Amy Allwine Murder Case

[3SecondSideHugger]

Just listened to Casefile podcast Case 86: Amy Allwine. Very sad story about a couple in United Church of God.. they met at college (I think?) near Big Sandy. Husband tried to use dark web to have someone murder his wife, ended up getting scammed and murdered her himself, but tried to make it look like a suicide. Anyone else heard a program about this story? 

 

The story is so crazy and sad! He cheated on her using Ashley Madison website, Church does not allow divorce, the FBI hacks the hit men scam group on dark web and warns the family that she was on someone’s hit list. Then he ends up shooting her and tried to make it look like a suicide, but failed and was found guilty of murder. 

[Demonfan]

That story is so full of WTF moments. I am glad that he was found guilty. It seems like too many husband's get away with it. Slightly off topic. I recently read a book all about the dark web, it has added to my understanding.

[Briefly]

I think her story may have been profiled on Forensic Files.  I googled her name and read the story of what happened to her, it sounds like I've heard it recently.  I have no doubt that her husband murdered her, that he was the originator of the attempted hit on her and that he is 100% responsible.

[PennySycamore]

This couple may have been involved with the Worldwide Church of God, which is Garner Ted Armstrong’s old cult.  They had a college at Big Sandy.  When it went bust, they sold the campus to IBLP.

[Howl]

I've come upon several stories (four, I think) on Dateline/Forensic Files/48 Hours where one spouse murders another because divorce is not allowed in their particular congregation.  There's always cheating involved.  IIRC, in three instances it was the husband murdering the wife and in one the wife was complicit in her lover murdering her husband.   This last one was solved many, many years after the original murder.  The wife was by then married to a successful dentist and had several kids, but when the police knocked on the door of her very nice house in a leafy suburb, she knew why they were there.  She and the lover/murderer never got together. 

Pretty crazy, huh? 

[EmainMacha]

@Howl was that last one in Northern Ireland by any chance? We had a famous case were a dentist murdered his wife and his lover's husband with her help. Wasn't discovered til he essentially confessed many years later and implicated her. She was married to a high ranking police officer when she was arrested. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Howell

[Howl]

12 hours ago, EmainMacha said:

@Howl was that last one in Northern Ireland by any chance?

No, it happened in Olathe, Kansas in 1982.  Police opened it as a cold case in 2000. 

Here is the 48 Hours summary:  A Knock on the Door and here are two articles about it from the Kansas City Star: Parole nears for woman in 1982 Olathe love-triangle murder of David Harmon  and a second  Killer in infamous Olathe love triangle case soon will go free

Mark Mangelsdorf (who was convicted of the murder and served 10 years) maintains his innocence.   This is was the sentence I remembered from watching that episode:  

Quote

Everyone in the community was talking about it off the record," recalls Hoffman, who has covered this case for more than two decades.  What were they saying?  "It's the Nazarene divorce," says Hoffman.

 

[PennySycamore]

I remember seeing the 48 Hours episode about Mark Mangelsdorf.

It's amazing to me how these fundie husbands and wives will think it better to murder than to divorce.  There was the case (we've talked about on FJ though not recently) where the husband and wife had a courtship, he fell in love with a female EMT colleague before the wedding but got married anyway and then went on to murder his wife after a few months.  That case has been covered on Happily Never after.  It may have been the same case or another where the husband claimed the his pregnant wife was shot by someone who'd bought a gun from him the day before. The was no gun buyer the day before although the other person that could have testified that there wasn't was now very conveniently dead.

[Imaginary_Wonderland]

On 6/18/2018 at 1:03 AM, EmainMacha said:

@Howl was that last one in Northern Ireland by any chance? We had a famous case were a dentist murdered his wife and his lover's husband with her help. Wasn't discovered til he essentially confessed many years later and implicated her. She was married to a high ranking police officer when she was arrested. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Howell

I remember hearing about that case a long while back but didn't know too much details of it until I saw a tv series on ITV or Channel4 about 2 years ago. James Nesbitt was in it, he was very creepy and chilling in it, but it was a very good series. I learnt of the religious aspect then, but I couldn't wrap my head around how that guy would twist and use religion to suit himself. Murdering your wife/hubby or having an abortion is fine, but no way can anyone find out about an affair or out of marriage pregnancy because it would effect his high standing position and reputation in the church. I think he huge bunch of kids too, maybe 12 or so.

[mirele]

I came across this video about the Amy Allwine case a few weeks back. It was done by a TV station local to the Allwines. It's a little repetitive in places (you can tell where they break for commercials, they do a recap) but it was otherwise interesting and I learned a lot more about the case from it.

http://www.fox9.com/news/web-of-lies-the-murder-of-amy-allwine#/

[AnnaSofia]

Wired UK did a really, really good story on the deepweb "hitmen for hire" site Stephen tried using before ultimately killing Amy himself.

It starts off mentioning another case, then a bunch of stuff about the site itself, and a blogger who was trying to expose it from the beginning. The Allwine case comes in about halfway through the article.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/kill-list-dark-web-hitmen

How anyone with two functioning brain cells in their head was taken in by this is beyond me. Let alone how Stephen thought he could make Amy's death look like a suicide when he had already been on the FBI's radar for months due to the hit site being hacked and user information leaked. Completely crazy.

[Aine]

I recently listened to the Casefile episode on the Amy Allwine case too (I've been catching up on random episodes in the backlog that I've missed along the years).

It blows my mind that Stephen thought he could get away with it after his initial attempts went bust after the website hack, FBI involvement, and that he even reported to the police that he had been scammed and had bitcoin stolen! But narcissists generally do think that they are smarter than everyone around them and they won't get caught, I guess?

[Sullie06]

I love Casefile, it's one of my fave podcasts because they really do their research on the cases.

I remember when listening to this one how much it struck me that the husband has no problem cheating on his wife, and can make excuses for himself in doing so, but then kills his wife because divorce is not allowed. Nether is cheating asshat.

This one was even creepier because of the dark web component too. The internet can be a very scary place.