⚠️ Content warning: domestic violence, sexual assault, animal abuse

On November 7th, 1997, Sheila Bellush was murdered inside her own home in Sarasota, Florida. It was a murder-for-hire... planned at a distance, carried out by strangers. And it would never have happened if the man she'd married had faced even one consequence for any of the things he had done before.

This is Part 1 of MU's two-part deep dive into one of Ann Rule's most chilling books — "Every Breath You Take." But before we get to the crime, Ed takes us inside the mind and the history of the man behind it: Allen Blackthorne.

Allen was a liar, a manipulator, a predator, and a con artist from childhood. He destroyed two marriages before Sheila, drove his in-laws into bankruptcy, killed two people on a highway and walked free, and told his sister-in-law, point blank, that if Sheila ever left him, he would kill her.

Part 1 is the origin story. The red flags nobody acted on. The system that failed at every turn. And the moment the crow should have been cued...long before it was.

Part 2 drops next week. Subscribe and don't miss it.

Based on Ann Rule's "Every Breath You Take" (2001) | Researched & written by Sue Grice | Hosted by Ed Hydock | A Money Beet Media Production in association with the Darkcast Network