Welcome back to Mama Mystery. I am your host Kelly and welcome back to another weekly docket where I recap the top stories in true crime this week.

We've got everything from legal twists in an old case to child welfare failures, a horrific teen-on-teen murder, a cruise line facing some serious questions, and an international crypto crime that almost sounds

too fictional to be true. It seems like something that you'd watch on Netflix. But as always,

the goal here is never to sensationalize anything. I just want to let you guys know what happened,

who these people were and why these cases matter with enough detail

that you feel like you actually understand the stories behind these headlines. If you want to talk

to people about them or just so you kind of know what's going on in the world of true crime.

So whether you're on your way to work, doing chores at home, on a walk, whatever you may be doing,

thank you for taking me along with you. Now, buckle up

and let's get into it. If you've been around true crime long enough, the name Sarah Joe Pender

might ring a bell,

but if not, I actually plan on doing a deep dive on this story for you guys and should hopefully

have that finished next week. Now, Sarah's been labeled everything from the female Charles Manson

to a mastermind girlfriend, depending on which prosecutor, journalist, or prison guard, you ask.

But this week, she was back in an Indiana courtroom asking for something pretty simple,

which was a second chance. Now, Sarah is 46 years old, which is wild if you remember that she

was only 21 when all of this started. So back in 2000, she and her boyfriend at the time, Richard Hull, were living in a run-down

Indianapolis house with two roommates, Andrew Cotaldi, who was 23, and Trisha Nordman, who

was 22.

The household was messy.

It was fueled by drugs and built on codependent chaos. Prosecutors would go on to describe it

as a powder keg, waiting for a spark, and eventually it got one. According to investigators,

...