Murdered For Money

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Discretion advised. This is ten minute
murder. On the twenty eighth of January

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nineteen seventy one. Dana Yule was
born to two highly successful parents. His

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father, Daleywle, had become a
multi millionaire through aircraft sales after leaving the

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US Air Force, and the two
Yule children grew up surrounded by privilege,

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although the family preferred not to flaunt
their wealth. On Easter weekend nineteen ninety

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two, twenty one year old Dana
was away from the family to visit his

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girlfriend. On Sunday, the nineteenth
of April, his parents and as sister,

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twenty four year old Tiffany, had
just arrived back in Fresno after spending

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the weekend at a beach house they
owned in Paharo Dunes. Tiffany and her

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mother, Glee Yule had driven back, but Dale decided to fly home in

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his own plane. On Tuesday,
April twenty first, Dana contacted some friends

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of the family, expressing concern that
he had not heard from his parents in

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two days and that nobody had responded
when he tried to reach out At the

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Yule family home. Police discovered the
reason that nobody had heard from Dale Glee,

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and Tiffany since Sunday. All three
of them had been shot to death.

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On Sunday evening, the homicide detectives
assigned to the case, where Chris

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Curtis and John Susan of the Fresno
County Sheriff's Office, and they spent four

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days at the crime scene. Early
into the investigation, the detectives were sure

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of one thing. The triple homicide
had not been a spontaneous act of violence.

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There was also evidence that it had
been meticulously planned by somebody who was

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determined not to leave anybody in the
house alive. The Mules had been shot

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one by one, and each of
the shell casings had been carefully picked up

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after the gun was fired. The
killer had very good aim. While Glee

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was shot four times, Dale and
Tiffany each had only been shot once.

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Detective Susa had seen many burglary homicides
in his time, and despite the Yule

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family wealth, he came to believe
that the motivation for the crimes was not

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burglary. Even though the house was
in disarray, making it appear that somebody

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had been looking for things to steal, nothing of value had actually been taken.

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According to Detective Suza. This appeared
to be part of the killer's plan,

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making it look like a burglary gone
wrong in order to obscure the real

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motive for the murders. That left
detectives with a key question to answer.

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If the crime wasn't financially motivated,
what was the killer's real motive and why

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had they tried so hard to hide
it. With no clues about the identity

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of the killer, they investigated the
history of each member of the Yule family,

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searching for anything that might have led
to their deaths. During the deep

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dive into Dale Yule's life, they
discovered that his path to success had not

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been as simple as the Fresno community
believed. Two decades ago, shortly after

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leaving the Air Force, Dale had
started out selling airplanes for a man who

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had later been convicted of drug smuggling. Once his boss was arrested, Dale

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took over the business, and his
airplane selling empire began. However, the

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detectives did not find any indication that
there were any connections between Dale's previous employer

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and his death. One by one, the detectives eliminated every person who might

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have a motive for wanting the family
dead. In the end, they only

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had one suspect remaining, twenty one
year old Dana Eyule. Even though Dana

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had been with his girlfriend in San
Francisco during the time when his family had

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been killed, Detective Susa and Detective
Curtis were suspicious about his behavior both before

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and after the crime. Unlike his
sister Tiffany, who was down to earth,

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Dana had always had an unusual fixation
on money. He didn't want to

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be the son of wealthy, successful
parents. He wanted other people to perceive

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him as being wealthy and successful in
his own right. When he started studying

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finance at Santa Clara University, he
viewed his college career like a fresh start.

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He began telling people that he had
earned millions as an entrepreneur, taking

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his own father's story and pretending that
he had been the one to earn that

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money, claiming to be a stock
market whiz. Plenty of people believed him.

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He even had a story printed in
the SEU newspaper which described him as

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a self made millionaire. Eventually,
the lies that Dana was telling at college

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trickled back to his family. In
response, Dale Yule decided to change the

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plan for his estate and decided that
he would be cutting Dana off financially after

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he graduated from college in the summer. Dana had always boasted that he would

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be a millionaire in his own right
by his twenty fifth birthday, but realistically,

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at the age of twenty one,
he was still living at home with

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his parents, using the family money
for everything. After finding out that he

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was the only surviving member of his
immediate family, Dana didn't appear to be

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stricken by grief. Instead, he
was mostly focused on the contents of his

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parents wills. He had already known
that his father would stop paying for his

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expenses after college. That wasn't a
secret. However, Dana didn't know that

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his parents had also created a trust
for him. His expenses would be paid

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by a trustee throughout his early twenties, and he would receive some dividends during

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his late twenties, but he would
not have immediate access to their estates.

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Once Dana was informed that he would
not be able to benefit from the bulk

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of the Eyule family wealth for another
ten years, he was unable to hide

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his anger and shock. From the
earliest days of the investigation, Detective Curtis

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had suspected Dana. He'd been the
one responsible for taking Dana through the crime

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scene for the first time and immediately
noticed that Dana's reactions weren't normal. Later,

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the detective summarized the experience, saying
that he'd looked at twenty one year

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old Dana and thought that kid's dirty. But Dana wasn't the only one that

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investigators didn't trust. They couldn't deny
that he had an air tight alibi and

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that there was only one way he
could have killed his family, getting somebody

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else to do it for him.
As it happened, Dana did have one

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friend who might have been willing to
kill for him, Joel Rodokovich, a

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college dropout who had a reputation for
being obsessed with explosives and firearms. The

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suspicion about Dana and Joel was fueled
by their decision to start living in the

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Yule Home together less than a month
after the murders, there, even using

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cash to buy themselves helicopter flying lessons. Throughout this time, Dana and Joel

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made the unusual decision to only communicate
with each other by using payphones and pagers,

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as if they were paranoid that somebody
would overhear them talking. For months,

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investigators watched the pair closely, trying
to monitor their communications. One day,

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an undercover detective recorded one of Joel's
payphone conversations with Dana, where he

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told him, quote, they don't
have evidence, they will try to catch

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you in a lie. Forensics revealed
that the firearm used to shoot the Yules

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was a nine millimeters high end rifle. One of these specialty rifles had been

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purchased by one of Joel Rodokovich's family
friends only a couple of weeks before the

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Yules were murdered. The friend,
Ernest Ponce, admitted to the police that

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he'd bought the rifle and given it
to Joel, but insisted that he had

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no idea that Joel planned to kill
someone with it. On the second of

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March nineteen ninety five, both Dana
and Joel were arrested, and Ernest Ponce

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was granted immunity as long as he
agreed to testify against his friends. Ernest

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did end up testifying at the eight
month long trial, but the jury ultimately

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decided that he wasn't a reliable witness, and they believed that he had been

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more involved in the crimes than he
was willing to admit to. After almost

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two weeks of deliberation, the jury
found both Dana and and Joel guilty of

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three counts of murder in the first
degree, as well as an aggravating circumstance

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that meant that they were eligible for
a stricter sentence. One of these factors

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was that the murders had been convicted
by a killer who lay in wait for

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the family to arrive home, showing
exactly how premeditated it had been. Both

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men were sentenced to life in prison
without parole. Out of the three victims,

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Detective Curtis believed that only one of
them had caught sight of the killer.

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Dale and Tiffany had both been killed
by a single shot, but Glee

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had been shot four times, several
of the shots at close range while the

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killer was straddling her. Glee had
met Joel several times before when he had

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come to the house, and knew
that he was one of Dana's closest friends.

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Quote. I'm sure she saw who
it was, said one of the

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prosecutors at the trial. She knew
her son was murdering her. O that's

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ten minute murder for today. Brief
and binge able true crime. I'm Joe

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the host, and thank you so
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Speaking of new, on the next
episode, we're going to jump back into

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serial killers. We're going to talk
about one that you may have heard of,

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the weepy voiced killer, Paul Michael
Stefani. And the reason they called

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him the weepy voice killer is because
he would anonymously report his own crimes and

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use this weird, weepy sounding voice
like he was crying and all of this

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place in the Minneapolis Saint Paul area. So that's coming up on the next

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that's it. That's today's episode.
Thank you so much for listening to another

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ten minute murder podcast. I will
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