The Acid Lady - The Murder of Tim Schuster

June 30, 2025

In this episode, Payton and Garrett uncover the chilling case of Tim Schuster, a respected EMT whose life took a tragic turn. What began as marital tension would end in one of the most gruesome murders California has ever seen.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

And I'm Garrett Moreland

He’s the husband.

I’m the husband.

Does Wawa sponsor you? No? You set that up perfectly for the camera.

I feel like I should turn it. Yeah, turn it. Ah, could be anything—could be my own cup. Take that, everybody.

Hi everyone, hope you’re doing great and having a fantastic Monday. Welcome back to another episode. If you’re watching on YouTube, I just got back from golfing, so that’s why I’m dressed like this. If you’re listening on audio, get ready for another case.

Reminder: we have bonus episodes and ad-free content over on Apple Subscriptions, Spotify, and Patreon—you can check it out there. We actually just dropped a bonus episode.

I don’t have too much for my ten seconds. I’ve been golfing quite a bit—pickleball, golf, summer, working. We’ve been hanging out, trying to make plans for the Fourth of July, seeing what we’re doing. Anything else? Nothing too crazy.

Our daisies finally bloomed. We have daisies planted in our yard—you’d never guess why—and they all bloomed after Garrett fixed the sprinklers. Sprinklers are fixed, we’re good to go, the grass is getting green.

I didn’t do great today at golf. You said you did good—I did good, but I shot an 86, which isn’t amazing, but I’ll take it. Solid day of golf, and I actually counted every single ball, didn’t cheat, played it how it’s supposed to be played. It was a fun day.

You good? Ready to go? Ready to hear the story?

I’m ready.

Our sources for this episode are nbcnews.com, muddyrivernews.com, cen.acs.org, abc30.com, fresnobee.com, case-law.findlaw.com, morbidology.com, findagrave.com, medium.com, and Murderpedia.

The power dynamics in a relationship can definitely be tricky, especially in a marriage and especially in one that you’ve been in for a long time. A lot of the traditional marital roles are no longer practiced—things like the mother staying at home to raise a family while the husband goes off to work. These days, women are just as successful; they make just as much money, sometimes even more, than their partners. It just depends on the relationship.

But sometimes that sort of power imbalance can lead to resentment in long-term relationships—feeling like one is doing more than the other, has more worth than the other, is entitled to more than the other. When years go by and that resentment festers, it can start to get ugly. Resentment is powerful enough to put an end to what seem like even the strongest marriages, and today’s case shows resentment can actually grow so out of control that it becomes a motive for murder.

For today’s story we are headed to Central California, to a town just outside Fresno called Clovis. This is where, in 2003, forty-five-year-old Tim Schuster had been calling home for some time.

I feel like we just covered another case from Clovis recently.

Yeah, I don’t know why—it sounds familiar for some reason.

All I know is Tim Schuster is like Will Schuester on Glee, the teacher.

You’ve never seen Glee?

Not ringing any bells.

You’ve never watched Glee? What were you doing back then.

Watching sports.

Boring.

I wasn’t really a Glee person.

Anyone who’s watched Glee, all I’ve got to say is “Will Schuester,” and you know… you know.

Okay, so forty-five-year-old Tim Schuster had been calling Clovis home for some time. Tim moved to California in 1988 from Columbia, Missouri. Before that he’d worked in several hospitals as an emergency medical technician, but California marked a new chapter. He completed a nursing degree at Chapman University and worked his way up to manager of the cardiac-catheterization laboratory at St. Agnes Hospital. In short, Tim was smart, compassionate, and driven.

Even before all that, Tim met a woman he thought he’d grow old with. In 1982 he met Lissa Foreman. Like Tim, Lissa came from Missouri, growing up on a small farm in the town of Clarence. She was equally intelligent and driven, studying biochemistry at the University of Missouri. While working as an aide at a hospital in Columbia she met Tim, and the two fell fast. They married before the year was out.

In 1985 they welcomed their first child, a girl named Kristen. Four years later they moved to the Fresno area. Tim took the manager job at St. Agnes, but the move was really for Lissa, who’d been offered a prestigious position as a biochemist at an agricultural research lab. In 1990 they welcomed their second child, a boy named Tyler.

Over the next few years Lissa’s career soared—she was the clear breadwinner, earning enough to buy a beautiful home in suburban Clovis. Once they were settled, Lissa was ready for the next chapter: she opened her own facility, the Central California Research Laboratories, nearby in Fresno.

You know what that reminds me of?

Not Dexter—yes, Dexter!

His lab?

Laboratory—though he says it like “la-BORE-ah-tory.”

Wasn’t that Powerpuff Girls?

Powerpuff or powderpuff? I feel like I’m having a Mandela effect right now.

Anyway—sorry—they were in a lab too.

For Tim, that meant letting his own work take a backseat while he handled most of the parenting, because Lissa was working tirelessly to get the lab staffed and running. So Tim became the one making sure the kids got off to school, ate dinner, and made it to their sports or doctor’s appointments on time. The dynamic actually worked for a while—maybe because Tim dimmed his light a bit around Lissa.

People who knew him professionally and personally said he was a different person at work than at home. At work he was a leader—someone who spoke his mind and took charge. At home he was introverted, quiet, even submissive. Outsiders—their words, not mine—said Lissa ran the show. That might have been because she was making more money than Tim—double his salary at the time.

Over the years Lissa demanded more and more from Tim. Her standards and expectations for what he and the kids were supposed to do—and how they were supposed to behave—kept climbing. When their daughter Kristen hit her teens, that tension reached a breaking point. Kristen started defying her mother’s rules—sneaking out to meet boys, typical teenage stuff—but Lissa’s punishment felt severe, especially to Tim.

Lissa decided to ship Kristen off to Missouri to stay with her parents for a while. Tim thought that was over the top. When he challenged Lissa on the decision, the couple’s tension flared—and it boiled over in the months that followed.

Eventually Lissa told Tim, “You need to pack your things and move out,” and then she filed for divorce in February 2002. Tim wasn’t having it: “I’m not leaving this house. If you want to live separately, you can leave.” He hired a lawyer to fight for custody of their twelve-year-old son, Tyler, because he felt he’d been Tyler’s primary parent.

Lissa wouldn’t budge either, so even during the separation and divorce they lived under one roof—neither would give up the house—and Tim slept in a guest room. Meanwhile, hatred and resentment only escalated.

Interesting.

That would be— I mean, that’d be hard, right? Living under the same roof.

I think some people can make that work.

Some people can, but if you really don’t want to be together anymore—if you’re divorcing because you low-key hate each other and not because you’re just ready to move on—yeah, I don’t know if that’s going to end well.

By this point Lissa was telling friends how much she hated Tim. She said she was having an affair, that Tim wasn’t a real man, that he never wanted to have sex with her—and all of that was happening during the separation and divorce.

Jeez, man.

And then Lissa wins in court. She got primary custody of their son, Tyler.

Okay.

She was awarded the family house because she was the one taking care of the kid. So Tim not only lost custody, he was also forced to move out.

Wow.

But it wasn’t until Tim was gone that Lissa started to realize just how much work Tim had actually been doing for her all these years. Remember, Lissa was running a large company on her own, and she’d gotten used to Tim handling everything around the home—including taking care of the kids.

So then what the freak happened in court?

I think they just tend to side with the mother usually.

Unless they were lying and she was saying she was the one taking care of the kids. I mean, I don’t even know the dynamic of that. Like, what was their case?

Yeah, what happened?

Okay, anyway. So now Lissa finds herself a single mom, in charge of a twelve-year-old son on a daily basis, while also being a full-time working mom. She realizes—it’s a lot of work. And that’s when she finds a solution.

She recruits her 21-year-old lab assistant named James Fagone. She says, “Hey James, I’m not only going to have you be my assistant at work, you’re also going to be my twelve-year-old son Tyler’s babysitter—and now, my personal assistant—because I need help.”

Meanwhile, Tim is having his own problems living on his own. Not only is life a bit lonely without his family around day-to-day, but it’s kind of taken away his sense of purpose. And it’s made him a bit vulnerable, because in August 2002—a month after he moved out of the home he’d shared with Lissa—Tim’s new condo was robbed. A bunch of his belongings were stolen.

This is not going well for him.

Right? That’s the last thing he needs.

But he keeps trying to get his new life in order. He refocuses on his career and starts looking toward the future—a life without Lissa in it.

And I think that’s something, you know—even when you hit your breaking point and decide to get divorced and move on, even if you hate that person—when you’ve lived a life for so long, waking up every single day with the same routine, the same family dynamic, it’s going to shake anyone.

No matter how bad you want out, eventually the adrenaline wears off and your life starts to feel very different.

The next year or so goes by with the occasional jabs and digs from Lissa, but for the most part, Tim really does seem to be doing well and moving forward—until July 9, 2003.

So this is a year after he moved out.

Because that day, he hears he’s actually being laid off from his job.

Oh gosh.

At St. Agnes Hospital.

Bro.

He has this dinner with his friends that night—it’s another co-worker who also got let go, named Mary, her husband, and then a third friend. At that dinner, Mary makes plans for her and Tim to get brunch the next morning to figure out their next steps. She’s like, “Hey, I got let go, you got let go, we work in the same field—let’s meet and figure out if we can navigate this together.”

And Tim agrees. It’s a good idea. So they pick a spot, the night ends, and the next morning comes… and Tim doesn’t show up to meet Mary.

What is going on now?

Mary knows—

This guy has been through it. Divorce, losing the kids, robbed, loses his job…

Yeah. Hit after hit.

Jeez.

So now Mary, his friend and coworker, knows this isn’t like Tim to just ditch her and not say anything. She calls a mutual friend of theirs who lives close to Tim’s house and says, “Hey, can you just drive by and check on him? He didn’t show up and I just want to make sure he’s okay.”

When this friend gets to Tim’s condo, he sees Tim’s truck is still in the garage. So he decides to let himself into the house, which is seemingly unlocked. It’s either that or he has a key—they don’t really clarify—but either way, he easily gets inside.

When he goes in, he finds Tim’s cell phone sitting on his dresser—but there’s no Tim.

This is alarming. His phone is there, his car is there, but he’s not.

So the friend goes back to Tim’s truck and decides to look through it—and there’s Tim’s wallet sitting in the glove box, with all of his credit cards and his ID.

When Mary hears this—the coworker he was supposed to meet—she and her husband decide to call the police. They also tell the officer, “And by the way, Tim bought a handgun after a break-in he had at his new apartment last year.”

Because that’s what they’re thinking—maybe with the layoffs and everything going on with his family over the past year, was Tim mentally in a bad place? Was he contemplating suicide?

Now, maybe because the police sort of agree with that theory, they don’t actually bring Lissa in for questioning right away, despite the fact that she’s the spouse.

But I do believe if these roles were reversed—

He would have probably been brought in immediately.

No, I think so too.

Though people in Tim’s life told police that he didn’t really see or hear from Lissa anymore—it’s not like they were still involved in each other’s lives. They mostly communicated through their kids or their lawyers.

But Tim’s other friends were like, “On top of that, we really don’t think he would have died by suicide. We just don’t think he was that broken up about the divorce. He was moving on. Sure, losing the job was a major hit, but it didn’t feel like he had reached that point of making such a drastic decision.”

Especially since Tyler, his son, was still in his life.

Slowly, the police start learning from the same people that Lissa and Tim’s divorce really wasn’t pretty. They start to get the full picture—that there was bad blood between them and that the couple never really cleared the air with one another.

So after speaking to everyone but Lissa, the police decide, “Okay, let’s bring her in next for questioning.”

And they still haven’t found him?

No.

Now, when Clovis police first speak to Lissa, she says the last time she heard from Tim was on July 8. It was a short and sweet text saying he’d be by on July 10 to pick up Tyler around 6:00 p.m.

But Lissa says when she heard about the layoffs on the afternoon of the 9th, she tried calling Tim to check on him. When he didn’t answer, she claims she actually went over to his house and knocked on his door that same night—around 10:30 p.m.

So he’s done with dinner, goes home, planning to meet Mary the next day, and she says she shows up at 10:30 p.m.?

Yep. She says when he didn’t answer the door, she just gave up. She was like, “Okay, well apparently he doesn’t want to hear from me. I was just trying to be nice and offer some condolences for the layoff, but he doesn’t care.”

So she doesn’t try to call again. And then, when Tim doesn’t show up the next day to come get Tyler like he had said he would—she doesn’t report him missing.

So she goes to his house the night before, can’t find him. He doesn’t show up the next day, and she doesn’t call the police?

So weird.

Police quickly learn—okay, Lissa, this seems sus—and we don’t actually think you’re telling the truth.

So they look into her records—her phone records—and they discover that she did call Tim again after she supposedly left his place at 10:30 p.m., when she had said she just went home and never tried again. It was around 2:00 a.m. that morning when she placed a call to him.

Okay…

But Lissa has an answer for that. She says, “Oh, well—I didn’t—I swear I didn’t talk to him. I must’ve just butt-dialed him. He’s on my speed dial—he’s the father of my child.”

And when the cops are like, “Okay, prove it. Show us your phone. Show us that he’s on speed dial,” she gets really weird about it.

Yeah, I’m sure she won’t.

Instead of just pulling it up and showing them, she changes her story. She says, “Wait, maybe it wasn’t a butt dial. Maybe I did call him—to make sure he was going to come get Tyler.”

Just guilty. Just guilty as charged.

Here’s what’s even more interesting though: when police ask Lissa whether she thinks Tim might’ve wandered off and died by suicide, she says no. She’s like, “No, I definitely don’t think he would’ve done something like that.”

So… the phone calls are sketchy, but then police are thinking—if she did this, why wouldn’t she at least set up a perfectly reasonable story about why Tim would be missing?

They don’t have enough to hold her, so they let her go.

But what she does next is arguably even more suspicious than anything she’s done so far. That same day, after she’s questioned—this is July 12—Lissa goes to see her friend and coworker, Tammy.

She leaves the police station and goes to see Tammy. And she says,

"Hey, I just talked to the police, and I think they think I did something to Tim."

Tammy tries to calm her down—"I doubt that’s the case. If they did, they’d probably get a search warrant for your home or business."

And that’s when Tammy sees Lissa’s gears start turning. Lissa immediately says,

"Hey, can you actually keep an eye on Tyler for me for a few hours? I have to go to my office and take care of some stuff."

Now, Tammy finds this strange because it’s a Saturday, but she’s her friend, so she does her the favor and watches her kid. But Lissa doesn’t come back for hours.

Then, the very next day, Lissa spontaneously takes Tyler on a trip to Disney World in Florida—with a stop afterward to see her family in Missouri.

Remember, they live in California. So they travel all the way across the country.

I’m just trying to figure out—if Lissa killed him… why?

Right? Like what was in it for her at that point?

She had the kid. She was making more money. It can’t be a money motive.

She was just mad they were divorced?

I’m really curious to see where this motive ends up, because obviously murder never makes sense, but this really doesn’t make sense.

Yeah, I think when a motive doesn’t have a clear, logical reason—it is harder to understand. But I also think anger and rage and resentment are pretty common motives.

Interesting. It just seems like he should be the one with more resentment in this situation.

Right?

So now it’s two days later—it’s Monday. Tammy goes into the office for work. Keep in mind, Lissa was questioned by the police, then dropped her kid off with Tammy, disappeared for hours, and the next day traveled across the U.S.

Tammy gets to work and starts talking to a woman named Leslie. And Leslie casually mentions to Tammy—not even intentionally—

"Oh, I was here on Saturday when Lissa came in, and she asked me to do something kind of strange."

Now Tammy’s ears perk up. She’s trying to piece together what was going on while she was watching Tyler.

She’s like, "Okay… what?"

And Leslie goes,

"Uh… Lissa had me rent her a U-Haul. But she asked me to put it under my name."

Oh my gosh.

And even weirder—Leslie says,

"This actually isn’t the first time something like this has happened."

Lissa had come to her about a year ago asking Leslie to rent out a storage unit in her name too. Lissa said she had some personal items she wanted to hide from Tim so he wouldn’t try to take them during the divorce.

She told Leslie, "Hey, we’re getting divorced, I just need you to do this so he doesn’t know about it."

Oh—and one more thing. Leslie told Tammy that when Lissa came back from using that U-Haul—the one she had Leslie rent—she had cuts and scrapes all over her body.

All over.

And she looked dirty. Like she hadn’t just gone out to eat or do errands with the U-Haul—she had clearly been doing… something.

Lindsay didn’t report any of this or say anything to anyone—because Lissa owns the lab where she works. She’s her boss. She’s an intimidating woman, and Lindsay chalked up the strange behavior to the divorce. Lissa kind of used that as an excuse.

But now that she and Tammy are talking about it, they’re starting to become little true crime investigators. They’re putting two and two together, comparing stories, and talking through how weird the timeline is—what their intimidating, kind of scary boss was doing. They’re getting suspicious.

And in the meantime, police have found someone else of interest to speak to, especially now that Lissa has just… up and left the state. That person is Lissa’s 21-year-old personal assistant: James Fagone.

Yep.

Now, Lissa wasn’t the one to tell the police about James. In fact, he wasn’t even on their radar until they searched Tim’s condo and found a notebook with James’s name in it. When they ran the name, they learned that James was kind of Lissa’s errand boy. He did pretty much whatever she asked—whether that meant helping her around the office, babysitting her son, or even possibly breaking into her ex-husband’s house.

So yeah—remember how I mentioned earlier that Tim’s condo was broken into a month after he moved out?

That was actually James and Lissa who broke in.

How did they not catch them?

I don’t know—but that’s why she asked her coworker to rent the storage unit. She used it to stash some of the items she stole from Tim’s place.

Apparently, there were a few things Tim had been awarded in the divorce that she just didn’t want him to have. And it really sounds like she just wanted to mess with his head—maybe scare him a little bit.

According to Tim’s friends, he kind of always suspected who broke in. He was sure it was Lissa and her new henchman, James. But he didn’t press charges—he didn’t want more drama. He didn’t have solid proof, and he just wanted Lissa out of his life. He wanted the torment to stop.

But apparently, Lissa wasn’t shy about it. She told several of her friends that she and James broke into Tim’s condo, stole his things, and trashed the place. She even told her manicurist about it.

And she said she went back and broke in a few more times after that—because the feeling was, quote, “better than sex.”

She’s telling her nail lady, “What I actually get a rush out of is breaking into my hopefully-soon-to-be-ex-husband’s condo.”

What did they take? What did they even do?

She just liked the feeling. I mean, they took stuff he got in the divorce—but she just kind of kept going back.

Okay. She's a little obsessive.

Yeah, I see that.

And on top of all that, Lissa had been openly telling friends how much she hated Tim—how she wanted him dead. She’d been leaving him threatening voicemails, calling him a “spineless wimp” who should “burn in hell.”

Why?

Okay, why is she so mad?

Yeah—why is she this upset?

Who is this person?

Rage. Anger. Control.

What a loser.

So, the police are learning about all of this—obviously, it starts to come out as they talk to more people. And that’s how they finally get James in the hot seat.

They’re like, “Hey, remember that guy’s house you broke into last year with your boss? Well, he’s actually missing now—and we think you and your boss, Lissa, probably did it.”

And that’s all it takes for James to cave. He says,

“All right, look… I was at Tim’s house the night he disappeared.”

Wow.

Yeah—he really… I mean, he’s young.

Yeah, he’s like, “Okay, fine, fine, fine.”

He says, “I had a stun gun with me.”

So James explains that on the night of July 9, Lissa told him she needed his help. First, he says he agreed because he was afraid of her—she was his boss. But then he adds that she offered to pay him $2,000 extra for the job, so…

James is like, “I do what I’m told.”

He says he went out and bought a stun gun—on Lissa’s orders—and then the two of them went to Tim’s house together. Remember, they’d done this before.

This was after Tim had gotten home from dinner with his coworkers and friends. James says he waited in the bushes while Lissa knocked on the door and demanded Tim come outside. When he answered, James jumped out and tased him with the stun gun.

Tim collapsed to the floor.

That’s insane.

Actually insane.

According to James, Lissa then got on top of Tim with a chloroform-soaked rag—just to make sure he stayed unconscious.

James says he helped Lissa drag Tim out of his own house and back to her place. A place where Tim had lived for years—with her and their children.

I don’t—

James, the guy who’s helping her—he’s just like, “Oh yeah, I’m just going along with it.”

I mean, he tells police he’s very afraid of her… but yes.

Come on, man.

I’m sure there was some grooming or manipulation involved—I get that—but still.

So James says that once they got to the house, they bound Tim’s hands and feet with plastic zip ties.

This story honestly makes me nauseous. The fact that he’s back at the house where he raised his kids, where he tried to be the best dad he could be—and now they’re tying him up like that.

It’s horrible.

This is so, so sad.

And the next day… things got unimaginably worse.

They didn’t kill him that night. Instead, they brought Tim—still alive—to Lissa’s lab, where they placed the now-conscious but bound Tim into a blue barrel filled with hydrochloric acid.

They just—

I don’t even want to go into the details.

They killed him alive—essentially—by dissolving him with chemicals.

Yeah.

So… okay. This is insane.

It’s gross. It’s beyond.

I mean, I can understand hating someone, but… you were married to this person. You had children with this person. I get that love can fade, and even turn into hate—but to kill a conscious person like that? In that way?

In a barrel? With acid?

James must be insane too. Because how do you just go along with something like this?

Right? That would make—I feel like that would make a normal person throw up.

I’m using “normal” in quotes, but like… this is not something you could watch without reacting.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. It’s horrific.

And then—according to James—it gets worse.

Once Tim had been murdered, Lissa couldn’t seal the barrel shut. With all the chemicals and his body inside, it wouldn’t close. So she used a handsaw to remove his feet so that she could get him to fit.

Anyway…

Now, as James is giving this confession to the police, Lissa’s coworker Leslie—the one who rented the U-Haul and the storage unit for her—calls the police.

She says,

“Hey, I’ve been talking to some of my coworkers, and now I’m starting to think that my boss’s behavior is... strange, considering that Tim Schuster is missing.”

She tells them,

“I think I have some information for you.”

Leslie goes on to tell police about the bizarre behavior she saw from Lissa in the days after Tim went missing. She tells them about the U-Haul rental and the storage unit—both purchased in her name.

And with that information, police are thinking: she probably moved the barrel from the lab… to the storage unit.

Oh, 100%.

So the police get all the info about the unit and immediately head down there.

Sure enough—they open the storage unit and inside is the 55-gallon barrel that James had described in his confession.

Literally… just barely sealed.

And when they open it up, they find—

Dude.

The remains.

I’m mind-blown right now.

That she—

That this.

It’s disgusting. I’m just—

I don’t understand.

I don’t understand how someone can do that. That’s just… evil. Like, I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but—

Okay, life in prison? I don’t think that cuts it anymore.

No one—

Oh, life in prison? No. That’s not cutting it these days.

It’s obviously not. Because people aren’t scared to go to prison for life anymore. I truly think that.

People are not scared of that sentence. We’ve got to—

We’ve got to up this stuff.

We’ve got to up it. I don’t know how else to say it.

Eye for an eye.

I hear your thoughts. I kind of just think—

And I know a lot of people are going to disagree because Payton disagrees—but however you kill someone, you should be killed the same way.

Eye for an eye.

Very aggressive. But we can keep moving on past that.

And I hope you guys know—there’s no tension between us for disagreeing on that.

Yeah, I don’t care.

Anyway—the barrel they found still had chemicals in it… and also half-dissolved remains. The body was in there.

So a day later, on July 16, 2003, police now have a warrant for Lissa’s arrest. But remember—she’s left town with her son.

She’s actually in Missouri now, staying with her family. Police track her down there and arrest her at the St. Louis airport.

That day, she’s transported back to California, where she is charged with first-degree murder.

Meanwhile, she’s not denying anything.

And James—he’s also charged with first-degree murder.

When people in the community hear that her assistant-slash-babysitter helped her commit murder, it sparks a ton of rumors. Was there more to that relationship? Were they romantically involved?

But when police look into it, it seems like… no. James was just kind of terrified of her.

He sort of worshipped her—she was his boss. And Lissa, like I said, may have used some manipulation. She kind of turned him against Tim in a way.

But also—

He had full choice in what he was doing.

So, as prosecutors were building their case against Lissa and James, they uncovered a few more things that confirmed James' confession.

They found the stun gun he said he used—he had thrown it into a random porta-potty. And it was still in there when police went to check.

Over at Lissa’s lab, they confiscated files and computers, including Lissa’s own computer, which—just a month earlier—had been used to search terms like:

• “acid digestion tissues”

• “acid digestion animal tissues”

• and “sulfuric acid.”

A month earlier.

So premeditated.

This is kind of a sidetrack, and I’m not making fun of anything, but—if Payton ever died, don’t check my ChatGPT history.

You’re going to look sus.

Not sus—I just… I look up anything and everything. I’ll just look up random stuff.

I mean, none of it has to do with murder, but I’m sure someone would be like, “Why are you Googling this?”

I think the difference here is, like, it’s one thing to be curious and look stuff up… and another thing for your spouse to go missing, be found in a barrel, your evil sidekick confesses—and then they find this.

I just still can’t believe James went along with it. What a horrible person, too.

They also found six empty acid bottles thrown away in the lab’s trash. At James’ house, they found an empty glass bottle that James confirmed had held the chloroform they used to knock Tim out after the stun gun during the kidnapping.

And—get this—they also found that Lissa had ordered the chemical-resistant barrel back in April.

So that’s now three months of planning.

Yeah, I mean—first-degree murder. Total premeditation.

While Lissa might have been a brilliant chemist, she was kind of a lousy criminal. All signs, witnesses, and physical evidence pointed straight at her.

But James’ trial came first—and this was a strategic move. Prosecutors were hoping James would take a plea deal and testify against Lissa.

Only… that didn’t happen.

James maintained his innocence.

Wait, what? He confessed and then was like, “Never mind, I’m not pleading guilty”?

Yep.

So James had his own trial. His defense was that he was only an accessory to murder. He said he wasn’t pleading guilty to first-degree murder because Lissa was the mastermind.

They also argued James was acting under duress, and that Lissa had threatened his life.

Problem was… like I said, James had already confessed. And the details he gave were more than “accessory.”

He also had no problem accepting the $2,000 cash Lissa gave him afterward.

Which is why the jury found James guilty of first-degree murder.

He was later sentenced to life in prison without parole.

I don’t feel bad.

Yeah—me neither.

It wasn’t until almost a year later that Lissa’s trial began, in October of 2007. And because of how much media attention the case was getting in the Fresno area, the trial was actually moved to Los Angeles.

Now, the defense argued that it was James, and only James, who killed Tim—that he was obsessed with Lissa and, after hearing how many problems she was having with Tim, he wanted to help her out.

She comes forward and is basically like,

“Actually, James was just in love with me, so he killed my ex-husband.”

Please put this woman in prison for life.

The prosecution says,

“There’s absolutely no way.”

And to prove it, they show a bunch of really awful text messages that Lissa had sent to Tim during their separation and divorce.

And they were so horrible—

I’m not even going to repeat them.

One of the biggest pieces of evidence, though, was proof that Lissa herself had purchased a huge supply of hydrochloric acid through her company.

Oh—and the fact that, during trial, it came out that Lissa had apparently tried to hire a hitman before she murdered Tim.

Oh my gosh.

And as for motive—what was stated in court is that Lissa was the breadwinner. Tim’s life insurance policy was only $30,000 and was meant to go into a trust for the kids anyway. So money wasn’t really the motivator.

Although she did benefit from his death, it really seemed like…

She just hated him.

Yeah, not even about money. She was just messed up.

Honestly, Lissa’s biggest motive seems to have been resentment and hatred toward Tim.

Perhaps the most explosive part of the trial, though, was when Lissa herself took the stand.

Before she testified, the defense painted her as this God-fearing woman who went to church regularly, was a great mother, and cared for her family. And when she got on the stand, Lissa stayed calm, level-headed, and—just like expected—cast most of the blame on James.

She claimed it wasn’t until she got home that night—James was babysitting Tyler—when he confessed to her that he had done everything on his own and killed Tim.

And honestly, it seemed like Lissa’s manipulative personality was benefiting her in the courtroom.

It’s rare, but her testifying actually seemed to help her defense.

Because after Lissa stepped down from the witness stand—after five days of testifying—

One of the jurors gave her a thumbs up.

And even more shocking, the judge didn’t dismiss the juror.

They were just like,

“Yeah, it’s fine, let them keep serving.”

How?

How is that possible?

They won’t put me on a jury because I listen to true crime podcasts, but people can just be giving thumbs up in court?

Well, it doesn’t seem to have mattered much. Apparently, the rest of the jurors were able to sway that person, because—

On December 12, 2007, the jury came back and found Lissa guilty of first-degree murder.

In May of 2008, Lissa was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

And at that sentencing hearing was a pretty surprising attendee—Lissa’s daughter, Kristen.

The one she’d sent away to live with her parents in Missouri. The one her father had fought so hard to keep close—the main crack in their marriage.

Apparently, this was the first time Kristen had seen her mother in person since her father’s murder.

And let’s just say—she didn’t show up to support her.

Kristen told the judge that life in prison was not enough punishment for her mother.

She called her a disgrace and a pitiful excuse for a human.

And she ended her victim impact statement with:

“I pray that you are continually haunted at night by the sight and sound of my father fighting for his last breathing moments on this earth.”

Oh my gosh.

Good for her.

Horrible that she has to live with that, but… good for her.

I think this case might seem odd to people because when we see cases like this between a husband and wife, usually the roles are reversed.

I’m going to be honest—I feel like the last three or four husband-wife cases we’ve covered, it’s been the wife.

Yeah, I’ve kind of tried to include those on purpose, because those crimes do happen—and you guys are crazy.

No, but really—I don’t want to ignore the fact that men are also victims.

For sure—of homicide. Of domestic homicide.

Bottom line is: it can happen to anyone.

And I think the motive here—honestly—feels the same regardless of gender. It always seems to come from the same root.

That anger, rage, resentment…

That hatred.

Like, “I cannot have you live. I can’t stand the thought of it.”

All right, you guys—that’s our case for this week.

We’ll see you next time with another one.

Don’t forget to check out our bonus content.

I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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