Introducing: Hell in Heaven: A Mysterious Death in Paradise

Murder in Miami

iHeartPodcasts

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 15 October 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Hello, Murder in Miami Listeners! We want to share a new show you might enjoy, Hell in Heaven: A Mysterious Death in Paradise

About the show: John and Ann Bender had hundreds of millions of dollars and one dream: to build a glittering glass mansion deep in the Costa Rican jungle. But paradise soon gave way to paranoia — with abduction plots, armed guards and a bedroom blazing with hundreds of Tiffany lamps. And then one night, it all ended in blood.

Hosted by award-winning journalist Becky Milligan, Hell in Heaven is an eight-part limited series from Blanchard House, Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts.

Follow Hell in Heaven wherever you get your podcasts — and see rare photos from the story at @exactlyright on Instagram.

Listen here and subscribe to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over, but one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder.
0:13.7	Three times.
0:15.9	From the start, the omens are bad.
0:19.2	That place is the darkest jungle you ever seen in your life.
0:22.4	You have no clue.
0:24.4	John and Ann Bender are young, rich and attractive.
0:28.0	He's a Wall Street whiz kid.
0:29.8	Just handsome.
0:30.8	Movies are handsome.
0:32.2	And they're devoted to each other.
0:34.2	There's a lot of just like warmth and care.
0:37.5	They set up a nature reserve and build a strange new home.
0:42.4	It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.
0:47.1	But slowly their dreams start to crumble.
0:51.4	It was just doomed.
0:53.1	Just doomed.
0:55.0	I'm Becky Milligan and this is Hell in Heaven,
0:58.7	a new podcast from Exactly Right Media and I Heart Podcasts,
1:02.8	produced by Blanchard House.
1:04.7	I'm a seasoned investigative journalist,
1:07.2	and I've reported on some pretty weird stories over the years.
1:10.3	But believe me, stories don't get much weirder than this.
	...

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