Trained To Kill: The Dog Trainer, The Heiress, And The Bodyguard | Full Podcast | 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 mi 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 Marx. 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 1, 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 dungeonessous 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 a the barrage. 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. 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 Dogac, like a 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. [Music] 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 an 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 Canine 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 K-9 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 Whidby 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 Bellev, 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 u 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, we're motheraughter, 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. Kick 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 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. He 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 murder from 48 hours. This is trained to kill the dog trainer, the aerys, and the
bodyguard. The following episode contains references to harassment, intimidation,
and stalking. Listen with care. I left uh actually was a birthday gift to myself on in September 2005.
That gift to herself for her 41st birthday was something Linda Updike had long desired, a separation from her
husband, Mark Stove. I moved out of the main house of my family's property up to a small guest
house on the property. But while Linda put some space between herself and Mark, she didn't leave Kick Island, home to
their profitable dog training business, Island Dog Adventures. I stayed there for a number of months to
see if Mark would finally understand the seriousness that I really would be leaving if we could not build a
relationship and he would seek help. At that point, they had been together for 14 years, the last three as a married
couple. After nearly 7 months, Linda finally decided she was ready. I drove down from the house that I was staying
at down to the main house and I told him that I wanted a divorce and he right there and then I could tell he just
snapped. He went just sheer white. His eyes went just crazy. He clenched his hands and fists and he was just in a
shaking rage with me. Startled, Linda said she stayed as calm as she could and tried to lower the temperature by
offering to talk, but could tell she needed to leave. She got into her Suburban and drove back to the guest
house. I knew I just had a short period of time to grab a bag and leave. As she gathered her things, Linda could see
Mark heading in her direction. And he comes out of the car and he's, you know, shaking his fists. He says, "You've got
war. I'm not going to grant this to you. You've got a big fight on your hands." [Music]
In April 2006, Linda said she fled Kickot Island, a property her family owned. She was now on the run.
Well, instantly at that point when I left, he was calling me constantly. I It was obsessive phone calls on my cell
phone um trying to reach me. He would call, you know, 40, 50 times that evening. She kept her whereabouts a
secret. I left the area and was just traveling around with my dog in a suitcase and hotels just trying to move
through the state. He'd leave messages on my cell phone that he was driving all over the state to try to find me.
This is war. This is goddamn war. You're wrecking my You've worked my life enough.
[Music] Linda spent the summer and fall of 2006 in Sisters, Oregon. That December, she
relocated to the western themed town of Winthre, Washington. The downtown included an antique boardwalk and
oldtime saloons. Linda got a house outside of town. She put more than 250 miles of winding roads
and a mountain range between her and Mark. I left the whole west side of of the state. She tried everything to avoid
leaving a trail. I immediately stopped my credit card accounts. I was worried that he would follow me there. I got a
mailing address in Belleview. I tried to close contact with anything where I could be tracked.
But Mark, an avid hunter, still managed to track Linda down. On October 16th, 2007, at about 7 a.m.,
Linda said she was getting ready to start her day. I just stepped out of my shower right here and I heard my dog
Soju in the backyard barking incredibly loud, very defensive like I've never heard her bark before. Linda scan the
hillside overlooking her house. And I see Mark Stover hunkered down with a hunting rifle pointed right at me
through the window looking through his spotting scope. According to Linda, the man she left was crouched down like a
lion, preparing to pounce on his prey. I really did feel that my life was in danger.
That incident would be one of many in which Linda said her life was threatened. I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is
Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode two, The Hunter.
[Music] I walked away from almost literally everything except for my own investments
that I had before I met him. In the spring of 2006, Linda Updike was perfectly fine leaving everything behind
if that meant getting away from her husband, Mark Stove. We spoke about this in 2010. How much money was the business
making? How successful was it? It became very successful. At the time I left in uh September 2005, it was just under a
million dollars a year that it was making. That's extraordinary. It really is. Linda said she took none of that
money with her when she left. Well, I put in over $100,000 as startup capital into the business. I can't recall what
the divorce settlement was, but it was not much over $100,000. I did not get any retirement benefits
out of it. I got no proceeds from the business. But she said Mark still wanted more. She said his rage and incessant
calls pushed her to give him what he wanted. According to Linda, Mark demanded she return one of her dogs to
the island. He told me that he would track me down uh to no end until he could have the dog back.
So, I um I thought that if I um gave the gave the dog back that he would leave me
alone. But Linda said that wasn't enough either. Karen Lungren worked at a salon
near Linda's house in Winthre. She told me about a frightening moment when Mark dramatically entered the salon. Linda
Opdike was here and I was sitting here. What were you doing? I was doing a European facial on her and of course
she's lying down like this and Mark or excuse me, Mr. Stove came in and moved the screen
and walked right in and just and stood here. Barges right in just stood right here. She sat Linda up. She said, "What
are you doing here?" And he said, "Well, I saw your vehicle, so I thought I'd just stop stop in and see you." And just
saw your vehicle. He lives more than 150 miles away from here. Right. Right. Karen was sure Mark hadn't just stumbled
upon Linda's car. He'd somehow crossed a mountain range and tracked her down. The two spoke and Karen said Mark left
after a few minutes. But Linda said Mark's stalking behavior didn't stop at the beauty salon. He came
into my bedroom somehow gotten into my house. Came into my bedroom. Linda said he had an uncanny ability to get inside
her home. I was in bed about 9:00 at night and he walks in and he's got a gun in his hand. He told me he had just
driven 18 hours straight from Montana. Then he gets on his knees bedside, puts the gun right on my pillow, right next
to my head, and then starts sobbing and is very emotional about not wanting to let the divorce go.
She tried to stay calm and sat with him until he decided to leave. Linda said instead of calling the
police, she tried to handle those kinds of unwanted visits herself. You're just dealing with what you see at the time
and trying not to escalate his behavior and get him upset off the chart to hurt me. Another big reason why I did not
make a report initially on a number of things is I knew he would deny being here, but she didn't think her tactics
were working. She found herself feeling increasingly paranoid. So you'd hear any noise and you're
wondering is it Mark? The phone would ring. You're wondering is it Mark? Yes. You wondered anytime you went
outside with Mark there. Then you're pulling the blinds. You're living behind closed blinds all the time. Um and
you're trying to just move on with your life and it's it's very very difficult. It's it was
very difficult. On November 2nd, 2007, Linda couldn't hide her fear anymore. She called 911
after Mark came to her house and chased her in his Chevy Suburban as she tried to drive away. And he came driving
flying down my driveway and down the road uh following me at a rapid speed into Winthrop. Linda said the police
contacted Mark but didn't make an arrest. How was Mark, after all these incidents,
still walking free? Soon after, Mark discovered something about Linda that truly pushed him over the edge. It
involved Mark's friend and hunting partner. It had been more than 2 years since Linda's decision to leave Mark. Linda
told me that Mark had forced her down a terrifying path, dodging and hiding from
his harassment. But there was someone in his corner who didn't believe Linda's accusations.
Someone who's known Mark longer than Linda. His sister Victoria Simmons. My brother adored Linda Updike.
Just loved her. It was hard for my brother to lose someone he loved. That that was difficult for him. Um and he
would take a while to find his bearings and move on. She said that Mark was devastated by the separation. He was
blindsided. He he thought he told me he thought everything was fine. Victoria doesn't believe her brother was as much
of a danger as Linda Updike claimed. He was terribly hurt. It was not only was it a surprise, but the circumstances
surrounding it were so painful. Double betrayal. Mark discovered that Linda once got some drinks and went to
the house of John Bonika, Mark's best man, at their wedding. It shook his foundation.
He was just so angry that two really valuable relationships in his life were destroyed in one fell swoop. If she
wanted to hurt him um and really knock his feet out from under him, having an affair with John Bonika would be about
the worst thing she could choose to do. Here's Linda again. John Bena is a person that uh has known Mark for many
years and I met him um shortly after meeting Mark probably in 1992 and he was a friend to both of us. Once John
learned of Mark's antics and behavior to towards me, he uh seized him having friendship with Mark. You developed a
relationship with John Bonica. Is that right? Yes. A romantic relationship. Uh very briefly, we had a an intimate
occurrence. Linda said she got a call from Mark the day after she and John were together. He
told her that he knew what they'd done. described in detail of what had occurred
between John and myself that evening. Um, and was it accurate? Yes, it was accurate. It was horrifying. So, do you
believe that a that someone was at John Bonika's house watching you be intimate with John? Yes, I do. And after uh
hearing that from Mark, I actually drove down with a friend down there to see if
I could find any signs of Mark being there. And I went down there and saw tire tracks where the Suburban was
parked. I saw footprints of his uh LLBAM boots. They have a very distinct tread.
I could see them along the fence line and up to the house. And John told me that he saw the same thing and received
phone calls from Mark saying that he was in his house as well at other times. She
said that John was horrified and fearful of Mark. He wrote me a letter saying that he needed to seize any friendship
or relationship with me due for the safety of him, his children. and he advised me to do the same thing to take
all precautions that I could for my safety and well-being as he was. When Mark found out about John, he was
so angry that Linda decided to go stay with her father in Hawaii until things cooled down. She returned several weeks
later in January 2008 when Mark finally signed the divorce papers. Linda still didn't think having the divorce
finalized would make Mark stop. So, she reached out to the local sheriff's office to let them know she was worried.
My initial advice to her is immediately get a protection order. Here's then Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez with the
Okonogan County Sheriff's Office. He told Linda that if she got a protective order, law enforcement could act more
decisively. To where if you do make even these loose kind of threats, we can do something about it. But without a
protection order, it's harder. Did Linda seek it out? She didn't. She didn't. She
did not. Why not? I have no idea. Linda said she was now relying on the advice of security experts she hired.
They felt this particular type of personality that getting a domestic violence protection order and contacting
the police could possibly escalate the situation. Some of the sheriff department staff still tried to help
Linda even though she wouldn't file for a protective order. After hours, once they got off the
clock, they agreed to help Linda. Here's Sergeant Jean Davis. We felt, at least I
felt the threat was severe enough that we did every option we could to help her out by training a protection dog,
similar to a police dog, but it's more designed if somebody came to her house and tried to harm her, um, her her dog
would protect her. What kind of dog did she have? Um, she had a uh a young female German Shepherd. And those are
good guard dogs, right? Very good dog. I have one myself. Linda specifically wanted a dog that hadn't been trained by
Mark and had no connection to him. Remember, she only met Mark because she needed him to train one of her dogs for
protection. And now she was training a dog against that same man. But Linda concluded that wasn't enough. She wanted
even more security. [Music] I installed cameras onto my house. I added to the security system. Linda got
into a routine of checking her cameras every day and reviewing footage. Her instincts proved to be right.
While the divorce had been finalized, Linda said it seemed nothing would stop Mark from harassing her. Linda said one
of her cameras spotted a ghostly black and white image of Mark in the middle of the night. It was very creepy, very
eerie, very scary knowing he was here and then seeing his body language and he went underneath the house and all of a
sudden you can tell he had recognized that there was cameras here and then he's seen 2 minutes later walking away
with the shirt pulled over his head and sneaking off the property. We reviewed the footage and you can see
a man crossing Linda's lawn, pulling up a shirt to cover his face. She said Mark
started calling her, demanding she give back their wedding photos. Here's a voicemail of Mark threatening
Linda. Better not ever [Music] wedding pictures. You know, I'm the kind of crutch.
It's a little hard to hear, but Mark is saying, "I swear to God if I ever find out that you're in possession of those
wedding pictures, you know I'm a guy who can hold a grudge." [Music] At one point, Linda was convinced that
Mark tapped her phones and was listening to her calls. I knew for a fact that he was on my
phones because I was talking to my stepmother and she was telling me about um how the Montana police were utilizing
tasers and she was asking me if I knew anything about tasers for one of my self-defense tools. And Mark called and
left a message and said, "You girls sitting around talking about tasering me and shooting me." and he says, "I would
have let you shoot me at one point in time, but now I'm going to survive this just to ruin your life." Fearing that
Mark's campaign of harassment was now escalating toward violence, Linda started brainstorming, both battle and
escape plans. Getting all those firearms, was that wise or was that paranoia? I think it was very wise. I'm dealing with
somebody that was incredibly skilled with firearms. He was somebody that would go on hunting trips and he would
stay on his hunting trips until he acquired his hunt, his kill. And I knew this was somebody that could take my
life. It was a real threat. To her, Mark had proven he was willing to cross any boundary she set. Linda
decided to turn her house into a fortress. I have a safe room in there. I have a
plan A, a plan B, a plan C. If he comes in this door, if he comes into my bedroom, if he breaks in downstairs. She
gave me a tour of her hidden arsenal. This one was put in the living room entryway area. Um, obviously I'm very
vulnerable in this area. We walked from room to room as she pointed out the spots where she was hiding her guns.
There's this magnet right here. Yes. So, there was a gun hooked onto that. Yes. She had one in her office, one next to
her bed, and one in the hallway, another behind a wall hanging. It seemed she was
never more than 6 ft away from a fire alarm. The security company installed a magnet for me to have bedside. As she
guided me through her security system, I couldn't help but think how this reminded me of something out of a James
Bond movie. I had never seen so many guns in a home in my life. I knew exactly where there were. So, in a time
of stress that I could count on them being there. It wasn't like, "Wow, where is my firearm? Do I have it on me to
defend myself?" They were always consistently there. Linda felt certain that Mark would eventually try to hurt,
maybe even kill her. But until she had hard evidence, a witness, or filed for a protection order, sheriff's deputies
couldn't arrest him. Then on March 18th, 2008, at about 10:00 a.m., Linda's neighbor, Ruthie
Hegmeister, was on her way over to visit. We were going to do some cooking together and then take our dogs for a
walk. As I pull up here, I notice there's a white station wagon here and there's a gentleman over at Linda's
trash cans taking the trash out of the trash cans right across the street. Right across the street. Ruthie was
immediately suspicious and pulled her car right up to this man's white station wagon. I blocked this car. I did. I
blocked this car and I proceeded to get out of my car. I left my door open and I
asked the gentleman. I said, "Excuse me, who are you?" He says, "My name is John." I go, "Why are you taking my
friend's trash?" And he's like, "I have permission to take the trash." You have permission to take someone's trash. How
can you have permission to take someone's trash? You're not buying it? No, I'm not buying it at all. So, I
proceed to say, "Okay, well, we'll find out." I walk around my truck to the passenger door. My cell phone's on the
seat, pick up my cell phone, and I dial Linda's house. I'm like, "Linda, there's
a man down here." In the meantime, he's getting the trash, throwing it in his car, closing the door. I'm like,
"There's a man down here stealing your trash." And I said, "No." I couldn't believe. And she said, "Yes." She starts
describing who this person is and it's Mark. While Ruthie was on the phone, Mark got back in his car and drove off.
And Ruth is like, "Uh, no. This is, you know, something's really wrong with this." And we're like, "Well, so finally
somebody's seeing him. there's a witness to him being here. So, she calls 911 and
that was, you know, the he finally got pulled over for that. After more than 2 years of what Linda described as a
campaign of harassment and fear, the county finally had enough evidence to charge Mark with stalking and theft.
Mark entered what's called an Alford plea. That's when someone claims to be innocent but admits there's enough
evidence that a judge or jury will likely find them guilty. Mark was sentenced to 2 years probation and 12
months of anger management. The court also entered a protection order against him which meant Mark had
to turn over all of his weapons and never go near Linda ever again. Linda was not satisfied with the sentence. He
got a slap on the hand and it was very disheartening to me. Throughout 2008 and into 2009, Linda repeatedly called the
sheriff's office to report suspicious activity she thought could be Mark. But she was never able to link those
situations to him, but stayed vigilant about her security. And in the summer of 2008, Linda made a
decision that would forever change her life. She hired a former security consultant to do an assessment of her
house. I did an analysis of sort of her home security situation and what the steps she was taking. Looked into the
people that she was working with and made some suggestions on that front. His name was Michael Oaks. He was a gun and
safety enthusiast. Similar to her relationship with Mark, things started professionally, but soon
became something more. Did you fall in love with her? I I did. That same summer, Mark left Kick Island
for Anacortis, Washington, about 10 miles away. He bought several acres and a new house on Thompson Road where he
opened his new business. His sister Victoria said Mark even started dating someone new. Teresa Vox Michael. He was
amazing. He would drive down almost every weekend, take me to dinner. To those around him, Mark really seemed to
have moved on. He was joking with me all the time and he was always fun, you know, when we were on the phone and
yeah, he was very happy. Then in October 2009, Linda heard from one of Mark's employees
and she informed me via email late in the afternoon that Mark was missing. I was very concerned that he would be
coming over my way. But detectives had a different theory. They believed Mark was
dead. [Music] From 48 hours. This is Train to Kill. Trigger warning. The following episode
contains references to harassment, stalking, and physical violence. Listen with care.
[Music] Dispatch, can I help you? In August 2009, an anonymous man called the Scadget County Sheriff's Office 911
hotline. There's a crime that's going to take place in the morning. It involved a dangerous drug dealer.
There's going to be a a van transporting some drugs from uh the Incortis area to
I5 and then to Seattle. The dispatcher then asks the caller for the person's name. And do you know the names?
The last name is Stove. S O E R. Stove as in Mark Stove, the dog trainer to the stars who had moved to Anacortis,
Washington. Okay. And is somebody there with you or why are you whispering? Uh yeah, this is something that's very
delicate. I have I have to not be found out about this. He's very dangerous. Perpetually carries a gun. It's a little
tough to hear, but he's warning them that Mark carries a gun. He said, "This is very dangerous. I wish you guys would
do something before it kills somebody." He says, "I wish you guys would do something before he kills somebody." All
righty. Well, I've got the call in and we'll pass it along to the deputies for you. Thank you.
The following day, Mark Stove was pulled over by sheriff's deputies. He was asked
if they could search his car. He refused. This is Lee Harren. She's a private investigator Mark hired after the
incident. Lee said when Mark refused to cooperate, the officers wouldn't let him
leave. A search warrant was obtained. A canine was brought to the scene and there was a positive hit. The dog
detected some drugs. The police found a small metallic box on the undercarriage of Mark's vehicle which contained a
couple of marijuana cigarettes and some very lowgrade cocaine. Mark told the deputies the box had been
planted. They let him go, but from then on Mark watched his back. It was such a deliberate act.
It said, "We're setting you up. We want you to go to jail." I think Mark had a very real fear of what Linda was capable
of doing to him. I'm Peter Vans from 48 Hours. This is Train to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard.
Episode 3, Secret Meetings. [Music] At the time Mark Stove was pulled over by police, Linda Updike said she had
moved on from her ex-husband. I just wanted to go on with my life with Michael and I wanted Mark to go on with
his life. Michael was Michael Oaks, a security expert. We spoke back in 2010. I remember at that time thinking this
can't be real because no woman alone could go through this amount of harassment. Michael said they
met at a Starbucks and quickly connected over their love of books. By the fall of
2008, Michael said their business relationship turned romantic. I said to her, I think we have a connection that
that could go beyond friendship and is that something that you're open to? And I think she, as you may know, she's um
almost 6 feet tall and I'm 5 foot six. She's never had children. I have four children, so it was an unlikely romance,
but she said, "You know, I have gone through a lot of things in my life, and I'm open to considering that." Linda was
impressed by how dedicated Michael was to his family. After getting a divorce from his first wife, Michael took full
custody of their kids. He even treated the kids of his second wife as his own. Everything he did took into account of
his children. He worked at home so he could be there for them. He was a full-time single parent. He drove them
to school every morning. He made sure he had Friday night movies time with them or game evenings. The family was a
priority to him. Michael described himself as a self-taught security specialist skilled in firearms. I ended
up training with uh a lot of the alphabet soup of of government agencies and SWAT teams and so on. And it's uh
what we call force on force training. I owned a small company in in Seattle here
and uh I managed to get some training equipment and figure out how to use it. People have said that you are a gun
enthusiast. Is that true? Yes, I am a gun enthusiast. I've taught all my kids from the earliest age that they I felt
they were safe. gun safety. Uh, and I have shot competitively for some years. You've been described as Linda Updike's
bodyguard as well as boyfriend, right? Is that accurate? I don't believe it's accurate. Let's put it that way. She
never paid me to be a bodyguard. I did a little bit of research and I did an analysis of sort of her home security
situation and what the steps she was taking. looked into the people that she was working with and made some
uh suggestions on that front and that was the extent of what I would consider my professional interaction with her.
And did she pay you for that consulting? You know, she paid me. She wrote me a check, but it was just for my expenses.
It was a minimal amount of money. I don't even remember now what it was, but less than $1,000. So, I mean, it was
minimal. Michael said that by the spring of 2009, he and his kids started spending a lot
of time at Linda's house in Winthrop, which was more than 200 miles north from Michael's place in Kenowick, Washington.
It's a beautiful love. It's uh in my opinion, it's it's legendary. It's something that you read about in uh
romance novels or movies. Their relationship deepened. What seemed to make it even better was that Linda said
she hadn't heard from Mark since he had been arrested for stalking and theft. I was believing and hoping that that had
enough impact and he recognized that this behavior was unacceptable and that he would be moving on with his life. And
we went for many months where nothing happened. To her, the nightmare finally felt over. I really started feeling more
at peace in my life and more at ease and really felt that he was moving on and I
was able to move on into a new relationship with nothing from the past hampering that. But according to
Michael, the past roared back into the present when Mark Stove unexpectedly re-entered their lives.
Mark Stove sought me out one day out of the blue and told me that I would do what he
wanted. And from that point for almost 6 months, I lived in constant fear. Michael said that Mark hadn't stopped
stalking. He just found a new target. The Mark Stove you got to know. Was he a frightening man? very intimidating.
Very much so, threatening, constantly with me. Michael Oak said the first time he
encountered Mark Stove was a real shock. It was around Memorial Day 2009. Michael
and Linda had been in a romantic relationship for about 9 months. I think it was a it was a weekday morning. I had
just dropped my kids off at school. Michael said he then made a stop at Costco and went to the store. When I
came out, he was standing by my car and because I had done research for Linda Optic some months previously. I'd seen a
picture of him. I immediately recognized him. Mark Stove is standing next to your
car. next to my car in the park in Kenowick, Washington, which is on the other side of the mountains from from
where we are now. Yes. The drive from Mark's home in Anacortis to this Costco in Kenowick, Washington
would have taken about 5 hours. Yet there he was, according to Michael, menacingly standing by Michael's car.
He's very icy, actually. He he said that he had been listening to our calls and he knew all about me and he knew that I
was in a relationship with Linda. He said his wife. He didn't say his ex-wife. He said his wife. And he said
that there was something of his that she wouldn't give back and that I was going
to get it for him. Michael couldn't remember if he said anything to Mark or if he just gave him
a confused look as he waited to hear Mark's demand. He said that Miss Opike would not give back their uh wedding
photo albums. And he said I was going to get them back for him. And then he went on to uh
he went on to describe what my daughters were wearing that morning, what they'd worn to school. and there's no way he
could have seen. But what did you realize at that moment? He had had been following us whole time and uh
he said that uh he he told me all the details of what they're wearing, their backpack colors, everything.
Michael said that Mark told him to bring the wedding photos to the Northgate Mall
in Seattle on July 14th, 2009. He said he agreed. Why didn't you at that moment simply look him in the eye
and say, "Mark Stove or whoever you are, get away from me. I don't ever want to speak to
you again. If you get anywhere near my children, I'll call the police." I'm not a confrontational person at all. That's
not my mode. I felt very much offbalance in that meeting. And I think it's one of
those things where once I'm driving away thinking I should have said this or I should have done that. There was
something about him that was chilling to me and I felt I kept trying to talk myself out of it. He can't be real. It
can't be real. He has to be fooling. Michael said at first he was going to call the police, but then decided
against it, worried about getting Linda involved. Did Michael tell you that Mark Stove
approached him and demanded wedding photos? No. Why wouldn't he share this vitally important information with you?
My guess in knowing Michael is he really did not want to stress me out more. Michael said that when July 14th rolled
around, he went to meet Mark at the Nordstrom store at the Northgate Mall, just as he said Mark demanded.
Michael said that since he didn't tell Linda about this meeting, he arrived empty-handed. No wedding photos. Michael
said Mark got angry and scolded him. What was his obsession with these wedding photos?
Well, I I I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist. had enraged him. I believe in retrospect that she chose not
to continue the marriage with Mark Stove to continued to do what he wanted and yet she retained something that he felt
was part of him. A couple of weeks later, Michael suggested to Linda that they leave and
go on a trip out to Whitefish, Montana. That's where Linda's father, Wall-E Updike, had a house. We were going to
stay there and stayed at their vacation home. In route to White Fish, Michael remembered making a stop so Linda could
take her dog for some exercise and he could pick up some snacks. But Michael said when he got in line to check out,
he spotted a familiar face standing near the front door. And I I'm in line minding my own business and look across
the way and I see Mr. Stover standing by the entrance to the store staring at me.
And what was that moment like for you? Very similar to the first time that I saw him. It's just a shock of
recognition in a place you don't expect to see somebody. Michael, why didn't you just say to him,
"You get away from me. If you get anywhere near me and Linda again, I'm calling the cops."
There's at least two reasons. One of them is I do know enough about protection to know that there's no way
for me to I mean this is why the president has so many people that protects him from potential threats. One
man cannot protect three children 24/7. And for any time that I could enrage or outrage Stover, it was putting a gun to
the head of my children in my opinion. You felt if you confronted Mark Stove, you'd be putting yourself in more danger
instead of dealing with the threat that he posed to you? Absolutely. And I'm certainly not the first person to feel
that way. By now, Michael said Mark's uncanny ability to find him and Linda wherever
they went made him realize Mark posed a real danger to his family. Mark Stove was remarkably sophisticated in some
ways. He had managed to penetrate Linda's computer prior to meeting me. He managed to tap a phone. Uh, finding us
in Montana was impossible and I took tremendous steps not to be followed. And yet there he was. How did he find us?
By late September of 2009, Michael said that Mark demanded that they set up another meeting after he and Linda were
back from Montana. He was getting progressively less patient with me. this time at a church in Anacortis. By now,
Michael decided to wear his Kevlar vest to the meetings. He said that he drove west across the state to the church
parking lot not far from Mark's house and waited. Still unable to find the wedding photos, Michael said he brought
two pictures of Linda with her horse so Mark would have something to look at. But Michael said he didn't show up and
Michael felt helpless. And the thought of just at any given one of these meetings that we had just telling him,
I'm done. Take a hike and don't come looking for me. You know, and every time the reality of knowing that there's no
way I can keep my kids, myself, and Miss Optike safe if he decides he's going to
go for it, pulled me back from that brink. But were all these stories Michael was
telling me true? Some people who knew Michael well said he had a darker side to his personality, a potentially
violent side. During the course of our marriage, he told me that he was capable of killing without remorse.
[Music] Michael looks had a dual personality. He was a family man by day and tried to
live up this action hero persona in the background. That's Jennifer Thompson. She knows Michael Oaks as well as
anyone. Jennifer was his second wife. I talked to her in 2010. You know, we eloped.
It wasn't a wedding. She said they were married when Michael first met Linda. Jennifer said that she loved him, but
that Michael had an insecure side. Is he a tough guy? Well, no. An action hero kind of guy? No. He
thinks he is. He he wanted to be he wanted to be he idealized that he he read about it. He aspired to be that.
According to Jennifer, Michael thought part of being tough meant being armed. Michael Oaks was very infatuated with
guns, weapons, and I think they made him feel powerful, strong, capable. There was one book Jennifer said Michael
referenced a lot. It's called Onkilling and it's a book about the psychology of killing.
The book examines how people learn to kill in war. Jennifer said that Michael zeroed in on a part that described how
one small sliver of the population could be vicious. Michael Oaks told me that he
was in the small percentage of people who could kill without remorse. She said that over time, Michael's
fascination with killing and his tough guy persona rotted out their marriage. Michael had a really strong sense of
righteousness and he believed that bad people should be taken out so that the good people can
not be harmed. Um, the problem is he decided who was bad and who wasn't. And he felt that he
had the right to just take a bad man out. And we would argue about that. We argued about that for years. Uh, right
and wrong. Can you kill? Can you not kill? And it was a it was a point of contention in our marriage. Jennifer
told me that the final straw came when verbal tensions between them turned physically abusive. I remember his hand
coming up and slapping me across the face. And I remember it very clearly. And I was expecting
after feeling it, I was expecting the, "Oh my god, I'm sorry. Oh my god." And he didn't. He said, "Get the out of my
house." And he chased me down the stairs. And I could feel his breath on my neck and his body behind me. It was
horrible. It was horrible because I trusted him. I trusted him. And he had never he had
been angry before. He had shown aggression before. Never at me. [Music] Michael told us no one should believe
Jennifer's allegations against him. In July of 2008, a year after they tied the knot, Jennifer left with her two
biological kids. and I went to my mom's and I spent two weeks just took my kids to Disneyland,
went to the beach, just got away from it and then decided that I needed to get an
apartment somewhere cuz I couldn't go back to the house. On August 15th, he said, "If you can't give me a date that
you're coming back, we're done." And so he told me he wanted a divorce. Soon after, Michael Oaks and
Linda Updike set up their first in-person meeting. I think he's a very insecure man, and I think that he
musters up confidence really well. He's an excellent salesman. He's an excellent
presenter of images. As the fall of 2008 began, Jennifer faded from his life. As Michael, the
action hero wannabe, now had a new woman in his sights. And as Michael's relationship with Linda grew deeper, he
said Linda's ex-husband, Mark, became obsessed, constantly calling him on the phone, asking for meetings. By October
2009, it's become very very clear to me that in my mistaken belief that I could appease or satisfy
Mark Stove, I did become yet another person who was doing exactly what Mark Stover wanted. He had reached a fateful
breaking point. I kept thinking if I can just this is the one thing he wants that
Linda Opike won't give him. and if she just gives him what he wants, he'll leave us alone. Michael said the two men
finally agreed to meet again on October 24th, 2009 at that same church in Anacortis.
There is surveillance video from Linda's house showing Michael packing up his car
to head out that day. It appeared that he was taking off for a fairly serious journey. That's Lee Heron again, Mark's
former private investigator. She examined the video herself. He was loading a number of items into his car,
including a rifle bag. As Michael is packing, you can see Linda come out onto their deck. They touch
hands and then Linda wraps her arms around Michael. They share a long heartfelt embrace. The kind that
suggested to me that something important lay ahead. Something serious. Here's Lee again. The long passionate
embrace that was captured on Linda's surveillance cameras indicates that Michael Oaks thought of himself as a
prince who was out to slay the dragon, his perceived dragon for the damsel in distress. and his perceived dragon was
Mark Stove. Michael and Linda kissed and he drove away. Hours later, Michael claimed he came face to face with Mark
Stove in that church parking lot. He was extremely agitated, not cold and calculating, not controlled like that
first meeting. He was erratic. Michael said Stove once again demanded those wedding pictures.
So, did you give him those photo albums that he wanted? I never found them. Late
that night, Michael is seen returning to Linda's home. But is it possible this entire story was Ola Ruse for a failed
murder attempt? Because 4 days later, at 2:30 a.m. on October 28th, Michael is again seen on surveillance video driving
away from Linda's house. This time, Michael said the two men would meet in private at Mark Stover's house in
Anacortis. Michael claimed that Mark had told him this was his last chance to turn over
those damn wedding pictures. It was put up or shut up time. But what really happened when they met remains a
mystery. Only those who saw the bloody aftermath can express what they felt. I can only describe it as evil,
something horrible, something terrible [Music] from 48 hours. This is trained to kill
the dog trainer, the aerys, and the bodyguard. Gadget 911. What's your emergency? Uh,
it's not an emergency, but um I need a sheriff to come out here to Summit Park Graange.
This is Tammy Gilden in Anacortis, Washington. She called 911 sometime before 11:50, the morning of October
28th, 2009, when she and her mother noticed a man trespassing behind the Grange Hall. It's an event facility
about half a mile from Mark Stover's house. I just saw one guy. Okay. Did you say anything to him? Nope. I just backed
up and pulled in front. Tammy noticed that the guy was at the back of the property where no one should be parked.
There two vehicles are facing back to back. One of those two vehicles was a white station wagon. The other was a
black SUV. They were transferring something back and forth or living back and forth or something. What Tammy saw
was both odd and disturbing. Whatever the object being transferred was, Tammy remembered it was large and covered in
plastic. My first thought was, "Oh, a body." I thought, "Oh, you know, you're reading a murder mystery. You know,
silly girl. You know, that's not a body." As they sat in their car at the front of
the property, Tammy and her mom waited for a deputy to arrive. Tammy said the stranger got into the black SUV, leaving
the station wagon behind. I didn't see his face headon when we first pulled in. Uh, I saw him when he pulled next to us
to leave. He drove right up next to their car before stepping on the gas and speeding away.
We were scrambling to find pen and paper and write the license plate number down.
Tammy called the sheriff again. Dispatch, can I help you? Yeah. Hi. Um, I called about meeting the sheriff at
They gave the dispatcher the license plate number and a description of the trespasser's car. It's a black SUV.
Which direction did it leave? He turned on Stevenson. He turned uh west on Stevenson. He was driving toward
downtown Anacortis. Minutes later, Scadget County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Du arrived and checked out
the station wagon and then went looking for the black SUV. It didn't take long. I noticed the
license number matched the piece of paper that the reporting party had given me. I turned around in the vehicle, made
a traffic stop. The deputy went up to the car window. It was raining. He had sunglasses on, which is unusual. He was
extremely nervous. Deputy Dame asked the man who was hiding his eyes for an ID. He didn't listen to the question and
then repeated my question to me, so he wasn't tracking the conversation we were having. The deputy explained that he
pulled the driver over for trespassing. His story was he was headed to the casino which is down the road.
During the conversation, the deputy noticed that the driver had some dog hair on his clothing and he noticed a
big bundle of blankets in the back of the SUV. He didn't think much of it. This just so happened to be the same
morning that Mark Stover's employees reported seeing their boss tear out of his driveway in his white Chevy station
wagon. And this traffic stop was just a few hours later. No one yet knew Mark was missing.
The deputy took the driver's ID and went back to my patrol car, ran a driver's check on him, made sure that the car was
registered to him. I pulled over Michael Oaks and the bundle of blankets in the back. Only
later would he learn that was Mark's dead body. The whole case took off. I'm Peter Vans from 48 hours. This is Train
to Kill the Dog Trainer, the Aerys, and the Bodyguard. Episode 4, The Bundle in the Back.
After the sheriff's deputy let Michael Oaks drive away with just a warning, Michael made a phone call, but not to
his girlfriend, Linda Updike. [Music] It was out of it was unexpected. It was out of the blue. It wasn't
pre-coordinated. It was to his ex-wife, Jennifer Thompson. She lived in Everett,
Washington, about an hour south of Anacortis. We spoke in 2010. And he said, "Hey, I
am available this afternoon. I'm in your area. Are you available?" I said, "Actually, yeah, I I am." And he said,
"Well, do you want to meet up?" I said, "Sure." Although they had been separated
for about a year, Michael and Jennifer started talking again. She had emailed him just a few weeks earlier. I had
entered a relationship with someone and it made me really reflect on my situation with Michael because
I can't say I didn't love him anymore. I was healing and moving forward, but I it's not just done. And so I emailed him
at him and said, "I've met someone. I'm entering this relationship. Are you sure? Are you still sure?"
before she started something new. Jennifer wanted to know if her marriage to Michael was really over. We had a
pretty amazing relationship. Yeah, it had a lot of brokenness in it, but I don't know. Are you absolutely 100%.
Had he said, "Yep, I'm sure." I would have said, "Okay, carry on and move forward." But he didn't say that. And he
wrote back, "No, I'm not." This is October 2009, right? When Linda Updike and Michael Oaks have become a couple
and what we've been told is they're deeply in love, he's telling you something else. He's telling you that in
his mind it may not be over. Yeah. Your relationship with him. And actually, he told me that he didn't love her. Um I
I can't say what's true and what it isn't. I don't know. But what he told me was that it wasn't it wasn't like us. It
it was a convenience. They were partners. Like they each had things that the other needed.
[Music] So when Michael called her that October morning, Jennifer agreed to meet him at
a Starbucks. And he looked very disheveled and frumpy, like just kind of hair was poofy and clothes untucked,
which is different because he's usually very meticulous and neat, tidy, tucked in belt, you know, that kind of thing.
They sat together at a table in the corner of the coffee shop. We kind of have some general chitchat. And then he
says, "Hey, you know there's a beach around here?" And I said, "Well, it's Everett. It's a
port. It's not very pretty though. What are you looking for? She suggested a beach they could go to. Says, "Sure,
that sounds good." He says, "I have some time." He said, "But my car is really full. There's no room for you, so I'll
just follow you." That's fine. Jennifer noticed that Michael parked far away from her and that his vehicle was caked
in mud. Well, the way there was very strange because he was driving so carefully,
laying low, trying not to draw attention to himself. And this is a man that flips
a U-turn when it's convenient for him, even if it's illegal. She said when they arrived at the beach,
she watched him fumble with things in his car. Michael suggested the two of them go for a walk. Did he seem nervous?
No. At this time, he seemed very calm, but the tension was so thick. The unspoken
was so loud. And I felt I don't know. I It was really, really a strange cuz he and I have very easy breezy
conversations. So, it was very weird. It was very uncomfortable. Then, when they
finished their walk, she said they each decided to stop at the bathroom before they left. And so I went in, he went in,
and I came out. And he was still in there. He was in there for a long time, and I sat on a picnic bench and just
waited, waited, and he came out, and he was just distraught. Something happened while he
was in there. He came out and his entire demeanor completely changed. And so he he looks upset. He looks stressed out.
Like he's freaking out. He's just noticeably agitated. and not okay. What does he say to you? Well, I said, "Are
you okay?" And he said, "No, I think I'm in trouble." And I said, "Real trouble or like perceived trouble?" And he said,
"Like 10 to 15 years felony trouble." Knowing that Michael could be over the top, Jennifer didn't know whether to
take him seriously. I also know this man to be very melodramatic. So, I'm trying
to assess him. I'm reading him and looking at him and I'm saying I'm thinking in my head, is this real? Is
this not? At that point, he's sitting in my passenger seat and I was in the driver's
seat and he was very noticeably agitated, rubbing his temples and his hair, his fingers of his hair and um
really vigilant, watching around, real paranoid, freaking out, looking out the windows. Yeah. At one point a patrolman
had come by and he really really went crazy and he said, "I feel like they know like
they" and I said, "They don't know anything. You're just a guy sitting in a car in a parking lot." He says, "You're
right. It's just that guilty conscious thing." And did you not say right then? They know what? I No, I didn't. I
probably didn't want to know because if it was real, I didn't want to know. And if it was being dramatic, I didn't need
to know. Then Michael said something even more unsettling. He made reference to if he was to be pulled over, he was
just trying to get out of this area. And if he had been pulled over and law enforcement had seen what was inside his
car, he'd go away for life. After that disturbing comment, Michael got out of her car into his and drove away.
I think the part that disturbs me the most on my part of it is when we parted ways
that day, kissed him on the cheek and that haunts me cuz he had a body in that car.
Michael left Jennifer. He drove back up to Anacortis, then drove more than 250 miles, crossing the Cascade Mountain
Range for a second time in the same day. That night, he returned to Linda Updikeke's house. From Linda's home
surveillance camera, you can see Michael arrive just after 11:30 p.m. On a different camera, you can see Linda
in a bathrobe come out to welcome him home. their reunion would prove short. On the evening of October 29th, 2009,
the day after Mark Stove went missing, Sergeant Jean Davis with the Okonogan Sheriff's Office got a call. We talked
in 2010. I checked into service around 6:00 and received a call from Detective Meyers
with Scadget County um Sheriff's Department advising that um they're working on a missing person case. Mark
Stove. Sergeant Davis knew the name Mark Stove well. Months before he had suggested Linda Updike get a protective
order against Mark. He also had offered to help train her dog to attack. And I told Detective Myers, um, um, yeah, I
know Linda, known Linda very well, and I know Oaks very well. Detective Meyers then told Sergeant Davis that they had a
lead concerning Mark Stover's disappearance. The lead included a familiar name. Somehow Oaks, Michael Oaks, got involved
in this. So, I uh initially heard this information and I placed a call to uh Dave, Chief Rodriguez, to let him know
what was going on. He didn't answer. Simultaneously, Linda calls me and she's pretty
agitated, somewhat frantic, actually. This is Dave Rodriguez. Back in 2010, he was a chief deputy with the Okonogan
Sheriff's Office. She said um an employee of Stover had just called her and said that the police were there,
that Mark is missing, there's blood at the scene, and the dog's been shot. And she's very frantic
and she's saying, "We're not sure what's going on, and we've not ruled out the possibility that some type of violence
happened at his house by him. not onto him and he's now he's snapped and he's coming over here.
So, Linda is thinking she may be next. This is what she's conveying to me anyhow. And I said, "Uh, are you there
by yourself?" And she said, "No, that uh Oaks was there." And I said, "Well, you
should be fine, but if you don't, maybe you guys should uh leave the house and go stay with uh your mother or somewhere
else." So, if that's a good idea, um, that's what we're going to do. Sergeant Davis and Deputy Rodriguez
drove to Linda's place separately, unsure of what they were heading into. It was 7:00 at night and it was uh,
almost a typical fall, foggy, wintry, not wintry yet, but it was starting to mist.
Both investigators were familiar with Linda's house. So, we drove up to the house and normally when we were going
there to train with her dog, her camera system or possibly a sensor would say someone's coming up the driveway, she
would always be out on the outside on the deck or whatever. [Music] Instead of that usual warm welcome, the
front door stayed closed. This visit to Linda's would clearly be different. I used my spotlight, my high beams to, you
know, if they came out, they'd be blinded. I tried calling her on the phone and um no answer yet. Her car was
there. Oak's car was there. Lights were on. No answer. The deputies pulled in and parked. I'm like, we're going to
have to go. Maybe something has happened now. Maybe Sto did come to the house in
between the time that I talked to her. So, we need to go to the house. So, we go and knock on the door. Linda answered
the door and invited them inside. She seemed a little surprised that we were there because I didn't you know
last I talked to her I said I recommend you pack some bags and go stay with somebody else. So I don't I think she
found that uh a little surprising that we showed up. But I mean other than that nothing unusual. Invited us in.
Initially, we didn't see Michael Oaks, but as we walked in the living room, he was walking up the stairs from a lower
level. The deputies told Michael to sit on the couch. This was after they searched
between the cushions for any weapons. I I know Michael and and Linda were are into guns, and I asked if he was armed,
and he said he was, and I removed a a 9mm pistol from him. And at that point, um, we go into more
of the questioning. Was Linda armed as well? No, she was not. Linda was in a chair nearby. Even
though Michael wasn't under arrest, he was clearly a person of interest in this case, having been in Anacortis on the
day Mark Stove disappeared. Sergeant Davis said they read Michael his Miranda rights just in case he said
something that could be admissible in court. And we point out that we we're here on a task from Scadget County to
find out if you were here because your car was seen in the area of Stover's residence at this particular time. And I
as flat asked him, "What were you doing over there?" And that's when he said, "Oh, I was over there. I was visiting my
um ex-wife. Chief Deputy Rodriguez noticed how distraught Linda became when Michael said that he made the trip to
see his ex-wife Jennifer. So, actually in my mind is, "Oh, Oaks just got caught messing around with his ex-wife and now
current girlfriend just found out about it." He said Linda left the room crying.
Sergeant Davis went after her. She kept on asking me, "I don't know what's going
on here. what's going on here? You know, she asked Jean, "What's going on? I I'm
so confused. I don't know what's going on here." Numerous times to me. Back in the living room, Chief Deputy
Rodriguez continued to press Michael for an answer about why he went to visit his
ex-wife. Then he started to get pretty agitated and he's looking around and he goes,
"Can I get up to find my medication?" and we didn't have probable cause to have him under arrest. And um I said,
"Yeah, you're not under arrest. You can get up." So he's now looking around in the living room for his medication.
Kind of strange, isn't it? It is. And now Jean actually, Sergeant Davis then, I believe, got the call from Scadget
County, but in her house, like a lot of places up here, you don't get cell signal. He had to go out on the deck to
actually get cell signal. So, he's running around. I'm trying to keep an eye on him while he's looking for his
medication. And then Linda comes out of the back room and asks me something and which diverted my attention briefly.
And then when I looked back for Oaks, he had ran down went down the stairs that he had come up when we initially got
there. Where'd he go? He went downstairs. So I said, "Linda, he he's got to be at least he's under arrest,
but he has to be within my sight." Outside on the deck, Sergeant Davis was getting new information from Scadget
County. They advised that um they had a search warrant signed and for us to take
Oak's vehicle. When I was outside, I something caught my attention by Oaks's vehicle. Um I see Oaks open the back
hatch, reach inside and take out a plastic bag. Appears to be like a garbage bag. When Sergeant Davis saw
this happen, alarm bells started to go off in his mind. Why was Michael even outside? And what did he just remove
from his car? [Music] Michael Oaks had just taken something out of his car, but the darkness and
mist made it tough to see. Sergeant Jean Davis spotted Michael while outside talking on the phone. So I sneak down to
him. I light him up with my flashlight and right when I hit him with beam of my light, the plastic bag, he throws it
over an embankment and he starts going into the front of his car. I grab grab him, ask him what he's doing. You know,
he's really agitated, nervous at this point. I'm looking for medicine and then he goes right into it. He goes, "Why are
you giving me the third degree? Why are you treating me like a suspect?" I said,
"Well, you're acting suspicious." And at that point, I take control of Michael Oaks and escort him back into the house.
Chief Deputy Dave Rodriguez was inside with Linda when Sergeant Davis brought Michael back. So, he walks in with Oaks.
What do you say to the sergeant? Well, sergeant said to me what he just saw Oaks doing. And to me, that just threw
the switch. Since he knew them well, he felt that he needed to reinforce to Michael that he was no longer a friend.
You're now the suspect and I'm the deputy. Sit down on that couch. We got the second call from Scaji County that
says, "We have probable cause. Put him under arrest." Sergeant Davis put on the handcuffs and at that point he looked at
Linda again and said, "It's going to be okay, babe." Linda broke down. She was crying even more now. She was
basically hysterical at this point. Sobbing. Couldn't even make out the words that she was saying. Um, she was
completely emotional wreck at this time. After he put Michael in the back of his car,
Sergeant Davis walked out to grab whatever Michael had thrown down that embankment.
Once he's secured in the back of my car, I go and secure um the garbage. It's a basically it's a Walmart garbage sack,
white garbage sack tied up. I How far away from the car was it? Uh it was probably 20 ft down an embankment um
from the car and then I secure it and secured in in the floorboard of my front passenger of my vehicle. He didn't open
the bag. Sergeant Davis didn't want to risk spoiling the evidence, but he said that whatever was inside was heavy. And
after several minutes in my car, I started up smelling a bleach smell. A strong odor of bleach.
You smelled a strong order of bleach coming from what was ever inside that bag? Yes. Sca County deputies arrived
later that night to search Michael's SUV. And Sergeant Davis gave them that unopened garbage bag. They they checked
it after the warrant and discovered a firearm and um and what the rags and whatnot. What was in the bag? What kind
of gun? It was a 22 pistol. 22 caliber. Yes. But when they searched Michael's vehicle, there was no bundle of
blankets. Investigators kept searching for Mark Stover's body. Scadget County Sheriff's Office asked us to check any
probable locations where a body may be dumped in water. And as they gathered the evidence, Michael Oaks's story
seemed more and more unbelievable. So, what are you telling me? You shot Mark Stove in self-defense?
Absolutely. [Music] From 48 hours. This is Train to Kill. 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 you just 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 foreign country or
or something because they're just was no safety inside any area that Mark Stover
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 Stover'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 Oak 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 dark wood
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 Stover 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. Louvera 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 that he bought those is that he knew Mark Stove had his dog, Ding, and that Ding was uh trained as a
protection dog. Louver 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. Sense 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 Loua 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 Loua 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
gonna 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.
Scadget 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. Louvera 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.
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 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. He just said he was here on a job,
signed 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, by 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. 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 Stove'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 trained to kill
the dog trainer, the aerys, and the bodyguard. This is Perigan Lake. Just over these
trees over here is where the updike residence is. [Music] In June 2010, Chief Deputy Dave
Rodriguez took me out on patrol in an Okonogan County Sheriff's Fastboat on a lake just a few miles from Linda
Updikeke's home outside Winthrop, Washington. Rodriguez had helped Linda Updike train
a new attack dog and later was one of the deputies who arrested Michael Oaks. Months had passed since Mark Stove was
murdered and still his body had not been found. Scadget County Sheriff's Office asked us to check any probable locations
where body may be dumped in water since we're so close to her home. Um, this was
on the list to check. Michael Oaks had spent time near these waters and Rodriguez wanted to check if
he might have sunk Mark's body here. So, how does this work? Well, I don't know if you can see, but the lake is too big
for two or three or four or even six divers to adequate adequately search. That's why they turn to sonar to scour
the lake bed. And we grid search across the lake and then when we find something
of interest on the sonar screen, then we put divers down on it. And that diver will be you. Yes, today is me.
Then Deputy Rodriguez slowed the boat down toward a spot where he had detected some kind of an image. He put on the
divers suit. Are you ready? Ready. And jumped into the water. He swam below the boat, but no luck.
It's been quite a while since um Mr. Stover's been missing, so it makes it more difficult. Decomposition. Correct.
The search for Mark Stove had stretched across the state of Washington. The one person who could end that search decided
to be Koi. Are you willing to tell authorities where you placed Mark Stover's body?
Certainly, all that I know about the whereabouts of Mark Stove, I will be more than happy to share with
authorities in the course of our trial. This is going to be a dramatic week. It has been a dramatic year. I'm Peter
Vans. From 48 hours, it's trained to kill the dog trainer, the ays, and the bodyguard.
Episode 6. Time will tell. [Music] Michael Oaks has been accused of a murder of Mark Stove. What do you say?
Prove it. That's John Henry Brown. He was Michael Oak's lead defense attorney. We spoke in
2010. So my defense is prove it. First, they have to prove there's a murder, right? Brown is a brilliant showman
known for making arguments in court that could fit into the final scene of a prime time legal drama. We've got blood,
right? We've got shell casings, correct? Got a dog that was shot. Correct. But we
don't have a body, correct? And what does that add up to for you? Uh, a case of circumstantial evidence. When it
comes to representing accused killers, Brown has been around the block. He titled his memoir The Devil's Defender
to highlight a career spent arguing on behalf of defendants he considered evil. His client list included one of the most
notorious serial killers in American history, Ted Bundy, who said he had murdered 30 people. Bundy once told me
that he knew he was evil. Now, most sociopaths don't say that. Now, I don't see any of that in Michael at all. Brown
argued instead that Mark Stove represented the evil in this case, not his client.
I think somebody asked Michael recently whether he thought Michael thought uh Mark Stover was evil and Michael said no
not not all parts of him which I thought was a very gracious thing for Michael to
say under the circumstances but I think there were parts of Mark Stove that were
very evil. you know, when you start people treating people as objects and when which is what Stover did and
particularly with Linda, um then I think that crosses over. In court, they plan to make the case that Michael shot Mark
in self-defense. The trial started in September 2010, less than a year after Mark Stove was
killed. It did have an interesting cast of characters. Um, everybody appeared at
first blush to be very, very good citizens. That's Judge Mike Rickert. The case became very
sensationalized, uh, much to my chagrin. Um, that makes things more difficult for
us as we're trying to ensure that both sides get a fair shake and that justice is actually done. Judge Rickard said
this turned out to be one of the stranger cases he had presided over. The trial actually lasted four weeks. The
investigation lasted for the year prior to that. And the twists and the turns in
the plot and the details of this case um just kept changing. Witnesses included detectives. Some of Mark's former
employees and Michael's second wife, Jennifer Thompson, who told jurors that Michael said, "If police saw what was in
the back of my car, I'd go to prison for life. But it was Michael himself who played
the leading role in this trial when he took the stand. Mr. Brown, you got a new witness for us? Yes, Mr. Oaks. Mr. Oaks,
come on up. His defense attorney, John Henry Brown, wanted Michael to explain why he had to
defend himself. He came around the corner with a gun in one hand and he pointed the gun at me and the
look on his face, he didn't say anything. Okay. How close is to you? I'm inside the washroom. He's right at
the doorway and he's just inside the hallway. 3 ft maybe. Okay. What happens then?
I can't remember if he I lunged and he shot. We tangled and I got shot. Remember,
Detective Dan Louver said it was highly improbable that Michael could shoot Mark
in self-defense immediately after being shot himself, even if he was wearing a bulletproof vest. So, Brown asked
Michael to reenact the shooting to show that it was possible. [Music] Would you mind taking off your coat?
I'm not sure how it works. So, why don't you put this on the way you had it on, right? Brown asked Michael to put on a
Kevlar vest like the one he wore on October 28th, 2009. Brown's co-consel, Corbin Valz, stood in
as Mark Stove. Mr. Valdis is larger than Mr. Stover, as far as you know. He's taller.
Volz held up his left hand and stuck out his pointer finger to act like he was aiming a gun at Michael. So, Mr. Vz is
holding the gun out. He's fired at you. Mhm. What do you do? Michael lunged at Valz, grabbed his left arm, and tackled
him to the ground. I don't think we were expecting that. The aggressive move startled the
courtroom into a big laugh. Are you all right? I'm fine. My finger wasn't loaded. Michael took
off the vest and then walked back to the witness stand. Can I take this off? That was amazingly
fast. Mr. Oak, is that the way you did that? That's how it was trained. Can I take this off? Yes, please take that
off. I asked prosecutor Rich Hyrick why a bullet hole in Michael Oaks's vest wasn't convincing to authorities.
He explained the location of the bullet was suspicious. It appeared to have gone in very close
to exactly straight, exactly in the middle uh of the bulletproof vest. And uh which suggests what to you? Well,
what it suggested to us is that it was uh it was done either before or after uh the event
uh as somewhat of an alibi. Back on the stand, Michael eventually came to the dramatic moment everyone was waiting
for. He was finally going to disclose where he put Mark's body. [Music] you somehow get Mr. Stover's um body
into the station wagon. That's what I did. Then I picked him up, which was very difficult, and carried him out to
the back of the station wagon, and laid him there, and I had that kitchen towel that I had
grabbed, and I threw that in with him. Oh, before I when I picked him up and the gun fell
down on the floor, I just put it in his vest pocket. Michael then testified he later drove to that Graange Hall parking
lot nearby where he struggled to transfer Mark's body. I tried to move him to my car, but it was too heavy.
And so I used the plastic that was in the back of the rig and his rig. Yes. in the back of the station wagon and slid
it underneath of him and was able to then slide him across to my car. After meeting with his ex-wife, Jennifer
Thompson in Everett, Washington, he drove back to Anacortis to move Mark's now empty station wagon and it was still
just sitting there and I was blown away. I thought for sure it would have been like some big crime scene investigation.
Michael said he then drove the station wagon about 2 miles to the nearby Swenomish Casino parking lot. Michael
then walked back to his own car where Mark's body was covered up in the back. You leave it there. Yep. Michael told
the courtroom he then decided to dispose of the body because he didn't think investigators would believe his story.
And walking away from Mr. over his car. I see some kind of a boat in the water just near there. Michael said he then
drove down to a dock at the far end of that casino's vast parking lot. And I got my car as close to that as possible
and muscled him out and dropped him in the water. According to Michael, he then dropped
Mark's body into the Swanomish Channel, which flows into the Padilla Bay near Anacortis. Was the gun with him? His
gun? His gun? His gun was in his pocket still of his vest. After you did that, what did you do? Um,
I threw some other stuff like the plastic in the water. Um, and I smelled blood. I'm pretty sensitive to the smell
of blood. and I smelled blood and I couldn't see. It was dark and so I started throwing things out of the car
into the water um that were in the back. I had some stuff of the plastic and a piece of
carpet from his car and then uh some other items that were you know were there. He then headed to Linda's home in
Winthrop. I arrived there. I don't remember now. It was dark. Um, I'd had to stop to throw up a couple
times. I don't know. I'm not sure. Okay. Um, we see your tape of when you get to
Linda's. So, that'd be accurate, right? Yes. When you got to Linda, did you tell
her anything about what had happened? I just said I had a really bad day. What time was that? It was late. It was
late. I think I don't remember now. I was exhausted. But when the prosecution cross-examined Michael, they zeroed in
on some inconsistencies in his story. Here's Scadget County Prosecutor Rich Hyrick. You indicated that you
when you were at the Summit Park range body was too heavy to move from car to car, so you had to slide it. Is that
right? Yeah. Okay. On two other occasions, you were able to just pick the body up and walk it down,
go out, and I think you described a dilapidated dock and toss it in the water. Yes. And on another occasion, you
were able to just pick it up and toss it into the back of Mr. uh Stover's car. Uh
pick up and toss, I think, would be your words, but yes, I was able to pick him up. Why was it too heavy at the Summit
Park range? Because it's a station wagon. I couldn't stand up. You have to lean over to lift something, and I can't
do that. Detectives searched the waters behind the casino with a submersible camera and
found nothing. While court was in recess, I asked Michael if he was telling the truth. Police have searched
that area. They have not found a gun. They have found no skele no skeletal remains.
Is that really where you dropped the body? Absolutely. Yes. No matter where he may have disposed the
body, I pressed him more. What do you say to those who suspect that you disposed of the body because you wanted
to dispose of the evidence? That if people could see Mark Stove's body, maybe there's a bullet hole in the back
of the head. Maybe they would have seen that he was shot in the back, not in the
front. Maybe you were trying to cover up a murder. Well, I understand that feeling.
I I really do. And I wish I hope that the body is recovered uh because it will exactly corroborate my story 100%.
After he was cross-examined, Michael watched the woman he loved, the ays, the person at the center of Mark Stove's
rage, Linda Updike, raise her hand. [Music] Please state your name for the record
and spell your last name. Linda Opdike spelled O P D and David Y C K E. Did you choose to violate your attorney's advice
and speak to the prosecutor and testify in this trial? Yes, I did. Why did you change your mind?
because I felt this was an important part of the story that I could tell um about a dangerous stalking situation and
if there's any information that I could offer up, I wanted to do so. But Linda wasn't there just to defend Michael. She
told me she also wanted to defend herself and her father. It's heart-wrenching enough to be
dealing with what us as a family are dealing with with Michael, let alone seeing my family attacked. Um, is just
another level of I feel victimization and randomly going after anybody with no reason for anything. And to do a smear
campaign, here's Scadget County Prosecutor Rosemary Cahol questioning Linda. You
continue to have romantic feelings, intimate feelings toward Mr. Oaks and vice versa. Yes. And in fact, I think
that you said that in our interview last week is that you loved him. Correct. I don't know recall if I said that or not,
but I do. Yes. When Mr. Oaks was arrested, you did what you could to find him a lawyer. Correct.
Yes. She asked about what help Linda provided Michael after his arrest. And you made some phone calls, took some
notes, tried to figure out who the best lawyer for him would be. Correct. Yes. In addition to that, you figured out um
if what his bail amount was. No, I had nothing to do with that. Michael somehow managed to pay $250,000
for him to get out on bail. Linda insisted she didn't cover that cost. Michael's defense attorney, John Henry
Brown, told me the Updikees weren't paying his fee either. Is Linda Updike paying for Michael Oak's
defense? No. God, I wish she was. Boy, I really wish she was. No, there's no money going through a third party to
Oak's family and back to you guys. No, I'm going to lose my shirt on this case, actually, just like many of my other
cases. Back at trial, the prosecution showed no sympathy in its cross-examination of Linda.
Now, it's correct, isn't it, that throughout the investigation of this case, you've been concerned about your
own potential legal liability in this case? Yes. The prosecutor even suggested Linda's
support for Michael may have been an attempt to protect herself. You don't have to worry about Mr. Stober now, do
you? It appears to be that case. And in that sense, the defendant helped you out.
Correct. No. Isn't it true that if this is a case of self-defense, it gets you off the hook,
too? What do you mean by that? You indicated you were concerned about your own potential liability in this case. If a
jury were to find that this was self-defense, you wouldn't have any more liability either, would you? I have no
liability in this case. The prosecution also argued that Linda had no evidence Mark continued to stalk
her after his arrest. You made a report on December 5th, 2008. Do you recall that?
Yes. And you indicated that time that you believed that you saw Mr. Stover's vehicle in the area. Do you recall that?
Yes, I do. Cahol pointed out that Linda was never able to identify Mark in this incident or several others she reported
in 2008 and 2009. Nobody was able to respond in time. So the answer would be no. That is
correct. Prosecutors also called Mark Stover's fiance, Terresa Vox Michael, to testify.
Their engagement was used as evidence Mark was moving on. I talked to Teresa in 2010. In the weeks before he died,
was he a happy man? Oh, he was. He was like a kid. He was joking with me all the time and he was
always fun, you know, when we were on the phone. But Teresa claimed there was still a
dark presence in his life, his ex-wife, Linda. She said that Mark described Linda as a vengeful ex who wouldn't
leave him alone and often took him to court. He was he just was very troubled about the way things had gone. And in
what did he believe the endgame was with her? I don't know that he thought there
was a goal. He just couldn't believe that things wouldn't stop. The legal battles, the accusations,
he knew his life was in danger. But Michael's attorneys alleged just the opposite. They argued Mark threatened
and stalked Michael and that he only killed Mark to defend himself and his family. They insisted Mark and Michael
met multiple times. The defense even claimed to have a witness who said Mark mentioned seeing Michael and Linda at a
Costco months before the shooting, but the judge ruled there was no way to verify the witness's story.
Soon, Michael would learn his fate. [Music] After more than 50 witnesses and more
than 700 exhibits, the jury began to deliberate. They took 4 days before they reached a verdict. I'll rise, please.
Linda sat next to Michael's mom and tried to comfort Michael's daughters as they all waited.
Mark Stove's niece, Julia Simmons, was there to represent his family. Who did this jury believe? We, the jury,
find the defendant, Michael Glenn Oaks, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree, premeditated murder as
charged. [Music] Michael was found guilty of firstdegree murder. He turned and hugged his
daughters. At his sentencing, his mother, Corey Oaks, pleaded with the judge to have mercy, that her son never
wanted to hurt Mark. He wanted to reason with him. I believe that with all my heart, and I think it's
grieving him. I know it is. He would never want to take a life. He is not a murderer. And none of us would want that
for Mark. Mark's family felt differently. His sister, Victoria Simmons, asked the
judge to give Michael the maximum sentence. Why was he murdered? Where is my brother? When will I be able to lay
him to rest in a dignified manner? Years from now, Michael Oaks will be released.
He will have paid his debt to society. I will still be serving the life sentence
that Michael Oaks gave me. Judge Mike Rickert sentenced Michael to the maximum amount of time in prison, 26
and a half years. The absurdity of the actions that you took on that day are beyond belief. And I've got to tell you,
there's large parts of your story I just flat do not believe and never will. There was finally an ending to this
emotional saga gone horribly wrong. But there will always be lingering questions
about what really happened on October 28th, 2009. But the pieces don't fit very well in this case after 4 weeks.
And to a certain degree, I almost have more questions now than I had when we picked the jury.
This case of Mark Stove has been defined by an infinite loop of suspicion between
three people. Linda said she feared Mark. Mark said he feared Linda. And Michael said he too eventually feared
Mark. Each person claimed the other was threatening their life until that morning in October proved that one of
them was right. With no more new information surrounding the crime, law enforcement closed the
case in 2012. Linda's father, Wally Updike, died in 2018 at age 81 at his home in Whitefish,
Montana. The Chateau San Michelle Winery, the largest in Washington, remains open
today and thriving. The Updike sold kick island, too. It's now a park that belongs to the Swenomish
tribe. It's open to the public for hiking, but there are no dogs allowed. After Michael went to prison, his
daughter, April Oak, said each of her siblings went to stay at a different home. April lived with Linda until she
was 17 and said Linda has remained a big part of the family's lives. Linda last sat for an interview in 2011.
It's incomprehensible to me that that's a verdict that would have come back. Michael's first instinct was to turn to
all of you. Yes. And to hold his family. [Music] Yes. Um he uh definitely loves his children and
loves me and I know that's his biggest concern is for all of us and our biggest concern is him. So, we're all um
supporting each other and just sticking by one another. Michael appealed his case to no avail.
He is incarcerated at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walaw Wala. In a call from prison in April 2025,
Michael said he expects to get out in 2035 when he is 67 years old. He blamed one
of his appellet attorneys failing to file an appeal on time for his inability to keep challenging his sentence in
court. Today, there is a website free oaks.com that advocates for Michael's freedom.
His family sent us documents from Michael's appeal. In 2017, the Oaks family hired an oceanographer to study
where Mark's body may have ended up in the water and believed that the police missed a spot where the current could
have moved Mark. Detective Dan Louvera said the police searched the channel multiple times and even used underwater
cameras. We asked Michael about his current relationship with Linda Updike. He said
he wanted to respect her privacy. After Mark's death, Teresa, the woman who had hoped to marry Mark, took his
dog, Ding, into her home. Ding had miraculously survived being shot. And when she came to be with me, she
slept on my bed. She went to work with me. She was with I took her everywhere with me. And in petting her, I found a a
tumor about this big. Well, it grew and grew and she was in tremendous pain. Um, so I
had to have her put down. And was that was that tough cuz Ding was a a link to Mark. Oh, she was my my last
link to him. Teresa told me that Ding was buried with a custom headstone. She hopes a day will come when they can give
Mark the proper burial he deserves. I would love to see him buried with a ring on his finger.
Mark's sister, Victoria Simmons, said she will never rest until her brother's remains are found.
I need to find him, and I just can't let that go. Being a woman of faith, I know
that everything done in secret will eventually be shouted from the housetops. You cannot plead the fifth in
heaven and the truth will come out eventually. A celebrity dog trainer, an ays and her
bodyguard. Three lives ruined by a triangle of jealousy, fear, and rage. [Music]
[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 Tiger 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 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. 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 to Kill and other 48 hours podcasts on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your
podcasts. Thanks for listening. [Music]

Mark Stover was a talented dog trainer, better known as the dog whisperer of the Pacific Northwest. He was charismatic and attracted the attention of wealthy blonde heiress Linda Opdyke. They built a business together, along with a marriage. But Linda said Mark also had a dark side, and when she tried to leave the marriage, he obsessively followed. She sought the protection of a security expert, Michiel Oakes, who soon became the new love of her life -- her knight in shining armor. But when blood was found in Mark’s home and he was reported missing, detectives went looking for Michiel. In this dark love triangle, just who was the hunter and who was the hunted? Join "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant for "Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress, and the Bodyguard," a gripping six-episode podcast that unravels this dark story.

00:00 Puppy Love 26:13 The Hunter 53:26 Secret Meetings 1:17:53 The Bundle in the Back 1:42:20 Put Up or Shut Up 2:09:56 Time Will Tell

Listen to" Trained to Kill" and other "48 Hours" podcasts wherever you get your podcasts: https://link.podtrac.com/jy7x633x

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "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 Stove's murder leads to Michael Oaks' trial for premeditated murder amid complex relationships and stalking allegations.

Key points

A Cold-Blooded Murder?. Investigators suspect foul play as they connect the dots of Mark's disappearance.
The Wedding That Started It All. Mark and Linda marry, but their relationship quickly deteriorates.
Threatening Behavior. Mark's threatening actions escalate, leaving Linda feeling her life is in danger.
Mark's Alford Plea. Mark pleads guilty to stalking and theft but receives a light sentence.
Michael's Fear. Michael describes living in constant fear after Mark's threats.
The Final Meeting. Michael prepares for a tense meeting with Mark, fearing for his safety.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I knew something bad had taken place.

Stephanie realizes something is wrong at Mark's house.

4:03WatchJun 27, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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