All language subtitles for I.Went.Undercover.S01E06.Flirting.With.Murder.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-squalor

[Narrator] An Arizona
woman raises eyebrows

by flirting with a cop sent
to investigate her for murder.

[Laughs]

[Narrator] But things
take a turn for the weird,

when he starts flirting back.

[Narrator] And offers to
help her cover up her crime.

[Narrator] Just whose
side is this cop on?

Seemed like detective Hopkins
might be, like, crossing the line.

[Narrator] And will he
help a killer strike again?

[Policeman 1] Detective sergeant
korowski, working for another case.

[Narrator] Undercover work is some
of the riskiest in law enforcement.

[Policeman 2] Okay, she’s out of the
car. Okay, good deal, good deal, good deal.

[Narrator] One wrong move...

[Siren blaring]

[Narrator] ...Can cost a life.

[Policeman] Police, don’t move!

[Narrator] In rare situations,

everyday people go
undercover in search of the truth.

They’re willing to risk it all,

even taking down
friends and family.

This isn’t the movies. I
had to actually do this.

[Narrator] Doing the right thing
has never been so dangerous.

[Diane] Bothell is a
rather large suburban city

and it’s split
between king county

and snohomish county.

King county is Seattle-based.

Snohomish county kicks in, oh,
maybe 15 minutes up the freeway.

[Kim] It’s a much smaller town.

Not quite a farm town, but definitely a
smaller town than something like Seattle.

[Diane] Lots of suburbs,

but then when you get
to the north and the east,

there’s farmland and crops

and they hit the mountains.

It’s a rather
lovely place, really.

You get the best of both worlds.

[Narrator] In the late 1990s,

life in bothell is
changing fast,

the old logging mills and farms

being replaced by high-tech
and computer companies.

[Bess] In the ’90s, it would have been
home to some people doing fairly well,

because of its proximity to redmond and
the tech hubs of Microsoft and all of that.

Although, there also would have
been some more blue-collar folks as well.

[Narrator] Bothell’s one claim to
fame is the town’s Christmas tree.

At 110 feet,

life magazine proclaims it to be the tallest
living Christmas tree in the country.

[Carol] It’s right in
downtown bothell.

I used to look
at that and think,

"how did they get up there
and put the lights up in there?"

But they decorated it every year
and it was something to always see.

You know, it’s a
part of the history.

Bothell still felt like this,
you know, quaint community.

[Diane] We don’t get a lot of
dramatic crime out here in the burbs.

We don’t get a lot
of dramatic murders.

It’s an unusual thing, it’s a startling
thing when some big crime happens.

We hadn’t had a homicide
since I couldn’t remember

and I had been living in
the community since 1979.

[Narrator] But that all changes on
the morning of February 5th, 1997,

when local cellular phone engineer,
Steve ver woert, is late for work.

[Bess] It’s his 44th birthday

and he does not show
up to work at uscellular,

which is suspicious
to his fellow co-workers

because he’s usually a
pretty dependable guy.

[Kim] Steve’s administrative
assistant, Deborah Warren,

noticed that he hadn’t come in on
Wednesday morning like he usually does.

So, when it got to be noon
time and he still hadn’t arrived,

the administrative assistant
began to wonder what was going on

and whether he was okay.

She decided to stop by the trailer
park where Steve was living at the time.

And when she walked
up to the door of the trailer,

she noticed what she thought
looked like blood on the door.

She immediately
went back to her car,

called her office first
and then called 911.

[Narrator] That’s when the
police arrive and within moments,

they find Steve, covered in
blood, on the floor of his trailer.

[Mike] You could
see Steve laying there.

There was a large amount of blood
that had pooled around his body.

And then, when they checked
to see if he may still be alive,

they checked for a pulse,
they didn’t get a pulse.

There appeared to be a struggle.

Some things were knocked over.

It looked as though he
had some defensive wounds

and upon closer
examination of his body,

it looked like he
had some injuries

that were consistent of
stabbing towards his neck.

And then, on his neck itself,
there was a severe laceration.

It appeared as if the killer
came in or killers came in

and there was a
struggle, he was killed.

Nothing else was taken or
missing from the residence.

His wallet was
out on the carpet,

with his credit
cards all fanned out,

which is unusual.

[Narrator] Police find no
fingerprints at the scene

and send whatever
evidence they can collect,

back to the lab for testing.

Nothing else in the residence
looked to be disturbed.

So, it looks initially that

whoever... was focused on Steven

and not so much on
anything else in the house.

The door wasn’t locked.

There was no
signs of forced entry.

Because it’s possible
that it’s somebody he knew,

my assignment was to
do victimology on Steve

and to start interviewing friends,
co-workers and family as well,

and everything we can gather, all
information what we know about Steve.

When the investigators
start asking around,

they discover that
Steve is really well liked.

He’s known as a
sweet, smart guy.

He does not have
obvious enemies.

He came from a very
church-going family in Iowa.

Religion seems to have
been important for them.

Some people said he gave away a
lot of money to church-going groups

and he was, by all
accounts, pretty smart.

He was actually hired to
come up here to bothell

to establish a new cellular telephone
technology system for uscellular.

[Narrator] Although
Steve lives in bothell,

most of his family
is down in Arizona,

including his parents, two ex-wives
and son from his first marriage.

Steven ver woert was a divorcee.

He’d been married
a couple times.

He had a young child,
about 12-years-old.

He was working up here, while his
family and his son were down in Arizona.

Steve had been
here, in the area,

probably four or five years.

He was very social,
cared a lot about people

and he was very
drawn to helping others,

and, in particular, he liked
to help his co-workers as well,

but he liked to go out
and he liked to have fun,

and part of that having fun is he
liked to frequent taverns and bars.

He loved to sing
karaoke and liked to drink.

This was a real whodunit.

[Carol] It doesn’t fit in with
a friendly, safe community

and the first thing you
want to know is are we safe,

which I remember thinking,
"is this guy coming back for us?"

I was very scared.

I first heard about this murder of
Steve ver woert right after it happened.

There weren’t very many murders
in snohomish county during this time.

His trailer did show
some signs of struggle,

but there was no
signs of forced entry.

We were thinking it was likely that either
someone entered without his permission

because he left
his door unlocked,

or, more likely, someone
he had let in or known

came into his trailer with his
permission and ended up murdering him.

[Narrator] Despite
the horrific struggle,

there is no physical evidence to indicate
who the killer or killers might be.

[Stemler] We’re always looking to
get our hands on the murder weapon

for whatever evidence
that can provide.

The weapon was never
recovered in this case

and detectives spent a
great deal of time looking for it,

but it was just never recovered.

There’s no obvious DNA
evidence or fingerprints

tying anyone to the crime.

Here we had a body
of Steven ver woert,

who had been left there and
we had no idea who had done it.

[Narrator] With no
suspects and no motive,

police in bothell
expand their investigation

to where Steve
had previously lived,

mesa, Arizona.

That’s when detective ed
Hopkins enters the picture.

Ed Hopkins was 33 at the time,

working for the bothell
police department

and he was apparently ruggedly
handsome, looking like Erik estrada,

and he was apparently charming.

[Stemler] Detective
Hopkins went to Arizona

and he was assigned to work
with a detective in mesa, Arizona,

by the name of Tom denning.

[Bess] Ed Hopkins
goes to Arizona

to start asking more questions
and interviewing steve’s family.

And they’re all sitting
around in a room,

trying to think about who
might want Steve dead

or who would benefit
from his death?

And that’s when, I believe, it
was steve’s brother who says,

"I think we might be
overlooking the obvious here.

What about his ex-wife, Marty?"

[Narrator] Steven ver woert
had divorced Marty Malone

a few years prior to his murder.

But the couple remained
on friendly terms

and still stayed in
touch with one another.

[Stemler] Even
after the divorce,

Marty had told detectives that
Steve had just come to visit her

the Christmas and
Thanksgiving beforehand.

So, they were still having
contact, still meeting.

Marty Malone was a middle-aged female
who had been married a couple of times.

[Stemler] When ed Hopkins and Tom
denning went to Marty malone’s house,

they knock on the door.
Eventually, Marty comes to the door...

[Stemler] ...And she indicates,

"oh, you’re from bothell
pd. I only know one person,

my ex-husband, Steve ver woert."

She invited them in.

They talked to her about
what had happened,

that he had been murdered.

She didn’t ask any
questions, show any emotion.

She said, "it
hadn’t sunk in yet."

[Narrator] Marty’s
lack of emotions is odd,

but what she does next
is even more unusual.

[Stemler] Then she started
looking for paperwork, like his will

and, in fact, the will that
she showed to the detectives,

left everything to her, except
for three single, one-dollar gifts,

one to his son and
two other people.

[Narrator] Hearing about the will
immediately gets the detective’s attention.

They also question why Marty has
her ex-husband’s will at her fingertips?

After some initial
conversation at her house,

the detectives asked Marty

to come to the police department

later that night.

Marty said she was
going to have a drink

and detective denning told her, "it’s
probably a bad idea to have a drink

right before you drive
to the police department."

So, she said she would jump in
the shower and meet them shortly.

Marty described her relationship
with Steve as very good.

She had just spoken to him

a couple days before the murder.

Was he seeing
anybody at the time?

- That you are aware of?
- Um...

He was going with a gal named Kathy
for a while, but that didn’t work out.

And I don’t mean going with, I
think they went to dinner twice.

I mean it wasn’t a...

Um...

Jennifer. He and Jennifer
pal around a lot together.

Uh, he took Jennifer
all over Seattle,

looking for an apartment.

One thing guaranteed,

for sure,

he always had at
least $400 cash on him.

- Okay.
- Always.

[Detective] Did he
say anything, um,

recently

about, um...

Making friends with anybody,

um, helping out a transient?

Uh, any, I understand
he’s a pretty caring guy.

I understand he would go to great
lengths and do anything for anybody.

He’s one of the few that
still picks up hitchhikers.

[Detective] Okay.

[Narrator] Marty
says when they met,

she and Steven fell for
each other immediately.

Within...

Three weeks, he
was living with me.

- Okay.
- It was happy.

[Bess] They met at a
karaoke night in 1992.

It seemed like they
had a lot in common.

They both liked the same music,

they were both from Iowa
and had moved to Arizona.

They do end up getting married

and I think it’s June of 1993,

but it was actually
a sham wedding,

because steve’s
divorce was not final yet

and in the end, he actually
did not even have his signature

on the marriage license.

He was intending to sign it,

from... from what we know,

but he never did
actually sign it.

The wedding was
never legally valid.

Things quickly soured.

I don’t think there was really a
long period of bliss in this marriage.

There seems to have been, um, tension,
especially around steve’s son, Brett.

He really loved
spending time with his kid

and she was very jealous
of that time and attention.

One of the comments that Marty
had talked about with the detectives

was that steve’s
parents kind of interfered

because they didn’t
like her very well

and, in fact, it turns out

a lot of steve’s friends didn’t
really like her very well at all.

[Bess] His family and even some of
his friends don’t really approve of Marty,

because of her boisterousness

and she kind of talked like a
sailor. She’s sort of dominating.

She didn’t make a great
impression on them.

And it became very tumultuous.

Then they did get divorced
about a year after that.

She described being
pretty friendly with him,

even though they were divorced.

[Narrator] When the detectives ask Marty
where she was when Steven was killed,

she tells them she
was in Las Vegas.

However, when the detective
asked about credit card receipts,

she had said that she used a
friend’s credit card for this trip

and that she had
stopped for gas.

They were trying to find out
where she stayed in Las Vegas.

She said she had
picked up a couple of guys

and entertained
them for the evening,

so she didn’t have
to pay for a room.

During the whole time that they’re
interviewing her and questioning her,

they’re trying to establish
some kind of physical link

between her and the crime scene.

They ideally want DNA evidence
that would link her to the crime.

[Narrator] So, the
detectives take Marty to lunch.

[Bess] There’s this
long lunch in scottsdale.

Every time she
goes to the bathroom,

they are taking her cigarette
butts out of the ash tray,

because they’re hoping to
get DNA evidence from that,

that would link her
to steve’s trailer.

But they’re not successful.

They’re not able to link her back to
the crime scene in any physical way.

[Narrator] Still, Marty does
little to convince the detectives

that she is not involved
in her ex-husband’s death.

Marty brought up that
she still had life insurance.

She was the beneficiary

of steve’s life insurance
policy for $150,000.

[Narrator] Police know that
marty’s story is barely holding up

and deserves more investigation.

But ed Hopkins has another
equally bizarre observation.

He’s sure that Marty
is flirting with him.

[Stemler] The conversation

was very flirtatious on marty’s
part towards ed Hopkins.

[Narrator] Detective
Hopkins returns to bothell

and Marty continues
to contact him there.

[Bess] She calls him

and starts volunteering extra
information about the case.

She is acting almost like she is a
member of the investigation team,

rather than a potential suspect

and she is in constant
communication with Hopkins

who is very aware of the
fact that she’s attracted to him.

[Narrator] So, ed
returns to mesa

and to Marty.

[Kim] Marty drives
a Nissan pathfinder

and she coincidentally
had had it in for service

shortly before
Steve was murdered.

What detectives
later would find out

is that her vehicle had
excess mileage on it,

because she had taken it in for
another service about a month later,

after the murder had taken place

and they could see the
difference in mileage.

Now, she claimed that she had taken
a road trip to Las Vegas or something,

but there just wasn’t, you know,
anything to say that that was accurate.

Didn’t add up. There
was 3,100 miles

difference in a very
short period of time

and that’s consistent
with driving up to bothell,

not consistent with driving
to Las Vegas and back.

Detectives were starting to
gather all these little pieces together.

Inconsistent
statements by Marty,

the mileage on the vehicle,

other discrepancies in
what Marty was telling them,

but none of that added up to
enough for to make an arrest,

or even to pursue search
warrants for other things.

They needed something solid and
tangible that they could work with.

[Kim] Detective denning in mesa,
has his suspicions about Marty

and he decides to put
her under surveillance.

And he’s recording
all of her conversations,

including the ones
that she is having

with detective
Hopkins from bothell.

[Bess] They were
listening to her phone calls,

they were getting her on audio,

they were getting her on video.

[Narrator] And Marty
isn’t the only one

who looks like she
has something to hide.

[Narrator] Just what
is ed Hopkins up to?

[Policeman talking over radio]

[Narrator] Police
in mesa, Arizona,

have put Marty Malone
under surveillance,

but it’s detective ed Hopkins
who is raising eyebrows.

He starts saying that
he is unhappy with his life

in the bothell
police department,

wants to leave rainy
Seattle, move to Arizona.

Ed is telling her he needs a change
from bothell police department.

He likes it in Arizona. He
wants to move down there

and so, he’s willing to do that,

and is asking about
ways to make that happen.

She starts saying she
can maybe get him a job

with some of her connections

and a friendship develops
between the two of them.

Although, she probably wanted
more than just a friendship.

[Narrator] Ed even starts bad-mouthing
his new Arizona partner, Tom denning.

The last thing you want to see

is your partner getting close to a
suspect in a murder investigation.

[Narrator] Just how much did people
know about the real ed Hopkins?

I’ve known ed for a long time.

He’s very social,

he could connect
with you right away

and he can strike up a
conversation with anybody.

There wasn’t anything in ed’s past
that would have raised suspicions,

so it was very strange to watch
him growing closer to Marty.

[Stemler] As prosecutors,
we’re always concerned

about the way
investigations are conducted.

So, it’s prohibited for detectives
to have sexual relationships

with informants
or things like that.

[Narrator] Especially, when
their flirtatious conversations

turn to details about the case.

As they’re growing closer, she starts
asking him about what’s going on in the case

and he starts giving her
updates, which is a real no-no.

[Narrator] That’s when ed
drops a bombshell on Marty,

that he already knows
she’s guilty of killing Steve.

[Narrator] Why hasn’t
ed turned her in already?

Just what is he after?

[Narrator] Bothell, Washington

police detective, ed Hopkins,

has been investigating
Marty Malone

for the death of her
ex-husband, Steven ver woert.

Since his arrival
in mesa, Arizona,

he seems to be more interested in
helping Marty to get away with murder.

Between February
20th and the 23rd or so,

ed and Marty are having a
lot of different conversations.

During the time period,

detective denning, consistent
with what they do in Arizona,

recorded all these
conversations.

[Narrator] Just who
is ed being loyal to,

the case or the killer?

Seemed like detective Hopkins
might be, like, crossing the line?

Obviously, in hearing all of this,
detective denning wanted to learn more

and wanted to figure out what
was really going on between them.

[Narrator] That’s when Marty starts
talking about the missing murder weapon.

[Narrator] Detective Hopkins offers to
help make marty’s legal problems go away,

for a cut of the action.

Ed is letting her know that he’s willing
to leave bothell police department,

that he’s willing to take
steps to come down here,

but he wants to be
taken care of financially,

he wants the money,

that it’ll work out between them
if the money is all taken care of.

The first thing that
detective Hopkins wanted

was a Harley-Davidson
motorcycle.

She agreed to that, no problem.

He was done up in bothell,
he wanted to move to Arizona,

he wanted to ride off
on a Harley with her.

They just needed to get a
few things figured out first.

It’s a convincing argument.

[Narrator] So,
Marty finally relents

and tells ed what really
happened that night.

And it started with a man she met
in an Arizona bar named John Curtis.

[Stemler] They’re in a bar.

There’s a sign on
the wall that says,

"some people are alive only because
it’s against the law to kill them."

That started the conversation between Marty
and John about killing Steve ver woert.

Marty ends up convincing

Jonathan Curtis to
commit the murder.

Initially, it was
supposed to take place

in Arizona while Steve
was there at Christmas time

and there was some wacky plan,

where John was going to run him
off the road or something like that,

that didn’t work out.

So then, they changed the plan

and decided to drive
up to bothell to kill Steve.

Marty and John drove up in marty’s
vehicle from Arizona to bothell.

They had driven to
bothell, she and Curtis.

And when they arrived,
Steve was still at work,

so they went to a
bar, the big foot tavern,

and gambled for a while,

and then, waited for
Steve to come home.

Marty stayed in the car,

while Jonathan Curtis hiked over to
the rv park and carried out the killing.

[Stemler] Then, John
had walked back.

Marty’s in the
vehicle, waiting for him.

John gets in. He’s
very sweaty, smelly.

Marty asks about the smell.

John says, "haven’t
you ever been on a barn?

That’s the smell of blood."

And then, they go from there.

They disposed of
jonathan’s bloody clothing,

about 250 miles away
in Washington state.

[Stemler] They threw
them in some dumpster,

at some fast food
place on the way back.

[Narrator] Marty tells Curtis,
she will pay him $25,000,

once she gets ver woert’s
life insurance payout.

But in the meantime, she tells
ed that Curtis is getting impatient.

[Narrator] All of which leads
them to one big loose end.

[Stemler] John is just a loose
end that could get her into trouble

and she decided she liked ed

and wanted ed Hopkins to
take care of that problem for her.

[Kim] We know that
Steve had a couple

of life insurance
policies on him

that Marty was
hoping to cash in on.

And so, she was going to use part of
that money to pay Jonathan for killing him.

Now that she was talking with the
detective, she said, "you know what?

Let’s get rid of Jonathan. Tell you what?
Forget about the $25,000 for Jonathan.

I want to give that to
you, detective Hopkins.

And not only that $25,000,
but an additional $50,000,

if you’ll get rid of Jonathan."

[Narrator] Ed Hopkins
and Marty Malone

are forming an uneasy alliance.

[Narrator] But police in mesa
are listening to every last detail.

[Bess] After they come
up with a plan to kill Curtis,

ed says, "I have
a surprise for you.

I’ve got flowers for you
in the trunk of the car."

And she’s all excited.

[Bess] And then, all the cops
surround the car with their guns drawn.

The detectives in
the other vehicle

were listening in to this
conversation as it was developing.

They knew that they had the
information that they needed

in order to make an arrest for
the murder of Steve ver woert.

I think this was a total
surprise to Marty, this arrest.

I think she believed that she and ed Hopkins
were going to have this great life together,

with money that she had
been looking forward to getting,

and then, the world came
crashing down on her.

[Narrator] That’s because there’s
one fatal flaw with marty’s plan.

Detective ed Hopkins has been
working with detective denning

to investigate Marty
this entire time.

He’s wearing a wire to
capture her confession on tape.

In this particular case, I
was the lucky guy, right?

I got to have the
fun part, so to speak.

My name is Edward Hopkins.

I’m a retired police detective

from the bothell police
department in Washington state.

I had an opportunity to
investigate Marty Malone.

[Narrator] And it all
starts on a hunch.

When detective denning
and I went to marty’s house,

the way she acted,

that was something in my mind

that there was more to her
than we originally suspected.

We both noticed it.

She was overtly friendly
from the very beginning.

She hugged us at the
mesa police department,

she’s hugging me
at this restaurant.

A family member or a friend
of a person who’s been killed,

you’ve delivered
this news to them

and it’s not unusual for them to
give you a hug or you to hug them,

in sort of a compassionate way
of showing your concern for them.

But that was not the type
of hug that Marty was giving.

She was overtly friendly

and, I thought,
somewhat flirtatious.

Detective Hopkins
realized quickly

that Marty had a
romantic interest in him.

[Ed] She wants to win me over

to get my cooperation

in getting the
death certificate,

help her further
complete her plan.

Just something
about that told me that

I could try to use
an investigative ruse.

It’s very unorthodox.

[Ed] I contacted my supervisors

and sort of laid
out the strategy

that i’m going to portray myself as
being unhappy as a police officer,

and i’m going to

suggest that I might
want to move to Arizona.

Supervisors are good with it,
the prosecutor is good with it,

everybody is on board
with that general framework.

The rest is to be determined
as we move along.

[Bess] She thought that
she was playing the police

and, in fact, they were
playing her the whole time.

[Ed] No way to know at the
outset if it was going to work.

It was all just improvisation.

It was all a make it up
as you go kind of situation.

You’re trying to make sure you
get all the information you can,

but there comes a point
where you have to stop, right?

So, the arrest signal was that

I was going to tell her I
had flowers for her in the car.

I had... "I got
something for you."

And she said, "what?"
I said, "flowers."

And she said, "oh,
ed, I love flowers!"

At this point, she was
100 percent believing me.

The arrest team runs up
and she’s yelling, "ed! Ed!"

She’s calling my name,

as if she thinks that i’m going to
somehow intervene or rescue her.

And I don’t think she, at
that point, had figured it out.

I walked over to her and I said,

"yeah, I can’t help you.
You’re under arrest for murder.

I took an oath to uphold the law
and you are, you’re a suspect here.

You’re going to jail."

And, um,

then I walked away from her.

After they arrested
Marty Malone in the car,

when she confessed her
involvement in the murder,

they took her to the
mesa police department

and interviewed her there.

[Tom] Let’s back up
a couple steps, okay?

Because I know that right now,

I know this doesn’t
happen to you every day.

- Yeah.
- [Tom] And I know that your head is probably

spinning in a lot of
different directions.

- Well, no, but I know what’s...
- [Tom] I know you know...

I know why i’d be
wrong, for god’s sake.

[Tom] Why don’t we back up.

- You were contacted, let’s start with that.
- Mmm-hmm.

- [Tom] Let’s start with...
- Let’s start with a cigarette.

I don’t think we can.

Just keep going.

Ed, you’ve talked to
me how many times?

We’ve talked outside before

- and I mean, I am not stupid.
- [Ed] Okay, I understand.

- Let’s get the meat and potatoes out first...
- all right. Okay.

- [Ed] Tell you what?
- And then?

[Ed] We’ll take a break, we’ll go
down, we’ll have a smoke break outside,

- where...
- That’s where it’s legal.

- [Ed] And then, we come back up and...
- now.

[Ed] Clear this all up.

Regardless, here’s another
question. Regardless of what I tell you,

i’m still going to be booked
and all that here, tonight?

[Narrator] Marty tries to downplay
her involvement in the killing.

I’m not going to say
anything other than the truth,

but i’ll tell you this,

I do not feel responsible

for his death.

So, i’m telling you the truth.

- [Ed] Let’s stop.
- Hold on, okay?

- I’m just frustrated...
- Hold on, hold on.

[Ed] Marty, let’s
stop here, okay.

What...

I can see the pattern that
you’re going in right now, okay?

And I know you’re scared and I know
you’re nervous and I know you’re upset.

Okay? But now is a
very crucial moment.

Now it’s a crucial time to
say, "hey, I made a mistake

and here’s what happened,

and here’s the way it
happened." And lay it out for us.

When Marty Malone revealed

that Jonathan Curtis was the
person who committed the murder,

obviously, detectives were very
anxious to take him into custody.

John was arrested at his house,

a short time later.

John Curtis worked
in construction.

He claimed to be a
former police officer.

But it turned out that a lot of what
Jonathan Curtis had told Marty Malone

was not true.

Initially, both,

Marty Malone and Jonathan Curtis

were charged with
aggravated first-degree murder.

That’s the only
crime in Washington

that has the potential
of the death penalty.

Marty blamed Jonathan Curtis,

Jonathan Curtis said Marty committed
the murder and he didn’t know about it.

So, they were pointing
the finger at each other.

We took some steps
to try to corroborate

the truth of what one was
saying versus the other

and we believed that marty’s
statements were accurate,

and that john’s were not about
how the murder was committed.

Ultimately, we worked with
Marty malone’s attorney and

she had to agree to do interviews
and provide more information,

before we ultimately agreed to reduce
her charge and allow her to plead guilty

to something other than
aggravated first-degree murder.

[Narrator] But the questions surrounding
Marty Malone do not end there.

[Kim] Marty has
an interesting past.

In addition to Steve, she had
two other ex-husbands who died

under somewhat
mysterious circumstances

and were quickly cremated
so autopsies couldn’t be done.

[Stemler] The most
recent husband,

before she met Steve, was only 43
years old when he died of a heart attack.

She was the sole
beneficiary of his estate

and she spent that
money very freely,

including giving it out to friends
at the bars around scottsdale.

Ultimately, we were
never able to prove

whether she had any
involvement in their deaths.

[Narrator] John Curtis, meanwhile,
comes up with a plan of his own.

[Kim] While he’s in jail,

John decides, he’s going to try
to hire a fellow inmate to kill Marty,

so that he can get out of it.

[Stemler] Instead, what
that individual does,

is he takes that information
and provides it to the detectives

and tries to work
out a deal for himself.

Marty Malone did testify
at John curtis’s trial.

The jury found that John Curtis

was guilty of aggravated first-degree
murder for killing Steve ver woert

and he ended up with life
imprisonment without possibility of parole.

[Narrator] Marty Malone ultimately
pleads guilty to first degree murder.

The judge followed the
prosecutor’s recommendation

and imposed 23 years in prison.

[Ed] It’s kind of a
strange emotion because

you’re thrilled
that this is working

and you want to
feel joy about that,

but you really can’t, right? You might
be able to high-five like, "we got her."

But you can’t really feel happy,

because the whole reason we’re
there is because somebody was killed.

And I had met with

steve’s parents, his
brother and sister-in-law,

his first wife, his son,

his friends,

I felt connected to them.

I remember walking down the
sidewalk and talking to his son,

trying to kind of
explain, you know,

what I could explain to a child.

You can’t experience that and
not feel that, right? You just can’t.

I’m grateful to have been
able to work this case

and... and see it through,

um, but i’m extremely
appreciative of all the people

that I got to work with.

It’s an important
thing to have that,

that teamwork that we had.

It was a tremendous relief to know
that they were from out of state,

that it was not local folks
involved in such a heinous crime,

that they can trust
their neighbors.

[Mike] As a person who lived
in the town, I was very happy.

You know, I take it personal when
something like this happens in my town.

I raised my children there,

I grew up there

and so, when we
caught Marty Malone

and we got her
arrested and she’s in jail,

that was a real good feeling

to know that justice was served.