on? They are looking at me like I'm the reason why Sue is missing. They've got me pegged for something having to do with Sue. This is a warrant to take the truck. You'll be here. I'm not going in. They're not taking me into custody. No, not at all. I don't know why they came with half of the detective force, but they're just taking my truck to process. I decided at that time to put a little pressure on him and just explain to him that we had found multiple inconsistencies in his story, and this was starting to narrow down the investigation really in his neck of the woods and on him and that if there was anything he had to tell us to give us a better opportunity to find Susan, now would be the time. Can you tell me what happened to her? I don't know. I don't have any clue. Clearly, I have a picture of something, right? I don't know where she is. I had nothing to do with it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened to her. I know you don't know where she is now, but you know what happened to her. No, I don't. No, I don't. I shook her hand on the front porch and that was that. But there's still questions. Every time I'm pulling cameras, every time I'm going to places and businesses that you may have visited, none of it is telling me Cory doesn't know. All of it's telling me Cory knows. It's telling you what you wanted to say. He knows something. You can paint a picture. I left soon. She was standing there. She was standing upright in her doorway. We shook hands. That was it. He denied and maintained his same composure that he had nothing to do with it. But as we dug in to find more about him, we learned that he actually, as a young adult, 17 years old, had actually participated in a robbery and a shooting in the Clay County area. In your tunnel vision, you focused on me instead of finding her. I certainly hope so. It was 27 years ago. I was 17. I was 16. I was 17. I was 17. I was 17. I was 17. I was 17. 19. 19. 20. 20. 21. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. Along with her meticulous, detailed list of the money that she gave. Right. Why would you lie about that? Because $1,200 is a big difference than $12,000. No, $1,200. So you're still adamant, even though I'm telling you I've got the checks that she gave you, $12,000. You're saying that she was okay with that Thursday when y'all talked. Yeah. She's like, all right, I'm good. I'll let you do the work. Even though there's tons of people saying she had enough, she was done, you were either going to give her her cash or cashier's check, or she was going to sue you and report you. I'm going to have a great weekend now. All right. I'm sorry to mess it up for you. Take care, buddy. Corey Benderum is not happy to be the number one suspect in this investigation. And strangely enough, after detectives seize his truck, he falls off their radar. The fact that Corey Benderum disappears after his vehicle is seized is an indication that potentially Corey Benderum has something to hide. Cassidy contacted me and said that Corey had. Corey had left town, and she had no idea where he was at. He wasn't answering her phone calls. And our investigation led us to a report that Corey was a suspect in a theft in Jacksonville. The client provided information that Corey had went into his home, stole a check, forged the check for $5,000, forged the client's signature, cashed the check, and then fled Florida. Clay County Sheriff's Office detectives have identified a person of interest in the investigation into a Fleming Island woman's disappearance. On October 24th, Susan Malden was reported missing from her Harbor Island home. Through the investigation, she was determined to be missing and endangered. Mr. Benderum has cooperated. First the air, then the light. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. Hi there! I am Fully Charged, and here to tell you, Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+. Woody, Buzz, and Jesse are back for a brand new adventure with some serious. curiously cool new tech. What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jesse! And the best part? When you think like an athlete, setbacks don't stop you. But mindset alone doesn't get you moving again. That's where Icy Hot steps in. Ice works fast. Heat makes it last. So when the rest of the world settles because of a setback, Icy Hot accelerates your comeback with fast-acting, powerful pain relief. Icy Hot. You're so back. In the course of this investigation, but until recently, he's left the area all of a sudden with no explanation, and his whereabouts are unknown at this time. Anyone with information which may lead to the whereabouts of Susan Malden and Cory Benderum are urged to contact Detective Fryer with a. Clay County Sheriff's Office Homicide Unit. Cory Benderum disappears, he's got a stolen check with him, and law enforcement is unable to locate him for several weeks. The problem for anybody who tries to go off the grid is, we live in a digital world. No matter what you try to do, you are tracked in all different kinds of ways. And nowadays, almost everyone and everything has a surveillance camera, so Cory Benderum doesn't go undetected for long. We got camera footage. We got camera footage that he was in the car and cashed a check and left. And then we made contact with our federal partners in the U.S. Marshals Service, who were able to start tracking his phone, so he was getting what we commonly call burner phones. He would call Cassidy or his daughter from those numbers, they would provide us those numbers. We'd give them to the U.S. Marshals, they would track them. He was somewhere out in Colorado. He ultimately made contact through Cassidy with an attorney, and the attorney convinced him to turn himself in on the local fraud charges. He was arrested and arraigned in the Duval County Jail for those fraud charges. So Cory Benderum is now back in town, but investigators aren't any closer to finding Susan Mauldin dead or alive, so they need to expand their focus. Lee Locklear was working with Cory at the time that Susan went missing, so she was an important person for us to track down and talk to. Thursday we were texting the 24th. Yeah, he said just a heads up, I'm still home. So he was supposed to pick me up, and then he was back and forth and back and forth. Can I see? Yeah, one minute he's like I'm on my way, the next minute he's not on his way, the next minute he is, and at this point I was just pissed off. So this is 9:41 a.m.? Yeah. So he said I have to run by my storage unit in the Home Depot to pick up the floor, and I'll let you know when I leave if something came up. That went all morning. Like he was super spastic. Is he always like that? Yeah, but he's been dabbling in some things that have made him even more spastic lately. Like what? What's he messing with? He's been doing a lot of cocaine. He uncovered via Cassidy that he had a substance abuse problem using cocaine. He had sought treatment and was back on the straight and narrow, but she made it crystal clear to him that if he fell back into that path again, that she would absolutely leave him and not give him another chance and take the girls with him. How old is he? Yeah, so I've kind of chalked it up to he's done too much blow. She helped confirm a picture of Corey's substance abuse had reared its ugly head again. That he was using on a regular basis. He was acting strange and off. But there is one particular thing, Lee says, that piques the interest of investigators. You told me that if he were to have killed somebody who was going to do something with a body, that he would dump it in a specific place. Remember saying that? Mm-hmm. And what was that? The dump. Tell me the whole story again. So we went to dump and we were unloading stuff. And I had just joked. I was joking about it. And I said, "Oh, it would be a perfect place to dump a body." And he goes, "Yeah, it's a perfect place to dump a body." And then we kind of joked and laughed. You know, it wasn't serious. Mm-hmm. Do you remember where you all went in the dump? Mm-hmm. We always go to the same spot. It's this big build, like you pull in. Mm-hmm. When you get through the scales, you can tell every contractor goes there. Because it's sheetrock, it's carpet, it's paint buckets. So it's like construction debris. That's it, yeah. Okay. And we always go to the same exact spot. During this interview with police, Lee Locklear confirms that the landfill that she and Corey Binderum joked about burying a body at was the Rosemary Hill Transfer Station. This is a landfill that Corey Binderum often visited. Do you think he really killed her? Do I think what? That he really killed her? Oh, I don't know. I don't know either. I mean, that's what the investigation's for. To figure out what happened to her and where she's at. Yeah. I'm hoping that's not the case. That's freaking creepy. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, jeez. Lee Locklear has provided detectives with their biggest lead yet. So what they do is they set up a controlled phone call between Lee and Binderum in the hopes that he will divulge more details. Hello? Hey. What are you doing? I'm gonna shoot you. Why are you gonna shoot me? Because, um, I just got a phone call from Clay County. Uh-huh. And they're sending people to my house. They want you to talk to me. Okay. Well. So. Okay. I don't know what I'm supposed to say. Tell the truth. They made it sound like you did it. Yeah. They were investigating me. You did not kill that woman, did you? No. Not no. I'm gonna start calling you murderer Binderum. No, don't do that. If I see you on the phone, they're probably listening. I highly doubt that. Yeah. No, don't do that. I highly doubt that. Yeah. No, don't do that. I highly doubt that. They were asking about all the job site I've been on you. They were asking me what materials were used and things like that. I had a bag in the back of my truck with all the same materials, drywall, studs, insulation. And they kept asking me over and over about concrete. Concrete? Yeah. We didn't use any concrete. That's what I'm worried about. Because after they said that, then they kept. They kept on with the concrete portion and I don't know where this concrete thing's coming from. I bought two bags of concrete that day that I went to Greg and Karen's. Thursday, when I picked up their flooring, I bought two 60 pound bags of concrete. And what the else did I buy? Silicone. Because I told them I went to Home Depot, so I bet they saw that I bought two bags of concrete. Law enforcement obtained video from Home Depot on the day that Susan Malden was arrested. In those videos, Binderum is seen buying contractor bags as well as quick dry concrete. What did you use concrete for? I was going to use it to build a step. Because you remember how they had those wooden steps and I told them I had to do something permanent? Yeah. So I was going to pitch the idea of just pouring concrete as another step. Do you still have the concrete? No, it got wet in the back of the truck. I threw it out. I was about to say, just take it back to the store, get a refund, and then you have a receipt. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. I'm not sure if I'm going to use it. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, I mean, it got wet in the back of my truck because you know the back, you know that, that, uh, my bed cover doesn't stay down. Oh. Yeah. So I pump it up. So, uh, no, it's already, it's already been dumped. Yeah. What do they think? I dropped her in the f***ing river? Are you serious? I don't know, but I bet that's why they're asking. When she asked him what happened to the concrete that he purchased that morning, he said the bed of his truck leaks sometimes and gets wet, so he dumped the concrete bags and got rid of them. I've been nowhere near the river, come on, now they're reaching, now they're being stupid. Investigators need to find out what Cory Benderum did with that concrete. So using data from cell phone towers and Benderum's own Life360 app, they are able to track his movements on the day that Susan disappeared. The Life360 data is a result of Cory's prior substance abuse. It was a agreement between him and his wife that he would have that app installed on his phone so that she could keep track of his movements. So that's another piece to the puzzle, that he had the Life360 going the whole time, that morning when he went to Home Depot, that morning when he went to Susan's house, when he was backed up to the hospital. We were able to track with that data. It appears that on the day of Susan Malden's disappearance, he turned it off from around 8:45 in the morning for about an hour. And the fact that he turned off the app, thereby disappearing digitally, was concerning to law enforcement. So it was odd when we determined the Life360 was turned off when he went to Rosemary Hill landfill and then was turned back on when he came back home after the landfill. When he went into Rosemary landfill, he had to check in. And then they take his weight, his truck, total weight with him and everything in it. He went in at about 300 pounds. And when he left, he came out 300 pounds lighter. But remember, in that phone call between Lee and Binderum, he said he had only 120 pounds of concrete that he needed to dump. So what's the discrepancy? We knew exactly what Susan's weight was around that time because she had a recent docs appointment. Concrete bags and her weight equaled right up to that 300 pounds. So it was telling to us that he felt like he needed to offset that scale if he was going to take her body out there and dispose of her. Now the big question for investigators is, if we assume that the trash that Corey dumped contains both the concrete and Susan's remains, where exactly is it now? We're able to narrow down and identify where her remains potentially went to a facility in Folkestone, Georgia, Chesser Island. And coordinated efforts with FDA. FBI to conduct a search for Susan's remains at the Chesser Island landfill. The area that we were searching, they described it as the size of a baseball gun. But honestly, it felt a lot bigger than that to me. Like it's so high that when we got out there, like you can't even see the top from the bottom. Law enforcement ended up going through approximately 7,600 tons of garbage in an effort to find Susan Malden's body. It was our information that we received at the time that no agency had had a successful full recovery of human remains. So it was unclear to them whether they would ever find Susan Malden's body. Nine days in and we hadn't found anything, you're starting to get a little downtrodden and think that you're not going to find anything, especially when you only have one day left. They knew they were looking for Susan Malden, but they had no idea what state her body was in at the time. So they had to examine every single thing they found, no matter how big or small. I was down at the bottom doing my search and I got a call to respond to the top deck. And that it was pretty important. I could hear it in their voice. First the air, then the light, and slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress, a hoodie slips beneath a blazer, an old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season, you create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall. Hi there, I am fully charged and here to tell you, Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+. Woody! Woody, Buzz, and Jesse are back for a brand new adventure with some seriously cool new tech. What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jesse. So save your batteries and watch the global phenomenon at home. And the best part? Cover up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5 now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG. Ice works fast. Heat makes it last. So when the rest of the world settles because of a setback, Icy Hot accelerates your comeback with fast-acting, powerful P.E.G.s. and pain relief. Icy Hot. You're so back. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJs.com/Mosquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the save. I ran up to the top deck, ran over there to where the investigators were shifting through and all activity had stopped. And I went over to the lead individual up there and he said, "We've found something." Ultimately we discovered a piece of her lower jawbone. I knew it was Susan. Like, there was no doubt in my mind. One of our detectives went to Susan's local dentist, got dental records. We had the jawbone transported to the ME's office and then they were able to confirm that it was in fact Susan Mauldin's lower jawbone and part of her remains. We started sifting through the remaining debris in that particular line and that's when we came across the contractor bag and the rest of her remains inside that contractor bag. Plainly visible in plain sight on the bags was the same logo that matched the ones that Corey purchased that morning before going to Susan's home. Along with the remains of Susan Mauldin, police located two fingernails. They did a DNA test in order to attempt to determine whose DNA, if anyone's, would be found on those fingernails. The DNA on fingernail A was traced back to Susan Mauldin. The DNA on fingernail B was traced back to Susan Mauldin as well as a male. Before they can charge Corey Binderum, law enforcement needs one more piece of the puzzle. The cause and matter of death. The forensic pathologist did an autopsy and determined that Susan Mauldin's death was in fact a homicide, that she died from blunt force trauma and strangulation. The forensic pathologist made a significant discovery that pointed to Susan Mauldin's hyoid bone being fractured at or near death, not after death as a result of compaction in the landfill. This was consistent in homicide investigations with an individual being strangled. Now investigators have a firm timeline and theory of what happened to Susan on that fateful day, and it is chilling. On October 24th, 2019, Corey Binderum, on his way to Susan Mauldin's home that morning, he stopped and purchased concrete bags at the Home Depot, got contractor bags to help facilitate that crime. After the murder of Susan Mauldin, he was sent to her home that morning, knocked on the door. We believe she let him in, where he immediately confronted her. She fled from him during that encounter. He pursued her. He struck her, which knocked her to the ground. She continued to try to get away into the kitchen, where ultimately he strangled her until she died. He cleaned the scene up the best he could, went out the garage door, loaded her body up with his tool bag. Took her body to the dump. Put her in the landfill. On January 31st, 2020, investigators move in to arrest Corey Binderum for the murder of Susan Mauldin. They were trying to murder her. I don't know what they were doing. Corey was actually already incarcerated at the Duval County Jail for fraud, so we went straight to meet him in the interview room and serve him notice that he was being arrested for Susan Mauldin's murder. I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to say anything. I'm not going to lie. I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to lie. Let me tell you. You're going to get upset again. No, no, no. Hey, hey. We won. We got our body. You're being charged. I didn't have anything to do with it. There was multiple avenues of this investigation that we took to try to determine if there was any other potential scenarios where someone else had something to do. And all of our investigation led back to Cory Benderham. What my mind goes to is I want to know why. That's what keeps me up at night. I just want to know why. Because at this point, we're past if you did it. That's a lock. What is important now is why. And that's what I want. Obviously, that'd be up to you. At some point, I'd love to be able to have that conversation with you, okay? You got any questions for me? No. Good luck. Almost five years after Susan Malden was first reported missing, that is when Corey Benderum finally goes on trial for her murder. Mr. Benderum is charged with three counts, murder in the first degree, burglary with an assault or battery, and tampering with evidence. The defendant has entered a plea of not guilty, which means you must presume or believe the defendant is innocent. Now, the stakes couldn't be higher in Florida, because if convicted of Susan's murder, Corey Benderum faces the death penalty. So on October 24, 2013, Susan Malden gave Corey Benderum the ultimatum. Am I right? Is my money back or there will be consequences? And on October 24, 2019, Susan Malden vanished, because those were the words that were going to cause this defendant's life to crumble around him. The prosecution argued that there was one person who had a motive to want Susan Malden dead, and that was Corey Benderum. He went to her. He went to her house, and he held her. And then he tossed her out like the garbage she thought that she was at the end of everything. Those actions by this defendant will be clear to you. And the other thing that will be clear is that he is guilty as charged on all three counts. I think the prosecution had an incredibly strong circumstantial case against Corey Benderum. But. Any time you have a circumstantial evidence case, it means that you don't have eyewitnesses. When you don't have eyewitnesses, sometimes the jury will say, well, it's not enough for me. The state's case is a circumstantial evidence case. And so all of his remains were found. When they were found, there was two things. They were now A, as the D.A. just was not. They were now B, as a mixture of three people. The other two people is an unknown female and an unknown male. That unknown male in that DNA mixture, exclusively, is not Corey Benderum. The DNA not being Benderum's is huge for the defense. It opens that door of reasonable doubt that every criminal defendant is counting on. Corey Benderum is not guilty to all counts. Because there is reasonable doubt in this case. The prosecution has the burden of proof here. So they need to take big swings to solidify their case. And that is when they call Cassidy Benderum to the stand. She is arguably the best person to speak to Benderum's character and behavior around the time of this alleged murder. Do you know a man named Corey Benderum? I do. That's my ex-husband. And at some point. After the marriage, did you find out that the defendant was having an issue with drugs? I did. He had told me that he was using cocaine. He had been going through a lot of money. Did he then go to rehab and try to get himself clean? He did. That was a mandate that I gave him. Was he also aware that if you ever found out about drug use again, that you would be gone? Yes. Did you and the defendant. Hi there. I am fully charged. I am here to tell you, Toy Story 5 is now on Disney+. Woody! What? Holy butterscotch! You said it, Jesse. And the best part? Power up your movie night and watch Disney and Pixar's Toy Story 5, now streaming on Disney+, rated PG. Go through the ring camera video. We're on that October 24th date. We did. And when you observed the ring camera from him coming home around 8.44 a.m., what did you see on that camera? One thing that I noticed was when he arrived home, he backed his truck into our garage and shut the garage door. That was something unusual because I'd never seen him do that before. The other significant thing was when he arrived home and when he left, he was in different clothes. Cassidy said that when she looked at the footage, she noticed that he had different clothes on, which we confirmed with the Home Depot footage that we saw where when he came in the morning before he went to Susan's house, he had on different clothes. The prosecution then calls up Thomas Smith, an inmate that shared a cell block with Binderum. And as you can imagine, he has some information that is relevant to this case. He went to go get some money from, go collect money. And she said, He wasn't done with the job yet. And he wasn't getting paid to, he had an argument and got out of control, I guess. Was there any violence between you two? Said that she started getting loud and he was trying to shut her up. So he hit her and then he started screaming and choked her. And there's also police interview footage with Thomas Smith where he goes into even more detail about what Binderum allegedly told him. You mentioned something about strangling. He said he yoked her out and that means that strangled, you know, something like that. He said it felt weird because he said he felt something break. It was incredible because we hadn't released that information to anybody else throughout the course of the investigation. But on cross, the defense goes after Thomas Smith's credibility. He said that you had eight felony convictions. Is that correct? Yes. We had one crime that was obvious. Is that right? Yes, sir. You're hoping that testifying for the state will help you out on your other two felony cases, aren't you? No, I'm not. Oh, you're not? No, I'm not. Jurors usually look at jailhouse informants quite suspect because these are individuals that have an absolute motive to lie because usually they're getting a deal in exchange for that testimony. The defense keeps pushing back. The next witness, Nicholas Kutu, the crime lab technician who conducted the DNA analysis, and Susan Mauldin's remains, he is directly in the defense's crosshairs. On January 20th of 2021, you released your report that excludes Mr. Binderum from the DNA found on Nail B, correct? Corey Binderum was excluded as a contributor to the mixed DNA profile obtained from this item. Not only excluded from the mixture of Nail B, but none of his DNA was found on Nail AI, right? Correct. The DNA types that were developed were only consistent. And you were sent no additional flaws? Correct. Only one individual was listed as a subject at the time, Corey Binderum. The defense was able to argue that that mixture of DNA found in Fingernail B exonerated Corey Binderum. If the prosecution claims that Susan Mauldin fought back against her attacker, then one would assume that Corey Binderum's DNA would be found in her fingernail. However, we find foreign DNA. We find someone else entirely, and we have no idea who that person is. According to the defense, that was reasonable doubt. After four days of testimony, the trial heads into closing arguments. Nothing that we do today will ever bring Susan Mauldin back. But it will forever define what happened to her on October 24th of 2019. her on October 24th of 2019. There was only one person whose life was going to blow up if Susan Malden went to the police. There's only one person who's guilty in this case, and it's Cory Vendrum. And the state has asked that you find him guilty as charged on all three counts. Cory Vendrum did not kill Susan Malden. The proof of that is the foreign DNA under Susan Malden's fingernail. The nail and both nails had no DNA from Cory Vendrum because he did not attack her. He did not kill her. What really happened is that law enforcement started with a picture of Cory Vendrum, and they made their investigation with it. You'll find those reasonable doubts raised by conflicts of evidence, lack of evidence, and so on. We ask that you find Mr. Vendrum not guilty on all charges. This trial had really strong arguments on both sides, but the truth is, is you never know what's going to stick with the jury. And after just four hours of deliberations, they came back with their verdict. Will the jury find the defendant guilty of Berkeley as charged in the indictment? Will the jury find the defendant guilty of tampering with evidence as charged in the indictment? So save you all. Following his conviction for first degree murder, Cory Vendrum had a second phase of his trial where the jury was going to determine whether or not he was guilty. not the death penalty was warranted in this case. In a truly full circle moment, the prosecution calls Phyllis Yates. Remember, she's the person who basically started this whole investigation, and she delivers a victim impact statement on behalf of Susan. I'm thankful now justice is being served. We will now cling to the memories that we built with Susan Molden, December 2006, through my last standing lunch date with my best friend on October 23rd, 2019. I'm looking forward to seeing my special friend in heaven. Sue was such a blessing to Dan and I, and such a joy to have in our life. To know Sue was to love Sue. Now before the jury votes on a sentence, victim advocate Leah Wilson reads a letter from Corey Binderum's daughters. Dear members of the jury and honorable court, her names are Bailey and Megan Binderum. We are Corey Binderum's daughters. We cannot imagine dad hurting anyone. He has been a protective and loving father to us throughout our lives. We love our father very much and ask you to show mercy when considering his sentence. The jury then goes to deliberate whether Corey Binderum is sentenced to life without parole or death. Ladies and gentlemen, I understand the jury has reached its verdict as to the sentence recommendation. We, the jury, present the defendant, Corey Lewis Binderum, should be sentenced as follows. Life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, five. Death, seven. The jury came back with seven in favor of death, five in favor of life. In Florida, they're required to have at least eight votes for death, and because they didn't, he was sentenced to life without parole. I absolutely think that we need to have at least eight votes for death, and because they didn't, I think that we achieved justice for Susan Malden, and we held Corey Bennerum accountable for what he did. And my biggest takeaway from the Susan Malden investigation is you never know who you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. And it's always important to try to vet individuals that you're allowing into your home. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods -- even they can't screw up. Home of the Save. Open soon. 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