Verdict and Sentencing for Manslaughter

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You can also hit subscribe and Apple Podcasts, videos of our Thursday release episodes betweenween the Madness are available on YouTube and Spotify. We've got all the links in our episode notes Opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the Minds of Madness podcast Listener discretion is advised In nineteen fifty one, a British physician coined the term Munchhausen syyndrome, named after the eighteenth century aristocrat, known for telling elaborate lies He used it to describe a troubling pattern he was seeing in some of his patients Delliberately fabricated illnesses Not because they believe they were sick but because they needed others to believe they were. But the reasons behind the lies varied. Sometimes it was for attention Sympathy And sometimes Trol And in some cases, The deception lasted for years. Convincing family Friends and even medical professionals Which brings us to the summer of twenty twenty four, when thirty eight year old Casey Terry was found unresponsive in the basement of her grandparents' home in Highland, Utah. For nearly a decade, people around her believed she'd been battling a terminal illness. But what investigators uncovered in the days that followed suggested almost nothing about that story was true Join me now As we examine the death of Casey Terry A case built on deception Mipulation And a story so tangled that even investigators struggled to separate truth from fiction In the summer of twenty twenty four Mark Farnsworth was living with his elderly parents in Highland, Utah bedroom community about thirty miles south of Salt Lake City. He worked from home as a health insurance broker, which allowed him to care for them And for the previous four years, the home had also been shared with his thirty eight year old niece, Casey Terry A woman who required significant medical care herself She just needed help. She didn't have a driver's license, a car, and she had the medical condition and issues. and I'm the one that some point kind of took over helping her It's been almost nine years since Casey's family learned, she'd been diagnosed with terminal leukemia It was on top of a long list of other medical problems she'd reportedly been dealing with for most of her life, including being born with one kidney Most recently, she'd undergone a knee replacement because of severe arthritis. I'd say on average, we probably were at the emergency room in the hospital in the middle of the night, at least once a month, sometimes twice a month doing transfusions and things like that. And we got to the point where She'd text me in the middle of the night and I'd take her down to the hospital and we got kind of a routine where I'd say any idea how long you're going to be text me when you're done And three, four, five hours later, she'd text me and I'd go get her In addition to helping Casey with her medical needs, was also helping Casey find work I got her a job with my company. I'm a health insurance broker and certain times of the year every year compompanies that we work with, insurance companies, we do surveys for them We hired Casey to do those surveys. And then H plan was that when she had the second knee replacement, she was going to get licensed after she had recovered from the second knee replacement and then go to work as an agent. The arrangements seemed ideal Casey had the basement level of the house to herself job would allow her to work from home By the morning of Monday, august twelfth, twenty twenty four, that plan still appeared to be on track Mark saw Casey earlier that day in the kitchen while I was making my breakfast shake and she was doing the dishes and we're talking about her recovery from her knee placement and me she s Bet. More upbeat and Hopeful then I'd seen her in quite a while. After breakfast, Mark went upstairs to work Then, just before ten AM He noticed an unfamiliar vehicle parked outside the house He wasn't expecting anyone, but Casey often had visitors over So it didn't strike him as unusual. It wasn't until roughly twelve hours later, around nine PM that evening that something changed when Mark's father came into his office. At about nine o'clock, my dad came into the office. He said, I've been trying to get a hold of Casey. She's not calling me back. I haven't seen her all day I went downstairs to see if she was there Because of his mobility issues, Mark's father couldn't go downstairs to check on Casey himself So Merc went instead And when you walk into the door, the first thing you see is case is bed And I could see Casey on the bed. and I could tell she was in distress. She was sounded to me like she was drowning really struggling to breathe I'd never seen anything like it before. She was on her stomach and then rolling over to her side and then back onto her stomach, struggling to breathe He's just almost like thrashing around What as shocking as it was to see Casey clearly in distress. then noticed something that made the scene even stranger She wasn't alone Sitting calmly in a recliner beside her bed was a woman around Casey's age And then listen all. There was an older couple in the room too I ask how long Casey had been like that And I can't remember exactly, but I had the impression it was a long time. I said I'm going to call an ambulance As I could see, Casey was in a bad way. To Mark, this didn't look like a woman peacefully receiving end of life care It looked like someone in act of medical distress So when he said he was calling nine hundred eleven He expected urgency inststead He got resistance from the woman sitting in the recliner. She In a raised voice said, Casey does not want to go to the hospital. She has a DNR Well, I questioned that and that's when I called Kylie. Because if Casey would have had a DNR, Kylie would have known about it Kyie was Casey's older sister. And what Mark heard next chang the situation I told her that Casey's in trouble and I feel like I need to call the paramedics Does she have a DNR? Kylie said no. and then I didn't even know who Megan was at that time. I told' somebody here. And then I asked Megan who she was and that's when she told me Get her out of there She's there to kill Casey the moment Kylie heard the name Megan, she knew exactly who Merc was talking about It was Casey's former roommate, forty seven year old Megan Sundwal Kylie This wasn't an unexpected visitor sitting at her sister's bedside claiming to have power of attorney for years She feared Meghgan pososted danger to her sister Whatever was really happening in that basement Mark wasn't going to debate it any longer and called nine hundred and eleven. The older couple in Casey's bedroom were Meghan's parents, Lee and Renee Randall D In Casey had known them for almost a decade Close enough, that Lise said she viewed him as a father figure we've known Casey for Ten years, eleven years She came to our house for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving. Birthday parties, we knew we were well She sounded the closest thing she had to her dad, so she called me dad. Casey had lost her mother at just four years old and then her father in twenty eleven A few years later, she met Meghan Sundwell And the two eventually became roommates Throughout the relationship, Casey also became close to Meghan's parents Lee and Renee Randall, who treated her like family Casey was diagnosed with terminal cancer They believed they were supporting her through the final chapter of her life As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, L even offered spiritual blessings on multiple occasions. Fast forward to the evening of august twelfth It was around seven thirty PM when Meghan called the Randals with trouble in news She called and said, Casey wasn't doing well. asked if we could come over. She says, I think I think this could be it. She's just not doing well ase she was not doing well and that she thought she was because we all thought she had cancer. We thought this was going be when she was going home. Believing Casey was nearing the end of her life The Randals arrived shortly after nine that evening We went to Casey's house. Casey was lying on the bed on her side. Her breathing was rattling I don't know how to describe it. I call it a death rattle. It was like it was very labored and very kind of jag that it was' smooth and even Yeah next time I've heard that rahing is is from somebody that was going to die soon Megan, a registered nurse filled them in on what was happening According to her, she'd arrived at Casey's around ten in the morning But around noon, she said Tase's condition suddenly began to deteriorate rapidly Sheays she went to the bathroom. didn't come out for a long time. She went and knocked the door and said, Kase, you okay? And she said, yeah, I'll be out in a minute. She went back to the bedroom. This is what Meghan said. And she said, I waited, waited, and she didn't come out. so I went and knocked on the door again. She wasn't really answering, so I went in and had to help her get back into bed a little while later She just kind of went to sleep and then started breathing really like this. She told us she had called the This doctor. had called the doctor, left a message and told him what was going on that she had not heard back We didn't talk about calling nine hundred onle Megan had told us that there was a DNR, she did not want to be resuscitated And it wasn't too long after that mark came down and asked what was going on. Kalie and Renee The explanation made sense They believed Casey was terminally ill He believed the hospice doctor had been contacted And they believed There was a valid DNR in place Then Mark came downstairs. And everything changed According to Lee dor. Mark stepped out to call nine hundred and eleven. Meghgan quickly picked up the phone and called Casey's sister Kylie. So she told Kylie and I couldn't hear the other end, but I heard her tell Kylie Casey's not doing too well Howy did you know? And I don't know what was said, but then Megan said, Excuse me. like she was surprised. And then Megan hung up and said, we need to go. She said, Kylie said we need to leave. We're not welcome here. And that if we didn't leave right away, she was going to call the police. we said, oK, we're left Meghan and her parents left the house immediately Minutes later. Lone peak police officers and paramedics arrive to find Casey completely unresponsive in her bed But it was what the police found near Casey's bed. this case in a very different direction An empty insulin syringe. This message is sponsored by Raycon Well, it's been great weather here so far and I've been out on my bike a lot, and I gotta tell you that Raycon esssential open ear buds have become a must on my rides. I can hear cars, people, everything around me, and I still have my music. 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I'm wearing them everywhere, to the gym, on walks, doing stuff around the house. They don't fall out and they don't get uncomfortable. Raycon has over three million customers and the sound quality just as good as the way more expensive brands. And if you don't like them, they have a thirty day guarantee. The essential open earbuds are the perfect addition to your everyday routine. Go to buyraycon d. com slash Minds of Madness Open to get fifteen percent off. Thanks, Raycon for sponsoring ' been rushed to the hospital Doctors discovered Casey's blood sugar level was only fourteen milligrams per deciliter Cext Anything below fifty five is considered hypoglycemic If anything below forty is dangerously low. Doctors immediately pushed glucose through an IV, trying to bring Casey's levels back up But each time they did Something kept driving them back down again For three days, hospital staff fought to stabilize Casey, but she never regained consciousness O august fifteenth, she was declared brain dead and was removed from life support And while friends and family were only just beginning to process the loss, a devastating truth was about to emerge While in the ICU, Kylie had told medical staff Casey had been battling leukemia. But when they contacted Casey's primary care physician to confirm that diagnosis, they were met with earth shattery news. There was absolutely nothing in Casey's medical records to suggest she'd ever been diagnosed with leukemia, and there was no sign of cancer either. An autopsy would later confirm that as well Pople who loved Casey. The revelation was staggering. Kylie had taken her sister to countless doctors' appointments and helped fill prescriptions Uncle Mark had seen boxes of IV bags meant for what he believed were home chemotherapy treatments Meghan's father Lee had visited multiple times to offer Casey spiritual blessings belieelving she was nearing the end of her life But all of that appeared to have been built on a diagnosis that didn't exist So if a disease hadn't killed Tracy Carey What happen Casey's toxicology report revealed several prescription medications in her system, including a sedative called prometethyasine but nothing above acceptable therapeutic levels. If there was one substance, a standard toxicology panel could not reliably detect And it was a substance that was found in abundance inside the home where Casey lived Insulin Casey's uncle Mark, as well as her grandmother, were both diabetic insulin was in the fridge syringes were in the drawers. readily available throughout the house Forensic pathologists determined The only explanation for Casey's catastrophic drop in blood sugar Was exogenous insulin Meing. insulin introduced from outside the body That immediately brought investigators back to what they'd found in Casey's bedroom that night diabetic syringe on the floor Days that followed. Three additional empty syringes were discovered in the basement. But another item in Casey's bedroom would prove just as important Cose monitor, or gluc comometer Unlike most medical devices, this one kept a digital history of every reading it had taken and when investigators pulled the log It revealed a chilling timeline Casey's blood sugar had been checked nineteen times the day she fell into a coma Casey wasn't diabetic So why was she even checking her glucose levels at all The first reading came in at nine eighteen AM, about forty five minutes before Mean Sunwell said she'd arrived at the house It was eighty seven, completely normal Four more checks before noon were also normal, but then the numbers began to fall. H investigators understand what they were seeing They consulted endocrinologist Dr. Kelsey DeSalvo, a physician who specialized in hormone and metabolic disorders, including blood sugar regulation So when I look at this Technically that blood sugar in the sixties is normal, but you can see that each if you were to graph this, It is trending down. So even though those blood sugars aren't quite in the hypoglycemia range, they are trending in that direction. You continually see the next blood glucose is lower and lower Tchnically for a non diabetic that is still considered to be a normal blood sugar. But I will say that this trend as a physician, if I saw this would be alarming because trajectory of that line is if you don't intervene Eventually you will cross that fifty five spot if that trend continues. By one hundred forty three PM Casey's blood sugar crossed into dangerous territory. So then there's a forty three at one hundred and forty three That is officially abnormal hypoglycemia So they would be feeling very hungry. They would be feeling very anxious. They would be feeling sweaty art would beating very fast and they would start to be getting confused. So maybe having slurred speech not able to make rational decisions. Maybe if they were trying to walk, they would be stumbling. Fteen minutes later, it dropped even lower That's a thirty and that is obtained at two o'clock blood sugars in the twenties and thirties, we get very concerned that someone is going to have a seizure. or they're going to pass into a coma Th thenen we see a twenty nine at two ten. You could start slipping into a coma here. So after twenty nine, you have a twenty seven at two twenty two These are very dangerously low life threatening blood sugars by this point Casey would have almost certainly already been unconscious Silvo, the most revealing clue, came later at the hospital Casey's blood sugar kept crashing despite repeated glucose infusions All this to say is she got a lot of glucose by the medical team trying to stabilize her blood sugars, which tells me that she received a large, large dose of subcutaneous insulin. So insulin that was injected into the skin To me, it looks like Short acting insulin was administered probably around twelve to twelve thirty to cause that significant decline that we see in the trend in the graft I can't tell anything about the amount based on this particular graph. I just can tell you it was a lot of insulin based on the rest of her trajectory of her hospital stay Based on this, I cannot exactly say how many injections were given, how much was given at each time. I just know that during this day, she was given a large amount of subcutaneous insulin. Perhaps the most disturbing detail came from the glucometer itself Blood sugar checks didn't stop when Casey lost consciousness past two o'clock past three o'clock Past four. past five Someone kept pricking her finger Ten of the nineteen readings were taken after Casey would have been physically incapable or unable to do it herself Which meant? someomeone else in that room was watching her blood sugar collapse in real time. notot intervening or calling for help Hours and until almost nine PM that night Investigators believed only one other person had been there Megan Sundwal This episode of The Minds of Madness, True Crime Stories is brought to you by Alloy Health In true crime stories, people often feel alone and misunderstood. That's how menopause can feel too Almost half of women wait three or more years before finding help for symptoms like hot flashes, sleepless nights, and brain fogs. 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Your Menopause specialized doctor will tailor your treatment to your exact needs Plus, you get unlimited messaging with your doctor Head to MY aLLOY. com and use code Summer twenty to get twenty dollars off When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant You keep production lines moving and quality on track because there is no room for slowdowns L Ranger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find parts, you can get what you need fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done Call one eight hundred Ganger, click ranger. com or just stop by Ranger for the ones who get it done. Based on the available information, investigators still couldn't say for certain whether Casey's death had been a homicide or a suicide The medical examiner officially classified Casey's manner of death as undetermined, But if someone else had costed Casey's death Suspicion immediately fell on one person. Megan. That's according to Dputy Utah County attorney, Juliet Thomas who would later prosecute the case at trial When police got there and saw realized that Meghgan had been there and had left with her parents, Without waiting for EMS to arrive, without telling them what to look for to try to correct for Casey, they instigated an investigation Leading the investigation was Lone Pak police detective Melissa Farney When I started the investigation, it appeared to those on scene that it was either suicide or foul play. so I started from there As detectives began speaking with Casey's family They were also told something deeply unsettling According to Casey' sister, Kylie Casey had been afraid of Meghgan for years She'd allegedly told family members that Meghan was trying to poison her with insulin But when Megan spoke to investigators, her story was almost the exact opposite. Meghgan insisted that the true toxic relationship in Casey's life their own family, especially Kylie Mean claimed For years, Casey had described her relatives as emotionally abusive and controlling Meghgan also told investigators Casey had struggled with suicidal thoughts for years. And she had text messages to prove it Julia Thomas explained, What happened next Meghgan was pretty cooperative. She talked to them a number of times during an interview on august fifteenth We asked her for her phone so they could look at the text messages that she had been describing, telling them that Casey was suicidal. Meghgan agreed. She didn't hand over the phone right then and there, but she did bring it to them on august nineteenth When police went through that phone and compared Casey's phone text messages with the text messages on Meghganan's phone, they found that two hundred and eighty three of them had been deleted from Meg's ph. When police asked her about that, she told them that she did it so she wouldn't look like she had done what Kylie was accusing her of, which was murdering Casey. Investigators now had access to the broader communication history between the two women found only made the case more complicated Farney explained I had a lot of Timeline information and text information They actually made it more confusing and added a third option, in my opinion. They assisted suicide investigators poured over twenty eight thousand messages between Casey and Megan They uncovered a strange and convoluted mutual history them months to unpack According to deputy Utah County attorney, Julet Thomas The friendship began around twenty fifteen, when both women worked at a care facility in Provo. Casey met Meghgan. They both worked at a facility called Chrysalis in Provo. That is a facility that offers services to people that are developmentally delayed or impaired. Casey was a house manager there for inpatient residence, and Meghgan was hired as a nurse. Casey actually met Megan within her function as a nurse when Casey came to Meghgan to take her blood pressure They kind of hit it off. they got along really well. Their relationship or friendship developed, they became very, very close So much so that Casey spent a lot of time with both Meghgan and her parents, her family, and they sort of took her in For a year We're living together and for Casey been struggling with legitimate chronic health problems, having a registered nurse has a close friend. meant real support She herself had been born with only one kidney. That wasn't a huge deal, but it did present some health issues to her as time went on. At the time of her death, she also did have some valid medical concerns that did give her a lot of pain. One of those being endometriosis one of them being heavily arthritic knees. She had a lot of pain from those conditions was prescribed medications for those conditions. prescribed oxycodone or percacette. She had prescribed Xanax because she also suffered from anxiety pretty heavily. She also at the time she died had a prescription for something called promomethazine. It is largely for nausea. but kind of makes people sleepy She had also had probably twenty twentyh, a port installed in her chest. The port is like a little teeny doorway that leads directly into a vein so that when you have a condition that requires frequent IV occurrences You don't have to keep finding a new vein to puncture you just put it directly into the port And she had that port for IV fluids for hydration because that was a side effect of her kidney issues. According to her sister, Kylie, it was around that same time when Casey told her family she'd been diagnosed with leukemia on top of her other conditions She told a lie that turned into a whopper. She told people, most particularly, including Meghgan, that she had cancer. She didn't have cancer. She never did have cancer, but she told that to family and friends, and they all believed her right up until she was hospitalized. After this medical port I told you about was installed Casey portrayed that as being part of her cancer treatment. She told people that that was because of her cancer and she had home health aids that would come to the house and help her with, you know, doing that IV hydration, IV fluids She had delivered to her home bags of saline for that purpose. She told her family and friends that those bags of saline were her chemotherapy The lie continued to grow. She portrayed to Meghgan that she was close to death She portrayed to Meghgan that she was in tremendous pain from cancer and wished to be free of her pain. It was a frequent topic of conversation between the two For many months after Casey's eventual death Dozens of news articles and even national press inaccurately reported But It was Mean who trk Casey into believing she had cancer Investigators say the text messages point to something very different. Casey appeared to be the original source of the cancer story. She even sent Megan fabricated test results, suggesting the cancer was spreading. After living together for about a year, Casey moved out when Meghan got married and gave birth to a son But around twenty nineteen Casey moved back in with Meghgan and her family, helping Megan with childcare And what town Meggan continued helping Casey manage her health issues It was around this time that a new topic began surfacing in their conversations AC conveyed to Mean that she, Megan, was a beneficiary of Casey's life insurance policy. She showed her documents that indicated there was up to a million and a half dollars that Meghgan was going to be the beneficiary of. That was an ongoing topic between them r about twenty nineteen, twenty twenty, all the way up until just a couple months before Casey died. The truth is There was no such policy. That was another one of Casey's lies There was no policy But Meghgan believed there was Farney found one exchange from april twenty twenty that stood out april ninth, twenty twenty Megan says, H is a random question for you. How on earth did you get approved for a life insurance policy with all of your health stuff Casey says I bought it back in twenty eleven. I wasn't as sick back then, but when my dad died, I decided to get one too because my dad always tried to make me get one. So I did Ah, said Meghan A few months later, Megan came back to the subject Kith, level straight with me, please, do you actually have an insurance policy for your funeral or a plot It is okay if you don't, I promise. I just need to try to get things figured out and taken care of Casey, yes, I do. Why would I lie about something like that? I just wanted it to be a surprise. I'm not going to leave anyone feeling like they are stuck with my shit. I just feel like I have to constantly prove stuff to everyone Meghan You cannot leave me a life insurance policy for a million dollars. That's insane You don't need to prove anything to me, Case. Nothing at all. Truly, I was just trying to get everything set up for you to have a beautiful funeral Casey, I know you were. Thank you for helping me. I want to leave it to you. I bought it back in twenty eleven and have kept it going. When I got divorced, I thought about cashing it out. But then I found out I was sick and you came into my life and have truthfully been the one person in this world that I wanted to leave it to. You have done more for me than anyone and have shown me what a true friend is. You have welcomed me with open arms into your family And I wouldn't want to be anywhere else I know there's no way that I could ever repay you for what you have done and given to me. So if I can leave you with at least this, please let me. Meghgan says, Case, I can't even comprehend that. I cannot imagine having that much money Casey. I don't know if you really know how grateful I am for you. I know for a fact, Heavenly Father blessed me with you. I sure love you According to Juliet Thomas conversations eventually shifted towards something darker Youutanatia She portrayed herself as being interested in ending her pain pain that didn't exist for the cancer that didn't exist They discussed different means of ending Casey's life. One of them was a gun. Casey had access to a gun Another was an overdose of pills. Of course, Casey had access to all of that oxycodone and other substances They settled on eventually insulin. Casey's family had a number of diabetics in it. There was insulin available at Casey's home. So Megan and Casey discuss the idea of Casey's dying by insulin overdose time. Investigators discovered a new wrinkle somethingomet that made the relationship even harder to understand. He kiss W Casey was having these conversations with Megan She was telling her sister, Kylie, something entirely different Casey around that point had communicated with Kylie that she thought Meghgan was trying to kill her And so Kylie and her husband, they waited until Meghgan and her family left town, and they kind of swooped in and moved Casey out of that house You know, quite honestly, I don't know if Casey really believed at that point that Meghgan was trying to kill her But I do believe that this is another story that Casey used. It was drama. It was something to illicit concern from the other people in her life from Kylie and her friends Anyway, she moved out of that house. She moved into a basement apartment at her grandparents' home in Highland during that timefame that did not end the discussions about insulin and insulin overdose better understand the behavior reflected in those messages Investigators consulted forensic psychologist Dr. Kyle Hancock. Yeah, so splitting behavior is a common pattern of behavior where an individual orchestrates and organizes relationships that function to keep two people separate and independent of each other and almost always at odds with each other Ms. Terry communicated repeatedly to Ms. Sundwal that her relationship with her sister, Ms. Clark was very problematic, was very hurtful However She also communicated the exact opposite to Ms. Clark that Ms Sundwal was a very devious person, was a very harmful person. and this type of behavior typically serves the purpose of preventing these two individuals from interacting. After Casey moved in with her grandparents in twenty twenty She continued to message Megan almost every day Julia Thomas explained, What happened next Casey pretended that she had made attempts. using insulin to kill herself. She would text Megan that she had tried to do it, this lie, again, continued to grow and grow and grow And the details of it became so outlandish that it appears to be a cry for help She knew she was making ridiculous claims, Casey, thinking, I believe, that Meghan would catch on and call her on it Meghan didn't call her on it. She continued the conversations, Oh, I can't believe that didn't kill you. and it continued to progress. Casey told Megan she'd injected herself with something she claimed were massive lethal doses of insulin claims were medically implausible Being a registered nurse Meghgan never appeared to meaningfully challenge her Meanwhile Megan kept circling back to one question. Casey says, my life insurance does cover suicide because when I signed up for it, it said I had to go at least two years without doing that, but it would be covered after that twenty twenty four. Inestigators say, Casey created an entire fictional support system to sustain her cancer story Eventually, Casey pretended to be in hospice care that there were nurses and doctors coming over to her house Casey fabricated an entire hospice care team And they would communicate these fake people would communicate with Meghgan T Casey's phone. There was a fake nurse called Becky with whom Meghan would communicate on Casey's phone. There was a doctor, Dr. Robinson. There was a whole team of these people and they would communicate pretty regularly with Meghgan telling her, Ohh, she's near death She's almost there. She would send just ridiculous vitals to Megan, knowing that Meghgan was a nurse and those vitals would be things like a temperature of seventy five or a blood pressure of zero over forty. just insane, ridiculous, stupid numbers. and Meghan never called on So why didn't Meghgan call Casey out on these obvious fabrications Well, one point five or one million dollars is a pretty hefty incentive for a lot of people. But Meghgan also happened to be in financial distress, and that was another topic of conversation between the two of them. Since the beginning of the year in January, twenty twenty four, Meghan had lost her job She had run over something on the road and caused four thousand dollars worth of damage to her car The car ended up being totaled H husband had doubled his child support requirements from a prior marriage They owed on taxes. and then the car that they did have kept overheating. because she was stressed. financially Farney found a february twenty twenty four message that prosecutors would later argue connected Meghan's financial stress conversations about Casey's death. If you dying would get me out of this mess and darkness I am in now, I would take it Casey continued to assure Meghgan that her passing was surely coming soon Casey says att my doctor's appointment last week, they got my bloodw and PET scan results back and it showed that the cancer was in my breast tissue now as well. So obviously, things are speeding up pretty quickly, and I don't think my body is going to last too much longer twenty twenty four Megan began offering to participate directly in Casey's euthanasia attempts Megan. I'm so sorry, Case. Honestly, I think with the insulin someone should probably be me should stay with you and continue to give doses So it will actually stay low and you can pass. Does that make sense? We can figure out an evening I can come over and help you if you want to try it that way. Casey says that would be great. Thank you, Meg Over the next few months, investigators say the two repeatedly discussed plans for Casey's death But each time, something would derail it Casey would change her mind Ilay the plan or find a reason to postpone Then on august tenth, two days before Casey's collapse. Megan sent this message Casey. I hope this doesn't wake you. Just wondering if youve decided a day or time to do this. I just want to make sure I get everything ready This time, the conversation didn't fizzle out investigator say Casey told Meghgan she prepared the syringe herself And the two settled on august twelfth According to investigators, this would be the last text Meghgan ever sent to Casey Terry Megan says, I'll be there in just a few minutes. 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If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering, and twenty four seven support Call one eight hundred Granger, click Granger. com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done On its face, the final message suggested a medically assisted suicide which under Utah law would fall closer to manslaughter than murder But investigators saw a major problem with that theory for years Casey had talked about wanting to die, but only ever to Meghgan and always in the context of unbearable cancer pain, we now know never existed So If the cancer was a lie pain may have been too And if the pain wasn't real Investigators had to ask genuine reason to case he have to go through that fatal insulin overdose on august twelfth. Prosecutors believed they found a possible answer in a Google search Casey made the night before she collapsed Is it okay to give yourself a shot of sailing solution? Prosecutors, the search suggested a different possibility entirely came to believe Casey may have been attempting to stage yet another medical crisis Part of the same years long deception she'd built around her illness theory was that Casey planned to fill the syringes with saline. tend to inject yourself with insulin and convince Megan that even that had somehow failed prorosecutors believed something went catastrophically wrong And that something was Meghan Sundwall On march twentieth, twenty twenty five. More than seven months after Casey's death, Meghan Sunwell was arrested and charged with aggravated murder and obstruction of justice She pleaded not guilty This case boils down to one question Who was in control? In this case, when you step back and look at all of the evidence You get clarity. What happened in the years, months weeks And ultimately what happened down in that basement on august twelfth, twenty twenty four was not chaos It was not confusion It was not a tragic misunderstanding. It was not a best friend merely helping out her other best friend in the whole world This was control And the person who was in control during that entire time frrame sits at that table Meghgan Tundwell. Flaws. do not equal suicide Chaos does not equal an intent to die And most importantly, vulnerability does not give someone else the right to take control of whether someone lives or dies. Casey was not acting. like someone determined to end her life justust two weeks before august twelfth, she underwent knee replacement surgery The evidence shows that Casey was healing on schedule. Casey was making plans for her future Her conduct in the days leading up to august twelfth shows planning for life, not preparation for death. The prosecution openly acknowledged that Casey had deceived her family, friends, and even Meghgan about having cancer They argued those same text messages revealed something far darker, including motive, opportunity, and a roadmap to premeditated murder. What the evidence shows here is a pattern, a long running game of chicken Casey escalates the dramatic suicide talk Megan pushes the conversation further Megan sometimes does say, case, this decision has to be yours. I only want to do it if it's your decision. But as time goes on, the texts show that Megan increasingly encourages insulin use and pushes toward action The evidence supports that, particularly in the early years Megan's goal was to encourage Casey to die on her own Over time, it's becoming clearer to Megan, Casey is not going to do it She's not going to do it alone So Meghgan begins offering direct help She insists that if they try insulin, she wants to be there to help administer it. Meghgan is not letting the topic go. and To in fairness, Casey is continuing it going on too, and she's getting more and more dramatic, and she is talking about suicide, but not in a believable way Now let's switch gears. Why would Megan want Casey dead She believed Casey's death would solve her financial crisis Money explains why Meghgan crossed this final line She believed the life insurance, she believed the money, and she had to speed up the process This was Megan's investment She had spent years on this investment, and she expected it to be paid out Prosecutors showed that after Casey's death Meghgan attempted to collect on the life insurance policy she believed existed. This is the call on august twenty third, eight days after her very best friend in the world, more like her sister has died. She says, My best friend, more like my sister has died, The family is not giving me access to the paperwork. She has a policy number though, and she asks, doeses that sound like a real policy number The lady says, yeah, it sounds like one And then she's told that it's not real. They also laid out the evidence they believed showed Meghan played a direct hand in administering the insulin to Casey that day Her last message before arriving, telling Casey to take her methazine so she is asleep while it's happening This is not compassion. this is planning. This is now execution of the plan Testing continues for hours. Who's doing it? Megan. We know Casey tested her own at nine hundred eighteen. Maybe she did a few of the tests, but at least for seven hours, Megan is the one affirmatively doing those tests, just like she said she would. You need somebody to stay with you and keep giving you doses to make sure your sugars stay low That's exactly what she's doing. The evidence shows that Meghgan does something even more troubling than simply sitting there while Casey deteriorated. She actively prevented rescue. She invoked a fake DNR we know never existed trying to get Kylie to stop Mark from calling nine hundred eleven. These are affirmative steps Meghgan is taking to prevent nine hundred and eleven from getting involved Meghgan also claims to have held a medical power of attorney that she is the one that has the responsibility of choices over medical choices over Casey But we know again that that's fake Finally, prosecutors laid out their theory of what they believed happened in that basement on august twelfth. let me give you a theory that I submit to you is consistent with all the evidence point of the defendant coming over there is so that Casey can end up dead. So what does Casey do? nine forty eight PM, august eleventh, Casey searches Is it okay to give yourself a shot with Siling solution If she is planning on dying, why is she Googling? if it's safe to give herself saline? Why would she put real insulin in those syringes when she's asking, is it okay to use saline She fills up those syringes with saline But what the evidence suggests Megan swapped the syringes because like I said, this is a game of chicken and Megan is smarter than Casey at this point. Casey's been telling her lies for years. Meghgan's been pretending to believe them. Meghgan knows that Casey stages stuff. So what the evidence supports is consistent with Casey filling those syringes with saline attempting to stage another crisis Perhaps still hoping that once the defendant actually got there and they're actually at the moment where hey, I'm going to inject myself with what you believe is insulin, Megan, maybe you'll stop me. Megan, maybe Megan actually cares about me. But again, this game of chicken, Megan's smarter than Casey. So she swapped syringes She could have handed Casey what Casey believed to be a syringe containing saline that she drew up herself the night before, still staging this scene, but one with no danger in Casey's mind She could have handed it to her and had Casey herself inject a syringe that now contained insulin It was a compelling theory and prosecutors presented substantial evidence suggesting Meghan Sundgwal had been anticipating Casey's death. belieelieving a major insurance payout would follow But at the end of the day, the case remained entirely circumstantial required jurors to infer what both women were truly thinking by reading between the lines of years of text messages But if the defense could create reasonable doubt on just one of those inferences Meghgan would be acquitted of murder This trial is entirely about proof. that Meghgan Sunwall didid something. It has to be proven that she did something. So they want you to convict Megan despite the evidence. The DNA evidence that comes back after she's arrested has Casey's is the only relevant DNA and that's on that's syringe. Casey Cherry could have done anything that was cause of her death herself And it has to be proven beyond any reasonable doubt No real possibility that Meghgan in fact did something other than be there. The real possibility for sure is a quz a suicide attempt. But at any rate, it's undisputed that anything that caused Casey's death happened when she was conscious and could have done it to herself finding insulin bottles and syringes throughout the basement Investigators never recovered Man's DNA on a single piece of evidence comometers showed, Casey had been testing her own blood sugar forty five minutes before Megan even arrived. And the trajectory of those readings suggested the fatal dose had likely been delivered around noon Casey was still conscious and physically capable of administering herself There was also another card the defense had to play Uncle Mark testified Days before Casey's dead discovered someone had been stealing from his parents' credit cards. sixty eight thousand dollars in total Casey had been standing in the kitchen when Mark told his sister he planned to call the banks and lach an investigation Only after Casey's death did the family learn she'd been responsible for the theft Racing the possibility, the shame and desperation Not imaginary cancer pain Benwood finally pushed her over the edge. door for reasonable doubt was beginning to open. They acknowledged the possibility Casey's death may have been some kind of fake suicide attempt gone terribly wrong They offered another explanation as well xt messages established that Casey had prefilled syringes the night before her death Prosecutors argued, Meghan deliberately swapped those sailing syringes for insulin But the defense argued there was no direct evidence to prove that it happened Instead They suggested a more likely scenario was that Casey herself had tragically misjudged the dose Failing to dilute the insulin with as much saling as she intended resesulting in the prolonged coma that ultimately claimed your life, Unto the defense's theory Casey had simply followed through on the plan they'd discussed for the past four years and believing she would be honoring Casey's wishes She sat by her bedside for hours without intervening Waiting for her to die. After eight hours of testimony and legal arguments case was handed to the jury And ten hours later, they returned with a surprising verdict State of Utah versus Meghgan Sunwall Count one, aggravated murder We, the jury unanimously find the defendant Meghgan Sunwall is guilty of manslaughter. Count two, obstruction of justice We, the jury, unanimously find the defendant Meghgan Sunwell is guilty of obstruction of justice. The jury acquitted Megan of aggravated murder. manansslaughter conviction made one thing clear