304. The Killer Who Played Robin Hood - The Murder of Marjorie Nugent

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Hope everyone is doing great. Yeah, that's what we got. It's Monday. We're recording. It's not Monday. But thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. We don't really have too many announcements. Nothing too crazy coming up. I guess I'll kind of jump into my 10 seconds. Been watching football. Playoffs are getting crazy. Chargers lost. I don't know. They deserved it. That was absolutely garbage performance. If you don't watch football, then you can skip this a couple of seconds. Garbage performance. By the Chargers. They did not deserve to win that. Honestly. So I think I am rooting for the Bears. We'll see what happens. Other than that. Nothing too crazy for my 10 seconds. Making bagels. Hanging out. I guess I'll ask you guys. Okay. If you were to pick a bagel, a breakfast burrito, or a donut, what would you pick? What do you pick? Me? Yeah. You have to say bagel. Oh, bagel. Okay, bagel. No, honestly, what would you pick? This answer just changes for me so often. Okay. I'm just such a temporary girl. Like, I go in and out of these. So right now, I would probably pick a breakfast burrito. Ooh, I think breakfast burrito would be last for me. But there was a time where I only craved bagels all day. And there's been a time where I just wanted donuts every morning. I just bagels. For those who don't know, if you are watching this for the first time, I am opening a bagel shop. More details to come. Hopefully starting construction next week. But I love bagels. Been making bagels for like four years now. They are my life. They are my soul. Besides this beautiful girl next to me. Yeah, so that's what I got. I'll keep you guys updated. Nothing too crazy. Other than. I think on that note, we can hop into today's episode. Also, for those watching for the first time, just a reminder. I do not know what case my wife is telling me. I never know what case she's telling me. I don't know much about true crime other than when we sit here and record. We don't talk about it afterwards. We don't talk about it before. Everything is real. Nonscripted on my end. Yeah, we've been going for quite a while now. Five years. And three true crime cases. I know more than I did before, but it blows my mind how many cases there are that I don't know of. I mean, even you at this point, I feel like we were covering cases that you don't know. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I feel like a lot of time I try not to pick cases. They're so well covered or known. So it's getting even more. Yeah. But yeah, it's so crazy to me that we started this thing just on the basis of. Placement floor. Headphone mics. Here we are. And here we are. Again. Thanks again. We love you guys. And let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episode are TexasMonthly.com, CBSNews.com, Variety.com, InvestigationDiscovery.com, KLTV.com, TexasTribune.org, Tribetalk.org, Brunch.com, NewYorkTimes.com, Telegraph.co.uk, and AllIt'sInteresting.com. All right. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all make rash judgments about people. Maybe we don't like the way someone dresses. And so we're like, not our type. Maybe someone shares a name with our old high school bully. So immediately we're like, rubbing me the wrong way. The point is, while it's not the most evolved trait we have as humans, our brains naturally like to put people into boxes. Mean. Nice. Good. Evil. There's honestly something primal about it. It's how we spot danger quickly. What our biology doesn't account for is all the nuances that actually make up a person. Maybe someone is kind because they're being calculated, manipulative, and looking to get their way. Maybe someone is more closed off or a little colder because they've been really hurt in the past. It's not until we actually give people a chance and we really get to know them that we find out what lies beneath the surface. And those boxes that we've put people in might not just be totally wrong. They could also be deadly. So let's take a trip down to Carthage, Texas. This is a small little town of about 6,500 people. And we're 160 miles east of Dallas, close to the Louisiana border. That is the area Marjorie Nugent had always hoped for. Now born in just 1915, outside of Carthage, Marjorie's dad ran a little grocery store. He was also a pretty prominent landowner back then, which earned the family a pretty significant reputation around the small town. So Marjorie grows up. She goes on to study at Louisiana Tech, where she met her husband, a recent graduate. So after moving from Texas to Louisiana to New Mexico, they and their son, Rod Jr., moved back to the Carthage area in 1989, just to slow things down a little bit. Rod Sr. bought controlling interest in the First National Bank of Carthage, and with that, the couple purchased a 6,000-square-foot beautiful stone house. to people in her small southern town, go out to meet her neighbors, go out to see people. Everyone in town judged her. They believed the rumors without question. It must have been a pretty lonely existence for Marjorie, especially with her own husband so caught up in his work. And things got even lonelier when Rod Sr. passed away from heart failure a year after they moved back to Carthage in 1990, which even further explains why she became more of a recluse. She's now grieving. Rod had been 76 years old when he died, leaving 75-year-old Marjorie widowed and not on speaking terms with her one and only son. But something happened at Rod's funeral that would actually completely change the course of Marjorie's life. Now, it was during those arrangements that Marjorie met 33 people. Two-year-old Bernie Tita, a well-loved funeral director and mortician in Carthage. Mortician? Now, maybe because of Marjorie's difficult reputation, only a handful of people actually showed up to the services to offer their condolences for her husband. And Bernie Tita claimed he saw the sadness and the loneliness in Marjorie's eyes that day, and he immediately knew she was more than just a friend. She was more than just a friend. than what everyone had gossiped about. Not only did Bernie prepare the body and make all of the arrangements for the funeral, he also sang during the services. And then he personally escorted Marjorie to her husband's grave, offering his jacket to her. And in that moment, like that sweet gesture of kindness kind of won over Marjorie. So who is this Bernie Tita who's finally broken this? A little grunt that Marjorie had put up. Now, outside of being the local funeral director and mortician for the last decade, Bernie was extremely well-liked and popular around the small town. I mean, this guy was everywhere, especially when it came to the church, which is everything in a small southern town. He sang in the church choir. He taught Sunday school. And when the minister was under the weather, he actually stepped in and gave the sermon. And people said Bernie was a really talented performer, too. Ever since he went to Panola College, he had been very involved in the musical scene. He became an encyclopedia for Broadway shows, was asked to direct some of the school's performances, and even sang with a professional group called the Shreveport Chamber Singers. The Backstreet Boys. But life wasn't always singing in the rain for Bernie. He had had a tough childhood. He grew up about 40. 45 minutes outside of Carthage in a town called Kilgore. And when he was just three years old, his mother died in a car accident. Jeez. And then when Bernie was only 15, he lost his father. Oh, my gosh. To an illness. Now, Bernie was left to support himself and his younger sister. And that was when he actually took a job working at a funeral home. And Bernie found there was something about being there for people in grief that he really liked about his job. And as the years passed, he also realized he loved singing and performing. But working at a funeral parlor and volunteering at the church was a way he could sort of merge these things together. Okay. So in 1985, at 27 years old, Bernie came to Carthage when an opportunity opened at the Hawthorne Funeral Home. He even took up residence in a small apartment behind it. And there he did everything. He sang at the services. He embalmed. He did the hair and makeup of the deceased. And he was a shoulder to cry on for the families that came in. One man show. But people said Bernie did a lot for the community outside of that, too. He helped people with their tax returns if they needed it. He would run errands for the widows in town. Oh, my gosh. He donated his time and money to causes that mattered to the people of his community. And because Bernie put himself out there for all of Carthage to see, that's the story everyone told. Bernie was sociable, thoughtful. He put others first. And that is obviously what Marjorie saw the day of her husband's funeral, too. Extremely curious where this is going. I have no idea. Guys, we're getting into an ad and waiting sucks. I hate waiting for things. But Earnin is an app, not a bank, that gives you a chance to earn money. It gives you access to money that you have already earned. Okay, if you don't understand, let me explain it. Up to $150 a day and up to $1,000 between paychecks. Tips are optional and standard transfers take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. 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All right, guys, we are getting into a sponsor and it is one of my favorites, Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself reaching for over and over again. The sweater that just somehow works with everything. The jeans, you know, are always. That bag you carry everywhere. Well, that is Quince in my closet, okay? All of my Quince products have become my staples, which is why I highly, highly recommend going to Quince's website, checking everything out. It is the quality. It is the quality that sets them apart. I mean, you have the price that they've been able to cut out the middlemen and work directly with factories. So it is cheaper. But the quality of Quince items, I have had them for years. And again, I continue to reach for them time and time again. I'm talking loungewear, silk skirts, cashmere sweaters, and not to mention they sell baby stuff, okay? Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns now available in Canada. And guys, at the very end, when Quince asks you where you heard about them, please, please, please just let them know. Murder With My Husband, it is the best way to support the show. It lets them know that you heard about it here, and it would mean a ton. Again, if you've never shopped on Quince, go take a look and then let them know Murder With My Husband sent you. So, a few days after the funeral, Bernie, who's in his 30s, calls to check on Marjorie, who's in her 70s, and she is flattered. Someone was reaching out to her. Not just so they could. She believed Bernie really did care about her. Though Bernie definitely knew how much Marjorie was now worth, at least the ballpark, somewhere between $5 and $10 million, which is a lot now and was a lot back then. But Bernie said he didn't treat Marjorie any differently than he treated the other widows at his funeral parlor. He always asked if they needed anything. He always helped them pick up groceries or Medicare. He always gave them medication, stuff around their house, just things like that. But things with Marjorie turned out to be very different than the other widows that Bernie was connecting with. Uh-oh. Bernie said he could tell Marjorie was lonely, so he started inviting her to places with him. They began going to lunch, to dinner. And slowly, Marjorie started opening up to Bernie. This closed-off, grumpy, elderly woman was warming up. Talking. Talking about who she was, where she came from. And Bernie said he saw a side of her that people, even in her family, never got to see. Oh, so there was a big age difference. Huge. Yeah. He's in his 30s and she's in her 70s. A little scary. So, um. A little scary. Marjorie's family and the town is like, this is weird. I mean, I think everyone would say that. Like, she's loaded. She's loaded. Like, she's 70, he's 30. You know what? Reverse the roles. Can an elderly girl not catch a little motion? Just kidding. Don't put that in very good. Oh, my God. Bernie's like, I know a side of her none of you know. They're seen around town holding hands. Bernie said Marjorie wasn't very steady when she walked. He's like, that's why we're holding hands. Oh. In fact, both of them insisted to everyone there was nothing romantic about their relationship. Actually, they say Bernie. was gay. He claimed, though, that Marjorie never asked about his sexual orientation so they never really spoke about it now whether she wanted more in their relationship or not is unclear but that didn't stop her from doing everything in her power to keep bernie close and keeping this friendship relationship afloat because soon those affections for bernie manifested into gifts she was buying him new clothing a twelve thousand dollar rolex holy oh man first class trips around the world to places like egypt thailand and russia and of course to go see plenty of shows in new york on broadway which is his dream and none of that stopped the rumors about what was really going on between bernie and marjorie and now i think i know where this is going now now even though she was 40 years older than him whispers said that they had begun sleeping in the same room maybe even the same bed together when they went on these trips around the world though bernie denies it now it was certainly an unlikely friendship but romance was never the direction it took he says instead marjorie became his employer see in 1993 after three years of this going on marjorie finally encouraged bernie to quit the funeral business at the time he was only making about twenty four thousand dollars a year and marjorie was offering a new gig that would more than double that for nine hundred dollars a week in the early 90s so this is about two thousand dollars a week and he was only making about twenty four thousand dollars a year and he was offering a new gig that would more than double that for nine hundred dollars a week in the early 90s she asked bernie to be her caregiver for how much two thousand dollars a week damn okay and her bookkeeper she wanted him to help her with any personal stuff full time so that meant each morning bernie drove to her house to run errands for her pick out her clothes clip her toenails a lot of what she was actually probably already doing without a salary there's no way he was clipping her toenails for sure you know how hard it is for elderly people to bend down and clip their toenails no because it turns out two years prior marjorie had actually made a pretty huge decision she had amended her will and made bernie the sole recipient of her entire estate an estate that had now kind of solely belonged to her since her husband's passing so now with this new job he also had full access to her accounts because he was the one that was now in the house with her helping her pay bills and manage her finances all of this to say walking away from the funeral home was something bernie probably felt was necessary he couldn't say no to her job offer and risk being taken off her will this is life-changing plus the job obviously came with plenty of perks not just gifts and travel but in advance that let bernie purchase his own two-bedroom home only a mile away from marjorie's excluded estate and he got a new car and then he got his pilot's license something he'd always wanted to do he even bought a couple of small airplanes and there were some people who said they noticed a pretty positive change in marjorie as well eventually she started going to church she even hosted a brunch at her estate for the other women at the church which is like a huge first i was gonna say i don't yeah age difference age difference is wild it sounds like she's happy sounds like he's happy i mean it sounds like it's working out so all power to them at this moment i mean of course like everything's going good for the couple but the tides are getting worse with marjorie's family because the family of the elderly person in dynamics like this always has an issue especially when there's this much money on the line if you want to say right i mean like this much wealth and anytime someone dies in general money always causes fights families are torn apart sadly it's it's horrible so in 1994 when marjorie was 79 years old her granddaughters actually stopped by her home to just check with her and when marjorie opened the door she either pretended not to know them or she really didn't recognize her own granddaughters there were sources that said marjorie's eyesight had started going by this point she was demonstrating early signs of dementia but when her granddaughter alexandria finally convinced marjorie to let her in all the photos of her family in the family estate had been replaced by pictures of bernie okay here we go including every last photo of their grandfather her late husband yeah was now down in the home no this is weird and maybe because of that dementia marjorie kind of started to venture off that property less and less over the next year or two and by 1996 the sightings of marjorie around town you know going to church having those luncheons came to a complete stop now at that point it seemed like bernie was doing just about everything for marjorie while also finding new ways to spend his own ardor cash and honestly a lot of it seemed pretty generous for example when a friend of his asked for help opening a new western wear shop in town bernie gave him the money and when the church wanted a new wing bernie donated a hefty sum and when a local trophy store was floundering bernie gave them a loan so students at the local school wouldn't miss their trophies that year he bought cars not just for himself but for 10 other people he bought a house for a young couple in need he provided scholarships to local kids who couldn't afford college but all the while people are curious yeah we get it you're working for marjorie obviously but how is she they hadn't seen her in a while and bernie was assuring everyone you know she's fine she's just out of town visiting her sister she's at home taking a nap she's temporarily in a nursing home recovering from a stroke and still no one really questioned it at least out loud the maid was still coming to clean the house the gardener was still showing up to water the lawn it was pretty much business as usual the same as it was before marjorie's husband had even passed away many assumed she had just become reclusive again and you have to remember she doesn't really talk to anyone else in her family she and her younger sister don't speak she barely would let her grandkids into her home and even her own son now a successful pathologist hadn't seen or really even spoke to her in years honestly it wasn't even until the spring of 1997 that people really started to wonder is marjorie okay her stockbroker one of the few people she was close with outside of bernie said he had been worried about her ever since christmas he'd sent marjorie a turkey and she never called or wrote to him to thank him that just wasn't like her but he wasn't super concerned until marjorie missed an appointment to sign some important documents and then shortly after that in july of 1997 another local woman actually called the police out of genuine concern she said that no one she knew had seen or heard from marjorie lately and just recommended that they go look into it it took them a month but they finally got it showed up they first called bernie who said he was in las vegas singing at a friend's wedding he claimed marjorie was in a hospital under an assumed name because she didn't want to be bothered and he didn't offer more than that so the police begin calling around and no one has a woman in their care matching marjorie's description so they phone her estranged son next this is crazy and on august 19th 1997 rod jr accompanies police to his mother's home now by this point marjorie hadn't been seen for about nine months by anyone other than bernie so when they get inside they start looking for any clues of where she might be is there a piece of mail a hospital bill a phone number anything that could lead them to her and they take advantage of the fact that bernie's not there by scanning every single inch of that place including a chest freezer in a utility there's no way there that's insane they open this large freezer up and inside they see frozen corn some meat fish some chicken pot pies and then beneath it all wrapped inside a blanket is the body that's of 81 year old marjorie nugent that is a mind like mind-blowing so terrified of destroying evidence the sheriff had the entire freezer taken out of the freezer and he was able to get inside the freezer and he was able to get inside to remove her there for her autopsy it took marjorie two days to thaw out before they could even begin the autopsy and her cause of death well she was shot four times in the holy crap with a 22 caliber rifle so if there was any like oh she got old and i just couldn't handle it and i went a little crazy and she died naturally and i just i couldn't let go of her all that is out i'm also curious to see what happens because if he really was on her will like why why kill her right that doesn't make any sense so there's one person who obviously police are like i think we only have one suspect here because there's only one person who's said that he's seen her while she's obviously been dead but police hate to admit it it is the local good man bernie look i've come to realize if things are too good to be true they are too good to be true he is the one who told them marjorie was in a hospital he was the one who had access to her home her bank account her entire life he was the last one who saw her so they begin looking for him and they find him just as he's about to take a local little league team and all of their parents out to dinner the police are prepared to fully investigate this case but it ends up being even easier than they imagined because right after they take bernie in for an interview he confesses yeah i killed her he admits it okay and when they're like well why he says because marjorie was a very hateful and possessive woman and i felt trapped and he goes into more detail during this interrogation this message is sponsored by greenlight you know there 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safe ahead of crime and in real time bernie says that after their first five years together traveling the world and making memories things between them had started to sour that marjorie was getting more emotionally and mentally abusive it started small if bernie was even a minute late to lunch he claimed marjorie would call and page him incessantly until he called her back if he spent time with someone else he had to call her and check in repeatedly or she would quote give me living hell and he said it only got worse when marjorie started to make memories with her he claimed that she had bernie buy a gun to shoot any armadillos that stepped into her yard and she would follow him around yelling at him while he shot them now over time she expected him to be there for her around the clock she wanted him to always be obedient do everything for her at the drop of a hat to be her constant servant and bernie claimed there were times when he literally tried to leave the house but marjorie locked the gate before he could get away physically trapping him inside and when he was asked okay why didn't you just quit he gave a sob story about how he felt like he was the only person in marjorie's life who cared about her the reality was he was probably afraid he would get cut out of her will plus don't forget he had access to her accounts so all of that money he was sharing around town for scholarships and cars and businesses to stay afloat it wasn't the advance or the salary marjorie was paying him weekly it was deducted straight from her own accounts and handed out basically bernie was trying to be the town robin hood in a way yeah but you can't kill an innocent woman it's estimated that he stole about two million dollars of her money to give as handouts around town so he was i mean he gave two million dollars to people now of course police take his sob story with a grain of salt especially since marjorie is no longer around to even defend herself i was gonna say that's the other thing is you were only actually hearing one side of the story and considering he just killed someone and he could be lying about everything is it totally possible she was a big pain that she was elderly she was losing her mind a little and maybe taking it out on him for sure even so people have bosses they hate i mean but you don't go around killing people if you don't like someone you simply remove yourself from their life easy peasy but they still find it hard to believe that the town's most beloved philanthropist this nice guy could be guilty not just of murder but then stuffing an elderly woman in a freezer and lying about it for nine months even when bernie can confesses how he did it police find the story hard to swallow but here's what bernie says next he claimed for months he thought about hitting marjorie with a baseball bat to end things once and for all but he couldn't bear the thought of her suffering that's what he said so he considered other gruesome methods and then on the morning of november 19th 1996 a couple days before i was born by the way the 38 year old bernie was ready to act that morning around 7 a.m he went to marjorie's house make her breakfast just like he did every day but before he went back to his house to take a quick shower he noticed something the rifle that marjorie made him use to kill those armadillos he gets an idea he moves the rifle into a bathroom near the garage and then when he came back later he told marjorie he would give her a ride to the out into her garage went and grabbed the gun and then shot her once in the back now when he realized that elderly marjorie was still breathing he shot her three more times and then he began looking for ways to get rid of her body and that's when it dawned on him the freezer in the utility room he dragged her body down the hall and removed enough items to fit the five foot two 81 year old woman now wrapped in a blanket inside he placed the frozen items back on top cleaned up the blood and then just went about living life crazy what's weird is why did bernie just leave her in the freezer for nine months like what what was his plan what was he gonna say i don't think at that point you have a plan i think he probably was just i think he's probably hoping no one would ever check the home but i mean i agree not agree i will say that yeah her body was somewhere else or they can never find the body he probably would have never gotten caught Yeah, but everyone would have suspected him. For sure, but would he have gotten convicted, though? Probably not. There was more logic, like, oh, she must have just gotten dementia and ran away. Like, there were more logical ways he could have got away with it. Not that we want that. I'm just saying. But you got to remember, everyone in town loves this guy. Like, loves this guy, including the police. I mean, of course they do. He just gave $2 million to all of them. And Marjorie has kind of always had this bad reputation. So she's, the road to justice is already on a bad foot. I'm actually really curious to see how this trial goes. So he tells police, he's like, yeah, I know, like, if I had just gotten rid of her, maybe I would have got away with it. But I couldn't bear the idea of not giving her a proper burial. After all, I was a mortician and a funeral home director most of my life. So he's like, I just waited too long to do it. But what came next was maybe even more baffling. Once Bernie's bond was set for the murder charges at $1.5 million, a bunch of women in town came together to try and fundraise for his release. Oh man, this is going to be a nightmare. The DA actually had to go to the justice of the peace and add theft charges to get his bond price raised to $2.7 million in hopes of keeping this fundraiser from succeeding. The local reverend called for people in the church to pray for Bernie. Oh God. Bernie's friends hired a famous criminal defense lawyer for him named Clifton Scrappy Holmes. All to say, it was like the entire town of Carthage basically rallied around Bernie regardless of whether he was guilty or not. Regardless of the heinous crimes he admitted to. I mean, it's got to be, I mean, as much as maybe people don't want to admit, it's because he's helped so much financially. And so people are like, well, she didn't help us. He helped us. She didn't use her money. He used her money. Correct. To them, their minds were made up. Bernie was the Robin Hood and Marjorie was the wicked witch that he had put an end to. The justice system would see it completely different though. Because there were so many people around Carthage who knew the case and were already obviously siding with Bernie, the trial had to be moved 50 miles away. The 1999 trial lasted under a week where Bernie's defense claimed he had killed Marjorie in a sudden act of passion. They said the crime was not premeditated, even though Bernie had already admitted to this when talking to police. And after only 20 minutes of deliberation, the jury came back with their verdict. Bernie was guilty of first degree murder and he was sentenced to life in prison. Wow. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Bernie's story actually doesn't end there. In fact, it's kind of really just heating up because a famous filmmaker had caught wind of Bernie's salacious case and like, oh my gosh, this Robin Hood like killed her and then spent her money. And this filmmaker wanted to turn it into a scripted feature. His name was Richard Linklater. You may know him as the writer-director of Dazed and Confused. Now, in 2011, he released Bernie's story aptly titled Bernie onto the big screen. The feature starred Jack Black as Bernie and Shirley MacLaine as Marjorie. How have I never seen this? Have I seen this? Well, here's the thing. The depiction of Marjorie didn't exactly make her family happy. It seemed like he kind of shared a similar mentality with the people of Carthage that Bernie was a hero for all of this. And Marjorie was a hero for all of this. Marjorie was controlling, manipulative, abusive, and deserved. What happened to her? I think I've seen this. It certainly didn't help that the movie was written as a dark comedy, kind of making a joke. Yeah. And the worst part was that it actually influenced the real Bernie's fate because after the movie came out in 2011, an attorney named Jody Cole got very interested in Bernie's case because this movie really made everyone hate Marjorie. And she met with him. She met with him and filed an appeal stating his rights were violated. She said he had been coerced into confessing and that he was bullied into signing that confession without a lawyer present. He also said that the officers threatened to expose his homosexuality if he didn't cooperate with them. Now, also in this new statement, he claimed that Marjorie's abusive nature had triggered kind of a post-traumatic stress response, almost like, you know, because he had been sexually abused, as a child. He was in a dissociative state when he committed the murder, which was backed by analysis from a forensic psychiatrist. So basically this new lawyer comes in and is like, look, you can only take so much abuse from someone. And due to the history of abuse that happened as a child, his child brain took over, went into a dissociative state to, like, save itself and to survive and killed her. Interesting. Okay. So they're kind of comparing it to, I mean, any abuse in general. Like if a, man is or a female in a relationship, someone is abusing each other and the other person kills that person. I mean, yeah. Kind of like a PTSD defense. Okay. Now, Jody Cole brought all of this to the DA who bought it. Hook, line and sinker. The DA threw out the life sentence and ordered a new trial. Bernie was then released from prison in 2014 until that new trial could take place. And with nowhere really to go, he got in touch with one person who had previously offered to help. Writer, director, Richard Linklater, who had made basically the movie based off of Bernie's life. And between 2014 and 2016, Bernie actually lived in Richard's garage apartment in Austin. And naturally, Marjorie's family is pissed. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. This new movie. This is crazy. Really, whether true or not, it's a good movie. They painted her in a horrible light and then actually affected her real-life killer's sentence. If the movie was never released, there would be no question about Bernie's future. He would still be behind bars. And now there was a possibility that he could be walking free for good and maybe go on and take advantage of another rich elderly widow, which is how they saw it. So they held their breath as they waited for the next trial, which began in April of 2016. Suddenly, old witnesses were called in. Family members were forced to reopen old wounds. And Bernie sat there quietly, waiting to see if his fate would change. Or if he had just received a temporary vacation from prison. The jury decided it was the latter. On April 22nd, they came back with the verdict. Bernie was still guilty of first-degree murder and would go back to serving life behind bars. However, Bernie would now be eligible for parole again in a few more years. In August of 2029, when he is. 71 years old. He will be eligible for parole. Now, since then, Marjorie's granddaughter, Shauna, has started a non-profit to educate people on the signs and dangers of elder financial abuse. Because remember, this isn't like a rarity. This type of con happens often. It's just whether we believe this was a con or not. As for Marjorie, she did get the proper burial she deserved in a small cemetery just outside of Carthage. Many of the family members who she hadn't even spoken to for years prior to her death came to pay their final respects, including her estranged but certainly loved younger sister, who had seemingly decided that maybe Marjorie wasn't the villain in her story after all. And that is the murder of Marjorie Nugent. That's crazy. I can't believe there's a movie on it. I've seen the cover art, but I've never seen that movie. And I've seen a lot of Jack Black. I've seen a lot of Jack Black stuff, so that surprises me. But, yeah, I mean, here's the thing. I think that I, like, looking at it from the justice system, you can't kill people. Here's my thing. Yes, yes. Yeah, you can't kill. You can't do that. You cannot kill people. Let's say even if all that stuff is true, right? Let's say everything that they're saying is true, you still cannot kill people. You have to take accountability. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Because there's just so many. There's just so many excuses. And maybe I'm a little biased because I don't think I believe he was being abused. Sorry. Like, I just, I don't know. I don't think he was. I don't. It's not like the other DV cases we've covered where the guy or the girl is beating someone in their relationship for years and years. And there's marks and there's pictures and it's insane and it's crazy. Like, this is a very different situation in my mind. And, yeah, crazy. I don't know. Listen. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes old people can be cranky and annoying. For sure. Granted, they've had to be alive for a long time, so I don't really know if this is justified or not. But I'll be the first to admit that they cannot be the most fun to be around. For sure. Like, sometimes it can be a miserable experience. They're very entitled sometimes when they get in this state of mind, which, again, is why it's your responsibility to either remove yourself from there. their life or figure out a way for them to be taken care of or just deal with it yeah we don't just go around killing people also you can't tell me that he didn't want her money well i mean come on i mean truly truly truly if he was unhappy he he probably i mean she wasn't strong enough to keep him there physically so you know he could have just simply left yeah but he was robin hood that's crazy this is a crazy case i mean he had all this money he needed to give to people insane that's wild i don't know i think it's just so complicated because of what he did with the money but yeah all right you guys thank you so much for joining us for today's episode and we will see you next week with another one i love it i hate it goodbye the mighty dollar once upon a time it had a whole menu named after it now no more but one dollar a day lets you add progressive renters insurance to your auto insurance definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at but your current adulting self appreciates learn more at progressive.com progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insurers average premium costs based on progressive home data from 2025 product and prices may vary by state