Episode 15: Misook Wang

2 different documentaries, 2 different true crime stories, one woman....

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hey Deadly Beavers and Dudes. Today I have one from my favorite true crime series, Snapped. Ooh, this is our first snapped one I've seen. It is, I love Snapped. It's my favorite. I think I've said that before, probably say it again. Maybe a couple times. Yeah. So there have been hundreds of episodes of Snapped, and I'm pretty sure I've seen them all. And all the spin-offs, The Killer Couples, Behind the Bars, which actually comes up in this one. But some of them just stick out in your mind more than others, and this was one of those for me. So this is about Missook Wang. You can watch Snapped on Peacock. This is season 20, episode 7. That tells you how big it is. And it's still a pretty old one. So Missuk was born in South Korea in 1965, and her mother passed away when she was just two. Her father was unable to take care of her, so she was sent to live with relatives who really didn't treat her like one of their own. It's kind of being told as like a Cinderella story. Like she was put to work and stuff. But at 22, she met an American who was serving in Korea, Andy Nolan. And when he moved back to the US, she came back with him and they got married and had a daughter. Money was tight, and although Andy worked two full-time jobs and Misuk stayed home with their daughter, money became an issue as Andy refers to her as money hungry. He doesn't really specify other than she liked to spend more than he was making. Later on, it comes out a bit more what she was money hungry for. So after 10 years, they divorce, but it also appears that she was having an affair. Oh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Not spending all his money and having an affair.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

You can't do both. So she's not working. She's spending all his money, telling him it's not enough money and has an affair. She's she's a prize wife. For sure. For sure. So after the divorce, Missouk had to find work. Oh no thing. So she took to translate a translating job at a local call center, and she met Don Wang, who was also working at the call center, to put himself through college to get his PhD. Don was of Chinese descent and Missouk Korean. And apparently those two don't get along usually, but they hit it off. And when they got married in I guess that's 2003. They got married in 2033 for Sarah's notes, you guys. I think it's 2003. That sounds right. The celebration involved traditions from both cultures. Oh, I love that. So Don had a very close family, and his mom, Linda, was a very prominent member of the Chinese community, very well known. She also worked as an interpreter, but in Chicago for the government and high-profile companies. Don was her only son, and they were super close, especially after his parents divorced. She actually helped support him and Missouk and her daughter, and took to Missouk like a daughter. So Masouk finally had the mother that she had been missing for all of these years. Oh, that's nice. Many referred to them as more like BFFs than family. They used to shop together, go to spas together, casinos together. They sound like us. They do. I was thinking that too when I was watching it. And the Money Hungry Mizouk was in her element. Thanks to her mother-in-law, she had, and now we find out what she liked to spend the money on, designer clothes, expensive cars, and finally the money to live the life that she wanted. Linda also gave Mizouk the money to open a sewing and alterations business in Bloomington, Illinois. Wow. And in 2006, Mizouk gives birth to a son, much to Linda's delight, who now has her first grandchild, the grandson. Now in 2010, Linda met a man online named Larry Tider, and she fell in love. She was 69, and her and Larry got married in 2011. Aw, yay. But this is where this seemingly happy story goes horribly wrong. Oh no. Because you think everybody's happy now. Mizuka's got her money, Linda's got her love. But no. In Crest Hill, Illinois, on September 5th, 2011, around 8 p.m., Larry Tyder, and this is Linda's new husband, calls the police to report his 70-year-old wife, Linda, missing. She'd left for work early in the morning, but she was due back by 11 a.m. at the latest. And as the day got later and Larry tried to call her, she didn't answer or call him back, which was very unlike her. So investigators pull her phone records and find out that the last place her phone bounced off was Bloomington, which was where she had headed out to pick up a client to take them to Chicago. But there were no pings from her phone in the Chicago area indicating that she had never made it there. They tried to track down the client but had very little to go on. So they go and talk to everybody she knows in the Chinese community, but nobody has seen or spoken to her that day. And no one knew who she was meeting. But it wasn't unusual for her to meet clients and take them places if needed, especially if she was translating for them.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Right, yeah, she seemed very involved in the Chinese immigrant community.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

So they reach out to Don and Mizouk, who lived in Bloomington, but Don was out of town, and Mizouk said she'd been trying to contact Linda all day as well with no joy, and then she was worried that maybe one of these Chinese gangs had done something because Linda worked as a translator for the government in prisons sometimes. So sometimes she was translating for maybe a witness. Right. Yeah. Now Jenny, who's Linda's assistant, also had no idea where Linda was. And now everyone, including the Chinese community, she was so close to are out looking for her. Her son, Don, had been in California, and he comes back and expresses his concern at not being able to get hold of his mum. Because they spoke daily. He thinks the client she was meeting must have been a setup, and he's been leaving her voicemails aimed at the kidnappers. But not long after that, the phone is turned off. Oh no. So by September 12th, and she's been missing a week now, a waitress at one of the Chinese restaurants reports something peculiar that happened. She said a well-dressed woman came in and asked her if she spoke Chinese and asked her to make a phone call to Linda and tell her that she needed a ride to Chicago from Bloomington. So police pull the security cameras, obviously thinking this is the client, and they see that the well-dressed woman was Mizouk. Oh no. The waitress was able to tell them that the meeting was to be at a local grocery store. So they turn to the security cameras from that store and make a stunning discovery. They see Linda pull into the parking lot and another car pulls up next to her, which was Mizouk's car. Both women get out of their cars, and Mizouk can be seen screaming at Linda, who backs away from her and was trying to leave, but Mizouk would grab at her and stop her from leaving. Eventually they both get back into their own vehicles. Like it just stops. They just suddenly stop screaming and yelling and grabbing at each other, get in their vehicles and drive off. Which was really bizarre. So they bring Mizouk in for questioning and ask her when she last saw Linda. And she lies about seeing her in the parking lot because she said she hadn't seen her for four days before her disappearance. Whereas this was the day of the disappearance. While they're interviewing her, police are actually searching for home and the alteration shop. Which I thought was snicker. Like, do they have a search warrant? We don't know. Now in the dumpster behind her shop, they find IDs and credit cards cut up that belong to Linda and bloody clothing.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Wow, that does not look good, y'all. Not at all.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So they confront Mazouk and she begins to talk. She says she really loved Linda. Linda was like a mother to her. She even called her mum and she just wanted to make her happy. But the marriage to her son was coming in between them because the marriage was on the rocks. She thought that her husband was having an affair with Linda's assistant Jenny. She had told Linda about it and was hurt when Linda seemed happy about the relationship. She had arranged a parking lot meeting to try and get Linda on side to save her marriage, but it didn't go well. This is what she's telling the police her excuse for this video. Linda had followed Mizouk back to the sewing shop after the confrontation and they continued arguing, but it turned violent. Mizouk said Linda began hitting her in the head and they ended up tumbling to the pavement and trying to strangle each other. She claimed she was fighting for her life, but given Linda's age, Linda was the first to succumb. Mizouk then says she tried to save her using mouth to mouth, but once she realized she couldn't do anything, she hides the body in the store overnight, and the next day buried her in a nature preserve miles away. Wow. She takes the copse to where the body lays. So yeah, real turnaround in that story.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

I mean, Linda literally bought her this whole ass business, and she kills her outside and hides her body in the building of the business that she bought for her. Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

So once exhumed and given to the coroner for an autopsy, Mizouk is arrested and charged with murder, much to the shock of her daughter and Linda's husband. And in 2012 it goes to court. But was it murder or self-defense? It turns out that Don is not having an affair with Jenny or anybody. But he was planning to divorce Mizouk due to her lust for wealth and status. So back to that money hungry, just like husband number one. Right. She was actually charging up cards he couldn't pay for. She had also been arrested for shoplifting. Oh my goodness. Which embarrassed Don and Linda, and they actually refused to bail her out because they were so embarrassed. Wow. So once released, she was so mad at them that she went and cleared out the joint checking account. Because that's what you do when somebody won't bill well. Right. In prison, Mizooka wrote letters in Korean to her friends, thinking that police would not understand what was in them. Police aren't that stupid.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Her mother-in-law was a translator for the prison.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Hello. She wrote about Linda's life insurance policy and that Don was the beneficiary. So if Linda died and Don got it, she would get half of it in any potential divorce settlement. Huh-mm. There we have our motive. So she set up the call for the meeting to set the wheels in motion. The medical examiner explains to the jury that in order to kill somebody by strangulation, you have to keep holding the neck after the person loses consciousness for quite some time. So the self-defense theory is proven wrong. Because literally, if you're fighting somebody back, once they pass out, you've achieved what you needed to achieve.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

You don't have to keep losing their neck. Yeah, and Linda was a 70-year-old woman. And like I'm not saying that she was all frail. Like obviously she still led an active life, but how much of a threat can a 70-year-old woman really be? Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

It also comes out that when this occurred, and she killed her mother-in-law, her five-year-old son was sitting in the car the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

This detail, oh, when I heard this detail, I was so disgusted and horrified. I could not stand it. The five-year-old son in the car as she is strangling his grandmother and that she's old enough to understand what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah. And she knew, like this was obviously premeditated, and she took him along for the ride, knowing exactly what was gonna fucking happen.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

So Mizouk, of course, denies any premeditation. She sticks by her story. She attacked me, and it was self-defense. So after two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury comes back with a guilty guilty verdict of first degree murder. Linda's husband thought she should have got manslaughter, and her daughter stood by her story that it was self-defense. She didn't believe her mom could be could kill her grandma. That must be hard to get your head money up.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, I mean that would be a hard pill to swallow, but look at the evidence.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah. So she was sentenced to 55 years in prison. She has appealed her conviction, and Don has custody of their son, though the siblings haven't seen each other since. No, so sorry. I guess probably because her daughter sided with her. Mm-hmm and Don obviously didn't. You killed my mum, right? Yeah, bitch. Right. Right. Now, as if that story wasn't bizarre enough, and I feel like we ran through that pretty quick, but I mean let's let's pause there and tell me that was the part that you received. And I knew about it then, right? Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so what do you think of Mizouk right now?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I think that she's a murderer and all she cares about is money. That's that's what I think.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Yeah. We know that she's liked money from the start with the first husband, with the second husband, and she saw that all slipping away. So it's a total billionable story. If if Linda dies and he inherits the money and he's gonna divorce her anyway, and she gets half, she can carry on living that lifestyle, but she probably would have blown through it. And then had to find another husband. Right. Another another cash cow. Alright, well, if you're ready to have your mind blown. I'm ready. On Prime Video, you can watch Snapped Behind Bars, and this one is from 2021. It is season one, episode two, and we are eight years into Mizouk's sentence. And they're interviewing two people. They're interviewing Mizouk and her former lover, Barton McNeil. Ooh. Barton McNeil is also in prison. So they're interviewing two people behind bars. He was convicted of killing his own three-year-old daughter by suffocation, but has always claimed that Mizouk did it. No. Whereas you could see Tinan's face. I'm getting cold chills too. So this is what happened. Barton McNeil goes to wake up his three-year-old daughter and finds her grey and cold in her bed. So he dials Nun 911, and when paramedics arrive, they're unable to resuscitate her. They declare that Christina died of natural causes due to a history of asthma. Barton starts to notice some weird things, like there's a knocked over fan on the floor of the bedroom. The window screen is unlatched. The plants outside have been trampled outs right outside the window, making him think that somebody broke in and murdered Christina. So he calls 911 again, and he tells Detective that he is pretty sure that his daughter was murdered at the hands of his violent ex-girlfriend, Miss Oaknol. Shut up. They had been in a relationship for four years. They met while she was still married to Andy. Remember how we said he was working two jobs and trying to support her, but she was having an affair? Right. This was the affair. So she was still married to Andy, and Barton was still married, and his wife was pregnant with Christina. So they both broke up their marriages to be together, and everything's fine at first. And Mizuk also had her daughter from her marriage with Andy that she took to go live with Barton. However, Mizouk becomes restless with Barton. She starts accusing him of cheating, which often happens when somebody cheats on bare wife with you. You're then constantly like, what? Are you cheating on me? Because you didn't all the, you know, potholing kill whack and all that. Yeah, right. So she accused him of cheating and she had a violent temper. And she was made to attend anger management classes after she threw bottles at him and smashed his computer on the ground and even tried to push him while he was carrying Christina.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

So now we're really getting an insight into this woman's past, right? She was charged with domestic assault. So this is all in her history, in her criminal record, which wasn't even brought up in that previous trial. So domestic assault, are we seeing a theme here? Right. So Barton ended things with Mizouk and was due to testify against her, but she was stalking him, calling him, going to his work, going through his garbage. What the fuck? Like she couldn't let it go. So he just he agrees to have one final meal out with her to finalize their separation. And there was a very bad public altercation in the restaurant. And Mizuk, for some reason, was desperately also trying to see Christina. He didn't have Christina with him. She was upset about that. He said, No, I'm gonna go pick Christina up from her mom after this, but I just needed to come and talk and tell you it's over, we're never getting back together. Never, ever, ever. So she follows him when he goes to get Christina. Later that night, he puts Christina to bed, and Mizouk started calling him to ask about Christina. Apparently he put her to sleep around 10.30, but around 12.30, he hears voices in Christina's room. So he goes to check on her and she's wide awake. So he puts her back into bed and says, No, honey, you gotta go sleep. And then the next morning finds her dead in her bed. He suspects that Mizouk came through the window and smothered Christina in her bed. Literally to get back at him. That is the worst thing I've ever heard in my life. Right. So investigators find cobwebs on the window, and that makes them think that nobody could have come through the window, because these cobwebs would have been broken. They bring Mizouk in for questioning about Christina, but she's only interested in talking about her relationship with Barton. They asked her to take a polygraph test, which she fails, but they come to the conclusion that it was the language barrier. So they release her. Wow. This person that speaks such perfect English, she's a translator. Wow. Right? They bring Barton back in and he's absolutely livid. He's like, I know she did it. She's got a violent history, she's threatened, she was interested in Christina that day. And he asks them to get search warrants for her car and her house. Literally, you have to watch these interviews with him because he acts like we expect every parent to act in these things. In the interview room, he can't sit still. He is so mad. He's like, she killed my daughter. You need to go prove it. It's not up to me to prove it. Go get the words. I'm telling you she did it. Why are you not listening to me? So once an autopsy is done, it is suggested that Christina may have been sexually abused. Oh my god. As well as smothered. So that's when they really start looking at Barton. The autopsy also suggests that she died at 10.30 when Barton says he saw her at 12.30. And Barton is arrested for Christina's murder. Wow. Mizouk is then able to go to her domestic violence hearing with no witness because Barton's been arrested. Wow. Barton's defence teen then starts just fighting a losing battle. They request a second autopsy, but Christina's mother's already had the body committed. And their whole defense is that Mizouk did it, but the judge does not allow any mention of Mizouk in the trial. Wow. At the same time, Mizouk's daughter is found with bruises. And when questioned, she says, Yeah, my mom hits me. She spikes me with a wooden paper towel holder. And there was one time that she was so angry with me, she held my nose and said, What happened to Christina could happen to you. Oh my god. This is the daughter that defended her in the Linda murder trial. Wow. So Mizouk is charged with domestic battery to a minor and is sentenced to six months in jail. This is all on her history. I'm speechless right now. And you love this. All of this information is not allowed to be mentioned at Barton's trial. He's not allowed to say that she had to go to anger management. He's not allowed to say that she abused her own child. Or that she told her child what happened to you, Christina, it could happen to you. He has a bench trial, which means no jury, right? The bench trial lasted over six days, and he was found guilty of first-degree murder, and he is sentenced to life. Barton attempts to appeal the case several times, but only manages to get his sentence reduced from life to a hundred years with parole after 50. He actually told the court, My wrongful conviction is going to cause the death of someone else.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

And he wasn't wrong. Wow. So a new Defence team takes Barton's case after Mizouk is arrested for Linda's murder. And they made a very good point, which we have made to each other before. What is the likelihood of two killers meeting each other and having a relationship? Right, right. It's much more likely that one person did both murders than each committed a murder.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

But that obviously is not evident. She can't technical. Right. So they ask for new DNA testing to be done on the bed sheets in the room. And Mizuk's DNA is all over it. Hair consistent with an Asian female is found on the pillowcase. And new forensic scientists look at the autopsy report and they say they don't believe she was sexually abused. It is the difference in the forensics and how far it's advanced. What could have indicated sexual abuse back then is now considered to possibly not be sexual abuse. It's something that looks like it. Right. I don't know if I worded that correctly, but I I understand. Right. And and these sheets have like literally been wrapped up in evidence lockers for however many years, but her DNA was still all over it. So they now don't believe she was sexually abused. They also found more witnesses, including a family member of Mizooks, who said Mizooks told then she killed Christina. Oh my god. In 2025, after three years of review, the courts have denied Barton's request to reconsider evidence against him and grant him a new trial. Wow. As of right now, Barton McNeil is still incarcerated on a murder conviction for his own daughter. Lizo claims from behind bars that there was no evidence of first-degree murder on Linda. But she doesn't have much else to say about the murder of Linda. And that varies from her previous story. And she also denies having anything to do with the passing of poor Christina. But she also states that she does not think that Barton did it.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Hmm.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

And I did look into why they turned down his appeal. Mm-hmm. So the reason they gave for not granting him a new trial, it says evidence that does not match a defendant's DNA does not automatically exonerate the defendant. This is what the judge is saying. Even if we were to conclude the DNA evidence from the bed sheet and the hair evidence were newly discovered evidence, when considered with the trial evidence, they are not of such conclusive character that they would probably change the result of a trial. The judge also says that Linda Tyder and Christina McNeil's death were too dissimilar to introduce Mizouk into evidence. Ultimately, Mizouk murders Tyder in a separate offense under factually distinct circumstances. 13 years after the murder of Christina. Therefore, this evidence is not material and does not support the defendant's claim of actual innocence. So because she didn't murder Linda till 13 years later, it can't be considered because it wasn't her character before.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

I mean, yeah, I see what the judge is saying, but like you also you wouldn't allow anything into the trial. So there's that's why there's nothing to connect, because you wouldn't allow anything about Ms. Hook in.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

So the appellate court further agreed with the trial court that written affidavits from relatives of Ms. Hook claiming she admitted to killing Christina were new and material evidence, but unlikely inadmissible at a retrial and unlikely to reverse Neil McNeil's conviction.

SPEAKER_01 25:44

That's absolutely ridiculous. Just looking at it objectively as a person, as a citizen, that makes no sense.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

This poor guy.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah. So he has a three-year-old daughter who is dead, and he's serving life or a hundred years or whatever for the murder. He didn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

He knows who did it. He's got proof who did it. Nobody'll fucking listen.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I know yeah. Could you even you would never even would have guessed. When you told me, oh, wait until you hear about what else she did. I thought it was just gonna be like, oh, there was another husband that she stole money from. I never even considered that she would have murdered a three-year-old.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

She had a domestic violence against a minor charge against her own daughter who stuck up for her at the Linda trial.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Right. And this the whole sexual assault thing where they said that the little girl had been sexually assaulted. Like, I don't understand how they can say, oh, yes, she was, but oh wait, no, she wasn't after further investigation. Was she or wasn't she? It's like they're trying to get that to fit whether it was a man that did it or whether it was a woman that did it. And that's my point. That's what I'm getting to is like that means absolutely nothing because Miss Sook could be that sick. She may have sexually assaulted the spirit.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

And when they first said that there was evidence of sexual assault, I was like, oh my gosh, she didn't do that as well, did she? Right. But and I forget what they said, but it was compelling um in the documentary, but I don't know the exact words. But they did say that it in the 13 years since it happened, that it has come to light that there is certain things that look looked back then like they were sexual assault that they now know aren't.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

I just wonder if it's something that Miss Sook did on purpose to try and frame him.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Right. Yeah, that's another possibility. Yeah. But I mean, you you listen to the first story and you're like, God, this this woman's just cold because because Linda tried to help her in every way she could, and she's just money number. But then you listen to the anger management, the smash in the computers, the The abuse of her own daughter. The abuse of her own daughter, the threatening to kill her own daughter, killing a three-year-old to have it blamed on her, and then you're like, this woman is the fucking devil. Yeah, she's the devil. Yeah. So I really want to get, yeah, the majority of your feedback in the after show, because this is a real mind blower. Right?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

I'm yeah, I'm still processing it. The wheel is still turning.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

We may have to go have lunch and then come back and do it. We might have to show. Because that's why I wanted to do this one, because the stories we do, we like the ones that get more and more bizarre. But this is one that I was just like, what the fuck? And the fact that this poor dad is still sitting in jail, and there's all this evidence. That's who the injustice committees should be helping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Fucking Peter. Yeah, we need to give this guy like a pardon or something, because that's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

He probably didn't even get to go to the funeral or anything. Probably not. And I'm sure his ex-wife will blame Zambul. All right. Well, this does not make you join the membership for the after show. I swear nothing will. If you are not a member, sorry you won't get to hear the after show, but you will get to hear next week about the principal who hypnotized the school.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yes, and that's another absolutely wild and unbelievable one. I cannot wait to tell y'all this story about this absolute wacko.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

So that will be next week's episode. Tina will be leading that. I'll be the one that gets to give my input. In the background, gasping. Gasping and shucking and yes. Um, so yeah, either join us on the after show or join us next week for the principal who hypnotized the school. And it's not as lame as it sounds. There are deaths. Several. Not it's not, it's not that lame death. No, it seemed it it sounded lame to me. When you first said a principal that hypnotized the school, I was like, eh, is that really a good story? Right. You know, just hypnotized the school and made them all like do a funky dance or something. I'm like, whatever. Actually, he did. He did do that too. But then when when you were like, no, watch it, I was like, what the fuck? But at first, just the principle that hypnotized the school.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

And the really the most shocking thing about that case is believe it or not, not that he hypnotized people and people eventually died, but He got away with it. He he got a slap on the wrist. He got basically no punishment. But yeah, I'll tell you guys about it next week.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

Yes, tune in for that. It's gonna be a good one. Until then.