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Dateline NBC

Talking Dateline: Deadly Mirage

Dateline NBC

NBC News

True Crime, Culture, Social, Society & Culture, News

4.438K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2025

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Josh Mankiewicz sits down with Blayne Alexander to discuss his Dateline episode "Deadly Mirage" about the 2014 murder of Rob Limon in Tehachapi, California. The subsequent investigation uncovered an affair in which the Bible was used to justify murder. Josh and Blayne discuss Rob, his wife, and their friends – the self-proclaimed “Wolf Pack” – and the unorthodox secrets of the desert oasis they called home. Josh tells Blayne how the confessed murderer pointed prosecutors to another key player in the scheme. Later, Josh shares an extra clip from the killer’s testimony at trial. Plus, he answers your questions from social media. Have a question for Talking Dateline? DM us on social @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at (212) 413-5252 — your question might be featured in a future episode. Listen to the full episode of “Deadly Mirage” on Apple: https://apple.co/3ZDbq1b Listen to the full episode on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4q5Ij8yfrvwUlUjY7pSVuz?si=27d10ee59bab4f11 Listen to Josh’s 6-part original podcast series on the case on Apple: https://apple.co/44RBkSr Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/65S0Rf8pYQwVJzAeWDEkry

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi everyone, it's Blaine Alexander, and I am so glad to be here today with Josh Mankowitz to talk about his episode, Deadly Mirage.

0:12.1

If you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed.

0:16.9

So make sure to go there, listen to it, or of course, you can stream it on Peacock and then come right back here.

0:22.9

So just a quick recap, in 2014, when Rob Limon was found dead at the rail yard where he worked,

0:29.1

investigators wondered if it was a burglary gone wrong until they learned more about Rob's open marriage

0:35.5

and close-knit group of friends who called themselves the wolf pack.

0:40.0

Detectives eventually zeroed in on Rob's wife, Sabrina, and her lover, a young firefighter by the name of Jonathan Hearn, and arrested them for Rob's murder.

0:50.0

Hearn quickly confessed and agreed to testify against Sabrina in exchange for a reduced prison sentence.

0:57.3

Sabrina denied everything, but was convicted in 2017.

1:01.4

She is currently serving a prison sentence of 25 years to life.

1:06.2

Later on, we'll play you an extra clip from Jonathan's testimony at Sabrina's trial.

1:10.3

But for now, Josh, let's talk Dateline.

1:14.4

There's so much to talk about in this episode.

1:16.8

I actually want to start with the location, Silver Lakes.

1:20.0

They called it the happiest place in the high desert.

1:22.6

But that was actually the very first character that we kind of met in this story, right?

1:26.6

Before we knew anybody's

1:27.7

names, we knew the name of this location. Had you ever been to Silver Lakes before this report?

1:32.7

I had. It is, you know, one of the interesting things about it is that like a lot of other things

1:38.3

in California, it's completely artificial. It's this community that wouldn't exist if water were not brought in

1:45.4

from somewhere else because it's the desert. But from that, there's this little green oasis.

1:51.4

And, you know, it's this sort of happy, perfect community existing, you know, sort of in the

...

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