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Heads up. This episode has descriptions of violence, strong language, and allegations of sexual assault. Previously on beyond all Repair.

I've seen a lot of crimes in my years as a detective, but to see this one where this woman was just beaten beyond recognition, it turned out.

To be my sister.

I wanted to tear his head off, his body. Just a blatant lies.

Even if she committed murder. I know that I love my sister, but she needs to also be held accountable if she committed murder.

And I never want my son to ever think that. Mom, I love you anyway. That is not the right answer. That's not the right answer.

This is shane. I am just getting ready to read the psychology report.

Shane Karia is once again recording a voice memo for me. He's the lawyer in New York City, remember? And like you'd hope a lawyer would be, Shane is organized. He's been a thorough record keeper for pretty much his whole life. It's kept him safe, he says, like a fortress against gaslighting, helping him believe a life full of unbelievable family events. And Shane has in front of him right now a document that I'm not sure anyone in his family even knows still exists.

I've read this so many times over the past, I guess, almost two and a half decades.

Shane is about to reread a court ordered psychological evaluation of the Kariah family. His family. It was done in 1997, five years before Marlene Johnson was murdered. Shane was nine years old at the time of this report. Sophia was 18, twice his age. Sean, his brother, was 14. So in the middle, more or less, none of the Kariahs were in Washington state where the murder occurred, yet they were all still living in the Bronx, but they were not all living together. This psyche, Val, explains a lot.

All right, so I'll just read the reason for referral. This is in the matter of Kariah v. Kariah.

Shane's parents, referred to as Mr. And Ms. Kariah throughout the report, were getting a divorce. They had already been separated for a few years. The kids were separated, too.

The couple's only daughter, Sophia, lives with her mother and Shane. Mr. Kariah expressed hostility toward the two.

Women, hostility that, like father, like son, Ms. Kariah says, was passed down to Sean.

Ms. Kariah blames Mr. Kariah for Sean's delinquent behavior. She and Sean got into a battle and Sean called the police, who sided with the mother. At that time, Sean went to live with the father and stopped going to school. According to Ms. Kariah, Sean was dealing with drugs. In relating the story about her son, there was an icy cold quality, particularly when she stated that Sean cannot come back to her, that he steals from her.

Sean steals, his mother says, but also that he's gotten physical.

Eventually, Sean struck her and she filed for a pins petition. A pins petition, by the way, is in the state of New York, a person in need of supervision. If law enforcement hasn't come to intercept your kids, then you try to go to family court and get the court's help.

That pins petition didn't go anywhere. Shane says Sean went to go live with his dad. But Shane, the youngest, he was staying with their mom, and she was there talking to a psychologist for the state of New York to make sure of it.

George Karia, the father of Shane Crya me, is petitioning for visitation rights. He states that the mother is pressuring the boy not to visit with him.

This pressure, if that is in fact, the right word here, seems clearly out of concern because as Sophia told this.

Psychologist, she believes that the father is responsible for Sean's antisocial behavior and that given Shane, the father would accomplish the same. Thank you, Sophia.

The gratitude Shane feels is because in Kariah versus Kariah, 1997, Mr. Kariah wasn't granted visitation rights. Shane credits Sophia and his mom for that, for protecting him from his dad, because, as he himself told the psychologist.

He stated that he is afraid that he would become like his brother Sean.

Who is the Sean that Sophia was afraid of Shane becoming? That Shane was afraid of becoming? So much so that the Kariah family remains divided today, physically, emotionally, intentionally. How do Sean and Sophia, siblings at ODS since childhood, end up accusing each other of murder? I was starting to get an idea. I'm Annemarie Siebertson from WBUR and ZSP Media this is beyond all repair. Chapter three bad blood.

Thank you, your honor. I stand here on behalf of Sophia Johnson to deliver this opening statement. Not my favorite, you know, at least.

In part, how this sibling, he said, she said, turned out with Sophia on trial in 2003, a year after her mother in law's brutal murder. In her opening statement, Sophia's lawyer, Therese Lavalley, made the point that Sean and Sophia had been estranged up until just one week before Marlene Johnson was killed.

Sophia and Sean had not spoken to.

One another for months. Just because we have the same two parents does not mean we like each other.

Those same two parents who didn't like each other either and who also had a history of he said, she saids. According to the family psych evaluation regarding.

Visitation, Mr. Karai stated that he sees both Sophia and Shane regularly, while the mother, Sophia and Shane, insists that there have been no visitation for more than three years. Thus, there are many indications of contradictory data.

The case against Sophia rested on Sean's word that he saw his sister standing over Marlene with fireplace tongs.

This is a story that was concocted by Kariah to save himself from the charge of murder in the first degree.

He would do anything to save his own skin, so I definitely don't trust his testimony at all.

According to Shane and Sophia, if you want to understand why Sean said what he did on the stand, you need to know who he was to them growing up.

There's a reason this little son of a bitch, who I happen to be related to, who's up here lying.

In some ways. Sophia and Sean have been through a lot together. They were both born in Guyana. It's the only south american country where English is the official language. Sandwiched between Venezuela and Suriname, the Karayas have a rich ethnic background, as many guyanese people do. There's chinese heritage, indian Portuguese. You'd never be able to visually pinpoint the Kariah siblings to a particular nationality, but you'd connect them to each other. Light brown skin, dark brown eyes, jet black hair, an attractive bunch with a deeply complicated history. And maybe an even more complicated present. Little teaser for you. Sean ran for president of Guyana at one point, and he's contemplating another run right now. He's made his presence known down there and on YouTube, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The Kariah family came to the US from Guyana when Sophia and Sean were pretty young, six and two years old, maybe. Sophia thinks they eventually settled into a brownstone in the South Bronx with other relatives.

There was constant screaming in the house.

This is Sophia in our very first conversation, back in 2021. Remember her analogy for her life up to this point? A house full of boxes, not knowing where to start unpacking. How about your parents?

I suggested they created the two of them. A very toxic environment for all of us.

Both Sophia and Shane attribute much of this toxicity to their father. Specifically, nine year old Shane described violence in the home to the psychologist conducting the family evaluation in 1997.

He also stated that the last time he saw his father, Mr. Karia slapped his sister and called his mother a whore.

Sophia and Shane have separately told me many of the same stories about their father's aggression. Throne fists, throne plates. Shane told me about a time his dad threatened him with a knife, which his dad denies. But Shane did call the police on him at the time, and he's kept that report, too. Still, it's clear the emotional scars of the Kariah kids'collective childhood run deeper. There was name calling by their dad. Sophia and Shane say, often of a misogynistic or denigrating nature. Once Shane came out to his dad.

I was cocksucker or faggot or like that. That was my name from 13 to 18.

And that really does something to a child.

The Kariah parents worked long hours, so Sophia took on the role of guardian, not legally, but literally, mostly to Shane.

As for Sean, Sean is dad's kid, like 100%.

If Sophia was the protector, Shane says, sean was the instigator.

He was selfish, advantageous, and didn't give a shit about the impacts.

And as their mother claimed in the psychological evaluation, Sean could get physical like his dad. Shane told me about a time that he went after Sophia.

I remember him picking up the bat, and he took it to my sister, to the point where my sister is screaming, Shane, call the police. And I run downstairs, call 911. They're like, what's your address?

Shane was young enough at the time that he didn't actually know their address.

And I'm screaming to Sophia while she's, like, fighting off Sean with a baseball bat. Sophia, what's our address? I called the cops before I knew where I lived because of Sean. When I was growing up, my sister raised me. My sister made sure to get me to school. She took me an hour out of her way to take me to my special school so that I didn't miss it and I could keep going.

But Sophia couldn't do it alone. And when help came, literally knocking, Jehovah's Witnesses going door to door, she answered.

And so I made the decision. I made the decision to go to the kingdom hall with them three times a week and take Shane with me so that we would be safe while my mother was at work was peaceful. It was safe and at times boring as hell. But it taught me to be a little bit more confident.

Eventually, Sophia met her first husband through the religion. This guy wasn't the love of her life, Sophia says, but marriage was an opportunity to get out of the Bronx and further from her father and Sean, much further. Her husband's family was from Washington state, and she agreed to move there if her mom and Shane could come with them.

And we made this agreement and moved across the country.

A year after that, family psych evaluation was done. Sophia was now 19 years old and newly married, and she, Shane, and her mom felt like they'd been given a fresh start. Things seemed hopeful for the first time in a long time. But within six months, one of their problems would follow them to Washington.

So it was my grandmother who called, and she said, you guys are so far away, and Sean really needs help. Can you please help your brother?

Sean was getting into a lot of trouble in New York, Sophia says, and he had either dropped out of school or gotten kicked out. He needed a chance at a fresh start, too. Their grandmother pleaded, I know that if.

He just got away from his father and all of this stuff in New York, the influence, that maybe he can have a shot at a life.

As much as Sophia disliked Sean, she loved her grandmother, her dad's mom. She lived with them when they were all in the Bronx brownstone. It was for her grandmother that Sophia says she got Sean enrolled in high school out in Washington and convinced her mother to take him in, give him a second chance. It was for her grandmother that she brought Sean to the Kingdom hall with her to try to give him more of a community and moral foundation. And Sophia thought it was working. Until one day, Sean came to her in the middle of a school day, and he wasn't alone.

And he said, this is my girlfriend, Cynthia. We're in trouble. And I'm like, okay, what is it? He said, I think she's pregnant.

It was like head over heels for this boy at 16.

This is Cynthia.

He would walk me to class. He would carry my books, and he used to say that he used to sing. So he started singing something. Don't ask me what it was, because I did not understand it. And I was like, oh, he sang to me.

That's how Cynthia remembers Sean in the beginning of their young love. This is how she talks about him today.

He's somebody that's manipulative, a pathological liar, somebody that it's abusive, somebody that doesn't take no for an answer.

It took starry eyed Cynthia a little while to see what her parents seemed to pick up on right away about Sean.

My family did not accept Sean whatsoever. My family basically disowned me because of him.

For a while, even Sean's mom took.

Cynthia's parents'side she told me, she goes, your mom's right. Your mom's right not to like Sean. He's not doing anything good with his life.

One example of this. Pretty soon after moving out to Washington state when he was 16, Sean was found guilty of a hit and run, which he'd gotten into using his mom's car, taken without permission and without a driver's license. So, yeah, a bad boy in a long black leather jacket, talking smooth to Cynthia.

There was times where he kind of spoke in, like, a different accent. And half the time I was like, I don't know what you're saying, but it sounds so good.

What kind of an accent?

Kind of like the people that sing.

Reggae, that type of accent. There's this one picture of Cynthia and Sean from around this time that may as well be captioned rebels in romance. They both have these satisfied, closed mouth smiles. Sean has one arm around her, the other clasped in her hand, the epitome of teenage toughness, except for one little dimple that gives Cynthia away. But she really did get disowned by her parents when she got pregnant, Cynthia says, or at least kicked out of their house. The young couple hopped around. They stayed with some of Cynthia's friends, who sent them packing when they suspected Sean was stealing from them, she says, they spent some time in a shelter. Sean had trouble holding down a job. Still, they got married. Cynthia says Sophia let her wear her wedding dress and planned a baby shower for her. But things got even worse between Sean and Cynthia. After their daughter was born, Cynthia says he would force himself on her, sexually, punch holes in the walls. When she'd confront him, Sean would have a seizure in the heat of an argument, Cynthia says. One time it seemed like he'd hit.

The ground hard, and one of the paramedics actually pulled me aside, and he goes, I need to tell you this, but he's faking it. And that's the first moment where I was just like, what?

Sean's own mother has claimed that he would fake seizures, by the way, but real or not, Cynthia was starting to worry about safety. Sophia took her and her infant daughter in for a period of time, she.

Treated me like a sister. She never, ever looked down on me. I do remember when I first met her, she said, why are you with my brother?

When Sean found out Cynthia was staying with Sophia, he was livid. Sophia says he'd call her house, accusing her of trying to keep him from his daughter. It got to the point where Sophia ended up changing her home phone number. It was the beginning of a month's long estrangement in a sibling relationship that had been strained practically their whole lives. But it was not the end for Cynthia and Sean, and she says his aggression escalated. One incident in particular led her to try to get a restraining order. She dates it in her petition for an order of protection to July 29, 2001. Their daughter was ten months old. Cynthia says she was holding her when an argument with Sean turned violent.

He picked me up. He pulled me up by the hair, and then he slams me to the wall. And he picked me up by the neck and slammed me over and over with my daughter in arms.

Cynthia says she feared for her life in that moment. She details another incident a couple months earlier when she says Sean punched her and threatened to kill her, saying he was going to take their daughter. Cynthia's restraining order was denied, quote, insufficient evidence of imminent danger of physical harm, the report concludes. It was another he said, she said, but she was done. Fast forward six months to January of 2002. Cynthia and Sean are separated but still technically married. Sean is eager to get a divorce because he has a girlfriend, Susie, who's five months pregnant. He doesn't have the money for the divorce, though Sean is 19 at this point. He's making minimum wage at Wendy's. He's living with Susie in her mom's apartment. He's soon to become a father of two, and he's upwards of $40,000 in debt from unpaid medical bills. Seizure related, he claims. Cynthia says she gets a call from a friend one day around this time who tells her to sit down and turn on the news. Clark county sheriff deputies believe Sophia Johnson and her brother Sean Korea murdered a brush prairie woman.

But the DNA evidence is held up.

And my first reaction was like, wow, he almost killed me. And then I have to face my parents to be like, you were right. I could have been his first victim.

Cynthia went to her parents, but that's about it. She says she's really only talking to me now because her daughter's an adult.

And I've never told her everything, never told her that her dad, which at the time, I thought it was my duty because I was his wife. Never told her that her dad raped me time and time again. I never told her that he hurt me.

Sean has denied this allegation and others of a similar nature. And you will get to hear from him in his own words, down the line. But you know who else never heard about the Sean? Cynthia says she knew the jury in Sophia's trial. Despite Sophia pleading with her attorney, she says to put Cynthia on the stand.

I don't know why Cynthia did not testify, why she was never called by the defense.

I do. Or I at least have an idea. Sophia's lawyer, Therese Lavalley, hasn't wanted to talk on the record, but I do have a window into her strategy with regards to Sean. Sophia's trial footage, which includes the pretrial hearings where decisions were made about what evidence and testimony the judge would and would not allow the jury to hear.

Your honor, to reiterate, our argument is that this all goes to his motive to lie and to commit this crime.

That's Therese. In a particular hearing that her opponent, the prosecutor, referred to as a character impeachment of Sean.

It's an attempt by the defense to besmirch and portray Sean Carreya as this bad character.

Sean, remember, was the key witness testifying against Sophia. The prosecution needed him to appear credible, reliable, a victim in this whole mess. But Therese, aka the defense, the evidence.

We can show, directly contradicts that.

She had information suggesting that Sean was none of those things. Leading up to Marlene Johnson's murder, she'd heard the stories of impulsive violence. She knew about accusations and recent charges against him for theft, about the debt hanging over Sean's head, about the bad blood between the siblings turned worse. And Teresa had spoken to Cynthia and her mother, who told her about a time when Sean tried to extort her for $50,000, saying, if you write me.

A check for that amount of money, I'll divorce your daughter and not ever fight for custody of the child.

Therese was ready to share the many shades of Sean with the jury, all of which, she said, potentially motivated him to burglarize the Johnson's home, made him capable of killing Marlene and blaming it on the sister who'd betrayed him by taking in the wife who'd fled him in fear. And Therese wanted Cynthia to be able to share her experience with Sean on the witness stand, an opportunity that Cynthia says she would have taken, especially given whose character Sean was about to impeach at trial.

There's no way. There's no way Sophia is a part of that.

But the prosecutor argued that all of this was prejudicial.

Our courts have defined unfair prejudice as, quote, more likely to arouse an emotional response than a rational decision by a jury.

I should be entitled to explore Sean Kariah's motivation, his own personal motivations for committing this crime. Because if I'm not allowed to do that, then essentially what we're dealing with is a kid who says, I was just tagging along with my sister. You see, your honor? And once he gets caught. Once he gets caught, then he starts pointing the finger at my client.

Ultimately, her honor sided with the prosecutor. Sean's history irrelevant. He wasn't on trial for murder. His sister was.

Granted, he's not necessarily a very nice person, but what does that have to.

Do with the particular facts of this.

Case, other than his admissions to the behaviors and the crimes that he's committed? Then my client is being denied a fair trial.

This story, in large part, is about which of these two siblings you believe. And after learning more about Sean's backstory, I did find myself questioning his version of events. But the jury wouldn't know any of it. They'd just hear Sean telling his side of the story. They wouldn't get that for Sophia. Not in her words, anyway. But you will in a minute. The world's clean energy future relies on ancient elements still in the ground.

Without mining, there will not be a clean energy transition.

But pulling them out of the ground comes at an environmental and human cost.

Mining is intrusive, but the results are the building blocks for products that we use every single day.

I'm Meghna Chakrabardi.

Join me on point for elements of energy mining for a green future. Five special episodes. Listen and follow on point wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Anne Marie. You've heard me mention that this series, beyond all repair, was born out of another podcast I make called Endless Thread. And I co host that show with Ben Brock Johnson. Hi, Ben. Tell the good people what the heck endless thread is.

It's me and you solving Internet mysteries.

Yeah, telling untold histories and other wild.

Stories that originate online.

Yeah. And you can listen to any of the 200 plus episodes of endless thread that Annemarie and I have made. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, that's.

Endless thread from WBUR. Cynthia, who says Sean was her high school dreamboat turned husband turned nightmare, wasn't the only one exiting a relationship in the early aughts. Sophia's arrangement with her husband in the Jehovah's Witness community was starting to feel about as exciting as any relationship you might refer to as an arrangement. And Sophia was getting attention from a guy she'd met through work. His name was Brad Johnson. She was 21 at the time.

He was 33, and I'd never experienced that level of attraction in my lifetime.

Sophia fell hard and fast. She filed for divorce from her husband, not realizing how much she'd end up divorced from, because adultery, in the eyes of her kingdom hall, was grounds for expulsion from the religion. Disfellowshipment, it's called, and it meant that other Jehovah's witnesses weren't allowed to maintain contact with her, even the two people who, up to that point, Sophia had been closest to one.

Corinthians 1533. Do not be misled. Bad associations spoils peaceful habits.

My mom and Shane, I couldn't understand that one because we're still family, and yet I gave them the space because I knew that they were doing what they were being told was the right thing to do and didn't hate them for it. I was just really hurt by it.

This was the beginning of a really isolating period in Sophia's life. Amid all the hostility and volatility of her upbringing, she'd always, always had her mom and Shane. So now Sophia looked to a new chosen family.

Marlene was my best friend.

Marlene Johnson, Brad's mom I started to.

Not just love Brad, but I really loved his family. His mom and I started playing dress up, and she totally got into it. She had all these wigs with all these styles, and I was like, oh, this is so great.

Brad was an only child, which meant Sophia was like the daughter Marlene never had. And Marlene was not the mother Sophia never had, but a mother she never had. One who didn't work all day, who let her do her makeup, who watched movies with her and gossiped, who let her feel just like a daughter after so many years of being a mother like figure to her kid brother. And Marlene was the mother who was actually talking to her, which she desperately needed as a young woman in arrested development, playing dress up by day with her future mother in law and diving deeper by night into her relationship with her older, irresistibly attractive future husband. The not too distant future, either. Within months of separating from her first.

Husband, we were newlyweds, and then I was pregnant.

Flip it and reverse it. But, yeah, Marlene was going to become a grandmother the following spring, and she.

Was so excited about her first grandchild.

That's an understatement. From what I've heard from some of Marlene's friends and this mother and daughter in law were about to go into business together, an event planning business called best friends for real. It was like Sophia had been given another chance to start over. She didn't have her mom and Shane with her this time, but she had the Johnsons.

All of them were incredible to me.

She was just about ready to put that other life and maybe that other family behind her when she got a call from her grandmother again, saying her brother Sean needed her help again, this time with his divorce paperwork. He also wanted to start over. And Sophia, her grandmother suggested, just might need him, too.

Your mother isn't speaking to you. Shane isn't speaking to you. You have only this new man's family. Why don't you try to cultivate something with your brother who's so willing, and his girl is pregnant, and maybe you guys can form a relationship. You need to have a support system.

But the last time Sophia had heard from Sean, she says he was spewing vitriol by phone for taking Cynthia and his daughter in. She and Brad had. In fact, why should she help him out now after six months of Shawn free living? The same reason she did last time, Sophia says. Grandma Kariah mind tricks.

And so I did, despite my best judgment. And if there's one thing I could change in my life right now where I know I made the wrong choice, it was that that decision altered the course of my life.

January 10, 2002, was a pretty typical Thursday. Brad went to work like usual. Sophia says. She stayed home like usual. But unlike usual, Sean and his pregnant girlfriend were expected at her house at 830 in the morning to go over his divorce paperwork. So the sibling stories match so far, including the part about Sophia agreeing to give Sean the money to file his divorce papers and realizing she didn't have it.

And I thought, oh, shoot. Okay, well, I'll have to give this to you tomorrow because I was over at Marlene's last night, and I must have left my coat there because I couldn't find it anywhere at my house.

Now, as someone who has experienced Washington state in winter, it's a little hard to imagine how you forget your coat in January. But Sophia says there was a reason for this.

I know exactly.

Oh, really? Okay. Sophia had spent the day before at Marlene's house. This was pretty common. She was waiting for a ride home from Brad when her in laws started arguing. Also pretty common. Sophia says Marlene suspected that her husband had started drinking again. Sophia says things got heated between Marlene and her father in law, and when Brad arrived to pick her up from his parents'house.

I'm like, we gotta get out of here. This is not good. We gotta get out of here. They're fighting. And he's like, oh, great, okay.

And so Sophia says, in trying to get out the door quickly, her coat didn't make it with her. No big deal. Marlene is coming over for lunch that afternoon.

And in fact, I called Marlene and she informed me that she was going to do a yoga class and that she'd come home and shower, get ready, and she'd make a note to bring my coat.

But Sean can't wait around for the cash coat. He has to go to work. His girlfriend has to babysit. And this is where the sibling stories diverge. Remember, Sean says this is when his girlfriend drives him and Sophia to her in law's house to get the coat. Sophia says Sean and his girlfriend just leave, but not totally empty handed. Sophia says there are bags of clothing by her door.

And I mentioned to, you know, these are going out for donations. They're good stuff. It's just that it cannot fit us or we know we won't ever need it or use it. Maybe you guys can use some of it. He took a few things. I cannot remember what.

And left.

And that was it.

Side note, this is an interesting detail for Sophia to remember. Think back to Sean's version of events for a minute. Sean told the jury that after the murder, Sophia gave him a pair of Brad's pants to change into, which were submitted as evidence.

They didn't fit me. I think the legs were too short.

But here Sophia is saying that Sean took some of Brad's clothes from a giveaway bag before he left her house that morning. So could that be how Sean ended up with a pair of Brad's pants? Okay, back to Sophia's version. It's now late morning, and Sean and his girlfriend have just left Sophia's house. Sophia says she's blasting 80s love ballads on her living room stereo and rocking out. While rocking out.

I was in a nursery in the.

Rocking chair, the nursery for baby boy Johnson, who's due in just a few months. She just recently finished setting it up with Marlene, who's due at her house for lunch. Pretty soon. The music is so loud, apparently, that Sophia doesn't hear a knock on her door sometime after 01:00. But she knows it happened, she says, because the door knocker comes back a little later. And it isn't her mother in law. It's my mother, Sophia's mother, whom she hasn't seen much of since being disfellowshipped from their kingdom hall a year earlier. But her mom is having a problem with her bank account and Sophia is listed on her account, so she needs her daughter to go to the bank with her and get it sorted out. But Marlene is going to be at her house any minute, so Sophia leaves a message on her cell saying she'll be back soon. She's left the door unlocked. Marlene can just go right in.

That was the last call I made to her.

Sophia and her mom get back from the bank sometime after 02:00 she says. And as they pull onto her street, Sophia notices something immediately.

There's no car in my driveway and Marlene's car should be there. So I said to my mom, I don't understand. She's not here because she was always on time.

Sophia calls Brad. He hasn't heard anything from his mom, her father in law, nothing. Someone needs to check on Marlene. It's about 330 now, and Brad and Sophia are pulling up the long driveway from a dead end street to her in law's house in Brush Prairie, Washington, about 20 minutes from their own house. It's an aframe made of beautiful dark wood with a big deck. It's surrounded by evergreens with enviable floor to ceiling windows. And through those windows, Sophia sees something kind of frustrating, actually.

All of the lights are on in the house.

Sophia's like, wait a minute, she's home.

What in the world? You've been here this whole time? You couldn't answer your phone? You couldn't let me know you're okay? You couldn't just say, I'm not coming, I'm going to be late. Nothing you say nothing.

Sophia says. Her irritation quickly subsides as they get further up the driveway. The garage door is open, but Marlene's van is gone. Brad gets out of the car.

I said, wait, let's call the police. Where are you going? Something's wrong. Something's wrong. He's like, oh no. I was afraid that there was someone in the house and that he could get hurt. I didn't know what we were walking into.

Brad heads for the door leading from the garage into the basement of the house and tries to open it, but.

The door is stuck and he pushes his weight against his door.

Marlene is just on the other side of that door on the floor. Her son has only gotten a glimpse.

Of the situation and he started screaming that his mom was on the ground and she was hurt. I call 911 immediately, but Sophia says.

She doesn't know what's actually happened. She's lying on the floor, and I don't know what's wrong. Sophia tells the dispatcher. Sophia eventually hands the phone over to Brad, who's now gotten a better look at the body on the basement floor. He knows it's his mom, despite the fact that she's virtually unrecognizable.

What makes him think she was murdered? The hammer imprint on her forehead where.

There was teeth and eyeballs.

Okay, do you have any idea who might have done it?

And I throw up. I remember just throwing up. I was sick.

You guys are doing such a good job. I know how hard this is for you. You guys are doing a great, great job. Where is your dad coming from?

I was in a state of crying and disbelief and shock and. Is this real? Did this really happen? Wait, what happened today? And I felt like we kept checking ourselves to make sure we didn't lose our minds. And that's how the night was spent.

If you're thinking back to the version of events we heard Sean tell on the stand in the last episode and thinking, what the hell? I'm right there with you. Sitting in the Johnson's house while Sophia looks for money, hearing a scream of some sort, nervously descending the steps to see his sister standing over Marlene with a stocking over her face, holding fireplace tongs. Aside from the divorce paperwork and the abandoned coat, the siblings stories diverge so drastically, it's like they moved through January 10 in parallel universes. And when they returned to reality, one of them was discounted by detectives. The other believed, or at least believed enough, according to the lead detective, Rick Buckner.

Was he actually believable? I have no idea, because this just.

Feels like such a he said, she said.

And that's all we have.

But that wasn't all they had. The physical evidence in this case was thin, frustratingly so, but it wasn't absent. And despite all the things Sophia's lawyer, Therese, couldn't tell the jury about the person accusing her client of murder, she could absolutely tell them this.

The only physical evidence that you will be presented with in the course of this trial points to Sean Kariah.

After Sean started cooperating with law enforcement and telling them his version of January 10, 2002, they made a discovery that was inconvenient for their leading theory of the case. Marlene's blood was found on one of Sean's boots.

The good men and women of the law enforcement team that investigated this case made a mistake. And their mistake was that they fell into the arms and embraced the story. Of Sean Kariah on January 13, before the physical evidence had been analyzed.

Eventually all the evidence would be analyzed, of course. So I asked Detective Buckner, was there any physical evidence connecting Sophia to the crime scene the way that there was the drop of blood on Sean's boot?

Physical evidence? No.

To this day, 22 years later, the only person physically proven to be at the scene of Marlene's murder is Sean.

And yet all we know is that there was really no connection between Sean Kariah and the victim Marlene. The only connection is Sophia Johnson.

The only connection or just the obvious one?

I know that I wasn't there.

And if Sophia wasn't with Sean, was someone else.

You know, people always think the husband did it. And that thought came across my mind.

That's next time. Beyond all repair is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR and ZSP media. It's written and reported by me, Anne Marie Siebertson, and produced by Sophie Codner. Additional reporting in this episode from Dean Russell. Mix and sound design by production manager of WBUR Podcasts, Paul Vikas. Original scoring by Paul Vikas and Matt Reed. Theme and credits music by me Our managing producers are Sama Tajoshi for WBUR and Liz Stiles of ZSP Media. Our editors and executive producers are Ben Brock Johnson of WBUR and Zach Stewart Pontier of ZSP Media. If you have questions about the case, the people at the center of this story, or really anything else about the series, we want to hear them. Email beyondallrepairpod@gmail.com you can send us a voice memo. You can send us a written message. You do you beyondallrepairpod@gmail.com. Do me a favor, will you? Go for a little walk, tell someone you love them and then tell them about this show in that order. Thank you for listening.

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