Lindsay Buziak was a hardworking 24 year old real estate agent who was viciously murdered while showing a vacant home to a couple in Canada. Was her boyfriend responsible? Or was Lindsay's death the result of a professional hit? Then we discuss how a "stalking" case quickly turned into the framing of an innocent woman. The key players: Ian Diaz (emotionally abusive US marshal), Angela Diaz (Ian's psychotic wife) and Michelle Hadley (Ian's ex and supposed stalker).
Lindsay Buziak was a hardworking 24 year old real estate agent who was viciously murdered while showing a vacant home to a couple in Canada. Was her boyfriend responsible? Or was Lindsay's death the result of a professional hit? Then we discuss how a "stalking" case quickly turned into the framing of an innocent woman. The key players: Ian Diaz (emotionally abusive US marshal), Angela Diaz (Ian's psychotic wife) and Michelle Hadley (Ian's ex and supposed stalker).
Liz: [00:00:00] Hi, Emily. It's been a few days since see you. Yes,
Emily: [00:00:05] Liz and I both took vacations and then we got back and had a quarantine. So sorry, everybody that we missed her last
Liz: [00:00:11] episode, you really need to figure out this whole recording virtually thing, but like we've told you, we tried it once and it sounded like shit.
Um,
Emily: [00:00:20] so recommendation corner,
Liz: [00:00:22] right?
Emily: [00:00:23] Now, this isn't necessarily recommendation. I'm just going to tell you something that happened to me today. That was really embarrassing. Okay. So my skin is breaking out a ton because I don't know if it's like I'm wearing the masks all the time or whatnot, but I went back to the dermatologist on long Island today.
So I went to my parents' house in the morning because my parents live on long Island. And I had lunch with them and they had leftover ribs from the night before. So I ate the ribs and then I washed my hands and then I put on my mask and I went to the dermatologist and she was like, All right. Like, let's see your skin.
So I took off my mask and she was like, Oh, you some blood on your face.
Liz: [00:01:09] That's where this was going. I was like, Oh my God. So she
Emily: [00:01:12] goes, maybe a mirror. And then she went to get a napkin or like a pad to like wipe it. You know, it was like alcohol pads. And I was looking in the mirror and I was like, that's barbecue sauce.
Did you tell her no, but I was like, rubbing it and then you could smell it. How did I just leave the house? Barbecue sauce on my face and have no
Liz: [00:01:30] idea. The weird thing. Like I always think, do I have something in my teeth? You wouldn't, you would never know.
Emily: [00:01:35] No. Um, but yeah, either way. I think I want to share that story because if anyone's done anything embarrassing and you're like still cringing about it, remember that we all do really.
Liz: [00:01:45] That is so funny. But I agree with you when I'm on long Island. I do the same thing where I put my mask on. As soon as I exit the house, it's a habit from living in New York city, because you're immediately around people. As soon as you like exit your apartment door. But in the suburbs, you have a lot of, you have a lot more space.
Oh yeah.
Emily: [00:02:02] New York city. If you could run into some in the hallway, so the moment you close your door, you need to have him.
Liz: [00:02:08] Oh man. There's some funny stuff that comes out of this. What's yours. Um, okay. My recommendation is a show. I think it's on Amazon prime and I think it's called tell me your secrets.
And I just realized I should probably be confident about both of those things, however, I'm not.
Emily: [00:02:24] Wow. Really good
Liz: [00:02:25] recommendation. What's it about. So it's this woman who just gets out of prison and she was in prison because her boyfriend that she was like dating and in love with for years, ended up being a convicted serial killer.
Wait, why does she go to prison for that? Because I think she was somehow involved, but her memory is really spotty, so she doesn't really know. So she has to like go into the witness protection program. It's very, I've only watched a few episodes so far, but it's definitely like up
Emily: [00:02:51] our alley. That sounds amazing.
Yeah. It's very good so far. All right. So we think it's Amazon.
Liz: [00:02:58] Yeah,
Emily: [00:02:58] pretty sure. Wow. Okay. I will start watching once we're done recording. All right. Great.
Liz: [00:03:05] Now with cheers. Cheers.
So this week I'm covering the murder of Lindsay boozy yak. Okay. So my references include investigation, discovery.com. True crime daily.com. Lindsay boozy, AQ murder.com. And I had to use Wikipedia a little bit. I was
Emily: [00:03:37] wondering when it would come in.
Liz: [00:03:39] So it's January, 2008. And 24 year old Lindsay boozy ACC was an emerging real estate agent in Victoria, British Columbia.
So one day Lindsay gets a phone call from a woman at potential client who says that she and her husband are looking for a home to buy. They want something move in, ready. Their budget was a million dollars and they were eager to move in very quickly. I would love
Emily: [00:04:03] a million dollar budget,
Liz: [00:04:05] same big dreams there.
So the phone call is a little unsettling because. Lindsay is confused about how this person even got her cell phone number, because she's pretty junior at the company that she works for. So she's like you have a million dollar budget. How did you get my number? The woman says that she got her number from a former client of Lindsey's.
And so Lindsay is like, okay, there's not a lot of information on who the other client was. Um, in addition to that, Lindsay said that the woman had a foreign accent, but she couldn't really place it. It might've been Spanish, but it kind of sounded fake. Ooh.
Emily: [00:04:38] Hilarious Baldwin.
Liz: [00:04:41] I can't with that. So Lindsay tells Jeff, her father and Jason, her boyfriend about the call and she explains to them how she thinks it's a little bit sketchy tabs tabs already.
So her boyfriend, Jason encourages Lindsay to take on the client because a $1 million sale equals a pretty big commission. Yeah. Uh, he even goes so far as to say that he would wait outside the house while she was showing it just in case. Now Jason is six foot three he's 240 pounds. He's an ex hockey player.
Like if you want to have a bodyguard, he fits the bill. Okay. So Lindsay says, all right, I'll do it. And she finds a three bedroom, three bathroom house in the town of Saanich. I'm definitely not pronouncing that. Right. And then she makes an appointment to show this house to the woman at 5:30 PM on Saturday, February 2nd.
Oh no, I'm getting so nervous. So Lindsey met with the couple outside of the house on this private little street, there were witnesses. And the witnesses later told the police that they saw Lindsay talking to a blonde woman who was wearing a very colorful dress and a six foot tall white man with dark hair.
Everyone said it looked like they didn't know each other. They shook hands. And then they all went inside. At this point though, Jason had texted Lindsay and said that he was running late because he had to stop at an auto shop and pick up a colleague of his, or like a friend Lindsey is aware of this because Jason shoots her a text and it's like, I'll be a few minutes late.
So Lindsay goes into the house with the couple, and then there's a pretty clear timeline of the events that happen. And I'll explain how we know that as we go through.
Emily: [00:06:16] Oh no,
Liz: [00:06:17] I am so nervous. So the house had a lockbox with a key in it. So one of those things where you have a code or whatever to open the key box and the keys inside the key box was opened at 5:29 PM.
So that's presumably when all three people went inside, Lindsay then proceeded to show them the main floor of the house. And then they went upstairs when they were in the master suite, Lindsay turned around and had her back to the couple as she went to show them the en suite bathroom. And that's when she was attacked.
No, Y Y Oh, that's a question we might not have an answer to. So we know that Lindsay was attacked from behind because she had no defensive wounds at all. Yeah. At the time of the attack, it had been about nine to 11 minutes after they had all entered the house. So they spent, Oh, you know, about 10 minutes touring the downstairs.
Now, how do we know that exact timeline? Because Lindsey's cell phone has an outgoing call at 5:41 PM. And this call was made to a friend that she hadn't spoken to in a really long time. And it's yeah. So it's believed that this was a pocket dial because the call goes to voicemail and all you hear is like muffling noises.
Oh, okay. So she just hit her phone by accident and dialed someone. Wow. The
Emily: [00:07:37] chances
Liz: [00:07:37] of that. Lindsey was stabbed to death. No, I'm more than 40 stab wounds, her wallet, her phone and her purse weren't taken and she was not sexually assaulted.
Emily: [00:07:50] Well, you'll probably get to this, but it's like with coming
Liz: [00:07:53] out to get her well, right.
Cause that seems to be the only explanation. Yeah. All right. So where was Jason boyfriend? Where was he? As I mentioned, he was running a bit late. Jason had texted Lindsay saying, I'll come meet you and I'll be 10 to 15 minutes or so. And that was just before five 30. So just before she was meeting with this couple, Oh God Lindsay responded.
Okay. I'll see you in a bit. I got to go. Then she sends them another text they're here. She doesn't say anything about being in distress or thinking anything is weird. Just they're here. Yeah. At 5:38 PM. Jason texted Lindsay and said just a couple of minutes away, but that text was never opened. Three minutes later at 5:41 PM is when the outgoing call happened on her phone.
And that is the precise time that the police believed the attack happened. That was the pocket
Emily: [00:08:46] dial. Yeah. Oh, I wonder if she was reaching for her phone and like
Liz: [00:08:52] trying, I know it's just one of those things, like, obviously we'll never know the answer to, Oh my God. So Jason showed up at the house just four minutes after the attack at 5:45 PM.
When he turns onto the private street that the house is located on. Jason sees the couple in the doorway of the house. He sees a woman in a colorful dress and a tall white man. He says that they were closing the front doors. So he thought that the showing had just started, like they were just entering the house.
In reality, the couple was trying to exit through the front door of the house, but Jason scared them off when he turned down the street. So they turned around and went back inside. Holy shit. So Jason, just thinking that the, the showing had just started and he didn't really want to bother his girlfriend, maybe no.
Was just sitting outside with his friend for about 20 minutes. And then he decided to text Lindsay again and said, are you okay? And he didn't get an answer. So he's a little nervous at this point. So he and his friend to go to check the front door and they realized that it's locked. So Jason becomes more alarmed and at 6:05 PM, he calls the police to report this like mysterious situation.
Good for him. And sometime between when the call to the police was placed and when the police arrive at the house, the two guys noticed that there was a back door to the house that was open. I don't know, like a jar. Yeah. So Jason's friend enters the house through the back door and then lets Jason in through the front door, Jason immediately ran upstairs and he found Lindsey's body.
And then he made another phone call to the police, obviously. How did he know to go run upstairs? Well, that's sort of a question. Interesting.
Emily: [00:10:30] Also I think it's really weird that this woman is, or like she's playing to murder somebody and wear a bright
Liz: [00:10:35] color dress. I thought so too. And. There was a detail that I read that they actually were able to identify the exact dress, but it was a really, they didn't say what does like brand or designer it was, but they said it was kind of like a mass made product.
So it was really hard to track down. Oh, it's
Emily: [00:10:51] like she got it from like a ritzy or something.
Liz: [00:10:53] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. What a random choice story. So the polls, they sponsor us sponsored by her to obviously look at her outfit. Um, right. The police arrive just minutes after Jason places. His second phone call because they were already in route from his first fall.
Okay. When they arrive on the scene, they go straight up to the bedroom and they take Jason and his friend, both to the police station. But separately, cause like at this point, They don't know what happened. Yeah. So these two are both suspects. Yeah. They're both questioned, but ultimately the police figure out that their alibis check out because there was some surveillance video of them leaving the auto shop.
Like there's no way they could have committed the murder. Yeah. And like we said, this is a brutal murder. The victim stabbed 40 times and nothing was stolen. 40 damn. So the police initially think that this was some sort of professional hit. The police are able to trace the phone number of the woman who called Lindsay to set up the house viewing.
And they find out that the phone was purchased several months earlier, but it had never been used until that call was made. Oh God, it was activated under the name Palo Rodriguez, which the police believe was a fake name. And the address that it was registered to was a legitimate business in Vancouver.
But after investigating the police, believe it had no connection with the case and it was just chosen at random. Yeah. So the phone was used solely for the purpose of the murder, which adds to the police's theory that this was a planned out hit. Yeah. Plot. When the police searched the house, there was no DNA and no fingerprints to pick up, even though they have all these like eye witnesses from the neighborhood that saw these people, the only evidence they have to go on is the descriptions that people have, which are pretty vague.
A blonde woman in a colorful dress and a tall white man, but that is it. They investigate this case for years and there's a couple of different theories that I'll touch on. But this case is unsolved.
Emily: [00:12:52] No,
Liz: [00:12:53] her poor family. Oh yeah. Her dad he's like done a lot of interviews and stuff and he's just absolutely distraught.
He also thinks that the police botched this investigation. What are you going to get to that? Um, yeah, I'll touch on it at the end. The police found it really challenging to identify who these potential, you know, murderers were because absolutely no one can figure out who would want Lindsay dead.
Emily: [00:13:17] Yeah.
Like she has no, she's
Liz: [00:13:19] a hater. She's young she's well, like she had no enemies to speak of. It is beyond confusing. Can
Emily: [00:13:26] we get to the boyfriend? Like, were they having issues?
Liz: [00:13:29] Okay. Theory, number one, the boyfriend. So everyone thought that Lindsey and Jason were extremely happy in their relationship, except for Lindsay's father.
He said, quote, he adored Lindsay, but he was over protective, over possessive jealous. And that really bothered Lindsay. Okay. But he also made statements that he thought Jason should have been more proactive at the scene. He said, you know, if Jason really saw these people abruptly closing the door of the house, he should have done something about it, but that's kind of like.
Emily: [00:13:59] They were walking into the house. Yeah. Gray.
Liz: [00:14:02] Yeah. One interesting thought that came up by an internet sleuth that I read was if Jason did see this couple walking, you know, if they had just committed this murder and then he saw them walking back into the house, shouldn't at least one of them have a ton of blood on them.
I mean, you don't stab someone 40 times and walk out of the house clean. That is such a good point. I know I hadn't thought of it. And someone else commented and it made me eat. It made me laugh. They're like, unless they went Dexter and put on an apron before they committed this crime, there's no way you get out of that without having any blood on you.
Emily: [00:14:36] And would they have done that? Like she turned around and they instantly killed her. Exactly. There was no time. There was no opportunity also. How did he know to go upstairs?
Liz: [00:14:46] I know that's the other thing people were like, Jason claimed to have never been in this house before he didn't know it at all, but how did he know to run directly upstairs?
Emily: [00:14:56] So what's the theory he hired the hit.
Liz: [00:15:00] Yeah. That's what the theory is, but I just can't imagine, unless you're a true psychopath and there's no real evidence that he is. How could you do that?
Emily: [00:15:10] I agree, but the no blood thing is such a good point. Okay.
Liz: [00:15:14] Theory number two, Calgary. So one theory is linked to a trip that Lindsey had made to Calgary six weeks prior to her murder.
While Lindsay was in Calgary. She reached out to an old friend slash ex once by phone. And another time through Facebook now, no one can say why Lindsay was reaching out to this person, but they do know this, that person was the family member of a man named Ericsson Della closet, Dell, Dell, Dell Cozaar. I swear to God, I have a minor in Spanish and I can not pronounce this.
Is he in like the
Emily: [00:15:54] mafia or something?
Liz: [00:15:55] So, yeah, shortly after Lindsay returned to Victoria, that man, along with 13 other people were caught in the biggest drug bust in the history of the province. Apparently a lot of people lost a lot of money and. A lot of people went to jail and it said that someone spoke to the police, like it is kind of a well-known theory that the drug bust went through because someone talked to the cops
Emily: [00:16:21] and she
Liz: [00:16:22] was involved somehow.
So that's the theory is that she was somehow the informant and that a drug cartel found out and ordered a hit on her.
Emily: [00:16:31] I have trouble believing a girl like us is an informant for a drug cartel
Liz: [00:16:36] like that. Just all a little find out, but she was somewhat linked to them. It's not like it's totally random.
Like she knows people who were involved
Emily: [00:16:43] in this. So was she putting her ex behind bars?
Liz: [00:16:47] I don't know, one source that it was her ex and one source that it was her ex's brother unclear. Okay, but okay. That's interesting. But then there was another theory about the boyfriend, because people were like, Oh, maybe he is pissed that she went to go visit her ex.
Emily: [00:17:03] Oh, so that's another, Oh, interesting. I mean, that's pretty dramatic. Uh,
Liz: [00:17:08] yeah, I'd say
Emily: [00:17:09] I am having trouble with that one.
Liz: [00:17:11] So like I said, this case remains unsolved, however, recent update. Yes. On February 1st. 2021. So exactly one month ago on the day we're recording this, it was announced that the FBI is joining the investigation into Lindsay's murder.
Emily: [00:17:31] Wow. That makes me think it's the
Liz: [00:17:33] cartel. I know. I'm like, why would the FBI got involved if it had nothing to do with the United States?
Emily: [00:17:38] Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm thinking, um, how did you find
Liz: [00:17:42] this? Like I said, I was browsing the internet for a long time. Searching for. Cases. And I was feeling really inspired. I don't remember how exactly I came across this one, but I have heard about it before and I thought it was so interesting.
Emily: [00:17:55] It's just like, she's like a young girl, like us. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. That's
Liz: [00:17:59] what scares me because also I have said so many times recently my dream job is to become a real estate agent and just sell like multi-million dollar house and I am not qualified for those of whatsoever. Um, but now I'm kind of rethinking that because while I was researching this, people were like, Oh, Real estate murders really get me.
And I'm like, Oh my God, how common are they? This
Emily: [00:18:21] is like a subset of true crime. Also. Have you just been like watching a ton of, uh, was it selling sunset now? This is what you wanted.
Liz: [00:18:28] It just seems like a cushy job, but apparently there's some
Emily: [00:18:31] risks. Oh, mag yeah. Life
Liz: [00:18:33] or death. Okay. Back to the FBI in the article that I read, it said that apparently technological advances in the past couple of years have led to additional leads and forensic evidence coming to light.
Oh, my God. Now that's all the information I have right now, but I will keep you posted. If there are any updates, we'll post it on our Instagram, but for now you can visit Lindsey boozy, AQ murder.com, which is a site run by Lindsay's father to read more about the case and to send in any tips. If anyone happens to have them, I know we have our Canadian followers out there.
Emily: [00:19:09] We love you Canada. We do. Liz. That was so interesting. Please keep us up
Liz: [00:19:15] to date. I really will, because I didn't even realize when I started my research in this, that it had a recent update.
Emily: [00:19:21] Isn't that the best when you choose a crime and then yeah, there's like a 20, 21 update and it's awesome. Yeah.
Liz: [00:19:27] So that's my story.
Love it. All right. Well, cheers to that. Cheers.
Emily: [00:19:41] So my sources today include Buzzfeed and news LA times and orange juice blog. Interesting. Now I'm not going to give you an overview. I'm just going to go right in. I like it. Okay. So Michelle Hadley was living in orange County and she got married at 22 to her high school, sweetheart, but she ended up divorcing him, but by all means they ended up on fine terms.
After her divorce, she started career marketing and it developed into a very promising career. And then in 2013, so this was four years after her divorce. She met Ian Diaz. She was 26, he was 35 and he was a us Marshall. So by this time they're both like well-established adults. Her time with Ian is described as a whirlwind romance.
They loved each other. She found him to be attentive and sweet and hard worker. And on their second date, he said, I love you.
Liz: [00:20:39] I'm sorry, but tabs.
Emily: [00:20:43] I was trying to make
Liz: [00:20:44] it sound cute, but yeah, tabs, maybe that's like the cynical, like single girl in me, but I'm sorry. It's tabs.
Emily: [00:20:51] I was going to bring that up at the end. I think we know where this is going. Yeah. Tabs. Okay. Well, moving on a year into dating, they moved in together and shortly after they were engaged, this story starts to differ here depending who you ask.
One account says that the two fought often once they moved in together and at one point, Michelle just packed up her car and moved out then very shortly after her moving out. Ian meets a new woman online named Angela and he starts dating Angela. The other side of the story is that when Michelle and Ian were together, he met Angela and the day he met her, he broke things off with Michelle.
Liz: [00:21:35] Okay. Those are two different, yeah. Very different
Emily: [00:21:37] stories. But regardless they break up and Ian moves on with a new woman immediately, immediately. And then. A month after knowing each other, they get married. Ian, I'm not sure about you. And people say that he was head over heels in love with her. And even though we're unsure why Michelle and Ian broke up in the first place, uh, Michelle ended up being heartbroken.
So Angela, the new girl slash Ian's new wife moves into Ian's condo and by may five months into knowing each other, she gets pregnant and then Michelle finds out. So seems like a bit of a love triangle. Then Angela, the expecting mother starts receiving very threatening emails everyday. She gets one and they're very violent and usually involve threats to her and her unborn child on May 29th.
For example, one red, I hope you're scared to death tomorrow. Be prepared, don't sleep. We will steal your child and we will watch as a dies. You are a piece of shit, and I hope to God, you burned for what you have done to us. Oh, my God. That's horrible.
Liz: [00:22:44] That is crazy. Does she report
Emily: [00:22:46] that? So not at first. And it just, the harassment carries on for weeks and all of them are sent from different email addresses that appear to be belonging to Michelle, the first girlfriend or the first fiance, some of the emails included photos of woman beaten with black eyes or groped by men in masks or naked being strangled.
That's
Liz: [00:23:10] horrific. Yeah. I'm, I'm going to the police at that point.
Emily: [00:23:14] Oh, for sure. Then when things escalate and this is where she starts with the police, because a Craigslist post appears and it's apparently from a woman looking for quote, a rape fantasy partner, begging a man to attack our, why she's out walking her dog and they post Angela's address.
No. And then unfortunately on June 24th, 2016, Angela calls nine one one to report that she was ambushed in her garage by a man. And when police come, they find her in her garage crying with a red neck and ripped shirt. So now we've talked about this in the past, when it comes to cyber-stalking and bullying, it's very hard to prove.
And some of it's not even illegal. However, now that Angela was attacked, the police have enough to go and arrest Michelle. So Angela reports, her attempted rape and just a few hours later, Michelle is in a South. She only spends one night in jail though, and she's released on a $10,000 bail. So she's back on the streets.
And then that means, of course, that Angela keeps receiving horrible emails and the Craigslist post continue. Oh my God. Angela even says that she had a miscarriage because of all the stress of everything that was happening to her. And on July 13th, she called nine 11, again, reporting a mysterious teenager, lurking around the condo.
Liz: [00:24:36] I'm so like creeped out by this entire story and it only gets
Emily: [00:24:39] worse. So the next day Michelle is arrested again. And since this was the second time that she's being arrested, her bail was set to $1 million, so she can no longer afford that. So she was sentenced to prison until her trial and in court. The orange County district attorney said, we believe we have a true public safety issue.
And if Michelle Hadley is not arrested than Angela Diaz will eventually be raped or killed. So now that Michelle's in jail, she also faced sex charges. And because of that, she was branded as the worst kind of inmate. And she was confined to her cell 23 hours a day. Wow. Now, three months later on September 30th, 2016, Ian Diaz, the guy at the center of this situation, he goes to speak with a detective assigned to the case.
He comes forward with something shocking. Do you want to
Liz: [00:25:32] take a guess? Was he the one sending the pictures
Emily: [00:25:36] that's he would just walk in and tell the police that I don't know. He told detectives that he believed that his wife was framing his ex Michelle.
Liz: [00:25:45] Okay. That is a, that is a twist. I surely did not see coming.
Emily: [00:25:50] He said that she's a pathological liar when she claimed that she had a miscarriage. That was a lie because she actually just got an abortion. And then after the abortion, Ian was upset. So then she faked a pregnancy and bought sonogram photos off of Etsy to show him and his parents. She, um, also there's some other stuff.
Oh, she also faked checks, jobs doctor's notes. And at one point she pretended she had cancer.
Liz: [00:26:19] I don't know who's lying in this triangle, but there's a whole lot of fucked up goodness. Oh yeah.
Emily: [00:26:24] Yes, yes, yes. That's a good point. Like who can we trust? So a week after Ian Diaz came forward, Richard Zimmer, who was the orange County deputy district attorney reach through the cell bars to shake Michelle's hand and apologize.
And she was released. But mind you, Michelle was incarcerated for three months. So let's backtrack a bit. And I want to give you a better sense about like how something like this could happen, because at the end of the day, an innocent woman was in prison for three months. Right? Like, that's
Liz: [00:26:53] crazy. I was going to ask, like, what was she saying when she was getting arrested?
Was she denying it?
Emily: [00:26:59] So before we get there, I want to give you more information about Michelle and Ian's romance, because everything I told you was true. However, there's obviously another darker side to this. So they had a whirlwind romance where he said, I love you on day two and you called tabs. And some may say it's sweet, but I want to let you know that you're wrong,
but actually. When it comes to emotionally abusive relationships, that's a tactic called love bombing or the person's shows so much emotion and passion upfront. And I'm not saying that people who come off really strong in the beginning are emotionally abusive. I'm just saying most emotionally abusive people.
That's a very well known tactic that they use.
Liz: [00:27:42] Do you know where I learned that term? Emotionally
Emily: [00:27:45] abusive or love bombing love bombing FKA twigs.
Liz: [00:27:48] No, cause I don't know what the hell that is. Where'd you learn it. Armie hammer.
Emily: [00:27:53] Oh, that makes sense. Um, Shiela buffs X is, Oh, I think it's FKA. Twigs is her name.
I don't know. Oh yeah. So that's where I, of course just like men in Hollywood. Yep, exactly. Um, yes. So that's a good point. Shiela buff and Armie hammer were both accused of this. Um, due to where are we? It came across really passionate in the beginning, but the more they got involved, the more controlling he became, he wanted her to adopt a sexier, look, nagging her to wear a crop tops, acrylic nails, your sir belly button sketchy.
He also, I want her to take a $20,000 pay cut to leave her job for a marketing position in Disneyland because he used to work there. So it was a way for him to keep tabs on her, through his old friends and colleagues. He spied on her computer and online activity and even had a tracker on her car. So this is clearly a case of emotional abuse, but even so when he asked her to marry him, she said, yes, which is, you know, we see that in emotional abuse relationships.
Like people can't get out, they feel trapped. So. She moved on with him and they moved in together. Um, Oh, there's one other account that was really sad. She came forward to interview and she said for months, Ian asked Michelle to have sex with another man while he watched. And you know, that way it works for some couples like to everyone, each their own, but she repeatedly declined and said she didn't want to do it.
And he just told her you're overreacting your crazy. This is normal. Which is like, what's, isn't that gaslighting, like someone making you feel like you're crazy. Yes, totally. And he kept asking. And finally she gave in, so on Valentine's day, she had sex with another man and he videotaped it. And the next day she cried to him and say, can you delete that?
I, I regret this. And he said, no one put a gun to your head. Oh, no. Also this was their first Valentine's day as an engaged couple. Yeah. So I think we're getting a sense of who this guy, Ian Diaz is. Then they moved in together and they bought a condo together in 2015, but of course, living under the same roof, the abuse got only worse and he became so controlling and would often accuse her of cheating.
So after three months of living together, the couple finally broke up and I don't know who ended it with who, but. Michelle moved out of the condo and just like packed up her car and never want to see him again. Unfortunately they own that damn condo together. And even if she didn't live there, she had to pay the mortgage payments because her name was on the paperwork as well.
Ah, yeah, that's tricky. So because of this financial situation over the condo, they're fighting continued, but they would often bicker over email. It was to the point that the two of them each hired a property lawyer to help end their dispute. And lawyer's reached an agreement. It was that she will continue to pay for six months.
And after that six months, Ian could just continue to make the payments fully on his own, or he would have to sell the condo and they would split the proceeds. What Michelle didn't know was that during their fighting, he took her emails and granted they're both sending like crazy emails back to each other because it makes sense.
Like they're fighting. He took her emails and brought it to his friends over at the police station because he was a us Marshall, like he had connections in law enforcement, so he gave it to them. And I don't know, like if it was evidence, he wants to like report her. He also filed for a restraining order against her and said that she had a history of fits of rage and she was emotionally unstable, but a judge heard everything and instantly threw it out.
But still because like now. He officially came forward and said, this Michelle was on the police's radar. He
Liz: [00:31:43] knew exactly what he was doing. This is very calculated,
Emily: [00:31:45] very calculated. So I gave you background on the relationship. Now let's go back to the stock and like what actually took place during those months of this alleged abusive stalking between the two woman.
So Michelle was moving on with her life after her breakup. She was trying to get her MBA and got a new, very small apartment right by school. And she actually didn't even know that Ian moved in with this new woman, Angela, she saw Angela's name for the first time on some financial paperwork for the condo and she just brushed it off.
She had no idea what it was. And then a few weeks later on June six, she saw Angela's name again because she was served a restraining order from Angela.
Liz: [00:32:31] And she was like, what
Emily: [00:32:32] the fuck? She was stunned. She didn't know who this woman was. She never met this woman. And she thought it was a mistake. So she walked into the courtroom and she saw Angela, her X, ex N, and all of his friends and family.
And she said she walked in and they were all gawking and giggling at her. Because they thought there's the crazy acts. There's the scorned ex because he told everybody that she was so upset when he broke up with her, what a psycho. And that's when she first learned of all these horrible emails that were being sent to Ian's new wife with Michelle's signature at the end.
But that's when something clicked for Michelle, because a week before this restraining order, she sends something strange is happening to our accounts. She got an email from Google informing her that a Gmail address was being terminated. Boza Gmail address that she never saw before. Also from Microsoft, she received a message alerting her that her primary email was being used as a recovery contact for handful of new outlook accounts.
Also on June 21st, this was a few days after now the courtroom face-off with Angela. Michelle got an email from Craigslist, asking her to verify that she created a new ad titled gang rape fantasy. Oh my God. And she went back to Craigslist and she said, no, I didn't. And then she reported it to Craigslist, but she never
Liz: [00:33:55] heard back.
That's not a good look for Craigslist.
Emily: [00:33:59] So this happened in the matter of weeks, you know, she finds out that her email's being essentially hacked and all these emails are being sent to this woman and she's being framed. And I don't even know if the biggest issues was that she was being framed like by Angela.
The biggest issue actually was that the police decide that this was an open and shut case and they took Ian's word for it and they didn't properly investigate it on Niva properly. They didn't investigate. Investigate.
Liz: [00:34:28] Anything.
Emily: [00:34:29] So you kind of asked her, like, what did Michelle think when she was arrested?
She said that when she first got arrested, she was coming home from a date and she saw a police officer and she was very confused. And when the police officer said, you have to come with me, she thought this is obviously a mistake. Obviously you'll get sorted out. And she was sitting in a cell all night, just so confused.
And she thought, how is this not getting sorted out by now? So could you imagine how she felt like after month two, how trapped you must feel?
Liz: [00:34:57] No, I cannot.
Emily: [00:34:59] Now let's get back to, like I said, the police, the fact that they didn't invest the gate, this first, they took her phone and computers and how'd, they look them.
They would have seen that none of the emails or anything came from her phone, but they didn't check. They took her phone and computers and just left them. Okay. They also, like you hear this on law and order and everything. Like you can track an IP address. I don't know what that means, but it's doable.
They didn't track any of the IP addresses. So they just took Ian and Angela's word for it that all these horrible emails came from. Michelle, whoever, a private investigator, after the fact tracked all the IP addresses. And he said, if the police spent five minutes tracking these, they would have found out that all the emails came from Ian and Angela's house or Angeles father's
Liz: [00:35:46] house.
I was just about to say, I would not know the first thing about tracking an IP address, but from what I gather from people who know that kind of stuff, it's
Emily: [00:35:53] simple. And the police can do it. Yeah. Also Angela came forward with a rape story and I'm not saying the police should have invested or no, obviously they should have investigated.
Like they didn't have to verify it, but they should have investigated. And that would've been really easy because there were cameras right outside the garage. She claimed that someone came in and attempted to rape her. And there was
Liz: [00:36:18] nothing
Emily: [00:36:19] on the cameras.
Liz: [00:36:21] I hope someone in the police department got fired.
We'll get there.
Emily: [00:36:26] Uh, Oh, also there were times when some crazy emails were sent to the, or to, from the fake accounts to Angela's account. However Michelle, all of her property was already taken by the police. So she didn't have access to her phone or her computer. So it's like, how is she sending these
Liz: [00:36:43] emails?
Like she physically couldn't if she
Emily: [00:36:45] wanted to do. Cause you guys have are all for things. Also the police to this day have not given her, her computer or her phone back. What? Yeah, this woman's getting screwed. Okay.
Liz: [00:36:55] Move to Canada.
Emily: [00:36:56] So, um, where am I? I guess now we know that Michelle's being framed. She spent three months in jail.
The whoever deputy the attorney, whatever somebody came in, shook her hands. That we're so sorry, let her out. However, three months passed and they didn't exonerate her, which was a huge issue because the press loved this story. And so the people didn't know she was innocent. So the precious kept going on and on about how she was a scorned lover.
So she went to the police and she said, You have to publicly state that I'm innocent. And the police said, we're working on it. This is a really complex case. Don't talk to the press. After three months, she threatened the police. And she said, if you don't come clean about what happened, I will go the press.
And I will tell them all the steps you skipped to put me in prison.
Liz: [00:37:44] I was just going to say like, sometimes the press is your friend in that situation.
Emily: [00:37:48] Exactly. Then on January 6th, 2017, Angela was arrested and three days later, Michelle was exonerated. October 17th, 2017, Angela pleaded guilty to 10 felony charges facing five years in prison.
Now I just want to let you know that when Michelle was in prison and she was up for trial, she was facing a time in prison. My
Liz: [00:38:12] God, this is just nothing about this. Makes any sense. It's like,
Emily: [00:38:15] just kidding the girl when she's down, like, Oh, we caught the woman framing you and she won't get nearly as many years as we threatened you with.
Okay. So you highlight this, it's like we have to wonder, was this all just a scheme of some crazy woman and thankfully her husband came forward and cleared his ex fiance's name or was he more involved and he's letting
Liz: [00:38:39] up 1000% and he was more
Emily: [00:38:41] involved. People think that he didn't expose his wife because he wants to do the right thing rather after she faked her pregnancy.
And after that she faked cervical cancer. He was pissed and he realized that she was crazier than he wanted. So he was like, I'm just going to put this chick behind bars. You've
Liz: [00:39:01] crossed the level of crazy that I'm okay with. So now you're going to prison.
Emily: [00:39:07] So fueled and Keanu about this the whole time he was taking part of it, we'll go into more reasons why, but yeah, once she started playing the, I have cancer card, he was like, that's it.
And that's when he turned her in and he just, you know, he was coming out as the Knight in shining armor. So after exposing his wife, Ian was never questioned by the police again. They even asked him to turn over his phone, but he said, Oh, I can't. I gave it to my mom. And the police said, okay,
angry again. He's a us Marshall. So he's in this crew, right? It's like the police protect their own. So they're not going to question him and by no beads, do they want to put their own behind bars? Also, this is damning records. Show that someone logged into one of the phony accounts. At the couple's condo and sent emails on May 24th and may 26, whoever Angela was in Arizona for her grandpa's funeral Swift couldn't have beaten her also she's like, my list goes on and on.
If you really think about it, email was the one who started this from the beginning, because one he's emotionally abusive, but he was also the one who filed that fake restraining order and like brought his buddies at the police station, all the emails like. He was the one who really wants to over his ex.
He just brought in another woman to do it and take
Liz: [00:40:29] the blame. And she happened to turn out crazier than he was. And he was like, what did I do? That's karma for you
Emily: [00:40:36] now? I don't think Angela is innocent by any means. Like, she's a crazy bitch. Um, but I. I do think that the two of them committed the crime together and Angela's lawyer has even come forward and said, my client is guilty and she's going to serve time for this.
But quote, the failure to investigate adequately. The role of Andy as is a serious crime,
Liz: [00:40:59] truly insane.
Emily: [00:41:00] So just see, like, what is life now for Michelle after this? This is crazy. This has gone girl shit. Oh, yeah. So she says on the surface, her life might seem like it's back to normal, but she actually went through so much trauma.
That's left a crater in her life. She said, even though she was exonerated, when you Google her, this comes up and she just can't get a job because of it. She's climbing out of a mountain of debt because she had so many unpaid bills when she was in prison. And by the time of her release, Ian did sell her condo, but he didn't give her any of the money.
Liz: [00:41:36] This is crazy crazy. I'm so furious.
Emily: [00:41:39] So hoping that she gets financial restitution because she's actually suing the police department because, because the, yup. Yeah, obviously I don't have to say why. Um, and her lawyer says what happened here was not some sort of sophisticated cyber crime. Rather. This was sloppy and easily spotted if investigators had looked and, Oh, this is so cute.
Sorry. I'm just like keep going on. But. When she was in prison, her cell roommate or cellmate cell
it was an old black woman in her seventies who was accused of child attempted kidnapping. So we don't really know more about that. But what I do know is that the two of them became close because I mean, like forgetting a cellmate, I think things could go either way. So like she got a pretty good deal with this woman.
Yeah. Like a sweet, old kind lady. Maybe she can nap someone. We don't really know. Um, but she said when she was there, they became close and Michelle realized that. She was this white girl coming from middle-class. She had enough money to make her first bail. She had enough money for a lawyer. She just realized the white privilege that she had, that people like her cellmate didn't.
So when she got out of prison, she begged her parents to help pay for her cellmates lawyer. Oh my
Liz: [00:42:57] God. That's amazing.
Emily: [00:42:59] It's so sweet. And she also says I came from white middle-class. I had nothing but respect for the police and I trusted the police. And then she says, quote, I don't think my parents ever saw law enforcement or authority figures with anything, but respect, my family has a completely different view of them.
Now
Liz: [00:43:17] I just got chills.
Emily: [00:43:18] Ah that's Oh, so there's no murder.
Liz: [00:43:22] There's no murder, but there's a lot of messed up stuff that went down.
Emily: [00:43:26] So I was just taken aback, but I mean, there's, this couple could be so crazy in that Michelle can be imprisoned, but then when I was on my walk over here, I realized that like, So many people of color, especially men are incarcerated for things they didn't do like this one stuck out because you know, this is pretty unheard of.
But then I realized that this is actually really common and it just made
Liz: [00:43:48] me very depressed 100%. And I think, like you said, the media was so obsessed with it and she kind of used that as leverage, whereas not other situations like they don't have that.
Emily: [00:43:58] You're right. A young woman being in prison for three months, the media people can't wrap their head around it.
That's a story. But it happens so much more than we realize. Yep. So we'll leave that with you
Liz: [00:44:11] guys. Oh, the criminal justice system. Well, I think that's it for us.
Emily: [00:44:17] We leave you guys with that. Be sure to follow us on Instagram or rate us
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Word of mouth is the best way to get the podcast out there. We beg you. All right. Cheers, everybody.