93: A Psychic & Nightmares in a Mansion

Jude Deveraux is a prolific romance writer. She’s a New York Times Bestseller and the author of more than 40 novels. One day, the celebrated novelist sought out the services of a psychic named Rose Marks. The two bonded immediately, and pretty soon, Jude found herself forking over millions upon millions of dollars. But was Rose really a psychic? Or was she a con artist? Then Kristin tells us about a horrific quadruple murder in a high-end Washington, D.C. neighborhood. When firefighters arrived at the Savopoulos family home, they though they were dealing with a house fire. When they got inside, they realized that the home was a crime scene. Savvas and Amy Savopoulos, their 10-year-old son Philip, and the family’s housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa had all been retrained, beaten, and murdered. But who could have done such a thing? Investigators hit a breakthrough when they discovered leftover Domino’s pizza. 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: “Murder in the Mansion” episode of 20/20 “DNA, Facebook usage and a sword among the evidence as D.C. quadruple murder trial continues,” by Keith L. Alexander for The Washington Post “Suspect in Savopoulos family killings takes the witness stand,” The Washington Post “Suspect in D.C. quadruple killing testifies he was lured to the scene, never saw victims,” The Washington Post “Prosecutor tells jurors Daron Wint is guilty in D.C. quadruple killing, even if someone else was involved,” by Keith L. Alexander for The Washington Post In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “The Psychic, The Novelist and the $17 Million Scam” by Robert Andrew Powell, Reader’s Digest “Florida Psychic and Her Family Cheated Clients of $40 Million, Prosecutors Say” by Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times “Author Jude Deveraux Was Suicidal After Losing $20 Million to Fortune Telling Con” by Christina NG, ABC News “Judge scolds feds over alleged misconduct in $25 million ‘psychic fraud’ case” by Paula McMahon, The Sun Sentinel “Psychic accused in $25 million fraud says she is portrayed ‘as some kind of monster’” by Paula McMahon, The Sun Sentinel “Imprisoned ‘psychic’ testifies she regrets going to trial in $17M fortunetelling fraud” by Paula McMahon, The Sun Sentinel “Rose Marks” wikipedia.org