The Poolside Murder Mystery - Marianne Shockley

April 1, 2024

In this episode Payton and Garrett discuss the shocking case of Marianne Shockley, a professor who was mysteriously found dead in a jacuzzi. When police come to investigate the crime scene police are bewildered by the two witnesses acting strange at the scene.

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AUDIO TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to an Oh No Media podcast.

Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Moreland, and I'm Garrett Moreland, and he's the husband. I'm the husband. You know what? I'm going to save you guys all the hassle of liking this video, leaving a comment, turning on notifications, leaving a review, and just get right into Garrett's 10 seconds.

Alright, so for my 10 seconds this week, if you can likethis video, if you can subscribe, I'm just kidding. Um, let's see. Payton and Iwatched the new Road House on Amazon Prime. It was okay. It was cheesy, it wasentertaining. I'm entertained pretty easily so if it's something that justentertains us and we have fun watching it, we laugh a little bit, that's kindof all we care about. Yeah, if you're looking for something just that's kind ofthere, it was graphic, like a lot of punching, but it was fake. I mean, you'realso listening to this podcast so yeah, I'm going to assume you're okay with alittle bit of blood. But that was good.

And then obviously, March Madness has been going on. I loveMarch Madness, I love college basketball, but I love March Madness for theCinderella stories. Like that's why I like it, obviously. I mean, there'scertain players that I follow that are, you know, on Duke, Kentucky, Kansas,and all that. But there's something about the Cinderella stories that are justso fun to watch. It's so fun to watch people that just come out and play lightsout that you don't really know, that you've never heard of, just good. It alsogoes to show how much the competition, the gap is closing. People are just sogood at sports now. One day that'll be me but for now, I am on a podcast andthat's what I'm doing with my life. So reminder, if you want any bonusepisodes, ad-free content, check out our Apple subscription or Patreon, um, orSpotify. You can find all of our bonus content ad-free. Yeah, that's what Igot.

So let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episodeare CBS News, The Washington Post, 13wmaz.com, the Sun, Morgan County Citizen,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, GoFundMe, Sandhills Express, Mirror.co.uk,USA Today, The Cinemaholic, Baldwin 2K News, Bobcat Multimedia, TheIndependent, and UnionRecorder.com.

Also, we're about ready to get into this. I forgot tomention on Payton's podcast, or personal podcast, Into the Dark, on YouTube,audio wherever she has now been covering once a week, every Saturday, an extraepisode that has to do with recent true crime news updates to cases. So ifthat's something you're interested in, go and check it out.

Okay, trigger warning: this episode includes discussions ofsuicide, so please listen with care.

Okay, eyewitnesses are one of the most valuable pieces ofevidence in basically any case, particularly when the crime happens in aprivate space, right? Like, we count on those testimonies to piece togetherwhat happened to the victim in the moments prior to their death, to figure outhow the entire thing went down, who might have been responsible, and in privatesituations, police are lucky to find one witness at the scene, and two is aneven bigger deal. But the thing about being a witness is sometimes that alsomeans you're a person of interest. If you were at the crime witnessing a crime,you might also be a person of interest. And in today's case, one witness addeda whole lot of confusion and suspicion when they couldn't even make it down tothe station for questioning because they died by suicide before the policecould even fully suspect them.

I think that if I witnessed a murder, I'm not gonna lie, I'dbe scared too, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I'd be like, I didn't seeanything, even if you were like, maybe you didn't witness it, but you were kindof a part of it, you were there maybe, yeah. Like if I was in a store andsomething happened and I didn't see anything, yeah, I don't know, it justscares me.

So for today's case, we're actually headed to the area ofAthens, Georgia, or more specifically to the University of Georgia. It's 2019,and this was home to 43-year-old Dr. Marianne Shockley, who was considered astar professor around campus, nicknamed Dr. Shock by many of her students. Marianne'sarea of expertise was both fascinating, unusual, and maybe a little bitdisgusting to some, because she was a professor of Entomology, which is thestudy of insects. But she also had a deep fascination with something that Ilooked up how to say this, I wrote it down, but I'm just, I know I'm not goingto say it right, so just bear with me, but it's called Entomophagy, or thepractice of eating bugs. So not only did she like study insects, she liked toeat them. Okay, that's weird, but not like that weird.

But Marianne wasn't just in this field for the ick factor,she felt passionate that her work could change the world. She knew that eatingbugs was a good source of protein for people, and she believed that normalizingthe consumption of insects could cure some major problems in our society, likeworld hunger. Marianne's work took her all over the world, traveling everywherefrom South America to Asia to continue her studies when she wasn't in theclassroom at the University of Georgia. But as her friend Terry once told thepress, "You're just as likely to find her in the Galapagos Islands as youare the church from her childhood." While Marianne's interests could seema bit up in the clouds, everyone who knew her claimed she was extremelygrounded. She was kind, she was an all-around loving human being, and by 43,she lived more life than people twice her age. Marianne had been married anddivorced not once, but three times, and she had two grown children of her ownnamed Paul and Nora.

But in 2017, she'd reconnected with an old acquaintance fromher youth, someone who added a whole new level of excitement to Marianne'salready fast-paced lifestyle. His name was Marcus Lillard, and he was a financemanager for a car company. There was no denying that the 43-year-old man hadcharm about him. He had a way of making everyone feel comfortable, at ease,like everyone was a friend of his. This was something that Marianne had likelybeen drawn to since she first met Marcus back in the late 1990s when the two ofthem were both students at Georgia College and were living in the town ofMilledgeville. There they met working at the same little restaurant in town.

And while sparks didn't necessarily fly back then, Marianneand her sister Aya definitely took notice of Marcus in the '90s. He was theparty boy who dated around campus, including one of Aya's close friends, and atthe time, he certainly didn't seem like the kind of person who would take arelationship seriously, particularly because Marcus found himself dabblingheavily in drugs and alcohol at that college point of his life, to the pointwhere he actually dropped out of college a year or so later.

But then fast forward to 2017, things had changed forMarcus, or so it seemed. One afternoon when Marcus was making the hour drive upto Athens from Milledgeville, he thought of Marianne, remembering that she nowcalled the area home. He figured, why not reach out to her and see if she wantsto grab lunch, maybe reconnect? And the rest was sort of history. Marcus pickedher up on his motorcycle that day, they cruised around Athens with the wind intheir hair, eventually taking a romantic stroll through the local BotanicGardens. Marianne realized they had a lot more in common now than they did inthe past. Marcus had also been married and divorced, and he now had a grown sonof his own. So, needless to say, that first date was like a fairy tale for Marianneand Marcus.

After that, the two were inseparable, spending every wakingminute they could together. Marianne even brought Marcus along with her on worktrips as her assistant, so together they traveled to exotic locations likeChina and Ecuador over the next year. So, things got incredibly serious betweenthe two, and while there were some hiccups along the way, Marcus claimed thetwo were deeply in love. But Marianne's sister Aya sensed there was trouble inparadise. To Aya, she still saw the 17-year-old kid they knew back in college,the playboy who wasn't capable of fully settling down or giving Marianne whatshe needed.

"It's so interesting because I know people get olderand mature, and I guess change if you want to use that word, but do they, youknow what I'm saying? Some characteristics and some qualities I feel like areso deeply embedded, it is so hard to change those. And I do think peopledefinitely have the ability to change, 100%, but do they change exactly?Yep." And you know, coming from a small town where I went to school withpeople whose parents also went to school with my parents because we all justgrew up in the same town, if you were to ask my parents, they would say no,people don't change because the offspring tended to not fall far from the treeand ended up being like, if I said, 'Oh, this kid's kind of mean,' one of myparents would say, 'Well, their dad was kind of mean.' So, so funny. So thatmakes sense."

And Aya, Marianne's sister, might not have been alone inthis because even Marcus's now-adult son, Carson, claimed that his father had aJekyll and Hyde personality that only those closest to him saw. So even hisadult son was kind of like, 'Yeah, my dad's not all he's cracked up to be.'Carson claimed there were moments when Marcus could turn on those he loved. Hecould become angry, sometimes even violent, and he blamed a lot of thosebehaviors on his father's inability to kick his nasty cocaine habit that hestill had, according to Carson. He warned Marianne about it at one point whenthey started dating, so Marianne comes into the picture and his adult son islike, "Hey, you know my Dad loves cocaine." But perhaps Marianne onlywanted to see the best in her new partner. That's okay.

So if the couple was having any glaring issues, they weren'tapparent when they spent the day together on May 11th, 2019. That morning, Mariannetexted Marcus asking if he knew anyone with a pool. She felt the urge tocelebrate and swim; the college year had just ended, all of the finals had beengraded, and Marianne was ready to blow off some steam of her own. So Marcusinvited her down to Milledgeville for the day and suggested they grab somedrinks around town. They got some brunch with mimosas, then did a little bitmore bar hopping before ending up at the local Country Club for a few moredrinks. So they've now moved on to the country club, and it's at this pointthat Marcus's friend, who he texted to see if they could use his pool, he was69-year-old Clark Kell, finally got back to him. Clark was a former psychologistturned yoga instructor. He had a pool at his house in Milledgeville, and hetold the couple they were more than welcome to come over that evening to useit. And I'm not sure what time Marcus and Marianne got to Clark's house, but Ido know that Marcus and swimming pool Clark spent the first several hours athis place just jamming. Marcus was on the drums and Clark was on the accordion,while Marianne just kind of watched on.

How old are they all again? They're in their 40s. Okay, justliving the life. They're living the life, no judgment, nothing wrong with that.So while they're there, they consumed some more beers, they even smoked alittle bit of marijuana, and eventually it seemed like a dip in the pool was nolonger part of the equation. The only reason I ask is because I'm 29, and ifI'm out past 9:00 these days, it is my bad time. Yeah. Marcus said he and Mariannewere thinking of calling it a night until a new thought dawned on him. He askedClark if he had any acid they could do. Oh my gosh. And Clark tells him hedoesn't have acid, but he does have some ecstasy, which was intriguing enoughto get the couple to stay for a few more hours. So Marcus claimed all three ofthem—so this is Clark, Marianne, and Marcus—took the drugs, and from there,things started to get a little fuzzy. They had already consumed a lot ofalcohol, maybe some marijuana, but there were certain events from that nightthat Marcus was unable to shake.

So by 9:00 p.m., Marcus and Marianne had been in theabove-ground hot tub for some time, while Clark allegedly stayed in theswimming pool most of the night. Okay. At that point, Marcus claimed he got outof the water to go find some firewood; they were ready to get out and warm upby the fire before calling it a night. So Marcus hops out, he grabs a towel,and he turns to venture towards the woods behind Clark's house. According toMarcus, that's when Marianne sort of begged him not to leave her alone.Allegedly, the words she used were, "Baby, get back in the water with meright now."

Marcus says that she seemed a little scared but thought itwas just the drugs talking, that maybe Marianne was feeling a bit paranoid frombeing under the influence of it all. So he tells her, "You're going to befine, I'll be gone just a few minutes, okay?" But when he wanders outthere, he seemingly loses all sense of time. Oh great, he's not sure how longhe's gone for, but when he comes back, firewood supposedly in hand, he noticesa strange hush has fallen over the backyard. So he calls Marianne's name, butthere's no answer, and as he gets closer, he realizes Marianne slumped down inthe hot tub, her mouth and nose are under the water. Marcus claimed that's whenhe dragged Marianne out of the above-ground hot tub and onto the deck to tryand perform CPR, except while doing so, he inadvertently dropped her and lefther with a huge gash on her forehead.

Now, Clark supposedly gets out of the pool at this point andstarts to panic, with Marcus even asking if they should call 911, exceptaccording to Clark, Marcus says, "No, no, I think she'll be fine."Oh, okay, no, she's not fine. It isn't until 1:00 a.m., that's 3 hours later,that Clark Haindell finally phones 911 to say that his friend has drowned inhis hot tub. How do you—how—how do you wait 3 hours? I guess they are on drugs,so maybe they wanted to wait until some of the drugs went away or they soberedup a little bit. Uh, I don't know, maybe that's what it is. I mean, I don'tthink it's chill when you're doing illegal drugs and then something bad happensand you're like, "Well, the last people we want to call are thepolice," so I guess I can understand that. Also, what's more important?Someone's life. Someone's life. But when you're on drugs, are you thinkingabout that, right? I don't know. I've never dropped acid, so I'm not the acidexpert. If any of you out there have dropped acid, feel free to enlighten us.In my acid days, I always called 911, I am sure. Yep.

So when the police arrive at around 1:20 a.m., they findthat Clark and Marcus are both still trying to perform CPR on Marianne. It'sbeen 3 hours. The thing is, when EMTs tell them to step aside so they can help Marianne,they're quickly able to assess that she's been dead for at least 2 hours bythis point. Now, there's a few other reasons why police just find this entirescene unsettling when they show up.

While they're claiming that Marianne died from drowning,they're also seeing a lot of blood at the scene, and not just the blood from Marianne'shead wound. They also discovered a pair of eyeglasses on the shallow end of thepool that also had blood on and next to them. So if he drops her while takingher on the deck, how are there glasses with blood in the hot tub? Mhm. Andthere appeared to be two puddles of blood on the grass near the swimming pool.Yeah, there shouldn't be any blood. So to me, this says Marianne was bleedingoutside the proximity of getting her out of the jacuzzi and onto the deck, likethere's more blood around this crime scene. Plus, in some accounts that I read,they also said all three of the people were naked when police arrived. Now,this was just some people reported this, some people didn't, but it's just toadd into the weirdness of the situation.

So once EMTs declared Marianne dead, it's then that Marcusadmits to police that the three of them were doing drugs that evening, but thedrugs were so unexpectedly strong that they hindered his ability to rememberthe events leading up to Marianne's death. So he's like, "I'm not reallysure. I was in the woods, but something happened in the woods. I can'tremember. I got the firewood, I came back." And police aren't reallybuying Marcus's firewood alibi because they look around and there had alreadybeen a huge pile of wood stacked near the fire pit. So why would he need to goget more wood? Plus, it had rained earlier that day, so anything Marcus wouldhave gone out into the woods to collect would have been a lot wetter and justharder to light than the pile that Clark already had on hand. It's hard though,because you also have to realize, I don't know, I mean, depending on how manydrugs they took and how under the influence they were, I mean, that's going toaffect a lot. He could have just not even seen the wood and been like, "Igot to go get me..." Look, Payton and I are not the drug experts. You guysare definitely going to have to chime in on the comments a little bit, um, onsocial media. But yeah, I'm not sure.

So police are like, "Okay, listen, Marcus, if you weregoing out to get wood, why would you need to get wood? There was already woodhere, it was really wet out there." And so Marcus is like, "Okay, yougot me. I actually wasn't going into the woods to get more firewood." Hesaid he actually went out into the woods to reenact a scene from a movie calledThe Last Shaman. In the movie, the lead protagonist partakes in a series ofstrange rituals while high on drugs, and Marcus said he wanted a moment to tryit for himself. So he went out into the woods, he dug a hole, and he laid downin it to recreate the feeling of being buried alive.

What? Why? This what he do in the movie? He claimed he hadno idea how long he was out there for, he'd lost all sense of time, but when hecame back, Marianne was no longer alive. So now the firewood story has kind offallen by the wayside. Well, the firewood story was way better than that story.The other thing that's not adding up is if nothing incriminating was going onhere, then why did the two men wait so long to dial 911? Well, it turns outMarcus wasn't exactly a model citizen to begin with. At the time, he wasactually on probation for illegally selling marijuana and carrying other drugslike cocaine and methamphetamine. Whether or not he was responsible for Marianne'sdeath, this wasn't a good look for him, and he knew it. Plus, he and Clark keptinsisting Marianne was still breathing right up until the time the policearrived.

So when cops go to question Clark, he maintains that henever got in the hot tub that night. He stayed in the shallow end of the pool,which was about 50 feet away from where Marianne was. But the police know theyaren't getting straight answers from either of the men, especially not with thetwo of them standing there looking at each other to confirm their answers. Soofficers decide to separate them for more questioning.

They put Marcus in the back of a squad car while theyinstructed Clark to go stand on his porch. Only at this point Clark seemsantsy, maybe even a little agitated. He keeps wandering around his propertydespite the fact that police have told him many times to stay put. Like, thisis a crime scene, someone has died here, he needs to just stand. Finally, adeputy is assigned to keep an eye on Clark, who's been relegated to his frontporch, to make sure he doesn't tamper with the crime scene in any way. But whenthat deputy receives a phone call and wanders off for a second, Clark uses theopportunity to do the unthinkable.

It's around 3:00 a.m. when another police officer goeslooking for Clark to ask if he has any idea where Marianne's purse might be;they want to check her identification. Only, they realize Clark isn't wherethey left him. The guard had taken off on a phone call, and he's no longer onthe front porch. That's when a blast rings out from inside the home. One quickgunshot, and then silence. Officers rush into Clark's home, guns pointed, readyto go to battle. Like, why? We're outside combing this crime scene, and thenall of a sudden, a gunshot rings out. He shot himself. But when they getinside, they find Clark Hindell dead in the bathroom and a handwritten suicidenote in the kitchen. The letter read, "I don't know what happened with Marianne,but it was on my watch." It went on to apologize to Marianne's family andfriends, and then quickly instructed his own next of kin on how to handle hispossessions. But nowhere in the letter did Clark take responsibility for Marianne'sdeath.

Now, while the police were dealing with their massivemistake, I mean, imagine the heat they're going to get when it's found out thatsomeone took their own life at a crime scene while cops were already therewalking around. A lot of legal battles, a lot of internal battles. It's notgoing to be good. They really probably should have never taken their eyes offClark, who was already acting a little weird, acting a little agitated. Eventhe Sheriff, Bill Massie, agreed it was a huge violation of their policy andprocedures. That's unlucky. So despite everything that happened, a few otherofficers take Marcus down to the station for questioning because they stillhave a murder on their hands, and Marcus has yet to learn, at this point, thathe didn't just lose one close companion that night; he lost two. They took himbefore the suicide had happened.

So while he's in the interrogation room, an officer gets acall and then breaks the news to him. And if you watch the clip of Marcusreceiving this news, it's actually pretty distressing. Marcus gets out of hisseat and starts rolling around on the floor, in what appears to be genuineheartache. First, Marianne has died and no one knows what's happened, and thenhe gets this news. We'll put it in both the podcast and YouTube. He tellspolice that he never in a million years would have guessed that Clark wouldhave done something like die by suicide. I mean, this is a lot for anyone tohandle in one night.

But Marcus also uses this information to his advantage in away. He starts questioning what had happened in that timeframe when he was inthe woods, buried underground. Just how convenient that he was the one that wasgone in the woods and his friend was the one that was there, and he just tookhis own life. He starts saying to the police, "I don't know what happenedin that hot tub while I was in the woods." He starts wondering aloud,saying maybe Clark did something to be guilty of after all if it was worthtaking his own life over. In fact, he's quick to pitch his own theory of whathappened. Of course, he is.

He thinks that while he was off in the woods, Clark mighthave gotten in the hot tub with Marianne. Perhaps there was a disagreement orhe made a move on her, which led him to drown Marianne. It's a theory thatpolice have considered as well. After all, it's not every day that a witnessturned person of interest in a case then dies by suicide before they can evenbe brought in for questioning. But there's a problem. Any evidence or DNA thatmight have indicated there was some sort of inappropriate behavior on Clark'spart would have been washed away in the hot tub, so they weren't going to getany confirmation that way. Which is what gets them looking into Clark Kell'sbackground. And here's what they learn.

Apparently, Clark had his license to practice psychologyrevoked two years prior. So back in 2017, this was after a female patient toldthe state licensing board that Clark had given her marijuana and tried topursue a sexual relationship with her. Dude's into drugs. Yes, but Millvillewas a tiny community. A lot of people in town knew Clark and had nothing butkind things to say about him, including the sheriff, Bill Massie, who had a lotof sympathy for Clark, saying he'd lost his six-year-old son years prior anddealt with a lot of depression himself. Sheriff Massie believed that Clarktruly wasn't involved with Marianne's death, that it was possible he took hisown life because he was just so distraught over her dying at his house and onhis watch.

So by the afternoon of May 12th, the question remained: Did Mariannedrown on her own in that hot tub, perhaps from the cocktail of drugs andalcohol that she'd consumed over the course of the day, or was foul playinvolved after all? So that same day, Sheriff Massie's office gets a phone callfrom someone who just heard the news about Marianne Shockley's death. It's afemale who says she's an ex-girlfriend of Marcus Lillard's and she knows darnwell what he's capable of.

So this girl learns about Marianne's death and it's like,"Hey, if Marcus was there, I need to talk to you." So the woman comesdown to the station to give police a statement and she admits Marcus had athing for choking his lovers during intercourse. Okay. In fact, she claimedthat in the close to 100 times that she and Marcus had been intimate, 30 ofthose times involved consensual choking. But sometimes it would get to thepoint where she would lose consciousness. So investigators go back to Marcus,wondering, "Is this true?" And Marcus doesn't deny it. Top of FormHe says, sure, but again.It was always consensual, and when it came to Marianne, Marcus said they hadonly tried it once in the past, but Marianne told him she didn't like it. Hesays that was that; Marcus never put his hands around her neck again.

So for now, police only have Marcus' word to go off of. Thatis until the following afternoon on May 13th when they get Marianne's autopsyreport back, and the medical examiner's determination says that Marianne diedas a result of asphyxia due to strangulation. Okay, that manner of death isbest classified as a homicide. So she didn't drown; she was choked. But it'shard because he's just going to blame it on his friend, right? So she didn'tdrown after all, and they pointed to several things on Marianne's body thatsupported their summary. Marianne had broken blood vessels in her eyes,bruising on her face, neck, torso, arms, and legs. They also stated that therewere internal injuries to the neck that were consistent with manualstrangulation.

So with this information, police go back to Marcus that dayto try and get more out of him. They tell Marcus, "Look, we know that shedied by strangulation, so we need you to tell us what really happened before wearrived on the scene." And Marcus now realizes the police have their mindmade up; they are honing in on him, whether he's guilty or not. So it's timefor him to lawyer up, and by the end of the day on May 13th, 2019, MarcusLillard is arrested. He's later charged with reckless conduct, aggravatedassault, involuntary manslaughter, and felony murder. It's so interesting. I'msurprised they arrested him because I feel like they don't have much evidence.Yeah, it's like, well, the other suspect because a girlfriend says he likeschoking. I'm not saying he's innocent or guilty because I don't know yet, butis there enough evidence to arrest him? I'd probably say no. Let me tell youhow the trial goes.

Okay, so for the next three years, and this is largely dueto Covid-19, that's the downside. That's hard, having a trial that goes threeto five years. That's ridiculous. So Marcus was held in jail without bond as heawaited his trial. By this point, police had fully investigated Clark Hindeland were no longer considering him a suspect but only a witness in the crimesagainst Marianne Shockley.

So Marcus's first day in court finally came around in Aprilof 2022. The theory put forth by the prosecution was that Marcus and Mariannemay have engaged in sex in the hot tub that evening, during which Marcusstrangled Marianne, maybe even unintentionally killing her. And while thedefense argues there's no way to prove that Marcus and not Clark was the one tostrangle her that evening, the prosecution says they do have some prettyincriminating evidence that Marcus had tried to cover the entire thing up.

So on that fateful night, Marcus and Clark obviously didn'tcall the police until 1:00 a.m. And remember when EMTs got there, they saidthat it appeared as though Marianne had been dead for at least two hours. Well,Marcus had a friend who was a respiratory therapist, and they had no problemsitting in front of the jury to say Marcus texted them at about 11:00 p.m. thatnight in a panic.

Marcus was asking how to administer CPR and revive someonewho wasn't breathing, but remember he and Clark tell police they waited to call911 because they thought Marianne was breathing until the time the EMTs arrive.Interesting. However, this wouldn't be quite enough to sway the jury alone. AsI said before, Marcus was on probation for another charge at the time.

So while it's extremely irresponsible, his defense arguesthat's not the reason why he avoided involving the authorities for so long. Andit certainly didn't help that all three people were under the influence ofdrugs and alcohol. But the prosecution doesn't let up on Marcus. Not only didthey call to the stand the ex-girlfriend who reported the choking, but six ofMarcus's ex-lovers take the stand to say they had the same experience with him.He would choke them until they passed out. Like, once? Yeah, no, six differentpeople. That might be an issue. So two of the six say he did it until theypassed out, and then another said she had to tell Marcus more than once that itwas something she didn't like. So the word "consensual" is a bitblurred in this situation.

But there was another star witness who spoke out againstMarcus, and that was his own son, Carson. Carson said as soon as he heard thenews that Marann had died, he had no doubt that his father was to blame. Heargued that his father always had violent tendencies, particularly because ofhis cocaine addiction, and that he even warned Maranne about Marcus after theybegan dating. Yeah, the amount of drugs that this guy does is pretty wild.Well, and I also think it's important to note that Marcus did have cocaine inhis system the night Marianne died. And as it turns out, Marianne might haveseen the violent side of Marcus before. The prosecution also pointed to ajournal entry that was found in Marianne's bedroom after she died, and it spokeabout how she often chose the wrong men and acknowledged that Marcus was notright for her. But here lies the problem: there's no physical evidence to proveit was Marcus who killed Marianne. Everything is purely circumstantial. That'swhat I was saying. You're trying to convince a jury of this, so then they canput someone in jail for life or something? That is a 50/50 according to theevidence. I don't think that's—there's no way they do that.

So the prosecution was like hoping for DNA that there hadbeen sexual intercourse in the hot tub, but even then, he could have claimed itwas consensual and then he left in the woods, which gave the defense theopportunity to take one more shot at Clark Hindel, that he could have just aseasily gotten into the hot tub to make a move on Marianne while Marcus wasaway. But when she rebuffed his advances, maybe Clark got angry. To supportthis, they pointed to one detail on the autopsy: the fact that Marianne's hyoidbone was still intact.

Now, we've talked about the hyoid bone in other cases beforebecause usually it's the number one indicator that strangulation took place,but it's not always a guarantee. In fact, during Marcus's trial, the defenseasked the medical examiner, "Was it possible Marianne was strangled, butthe person who did it just was too old or maybe not strong enough to break thehyoid bone in the process?" And the medical examiner is like, "Yes,it's possible."

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And so they say, "Hey, this makes more sense for69-year-old Clark than us in our 40s." Yeah, to have done this, except aswe know, Clark wasn't the one on trial here. So when the jurors left todeliberate, they'd be choosing the fate of Marcus, and most of them felt therejust wasn't enough concrete evidence to confirm he was guilty. They could notsay, without a reasonable doubt, that Marcus Lillard had killed MarianneShockley. Yeah, it's too hard. It's even—I don't know what I think still.

So after 35 minutes of deliberating, they returned to findthe 44-year-old Marcus not guilty on all four of his charges. Okay, however,that did not mean that Marcus was leaving the courtroom as a free man. As Imentioned a few times, Marcus was on probation for a drug charge. So the judgepresiding over Marianne's murder case determined Marcus had still violated thatprobation, and now it was time to pay the price for that. She sentenced him tothree additional years in prison, which meant Marcus was whisked away inhandcuffs and returned to his cell. As of this recording, he is still servingtime behind bars. Surprised he didn't get out for their special on the MarianneShockley case.

In fact, they hired their own forensic pathologist to offera second opinion on Marianne's autopsy results, and what they found was, yes,it was possible that Marianne was strangled that night. But they reported,"A valid competing cause of death is sudden cardiac arrest due to mixeddrug intoxication, a lethal mix of MDMA, alcohol, and marijuana with acontribution from underlying heart disease." In addition, the pathologisttold 48 Hours if he was the one to file the report, there was no way he woulddeem this case a homicide in the first place.

So it's hard not to wonder, what did Clark Hindel see orknow about the evening Marianne died? Would Marcus Lillard's trial have gone alittle differently had Clark been alive? Would the evidence have been more thancircumstantial? Had one of the best and only witnesses not taken his own life?At the very least, would he have been able to defend himself, a right thatevery person of interest is entitled to? But without Clark, the mystery behindthat strange May night might never be fully solved. And that is the case of MarianneShockley.

That is rough because I don't know what he saw. I don't knowwhat he did or didn't do. We don't know anything. We literally have nothing. Ithink when you mix in drugs and alcohol and an underlying heart condition,people for sure pass away in hot tubs all the time because of heart conditions.Yeah, but why would he—you have to take into account why did he go in, shoothimself, do what he did, right? Maybe drugs. It could have been drugs. It couldhave been he saw something or it could have been he did something. We don'tknow, right? Or maybe—I think your best assumption is that he saw something,but then if he saw something, then you automatically assume that um, Marcus didit, yeah. And oh, I mean, according to the court cases, he didn't do it.

Also, you know, just to kind of play another side, havingsomeone die in a night full of drugs and alcohol and partying, that happens allthe time, but it's also traumatic. That's very traumatic if he was sitting inthe pool and had no idea that Marianne had died, totally. And so if he's beingtold that and you add in all the drugs and alcohol and the trauma of thatsituation, I do think it's enough. And did Marcus seem pretty sincere in theclips with the cops and so forth? When he found out that um, yeah, his frienddied? His friend had died, yes. I don't know. I don't know if we'll ever know.

Extremely sad that she passed away. And will—I don't. Butthen you want to say, never know why. Then you want to say, what are thechances that she passes away in the hot tub, yes, and the exact while someoneis sitting in the pool, and at the exact time that another person is buryinghimself in the woods? Like, it's just so weird.

So personally, I think there is probably foul play involved,but I—we will never—we'll never know who, how, or who, yeah. I just—we don'tknow. There's so—obviously, we could spin up a million theories, but there'sjust not good enough evidence to even narrow it down at all. This is definitelyone of those cases where you learn more about the case, and you're like, itgets worse than what you're like, I have no idea. It could have been either or.Accidents do happen, but so does murder, mhm. All right, you guys, that was ourcase, and we will see you next time with another episode.

I love it.

I hate it.

Goodbye.

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