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slash bundle. USAA. Restrictions

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apply. Hello,

0:19

I'm Keith Morrison and we

0:21

are Talking Dateline. Today

0:24

I'm here with Josh Mankiewicz. Josh

0:27

Mankiewicz? Hello, Josh. I

0:29

think this reversal and roles is kind of cool. Do

0:32

you really? I do. Yeah.

0:36

You have to say hello, Josh. At that

0:38

point, that's your cue. Hello,

0:40

Dateline audience. This

0:42

episode of Josh's is

0:44

called The Breakup. If you haven't

0:46

seen it, it is the episode that appears right

0:49

below this one on your list of podcasts or

0:51

go there and listen to it or stream it

0:53

on Peacock and then come back here after that.

0:57

And today, Josh has an extra clip. He's going to

0:59

play for us. It didn't make the show. And then

1:03

even after that, Josh will be on

1:05

with this episode's associate producer, Jess Kearny,

1:07

to answer your questions about the show

1:10

from social media. So

1:13

just to recap, on the 16th

1:15

of June 2010, a

1:17

young nurse named Lynelle Barsock was

1:19

found shot to death in her

1:21

home in Palmdale, California. The

1:24

police originally figured it was her boyfriend,

1:26

Lewis. But then in

1:28

the middle of the investigation, a security

1:31

tape turned up that changed the course

1:33

of the investigation and changed

1:35

the focus to a surprising new

1:37

suspect, Lynelle's best

1:40

friend, Lorraine. It

1:43

was a fascinating tale, actually. I mean, it

1:47

bounced all over the place. You thought it was just

1:49

going to be this person and that person and the

1:51

other person. True who done it. Well, you

1:53

know, women do not

1:55

commit a lot of murders,

1:57

particularly on a lot of violent murders. more

2:00

often find somebody else to do the job for

2:02

them. Usually some helpless

2:05

guy who ends up getting

2:07

the blame or at

2:09

least that's the plan. This is a

2:12

little bit different because Lorraine in

2:14

this case committed the murder, but

2:16

figured out a way to

2:18

blame Lanell's boyfriend,

2:21

Louis Bonheur. And here's the

2:23

thing, Louis was

2:26

a great suspect. I mean, he's almost admitting

2:28

to stalking her. He follows

2:30

her to the beauty supply store. Lorraine

2:33

says she saw him at

2:35

the house and he's the kind of guy

2:37

that ends up being the guilty party in

2:40

these things. And you've got Ike in the

2:42

middle of everything just to kind of be

2:45

icing on the cake and the jealous person.

2:47

You don't know how he plays into this

2:49

whole thing. I think Lorraine probably thought she'd

2:51

done a good job and she certainly threw

2:53

a lot of suspicion at Louis. Sure. I

2:56

wondered what it would be like to have been in her brain,

2:58

not that it would want to be, when

3:01

this murder occurred. And then she's going through

3:03

the process of taking the

3:05

body to the garage, there's blood all

3:07

over the place, cleaning up the blood on

3:09

the floor enough so that they had

3:11

to use luminol to expose it. Doing

3:14

all the things she did and still

3:16

managing to keep her head about her as she went

3:18

into the police department to say her best

3:20

friend was dead and she didn't have any

3:22

idea. She did definitely do a

3:25

good job of acting. And I

3:27

think the plan, or at least detectives believe

3:30

that the plan was to get Linel's

3:32

body into the trunk of the car

3:34

and move it some other place. But

3:36

that Lorraine discovered something that a lot

3:38

of people do, which

3:41

is that lifting what is literally dead weight

3:43

and other person's body is very, very difficult

3:45

unless you have someone to help you and

3:47

she did not. So she's

3:50

kind of making up parts of this plan

3:52

on her own. That's

3:54

what made it all the way. I don't want to

3:56

use the word impressive, but it's kind of, you

3:58

know, that was thinking on your feet. You know, it's diabolical.

4:01

I mean, yeah. Why didn't police, uh,

4:03

when they discovered bullets in her purse,

4:05

was that early on or was it

4:07

later on in the, in the case?

4:09

It was very early on that they,

4:11

uh, that they, and the same caliber

4:13

as the bullets that caused her death.

4:15

So I'm not sure

4:17

that at the moment they found the bullets

4:19

that they knew what caliber of bullet caused

4:21

her death because, um, the,

4:24

the, the slugs themselves were pretty mashed up.

4:27

But I mean, look, that made them wonder,

4:29

um, she was

4:31

able to explain her way out of it and

4:33

said, I don't own a gun. And they did

4:35

check right away to see if she did own

4:37

a gun and the state database came back that

4:39

she did not own a gun. So they thought,

4:41

all right, well, you know, we're going to let

4:43

that go. Then later they

4:46

after Lorraine's under suspicion, they checked the database

4:48

again. Um, and I guess it

4:50

must've just been updated because this time it showed that

4:53

she did own a gun and it was the same

4:55

caliber as the one that had killed one out. The,

4:57

uh, the twist of the

5:00

romantic involvement with Lorraine, that

5:03

was a came out of the blue complete

5:05

surprise. Yeah. No one saw that guy. No,

5:07

no. And, uh, no, I

5:11

mean, what about a whole other thing for Lewis to

5:13

be angry and jealous about? And he wasn't, he didn't

5:15

know anything about that. He just thought Lorraine was a,

5:17

was a, was her friend. I mean, they were, they

5:19

were hanging out together. Um, even after

5:22

their relationship had ended. And I think

5:24

LaMel, um, who

5:26

clearly was a, a

5:29

really nice sweet person with a good heart

5:31

from everything I can tell. Um, you

5:34

know, wanted to remain friends with Lorraine, even

5:36

after they were no longer involved. Uh, but

5:40

that wasn't good enough for Lorraine. And

5:42

in fact, um, in a

5:44

very strange piece

5:46

of this story, Lorraine

5:49

started impersonating LaMel or crystal, as

5:51

she called her, when Lorraine was

5:54

then out with other women. And

5:56

we know this because other people,

5:59

other women. called the sheriff's

6:01

office and said, wait a minute, you

6:03

said Lynelle Barsoch was killed

6:05

and I saw Lynelle Barsoch's picture in

6:07

the paper. That's not Lynelle Barsoch. I know

6:10

Lynelle Barsoch. I went out with her

6:12

and it's another woman. And then they show her

6:15

Lorraine's picture. She's like, yeah, that's Lynelle. I

6:17

know her. I dated her. And why

6:19

Lorraine did that? I don't know. It

6:22

does not appear to be any part

6:24

of the let's frame Louis

6:27

or let's cast suspicion on Ike

6:29

storyline. But there's almost some psychiatric

6:31

quirk about people

6:33

who do that because there are some

6:36

who are so into somebody

6:38

else, so, so fascinated by them that they just

6:42

have this kind of desperate need to be

6:44

them. And, and their,

6:46

uh, their need to be themselves is

6:49

much less profound. Lorraine invented

6:51

this entire backstory. She said that she

6:54

was Lynelle's best friend and they'd

6:56

known each other for 10 years. In fact, I

6:58

only met a little while earlier and they'd had

7:00

this affair. Uh, and then

7:02

when they're at the sheriff's station, Lynelle's

7:05

mom passes Lorraine in the hallway

7:07

and says, who's that? And

7:09

they said, well, that's, you know, that's Lynelle's best

7:12

friend. And the mom was like, I

7:14

don't know. That's not what I was, but I've never met that

7:17

one before or heard of her. I don't know who that is.

7:19

And that was one of the things that started the, the

7:22

sheriff's thinking like, wait a minute, there is

7:24

a great deal to this narrative that we've

7:26

been told that is not true. And

7:29

I will say this like, like for

7:31

a really long time, uh, Lorraine

7:34

was very good at telling that story and

7:36

making it sound believable. Good enough at it

7:38

that they didn't spend the time to kind

7:41

of try to break it down, which

7:43

as you know, people tell you

7:45

stories all the time and sometimes are true and

7:48

quite often they're not. You know, one of the

7:50

things that we see on Dateline all the time

7:52

is that, you know, the murderers that we generally

7:54

cover, these are not the pros. These are not

7:56

hit men. These are people who have never killed

7:58

before. What

8:00

they discover regularly is that

8:03

killing somebody and covering it

8:06

up and selling a phony story about

8:08

your own involvement to police or to

8:10

investigating officers is much more difficult

8:12

than you think it is. And in this

8:14

case, I think we found somebody who was

8:17

actually quite good at it. Most

8:19

people are not. Almost good

8:21

enough. Let's take a little break. And

8:23

when we come back, we will listen to that

8:25

extra little bit of sound from

8:28

Josh's interviews in this case. We

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9:09

So Josh, a couple of things. The

9:13

first interview with Lewis, the interview

9:16

the police did, how did he

9:18

present himself? He certainly seemed in

9:21

your show to be beside

9:24

himself when he heard what happened to Lanelle.

9:27

You know, detectives watch

9:30

potential suspects or persons of interest very closely

9:32

in the moment where they're telling them that

9:35

the person's dead because they want to see that they

9:38

already know it. Are they faking it? When

9:40

I heard the reaction in that

9:42

police interview, I wondered whether the police would think

9:44

that was an overreaction, whether it was, you know,

9:47

extreme faking. Right. I

9:49

mean, he reacted the way you would normally

9:51

react. So they were thinking to themselves, well,

9:54

he's good. If he if he's the killer,

9:56

he's good at this, but like nothing else

9:58

about him sort of. said, I'm

10:01

a smart, clever killer. Like, he

10:03

just didn't seem like that. And so that,

10:05

I think probably was a little bit in

10:07

his favor, but look, I mean, he

10:10

was, you know, doing all this stuff like,

10:12

like stealing the phone and, you know, there'd

10:14

been a, there'd been a, a

10:17

previous law enforcement call at that

10:19

address. That didn't

10:21

help him. He had a scratch on his face. That

10:24

didn't help him. All of that

10:26

is the kind of stuff that, those are the

10:28

building blocks of a

10:30

murder case. And in fact, let's

10:33

just assume that the video security

10:36

system at Craig

10:38

and auto parts wasn't working

10:40

that day. Yeah, that would be

10:42

that. Or if Lewis had thrown

10:44

out the receipt and couldn't remember the name of

10:46

the store because it's from the receipt that they

10:49

knew which store to go to. So let's say

10:51

there wasn't any tracing with the store or the

10:53

system wasn't working. You know, Lewis is the kind

10:55

of guy who before technology changed,

10:58

used to get locked up. Oh,

11:00

no question about it. That's the question

11:02

is how much farther would that of

11:04

investigation have gone if Lewis

11:07

could not prove his alibi?

11:09

Did he supply the receipt right

11:11

away when he was questioned by the police? No, he

11:13

didn't supply it at all. They found it in a

11:15

search of his truck. It's not like a

11:17

credit card receipt, I don't think. I think it was

11:19

like the kind of receipt that comes out of the

11:21

cash register. So who

11:23

actually was there doing the buying and that

11:25

you've got to go there and consult a

11:27

security tape. But they did and that's

11:30

Lewis. And the

11:32

LA to the Antelope Valley is not a

11:34

drive you ever want to take when you

11:36

need to be one of those two places

11:38

in a short period of time. And

11:41

they concluded pretty quickly that he couldn't have done

11:43

it. How long did he

11:45

remain in jail after they made that

11:47

discovery? I don't know. I want

11:50

to say a couple of weeks. It

11:52

was not overnight. I mean, it was a period

11:54

of time. So

11:56

this is a clip from Josh's interview with

11:58

the investigators, Joe Espino. and

12:00

Bob Kenny. They're talking about

12:03

Lewis's reaction when he was released from jail,

12:05

and this tells you something about the man's

12:07

character. We were not expecting a

12:10

very warm welcome from Lewis. Because you locked

12:12

him up for something you didn't live. We had put him in

12:14

county jail for

12:16

murdering a woman he loved.

12:19

Lewis came over to us, and he had tears

12:21

coming down his face, and he hugged both myself

12:23

and my partner, Joe Espino. To be honest with

12:26

you, I was expecting a lawsuit to come our

12:28

way. Instead, I got a hug. He

12:31

shook my hand, he hugged me, and he said, thank

12:33

you, thank you, thank you. He told us that

12:36

in his country from Haiti, if the police

12:38

arrest you, they throw away the key. There's

12:40

no way that you get out of it. So

12:43

he said that he thought that would happen to

12:45

him here in America. Pretty astonishing,

12:47

really. The

12:49

other question is, and I think

12:51

about this too, because some people

12:53

released from prison in this country

12:55

who've been there unjustly,

12:59

wind up with reparations. They

13:02

sue, they get some money from the municipality,

13:04

from the police, from somebody. Did

13:06

that ever happen in this case? I don't think so. I

13:10

don't think so. I think Lewis was just happy to be

13:12

out and be able to live the rest of his life.

13:15

What did you learn about, or tell

13:17

me your impressions of Ike, the other

13:19

guy. Hang

13:24

on one second. Why

13:26

can I not find the thing that I had

13:28

that I'd written about all the stuff in this

13:30

case? Just a second.

13:33

This is usually me actually. I know,

13:35

we've totally changed

13:37

roles here. Well, I

13:39

can't find it. What I remember about Ike was

13:41

that he was a, Ike

13:44

was a flight nurse. Ike

13:46

worked in like medevac things.

13:49

He was from Sacramento. And I

13:52

believe that Lanell and Ike met

13:54

online which was the same way

13:57

that Lanell and Lorraine met was

13:59

online. They had been recently seeing

14:01

each other, and Ike was very interested in Lanell.

14:04

But Ike, to his great lucky

14:07

credit, he was

14:09

somewhere where it was obvious that

14:11

he had a really proverbial ironclad

14:14

alibi. So- That they

14:16

found out pretty quickly. Yeah. One of the things I'm

14:18

proudest of in this story was that I was able

14:20

to get the phrase, I like Ike, into the story.

14:22

I heard that. Yes. But I liked Ike

14:24

too, yeah. How could you not? Yep.

14:27

My last question. Tell me about Lanell.

14:30

She was a sweetheart. She had a good heart.

14:32

She reached out to other people. And

14:36

her relationship with Lewis began because she saw him

14:38

waiting at a bus stop and gave him a

14:40

ride. She had

14:42

a big heart. I mean, it's not surprising

14:44

that everybody loved Lanell. They did. Marcel

14:47

told you a story about some shoes

14:49

Lanell gave him. Didn't

14:52

come into the episode. Do you remember

14:55

that detail? He admired some

14:57

shoes. But he didn't

14:59

have the money for them. And she bought them for him.

15:02

His oldest child, his first child's a daughter

15:04

and he named her after Lanell.

15:07

Which is quite something. He

15:09

clearly cared for her a great deal. What

15:12

did she want to do with her life? Well, she was a

15:14

nurse. And she

15:16

wanted to sort of move up in

15:18

that profession. Maybe become an N.P. and

15:20

nurse practitioner. And

15:22

I don't have any doubt that she would have achieved

15:25

whatever she set her mind to. She

15:27

was a hard worker,

15:30

well-liked. Everybody we

15:32

spoke with who knew her was kind

15:34

of brokenhearted by this. All

15:36

right, now we're going to take a quick break.

15:39

And then Josh will be back with Dateline Associate

15:41

Producer Jess Kernek to answer your questions about

15:44

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16:44

OK, welcome back. Keith

16:47

had to leave because a guy is coming

16:49

over to detail six or seven of his

16:51

maseratis. So

16:53

I'm joined by Dateline producer

16:56

Jess Kernet who worked on

16:58

this story to answer some

17:00

of the questions that you have from social

17:02

media. Hi Jess. Hey Josh, thank you

17:04

for having me. Have you been on talking to a line

17:06

before? I have not. I'm a

17:09

first timer. OK, well, so I'm just

17:11

a little primer here. If

17:13

you want to be like me, try to answer all the

17:15

questions and talk to the audience. And if you want to

17:17

be more like Keith and just remain silent for most of

17:19

the broadcast. A little bit of

17:21

both. Let's do it. Yeah, yeah. So up to you. All

17:25

right. Let's see. Let's take the

17:27

first one. Tiffany Mills from Facebook says,

17:29

wow, Lynette met a crazy woman on

17:32

Craigslist. I always felt like Craigslist was

17:34

for sketchy characters. Well, I'm

17:36

going to say almost everybody that saw

17:38

this story said to me, yeah, you

17:41

don't want to meet people on. I mean, on Craigslist,

17:43

even the couch you're going to get is sketchy. Yeah,

17:46

I don't think I would be

17:48

looking for any dates on Craigslist

17:50

myself. Rookia,

17:52

I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly,

17:54

says from Instagram, why was this

17:56

one only an hour? It

17:58

was so interesting. It should have been. regular two hours. Was

18:02

there anything you wish that you could

18:04

have included but had to cut for

18:06

time? Yeah, maybe. I mean, there was more

18:08

of the interview with Lewis we could have used,

18:10

but you know, I actually thought that it boiled

18:12

down pretty well to an hour. Yeah,

18:15

I think so too. If anything, it

18:17

would have been kind of interesting to get more

18:19

details about Lorraine or from the

18:21

trial, but aside from that, I think everything

18:24

was pretty balanced out. One

18:26

of the great social media

18:29

names now, Mary Queen of Scotch.

18:33

Excuse me, just a second. Mary,

18:36

you've got great taste. Yes.

18:41

Thank you. Mary

18:43

Queen of Scotch says Lorraine reminds

18:45

me of Pam Hupp. Well,

18:50

murderous, dishonest,

18:53

lies about a relationship,

18:56

frame somebody else. That's all from the

18:58

Pam Hupp playbook. A lot

19:01

of similarities, Josh. Yeah.

19:04

I can't say that Lorraine attempted to

19:06

impersonate a Dateline producer the way Pam

19:08

Hupp did, but... That's true. That's pretty

19:11

unique. That's almost the only thing. But

19:13

otherwise, yeah. I mean, Lorraine definitely checks

19:15

a lot of those Pam Hupp boxes.

19:18

Absolutely. Okay. So on to

19:21

the next one, Joanna at Joanna 531894705. That's a

19:23

very catchy name. That's not

19:28

quite as good as Queen of Scotch, but

19:30

go ahead. It's very catchy. I wonder what

19:32

those numbers stand for. There's got to be

19:34

meaning here, but why does

19:36

this detective look familiar? Has he been

19:38

on before? Different case? Well,

19:41

I'm not sure whether Joanna's

19:43

referring to Joe Espino or

19:45

Bob Kenny. Both of them

19:47

are veteran detectives. Kenny's retired.

19:50

Joe is still a detective with

19:52

LA County sheriffs, but

19:55

he has not been on Dateline before. I have not

19:58

interviewed either one of those guys before. Maybe

20:00

it just has a famous doppelganger out there. Entirely

20:03

possible, yeah. All right,

20:05

time is short, do something at five

20:07

one, so what? I wonder if they

20:09

checked to see if the letter was

20:11

in Lanell's handwriting. They

20:13

did check to see where the letter

20:15

was in Lanell's handwriting. The prosecution brought

20:17

in a handwriting expert and

20:20

the results were that Lorraine had

20:23

written the letter, not Lanell. Couple

20:26

of little things we did not

20:28

mention in the episode. Lanell spelled

20:30

her name L-A-N-E-L-L, but she capitalized

20:33

the N, but in

20:35

that letter, it is a

20:37

lowercase N, and that was evidence that

20:39

was used at trial against Lorraine. Yeah,

20:41

and Deanna Howard on Facebook

20:43

also noticed something else about the letter.

20:45

She says, I noticed there was a

20:47

PS that had been scribbled out too,

20:49

that was strange. The PS said,

20:51

I'm taking the TV. You

20:53

know, you gotta remember that Lorraine's

20:56

plan was to kill Lanell, get

20:59

her out of the house, put her in the trunk of

21:01

the car, take her out of the desert or somewhere, dump

21:03

her, hide her body. Lorraine, I think,

21:06

underestimated what window of time she

21:08

had before Lewis was gonna come

21:10

back. So,

21:13

I think, you know, as a result of all

21:15

of that, Lorraine was making this up on the

21:17

fly, and maybe she originally planned to take the

21:20

TV and dump it with the body and thus

21:22

give that letter sort

21:24

of, you know, added authenticity,

21:27

and then realized, I do not have enough time to

21:29

do any of those things, and I'm not gonna take

21:31

the TV, and I'm just gonna tell this other story.

21:34

So, that may have been why it was crossed out. And

21:37

onto our last one, stop the

21:39

squeal at Luck Box winner. It

21:41

often amazes me how these defense

21:43

attorneys can try to get an

21:45

obvious murder off scot-free and pin

21:47

the crime on an innocent person.

21:49

How do they live with themselves?

21:52

They live with themselves because they're a vital part of

21:54

the criminal justice system, and if you're ever charged with

21:56

a crime, you're gonna

21:58

really want a good time. defense attorney and

22:01

I know a lot of defense attorneys

22:03

and they are all honorable people. This

22:06

system depends on having two advocates, one on the

22:08

side of the people and one on the side

22:11

of the accused and the

22:13

people are not always right. We've done enough

22:15

stories about people who are wrongfully accused, locked

22:17

up, sent away for a long time to

22:19

know that they don't always

22:21

get the right person. I say this all the

22:24

time. Money

22:26

spent on competent criminal defense

22:28

is almost never money wasted.

22:31

And because if you're not guilty,

22:33

you really want to make sure you have

22:36

good representation because the deck is stacked very

22:38

heavily in favor of police and prosecutors. Just

22:41

thank you so much. Thank you for

22:43

having me. That's Talking Dateline for

22:45

this week. And remember, if you have any

22:47

questions for us about Dateline

22:49

or about our stories or anything else, you can

22:51

reach out to us on social media at

22:54

Dateline NBC. Now here's

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the bad news. Dateline

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is going to be off Fridays

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for the next few weeks during

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assiduously as you do Dateline.

23:10

But you can still tune in on

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23:22

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