Phantom: The Murder of Heidi Bernadzikowski

True Crime Campfire

True Crime, Society & Culture, History

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

I'm not going to try and do his voice because it'd tear my throat up, but Hollywood legend Jack Palance once said, "The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed." Greed has been a motivation in more true crime cases than I can count, and it's astonishing how a grasping desire for dollars and cents can twist the human heart. It can drive someone to acts of both chilling cruelty and jaw-dropping stupidity, and in this week's case we get both. Join us for a bizarre true story of a heartless murder for hire that took 11 long years to solve.

Sources:
Court papers: https://casetext.com/case/cooke-v-gang
Court papers: https://www.mdcourts.gov/sites/default/files/unreported-opinions/0815s23.pdf
Interrogation footage from the interrogations of Alexander Bennett and Grant Lewis
NBC's Dateline, episode "Indiscretion"
Investigation Discovery's True Crime with Aphrodite Jones, episode "Discreet House Cleaning"

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Amazing! there's up to 50% off the most popular brands of prescription glasses and
0:13.8	sunglasses there's even up to 50% off hearing aids up to 50% off in the
0:18.6	optical center sale don't wait bring the whole family and make the most of it.
0:23.0	Sale offers can't be combined with other current offers.
0:28.0	See in store for T's and C's.
0:30.0	Hello, Campers, grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire.
0:35.0	We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney.
0:38.0	And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction.
0:42.0	We're roasting murderers and marshmallows
0:43.7	around the true crime campfire.
0:47.1	I'm not gonna try too hard to do his voice because it would probably tear my throat to shreds, but
0:55.4	Hollywood legend Jack Palance once said,
0:58.1	The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed.
1:03.2	Greed has been a motivation in more true crime cases than I can count, and it's astonishing
1:08.7	how a grasping desire for dollars and cents can twist the human heart.
1:13.0	It can drive someone to acts of both chilling cruelty and jaw-dropping stupidity,
1:18.0	and in this week's case, we get both.
1:21.0	This is Phantom, the murder of Heidi Bernanceowski. So, campers, for this one were in my old town, Baltimore, Maryland, or rather the suburb of Dundalk nearby,
1:43.0	April 20, 2000, around 8 o'clock p.m.
1:47.0	Stephen Cook put his key into the front door of the townhouse he shared with his
1:51.0	girlfriend Heidi Bernadzikowski and stepped into a nightmare.
1:55.0	Heidi was lying in a pool of blood on the floor, a horrible gash across her throat.
	...

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