228: The San Antonio Four & Michele Neurauter

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When Liz Ramirez’ nieces came to visit her for a week in 1994, they had a nice time. They went to the pool. They played basketball. They ate hot dogs. Liz’s roommate, Kristie Mayhugh met the girls. So did Liz and Kristie’s friends, Cassandra Rivera and Anna Vasquez. At the end of the week, the girls hugged their aunt goodbye and went back to their dad’s house. Later, the girls came forward with a shocking allegation. They said that their aunt and her three friends had gang raped them. There’d been drugs. Weapons. Satanic overtones. The most disturbing part? It was all made up.

Then Brandi tells us about Michele Neurauter, whose death inside her upstate New York home was designed to look like a suicide. But something about it seemed off. Michele had an odd rope mark on her chin. Then there was the timing. Michele had recently won a long-fought, bitter custody battle for her youngest daughter. Why would she do this now?

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“The Mystery of the San Antonio four,” by Maurice Chammah for the Texas Observer
The documentary, “Southwest of Salem”
“San Antonio Four to host fundraiser for Innocence Project of Texas,” for Henry Ramos for KENS5
“What it’s like to be falsely branded a satanic child molester,” by Chase Madar for Vice
“How junk science and anti-lesbian prejudice got four women sent to prison for more than a decade,” by Linda Rodriguez Mcrobbie for Slate
“Inside case behind wrongful conviction doc ‘Southwest of Salem’” by Bridgette Dunlap for Rolling Stone
“Sex assault case,” Associated Press
“Remaining women in abuse case freed,” by Will Weissert for the Associated Press
“San Antonio Four exonerated in child rape case,” by Emanuella Grinberg for CNN
“Judge clears records of wrongfully convicted San Antonio 4,” by Tim Fitzsimons for NBC News

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Karrie’s Choice” episode 48 Hours
“Family Values” episode Mastermind of Murder
“Man Coerces Daughter To Help Him Kill His Ex-Wife And Stage Crime As A Suicide” by Joe Dziemianowicz
“Man pleads guilty to killing ex-wife, conspiring with daughter in Corning murder” by Jeff Murray, Star Gazette
“Life without parole: Lloyd Neurauter killed ex-wife with help from their daughter” by Jeff Murray, Star Gazette
“Karrie Neurauter, manipulated into helping kill mother, released from prison” by Jeff Smith, Star Gazette
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