Puppy Love | Trained to Kill | Forensic Files

[Music] I remember being woken up early in the morning by a hellacious barking. It was
2009, 3 days before Halloween, a time when the boundaries between the living and the dead become blurred.
Stephanie Poor said the dogs next door were going crazy and they were upset and it was loud.
What' you think to yourself when you were lying in bed listening to that? Um, something was going on over there
and I wanted to get some more sleep and um, I was going to have words with Mark.
Mark was Mark Stove, Stephanie's next door neighbor and her boss. Stephanie was a dog trainer at Mark's facility in
Anacortis, Washington, an island community about 80 miles north of Seattle. He had built a successful
business working with the dogs of the rich and famous and had earned the nickname the dog whisperer of the
Pacific Northwest. [Music] That morning, Stephanie made her short commute to work. She assumed Mark had
already left to meet a client in Seattle. And I'm on the phone leaving a message
with him and he's in the driveway. The car is in the driveway parked up by the house. I'm thinking, "Wow, that's weird
cuz he really he's probably going to be, you know, a little antsy because he would have rather been gone by now."
Mark had a reputation as a bit of a pitbull, intimidating and impatient. I saw who I thought was Mark going into
the house, coming out of the house, putting stuff in the back of the hatch. What made you think it was Mark? Because
it was his hat and his jacket. He opened the the door to the car, looked at the front windshield, grabbed something off
the front, and then just tore like literally tore down the driveway. Then Stephanie went up to the
house to the bathroom. As she walked up the driveway, she saw tire marks from the car and some spots of blood on the
gravel. Stephanie assumed that the blood belonged to Ding, Mark's guard dog. Ding
recently had surgery. I explained it away that Ding must have ripped her stitches
out out here. The blood wasn't the only sign something was wrong. I could smell the bleach before I even opened the
door. Stephanie stepped inside. She noticed a bedroom door that was usually never shut
was closed. And as she went into the house, Stephanie saw three big spots on the floor. Did they have a color? It was
blood. It was red. Dark dark red. Stephanie was worried. She kept calling Mark, but he never answered.
Stephanie hoped the blood was from Ding's surgical wounds. She was doing her best to avoid imagining the
worst. But the next morning when she came back to work, she was startled to see Ding sitting by the back door. She
was on all fours and she was growling. Something had happened to her. Maybe she had had a stroke. It was obvious one eye
was in a horrible mess. We couldn't find Mark. We were I was calling him. I left
a message. Mark, we're really concerned. Where are you? You know, why is Ding here? An unsettling feeling hit
Stephanie. I can only describe it as evil. Something horrible, something terrible. I knew something bad had taken
place. Stephanie called 911. Mark's new girlfriend had also called the police after not hearing from
him. Soon after, sheriff's deputies arrived on scene. Investigators believed the
bleach, the blood, and Mark's vanishing act all added up to one inescapable conclusion. It was a cold-blooded
murder. But detectives had no idea they were about to step into a hall of mirrors
where nothing was as it seemed. I've never seen in my career a case that has as many twists and turns and
mysteries as this case with March Stover. They soon discovered a story tangled in obsession. We don't have the
truth yet. We have some of the truth, but we don't have all of it. But who was the hunter and who was the
hunted? I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Trained to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the
Bodyguard. Episode one, Puppy Love. The coastline of Washington State, just north of Seattle, is one of the most
beautiful places on Earth. Back in the 1800s, my ancestors were homesteaders on an island not far
from Anacortis, Washington. It's gone now, but one of my great greatates even had a small apple orchard on Orcus
Island. Anacortis is the gateway to the San Juan Islands where ferryboats depart to these
wooded jewels. I go hiking, swimming, and fishing for dungeoness crabs and have always considered the small harbor
towns here my gateway into tranquility and peace. That's why I was stunned when 48 hours
first got word about this murder. And then I learned that at the center of it all was a celebrity dog trainer. Mark
was known as the dog whisperer of Anacortis and the dog trainer to the stars. That's Victoria Simmons, Mark
Stover's younger sister. She said some of Mark's clients included Eddie Veter from Pearl Jam, longtime Starbucks CEO
Howard Schultz, and Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki. I believe he came to love all dogs and no pedigree or fabulous
pedigree. It didn't matter to him. He saw value in all of them and potential in all of them. Mark offered private
training lessons. He could teach basic obedience, but his wealthiest clients wanted him to train their pets to become
protection dogs. This is audio from a video of Mark training a dog. He's standing in what
looks like a gravel driveway, wearing a dark raincoat and his trademark brown hat with a round brim.
Show me the motion again with the stick. Well, this is the the barrage I'm going
to do. A handler releases the dog. The dog sprints and bites hard enough to lock onto Mark's leg, which is covered
in padding, and a tug of war ensues between the growling dog and Mark. So damn far down.
Mark commands the dog to stand down. Right away, the dog lays on the ground looking straight ahead and awaits the
next command. Good boy. I just thought he was so incredibly interesting. His niece Julia, Victoria's daughter,
said Mark sometimes expressed his love for dogs in eccentric ways. You know, he has this beautiful Porsche 911 and a BMW
and then he has this car called the dog alac Cadillac. And I swear half the textile
of the carpeting in that car was just dog hair that had woven itself into it. She said it smelled horrible. But one
day they went for a drive and instead of taking the Porsche or the BMW, he takes me in the dog
alone. And he said he didn't want his neighbors to know how rich he was. But Mark didn't start out rich at all. In
fact, just the opposite. And his upbringing was far from easy. We went through, our family went through
a series of losses early in our childhood. Just seemed to be one after another. This is Victoria again, Mark's
sister. They grew up in the Seattle area in the 1950s and 1960s. My father died when um I was 6 months
old and Mark was 18 months old. Then um shortly after that uh a half brother was
killed in a car wreck that was caused by my other half brother which was sad. And
then um mother remarried and shortly after she remarried um my sister died of pneumonia. She was nine.
Their mother's second marriage also then fell apart. And so she remarried again and um he was an alcoholic. Life at home
was tough. Mark struggled in school. According to Victoria, the family didn't know how to help him. He got kicked out
of high school for smoking dope. Um I think he was 16. Um yeah, he was on a bad path. And then their mother's third
husband died of cancer. We were broke. Um, our family was broke and there was a funeral and at the wake
and family friends brought a German Shepherd puppy for a gift at a wake, which is such an odd choice. The German
Shepherd puppy was named Gunter. While maybe odd, the gift would be a godsend. I've never been able to talk to them and
ask them what prompted them to do such a odd thing. But Mark and that dog bonded
that very day. Mark got in touch with the family's old vet. He encouraged Mark to join the
Washington State Search and Rescue Can9 unit. They trained him and taught him how to train Gunter and um he loved it.
He was flown all over the country to look for um lost people as far as the Everglades and it gave meaning to his
life, gave purpose to his life. That dog saved him. Mark eventually started to train dogs in private sessions where
he'd go to people's homes. In a news article from 1981, Mark is described as a disciple of the famous behavioral
psychologist BF Skinner. Skinner studied how rewards and punishment can condition behavior in
humans. Mark applied that to dogs by training them with punishment and reward. He's told me that he was the
first person to ever apply human psychology to dogs and and to understanding the pack and how the pack
works. Was your brother an innovator in in the dog world? I believe it was. As for cats, Mark was once quoted saying
that he didn't like cats because he wants something he can control. He added, "Dogs are easy to
change. It's people that are hard to change. See, I can't put a choke chain around them.
[Music] Mark started training dogs in the 1970s and by the 1980s was a wellestablished
canine guru. Mark never married during that time. Then in the early 90s when Mark was nearing 40, a wealthy potential
client called I was looking to do some training with my dog and found him in the phone book. Linda Updike was the
daughter of Wall-E Updike, one of the wealthiest businessmen in the state of Washington.
I remember speaking with him on the phone and uh very I felt he was very arrogant. actually rubbed me the wrong
way initially. Name dropped a lot of people and had uh quite a bit of an attitude, but yet he seemed also to know
a fair amount about dogs. So, I thought, let's try this out. Mark and Linda met regularly to train her dog. A bond was
starting to form. I saw he definitely did have a connection with dogs, and I felt that he would be able to help us.
Mark definitely had a way with dogs and at times he could be charismatic with people. He was very bright and witty and
charming. After 8 or 9 months, their relationship evolved. And even though Linda was 12
years younger than Mark, his sister says Linda was his type. She was tall, slender, beautiful. He seemed to like
the girls from these wealthy families, which I um always was wondered about just just right down his alley. For one
of their first dates, Mark asked her to go fishing. So, I drove over and met him and did a
day of fishing. And um that began when we we started dating shortly thereafter. So what was the attraction? You know, he
was incredibly bright, eccentric, had u a lot of similar interests in that I did. Linda grew up camping, fishing, and
hunting. They connected over a love for nature and the open air. What started purely as business turned personal and
they set out to build a relationship and a successful company at the same time. They were coming together despite being
from two different worlds. While Mark's family had struggled, Linda Updike was the daughter of a millionaire.
I grew up with my family doing a lot of camping on Woodby Island. We have a small beach cabin up there and I grew up
saltwater fishing, salmon fishing. I was born in California and then moved when I
was very young to Belby, Washington. Uh went to junior high and high school there. Uh was very involved in horseback
riding and competed um doing Grand Prix jumping and that was really my passion and where I spent my time in my youth.
How good were you at this horse jumping? Well, it probably depends on who you'd ask. And tell me also about your father.
He's a a famous man in the state of Washington. Very successful man in the state of Washington. Yes. He um started
with um came from very middle class background and went to University of Washington and then really became
involved in a lot of different businesses. One of them being Chateau San Michelle um developing that and um
that's a very famous winery in Washington sold all over the world. Yes, it is. I'm very proud of his
accomplishments that way. He was also involved in um K2 ski company and Jansport sporting goods and um different
businesses throughout his career. Linda is her parents only daughter. A very good friend of mine at an adult
age. Yes, her mother daughter, but we're very good friends. That's Nancy Corbin,
Linda's mother. She admits that she wasn't entirely thrilled when Mark and Linda started dating. Mark is not a
choice I would have made for for Linda from the beginning. Mark showed an arrogance had a where he
wanted to isolate Linda. Uh all bad signs. And so it was it was noticed by me right away.
Nancy let her daughter make her own choices and was even supportive when Mark and Linda decided to go into
business together. Linda said she'd been interested in opening a dog boarding business in 1992. Linda and Mark opened
Island Dog Adventures. Linda ran the boarding part of the company and Mark handled the dog training. You
essentially were the CEO, right? Yes. Uh, it was all of my what we developed there was my business idea, my
development, my money. I did capitalize it to go in. Linda thought Mark's reputation in the
industry helped and her parents leased Linda the perfect place to set up shop. Beautiful piece of property that my
family has owned, no longer owns, uh, but did purchase in the 80s. Kikit Island and the surrounding area
once belonged to the Swenomish tribe. Besides a clearing for some buildings, the island is a thick forest with tall
Douglas furs and western red cedars. I don't think there's probably many places like that, whether dogs live on there or
people live on there. It was just a a terrific place. Their house was at the end of a long,
narrow driveway that felt like you were almost entering Jurassic Park. The sprawling property filled with wild
flowers, hills, and beaches made it seem otherworldly. Business started [Music] booming. Over time, Island Dog
Adventures turned into a milliondoll operation. Linda said that despite their success, Mark started to become obsessed
with money, tightly controlling her spending. For example, an avocado uh that was too
much money. It really upset him. I remember another time I was Excuse me. You guys have a million-doll business.
He's upset that you bought an avocado. Yes. Yes. There. And you're serious? I'm absolutely serious. Yes. He would be in
a rage that I spent too much money and it was an inappropriate expenditure on things.
Most of their attention was going to the business and not each other. And we were working, you know, 7 days a
week, 15-hour days, and there was really not any time for personal relationships.
Despite her concerns, Linda was committed to making things work. I just kept thinking that if I could reduce our
workload, if we could make some changes and try to get more personal time that the relationship could be salvageable
and and work. Um, so we went through some counseling and at that point in time Mark did want to get married and I
again because of the commitment said okay. [Music] On May 17th, 2002, Mark and Linda were married in a
small wedding at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. She was 38. He was 50. This is a picture from the wedding in
Las Vegas. And um this is Linda Opdike. This is her mother, Nancy Corbin. Victoria, Mark's sister, showed me
photos from the wedding. At this picture, he thinks he's at the beginning of a very
happy phase in his life, and he's the beginning of a nightmare, but he doesn't know that yet.
[Music] Mark has on a dark suit and Linda is wearing a black dress holding a white
bouquet of flowers. They look like a happy couple here. They do. They do. And your brother thought this is the one
after all those years he married her and that this was going to be his partner for life. He adored this woman. But Mark
seemed different to Linda after the wedding. Things were fine for about uh 4 months
after the marriage and then it really started going south. What happened? What went wrong?
I think my desires for a personal truly a personal loving marriage and relationship was something that he did
not want to provide and could not provide. Linda wanted to move off the island, but she said Mark dug in his
heels. He wanted to stay. Pink Island meant a lot to Mark because it had quite a prestige to it. Linda said she watched
Mark's whole demeanor intensify. I saw him becoming more aggressive with people uh for example on the property uh that
were trespassing, pulling guns on people and threatening them. uh being verbally
aggressive and very threatening. According to Linda, Mark developed a reputation for threatening locals. He
would even use his dogs to intimidate people. My experience with him was he was very unstable. And with that and his
agitated state and he had real highs and lows and rages that he dealt with, it was very um concerning to me and what
his reaction would be to something, how that would affect my safety. After nearly 14 years together,
including 3 years of marriage, Linda decided that she couldn't do this anymore. I recognized that I was so
unhappy and I I knew that I needed to leave the marriage and I got a separation.
She moved out of their home. Linda left the island that was owned by her family to start a new set off on a new path
alone. But she said Mark followed. He told me that he was listening to phone conversations and that he had been in my
house and read my diaries and just it was it was horrifying. It was chilling to me. Every single moment you're
wondering when you walk out the door, is he going to be there? I know how he operated and his stalking abilities and
hunting abilities. The fallout from their collapsed marriage started a nasty back and forth that would culminate in
that bloody scene at Mark's house. This is war. This is goddamn war. You've worked my life enough. I really did feel
that my life was in danger. Coming up on Trained to Kill, the dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard. I
remember at that time thinking this can't be real because no woman alone could go through
this amount of harassment. My first thought was oh a body. I have a safe room in there. I have a plan A, a plan
B, a plan C. I think Mark had a very real fear of what Linda was capable of doing
to him. He told me that he was capable of killing without remorse. This is not a case of self-defense.
This is a case of coldblooded [Music] murder from 48 hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the
Bodyguard, produced by Sony Music Entertainment. I'm your host, Peter Vans. Judy Tigard is the executive producer of
48 Hours. Original reporting by 48 Hours producers Ryan Smith and Liza Finley. Jamie Benson is the senior
producer for Paramount Audio and Mora Waltz is the senior story editor. Recording assistance from Alan
Pang and Reginald Bazale. Special thanks to Paramont Podcast Vice President Megan Marcus.
It is written and produced by Alex Schuman. Stephanie Serrano is our editor. Our executive producer is Sher
Morris. Our associate producer is Zoe Kulkin. Theme and original music composed by Hansdale
Shei. Cedric Wilson is our sound designer and mixed the episodes. We also use music from APM and Epidemic
Sounds. Fendle Fulton is our fact checker. Our production manager is Tamika Balance
Kolassni. I'm Peter Vans Sant. If you're enjoying the show, be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and
hear our reporting. You can listen to Train to Kill early and adfree right now by subscribing to 48 Hours Plus on Apple
Podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Mark Stover trained the dogs of the rich and famous. When Linda Opdycke, the daughter of a multimillionaire, hired him to train her new attack dog, they started combining business and pleasure. Their partnership lasted for more than a decade before disputes between the two ripped their lives apart.

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True crime. Real justice. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Mark Stover, a celebrity dog trainer, mysteriously disappears, leading to a chilling investigation filled with obsession and potential murder.

Key points

A Morning of Chaos. Stephanie wakes up to barking dogs and a strange scene at her neighbor's house.
The Vanishing Act. Mark's sudden disappearance raises alarms and leads to a chilling discovery.
A Twisted Tale. Detectives uncover a story tangled in obsession and mystery surrounding Mark's life.
The Wedding. Mark and Linda marry, but the honeymoon phase quickly fades into turmoil.
Escalating Tensions. Linda's concerns about Mark's behavior grow as their marriage deteriorates.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I knew something bad had taken place.

Stephanie's realization of the situation at Mark's house.

3:58WatchMay 16, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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