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Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast

Sarah Jo Pender: "The Female Charles Manson"

Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast

Moms got ya covered-feed

True Crime

4.68.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 May 2026

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In October of 2000, the bodies of Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman were found inside a dumpster behind an Indianapolis Teamsters building. The discovery quickly led police to the home the couple shared with Richard Hull and Sarah Jo Pender. What started as a gruesome double murder investigation soon transformed into a sprawling legal saga filled with recanted testimonies, forged letters, and a stunning prison escape. Sarah Jo Pender was labeled the "female Charles Manson" by the prosecution and sentenced to 110 years behind bars. But as the years passed, the case against her began to crumble. With the original prosecutor publicly admitting she did not receive a fair trial and the true killer confessing to the crime, Sarah's fight for freedom continues today from the inside of an Indiana prison cell. Thank you to this week's sponsors! Get 20% off your first order, plus free shipping during the Memorial Day Sale at BollAndBranch.com/moms with code moms.Exclusions apply.  Download Cash App Today: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/vwn13ren #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Direct deposit and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday! Follow us on Instagram: @momsandmysteries Join our Patreon: patreon.com/momsandmysteries Visit our website: momsandmysteries.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Changes in sexual performance are more common than most people realize, and support doesn't need to feel awkward.

0:05.8

With MedExpress, everything happens privately online.

0:09.1

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0:13.3

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0:18.7

You're not alone in this. Visit medexpress.com.

0:21.8

dot-court-Uk slash podcast to learn more. In October of 2000, two bodies were found stuffed inside a

0:27.3

dumpster behind an Indianapolis Teamsters building. Within days, police believed they had their killers,

0:33.9

a young couple living in the same house as the victims. But over the years, this case started to unravel in ways nobody expected.

0:41.1

Witnesses recanted, evidence fell apart,

0:43.7

and even the prosecutor who helped secure the conviction

0:46.0

eventually admitted something terrifying.

0:48.7

He believed the wrong person may have been convicted of murder.

0:59.9

The person may have been convicted of murder. Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a true crime podcast featuring myself

1:05.4

Mandy and my dear friend, Melissa.

1:07.1

Hi, Melissa.

1:07.9

Hi, Mandy.

1:08.5

How are you?

1:09.2

I am doing well.

1:10.3

How are you? I am doing great. We are at the end of the school year. I'm so excited. Oh, my gosh. I like somehow forgot that this week we're going into is literally the last week of school for my kids. Oh, is it? Oh, wow. Yeah. My daughter has two more weeks, but it's, I mean, really, we're at the countdown. Like, this is just, this is it. It's all a game at this point. It is. Yeah. So now I've been seeing all, like, the funny reels and stuff from moms about the end of the school year. I saw one this morning where the, you know, the mom was just like, it was just kind of playing on how exhausted we are as parents at the end of the year. You know, she was like, I don't want to hear anything about Spirit Week, like anything that I have to spend any more money on this year. The kids are not participating. We're not doing it. Like, they won't be there. I know. It'll grumble about it if they have to be there because my daughter will have some kind of fun activity at school and then complain. And I'm like, you know how to pay for that, right? So like, shut it down. I don't care. You smile through it and you suffer like the rest of us. That's going to be being an adult. So get ready. Yeah, you know, let's do this. I will say I'm brought to myself this year because I feel like every year for the past several years, I have always kind of complained about the last week of school and I'm always saying how there's something at my kid's school pretty much every day of the week during the last week whether it's you know that parents can come to be on campus and of course there's that mom guilt if you don't go or if you can't go so you have to figure it out and I'm always kind of frazzled and frustrated but I did anticipate that that would be the case this year. So I'm feeling a lot less stress going into the last week because now I actually know what I'm doing and when I'm doing it. And I'll be at the school, you know, a couple days next week. But yeah, very excited to be getting out of the school year and getting into the summer. I am, you know, I always love just the summertime vibes. So I'm ready. I'm ready.

2:54.2

I know this is this is your time to shine. Really? Yes. Yes. All right. So let's get into the story for this week.

3:01.3

Every story has to start somewhere. But in the case of Sarah Jo Pender, the beginning is a tangled web of four lives that ultimately

3:08.8

collided in an Indianapolis house, and it ended in a dumpster behind a Teamsters Union building.

...

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