Put Up or Shut Up | Trained to Kill | Forensic Files

Did you set out on the morning of October 28th, 2009 to murder Mark Stove? I most certainly
did not. In the wee hours of October 28th, 2009, Michael Oaks was seen on Linda Updike's surveillance footage
getting in his SUV and leaving. Why were you going to Stover's house at 2:30 in the morning? I was driving there
to be there at a pre-arranged time, a time set and demanded by Mark Stove himself. And what did he say the purpose
of this visit was going to be? It was put up or shut up time. I was supposed to have obtained the wedding pictures
that up till then I could not find and I was supposed to deliver them to him or else.
And the else is what? My children were frequently mentioned as the else. So I sent my children to stay
with my my parents in case it didn't go well. As Michael told it, Mark instructed him to park about a/4 mile
away from his house at the same church where they had met 4 days before. Why didn't Jesus say, "No, I'm not going to
park there. I'm going to drive up to your home. This is this really sounds bizarre." It certainly did sound
bizarre, and I certainly was frightened, but we're back to that same situation. Either it's everything or it's nothing.
And if it's nothing, it means that I have to scoop up my children. and honestly uh flee to a a foreign country
or or something because there just was no safety inside any area that Mark Stove could find us.
Michael said he did as he was told, walked to Marks and was greeted at the front door by Mark along with his
specially trained attack dog, Ding. From there, Michael described Mark leading him through the living room,
down the hallway, and oddly into the bathroom. That's where he claimed Mark confronted
him once again with his neverending obsession with those wedding photos. And uh I went to his house and told him that
I couldn't get the pictures, that I'd gone through her safe and they weren't in her safe. and they weren't in
her house and I presumed that she had destroyed them. And what did Mark Stove say to that? He didn't say much.
Instead, Michael claimed Mark suddenly turned around and walked away. He was so agitated or
erratic that he had he broke off in mid-con conversation. Michael said when Mark returned, he
raised a gun he was holding in his left hand. The long and the short of it was moments later I was shot in the chest.
[Music] But Michael had prepared for this moment. As a self-described security expert, Michael said he was wearing a
bulletproof vest that allowed him to safely take the hit to the chest. He said he then quickly lunged at Mark,
grabbed the gun, and returned fire. He started a gunfight and I won. But the fight wasn't completely over. As Michael
exited the house, he said Mark's dog, Ding, attacked. The dog came at me and uh I had to shoot the dog and I stopped
shooting as soon as it stopped trying to bite me. So, what are you telling me? You shot Mark Stove in self-defense?
Absolutely. But detectives on the case soon came to a very different conclusion about what
happened that morning. This is not a case of self-defense. This is a case of coldblooded murder.
I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode 5. Put
up or shut up. I want the truth for Michael Oaks as to what really occurred on that day,
October 28th, 2009. This is Detective Dan Louvera with the Scatch County Sheriff's Office. Now
retired, Louvera said he spent nearly 2,500 hours investigating Mark Stove's killing. We were a small department and
we only have five detectives. Loua thought major parts of Michael's story simply weren't true. That included
the meetings over the months that Michael described having with Mark Stove. Michael Oaks claims he met with Mark
Stove at the Northgate shopping mall in Seattle. Do you believe that meeting occurred? No, not at all. He he claims
he met with Mark Stove at a church parking lot in Anacortis. Do you believe that happened? No, not at all. He claims
uh Mark Stove comes out of a Costco in Kenowick, Washington and and basically has a threatening conversation. Do you
believe that happened? No. You think this is all made up? I do. [Music] I first met Detective Loua at Mark's
house back in 2010. He was a sharp detective who was meticulous and tried not to leave any stone unturned.
and we're almost a year to the day when this murder occurred. It was dusk as we started the interview. Soon it would be
dark, just as it was when Michael said he arrived that morning. [Applause] Loua brought a big flashlight to show us
the crime scene. Michael Oaks says he walked right up the uh front way steps here. First, we went through what
Michael Oaks said happened. He knocks on the door. Mark Stove answers the door. Mark lets him in.
Lou Vera and I went inside. Mark's place was like a high-end cabin with darkwood
floors and exposed oak beams. He said Michael claimed that Mark brought him into that bathroom and then left before
coming back with a gun. Mark Stove comes around the corner where I'm standing right now. Where you're
standing right there right now. He says Mark Stove came around the corner, fired
one shot. Boom. Right into Michael Oaks's ballistic vest. It's then, Michael said he grabbed the gun from
Mark's left hand and fired back at point blank range, killing him. The whole thing doesn't make sense. After he told
me Michael's version, Lou Vera then broke down for me why the evidence doesn't match Michael's story. First, he
said investigators discovered that on October 28th, 2009, Michael didn't drive directly to
Anacortis from Linda's house. Louver said Michael drove west for nearly 3 hours before he made a pit
stop. We have him on surveillance tape at a local Walmart store here in Mount Vernon at approximately 5:30 in the
morning. What did he buy? Michael Oaks bought anchor line, anchor weights. He bought camo pants, camo sweatshirt,
and a backpack. Camouflage. Camouflage. Kind of an odd, eclectic bunch of stuff,
isn't it? Yes. Loua believed Michael bought those items not to have a talk with Mark Stove, but to hide evidence of
a murder. I believe that he bought those items to uh dispose of Mark's body. Interestingly, Louvera said Michael also
purchased a pair of soccer shin guards. The reason he bought those is that he knew Mark Stove had his dog, Ding, and
that Ding was uh trained as a protection dog. Lou said after his Walmart shopping, Michael headed to Anacortis.
Michael Oak's car arrives in the area of Mark Stover's house uh sometime between 6:30 and 7:00 a.m.
in the morning. it would still be dark. Loua then demonstrated for us what he thought actually happened at Mark's
house that morning. I think he came up the right hand side of his driveway right here.
You can see the tree lines, fence lines. He could have easy concealment. It's dark out. I think as he's in the
area of the kennels right here, the dogs are barking. They sense someone or something on the
property. Mark was uh probably alerted to the dogs barking at the kennel. Sens something
was wrong. Loua thought a worried Mark then led Ding out of the house to confront
whoever or whatever was out there in the darkness. And I think uh the the dog was
shot right away. Ding starts to yelp. Mark hears Ding yelping. Mark comes out probably on the carport
door porch there or maybe out in the driveway where Michael Oaks encounters Mark
Stove. It's during that encounter that Louvera believes Michael Oaks first shot Mark Stove. Spent shell casings were
found outside. I believe Mark Stover was probably shot just right in this area where we're standing right here. It's
the first time I think he was shot several times. And the first time he was shot, he probably uh started to retreat
back to his residence. Loua believed Mark only made it as far as the hallway just inside the door leading from the
carport. And Michael likely fired again and finished Mark off with one final shot.
There was blood splatters on the wall here, on the wall here. When you come into Mark's house through the carport
door, immediately on your right is that bathroom. This is where in Michael's dramatic telling, he said Mark shot him
in the chest, a bullet stopped by a bulletproof vest. Michael said he wrestled the gun away from Mark and shot
him dead. But Lou Vera is skeptical. It's too unbelievable that he could get shot in the vest,
lunge at Stover, grab his hand, twist it, and shoot Stover and take him down. He's
going to back up or he's going to grab his chest as a normal reaction of somebody being shot. But he doesn't say
that. He says he immediately goes into a defensive mode and grabs Mark Stove's hand and gun, twists,
shoots, fires. Mark Stove falls. [Music] Loua believed Michael cleaned up the bloody scene at Mark's house with bleach
and put on Mark's trademark hat just in case anyone saw him leave in Mark's station wagon. Investigators suspected
the driver seen speeding down the driveway was Michael with Mark's body in the back and that Michael then moved
Mark's body from the station wagon to his SUV later. Loua said Michael's plan worked, fooling
employee Stephanie Poor. I saw who I thought was Mark going into the house and coming out of the house
putting stuff in the back of the hatch. Well, what made you think it was Mark? Because it was his hat and his jacket.
And why wouldn't I think it was Mark? Michael would continue to cover his tracks, but how long would he be able to
evade authorities after Michael left Mark's house at around 10 that morning, he was seen
stopping at a store where, for some reason, he bought a pair of bolt cutters. And then a couple of hours later, just
before noon, that's when Tammy Gilden made that call to report a trespasser. Dispatch 911. What's your emergency? Uh,
it's not an emergency, but um I need a sheriff to come out here to Summit Park Green. She told me it seemed like the
man was moving what looked like a body. That was huge. They had no idea what was
going on. They just happened to see two vehicles parked behind the Grange. Then at around 12:30, we now know that
Michael was pulled over in Anacortis, Washington by that Scadget County Sheriff's deputy.
Knowing what we know today, what was in Oak's vehicle when he was pulled over? Mark Sto's body.
It was in the back. Yes. Loua said, "From there, Michael left Anacortis to go meet with his ex-wife,
Jennifer Thompson. She already told us how they met at a Starbucks, went to the beach, and how before long, she realized
Michael had a body with him that day." Investigators said Michael left Jennifer at about 400 p.m. returned the bolt
cutters to that store and drove back east over the Cascade Mountains to Linda's house.
It's a rugged two-lane uh highway that leads through very rural areas of Okonogan and Scaja County.
Surveillance video showed Michael arriving at Linda's at about 11:30 that night. He parked his SUV.
I asked Michael about the evidence they found inside that vehicle. Mark Stover's
blood is in your vehicle. How did it get there? Well, it got there because because he was there.
Michael then left again. Where he went and what he did is unknown. He returned about 30 minutes later.
It was the end of a very long day. A long day that police later learned may have been months in the making.
This is the statement of Jennifer L. Thompson. The date is now 10:30, 2009. The time is now
2200 hours. 2 days after Mark's disappearance, the Scatcha County Sheriff's investigators
question Michael's second wife, Jennifer Thompson. There is some noise in the background since they are recording at
her home. This is Chief Will Reichart. I'm just going to ask you to go over some of the things that we had already
talked about so that it's on the it's on the record. The first thing they wanted
on the record was concerning a call Jennifer claimed Michael received back when they were still married. About May
2008, he told me that there was a potential job coming up that he was interested in taking um about a a woman
and an ex-spouse that was harassing her. If true, that woman could only have been
Linda Updike. Jennifer said Michael then revealed details of a sinister plan. They would basically use Linda as sort
of bait to lure the um expouse toward her. Once Mark Stove was fooled into threatening Linda, Jennifer claimed the
plan was to violently end that threat. They would take him out. Okay. And by taking him out, you understood that to
be they would they would kill him, right? And you mentioned that that didn't really sit too well with you.
Kind of bothered you that he was contemplating doing something like this. Yeah. We had um you know, mortgage,
family, house, kids kind of thing. And I I said, "This isn't a good it's a good thing for you to be doing." And we had a
a big fight about it, big argument. Jennifer claimed that it was after this bitter argument their marriage quickly
fell apart. Eventually, I left the home in July of 2008 for separation. One month later, she said Michael told
her that he wanted a divorce. In January of 2009, our divorce became final and we pretty much stopped
contact. But then in October of 2009, Jennifer reached out to Michael. She wanted to give him one last chance to
reconcile. We still had this intensity together. And so it was just an email of, "Are you sure? Are you sure? Her
instead of me," Jennifer said after a few emails between them, Michael wrote that he'd soon be on the west side of
the mountains and suggested they meet. This was October 24th, which is the same day Michael said he met Mark Stove at
that church in Anacortis. They just said he was here on a job, assigned job, and I knew what that
meant, but I didn't ask for specifics. Did he say that that job was going to be particularly dangerous or did he he did
when he was leaving here he said he was going on and um that there was risk involved possible
injury to himself um that it was fairly dangerous. Michael told me that he showed up to
that October 24th meeting without the wedding photos and that Mark demanded Michael return later in the week. The
following day, Michael messaged Jennifer. He texted me and said, "Um, job failed. I'm okay. No pay though."
3 days after that October 25th message on the same day Mark was killed, Michael and Jennifer met again, the day that
they met at that Starbucks. When Michael mentioned that he was afraid of getting
arrested, he was really concerned about getting pulled over with the things in his vehicle. Um, he wanted to get them
home and get them sterilized. And he said, "If anyone sees this now, I'm going in right away." Uh, but going in
meaning he would be arrested right away. He felt if somebody saw what was in his
vehicle. Mhm. But there was one final interaction with police that convinced Jennifer that
Michael was the hunter in all of this. [Music] A month after Jennifer was questioned,
the detectives came back to her house. They wanted Jennifer to listen to a CD. She told me her reaction after hearing
the anonymous tipster's voice telling the 911 operator about a drug deal involving Mark Stove. There's going to
be a a van transporting some drugs from uh in the Cortis area. My first thought was, um, what an idiot. Jennifer
instantly recognized the voice. I knew it was him. How do you know it's him? I was married to him. I know how he talks.
Michael's voice of his disguise, but it was his speech pattern and and it was it
was him. It was devastating for her. Everything she had suspected suddenly clicked because in that moment I knew it
was all premeditated. Jennifer thought back to that job Michael mentioned and remembered something else Michael told
her. Something he said on the day Mark Stove was shot. He said that the people that were helping him, and I had the
impression that there were two, but I don't know that that was stated. People that were helping him were no longer
helping him, and he was on his own. No one was going to help him. So, who could be helping Michael? Well,
when Jennifer was being questioned by detectives in those early days after the murder, she shared an intriguing detail.
The father of the woman was initiating the job. [Music] That would be multi-millionaire business
tycoon Wally Updike, Linda's father. Later, when I got to sit down with Jennifer, she explained this further.
Wally Optike wanted to hire a Michael Oaks to take out the ex-husband that was stalking his daughter, Linda. Simple as
that. Simple as that. Do you believe that Linda Updike is involved in this? That she either
paid or manipulated Michael to kill? I don't believe she manipulated because he's too smart for that. But I do
believe that they served each other's needs. Meaning I think she's as guilty as he
is. [Music] Jennifer's testimony to police suggested that Mark's murder was a premeditated
hired hit. In our interviews, Linda and Michael both denied that her father had anything to do with Mark's death.
I believe that she knows more than what she's saying and what she's telling. Detective Dan Laa never called Linda
Updike a suspect, but he has always wondered if she was involved. How would Michael Oaks know that Mark
Stove always wore a hat and wore an overcoat driving a car? Through Linda. Linda was was his basis of information.
Linda had knowledge. She had direct knowledge. You know, she was married to Mark. Um
she she knew him best. When I spoke to Michael, he told me that he just spontaneously put on the hat
after he spotted it in Mark's car that morning. There was a pair of glasses and a cap or
a hat sitting on the seat. And when I sat down, I had to move the hat. I put it on my head and thought,
"This shall probably do for getting down the driveway." And that's all there was to that. It
didn't have anything to do with anybody but the moment. You're telling me you just decided to
put this hat on? You hadn't been told by Linda that that's a hat that Mark Stove
would wear? No, I've seen I'd seen two or three pictures of Mark Stove. Detective Laa told me that he wanted to
ask Linda about this and many other aspects of the case. Have you received cooperation from Linda Updike?
No. As is common in a case like this, Linda and her father, Wally Updike, hired lawyers after Michael was
arrested. She won't sit down and talk to you. She won't sit down and talk to us. She's
lawyered up. She's lawyered up. While Linda declined to take questions from Louvera, she was willing to answer mine.
Investigators believe that you must have given Michael details of Mark Stover's life
that would aid him in attacking Mark Stove, knowing when he got up, what hat he wore during the day, what car he
drove with the dogs. What do you say to that? That's simply not true. I had no interaction or contact with Mark for
since the protection order was issued. It's not something I wanted to have any involvement with Mark. Uh there again, I
I wanted no harm or anything to happen to Mark. I just wanted to go on with my life with Michael and I wanted Mark to
go on with his life. In other words, did you brief Michael Oaks on the intricacies of Mark Stove's life? right
down to the hat that he liked to wear during the day to aid him in an assassination.
Of course not. The suggestion is out there. Did your father have anything to do with
the killing of Mark Stove? Absolutely not. Both Linda and Michael refused to answer
most of the authorities questions until they took the stand at trial. There was, of course, one big question
Michael still had not answered. What did you do with Mark Stover's body? I think that probably
the nitty-g gritties on that. I really want to tell you about it. We're going to have to wait to court.
[Music] 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 Bazil. 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 Sherah 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 Tama Balance Kolassni. I'm Peter Vans. If you're enjoying the
show, be sure to rate and review. It helps more people find it and hear our reporting.
Follow and listen to Train toKill and other 48 hours podcasts on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your
podcasts. Thanks for listening. [Music]

Detectives compare how the evidence found at Mark Stover’s house measures up to Michiel Oakes’ version of events. They discovered cell phone records, witnesses, and surveillance video that painted a more premeditated picture.

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Brief Summary

Michael Oaks claims self-defense in Mark Stove's murder, but evidence suggests premeditated murder and possible conspiracy with Linda Updike.

Key points

The Night of the Shooting. Michael Oaks claims he shot Mark Stove in self-defense, but detectives disagree.
Suspicious Purchases. Michael Oaks bought unusual items before the murder, raising questions about his intentions.
Jennifer's Realization. Jennifer Thompson recognizes Michael's voice on a recording, confirming her suspicions.
Linda's Possible Involvement. Detectives suspect Linda Updike may have aided Michael Oaks in the murder plot.
The Big Question. What happened to Mark Stover's body remains unanswered, creating suspense.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I was supposed to deliver them to him or else.

Michael Oaks discussing the purpose of his visit to Mark Stove.

0:48WatchJun 13, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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