Jonathan Hirsch
speaker
1,168 appearances
9 recordings
3 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 5 Jun
Jonathan Hirsch’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 2.
Appearances
But in the midst of their grief, it did hang in the air, the question of the will. Did somebody put her up to this? It was a wild and dangerous thought that bounced around in their heads like a caged animal. They just couldn't shake this feeling that maybe Sandra had convinced Dev to sign this will. And that even if she hadn't, Sandra might have known Terry had it out for their daughter.
And if Terry could get Sandra to let go of her daughter, what else could she get her to let go of?
From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Scary Terry. I'm Jonathan Hirsch. Chapter 2, The Last Will. The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. A beautiful, otherworldly stretch of park. Almost 500 acres of craggy, red rocks that stretch across the foothills surrounding the town. From the tops of the mountains, you can see never-ending peaks and valleys of tall aspen trees.
Here you could climb above the earth and everything in it. Terry had purchased land in this area, further up the mountain near Cripple Creek, as a future site of a center for CDBMS. In 1981, just two years after Dev's death, Sandra wanted to go see their new property. And she asked her childhood nanny, Louise Watson, known as Wheezy, to tag along.
At this point, Wheezy was older. She may not have felt like she could say no to Sandra. Sandra was in her 40s, but Wheezy was 78. Why? Why? Why?
In the Garden of the Gods, narrow, dramatic roads encircle the mountains, winding up and up into the sky. It was around one of those turns that Sandra Cleaver and Louise Watson, Wheezy, were driving in September of 1981. As they turned one of the corners along that twisty road, their car went flying off the side of the cliff and into the valley below.
According to the police report, there were no tire marks on the pavement. No sign of hesitation. No pumping of the brakes. The car simply took flight towards the horizon and into the Garden of the Gods, along with Sandra Cleaver and Louise Watson. No one survived.
So did Sandra mean to die that day? Had she made some kind of sick promise to Terry? And when you found out about the death of Louise and Sandy, how soon before you started to suspect that this had something to do with Terry?
Immediately, because it had happened again. Two suspicious deaths, and both women drafted wills. Louise and Sandra had seemingly prepared for a worst-case scenario. And Wheezy, too, had signed up for a life insurance policy.
So clearly there's a target here for Terry. Wheezy's will gave everything to Sandra. So, in the event of both of their deaths, there would be the same beneficiary. This was beginning to look like more than coercion. This string of deaths seemed to be premeditated.
And that's not all. In the year before her suicide, Sandra's brother, Kroom, had all but lost track of his sister. He told me, and I get this, he was a thousand miles away. He had kids and a life. His sister didn't want his help, despite the multiple tragedies that had beset her. A couple of months before she died, Kroom's son received a phone call. It was his aunt, Sandra.
She called simply to tell him that she had chosen to leave everything to Terry and that if she died, this is what she wanted. There was a defiance in her tone. Like, fuck you. No one is going to tell me what to do. Kroom's wife, Meriwether, said they had no idea what Sandra was even up to.
She'd slipped so far away from them by then that Croom and his wife weren't even the first ones to know about her death. But from the moment he heard about his sister's death, Croom was also suspicious, especially when he found out that his sister and Louise had left everything in their possession to Terry Hoffman.
Croom contested the will. A trial ensued. He wished to recoup in the civil proceedings property he felt was the rightful possession of the Beatty family.
It is a disturbing and puzzling part of the story. How does one become influenced in the way some of the victims' families alleged their loved ones were? I found these tapes of Terry. Tapes of her getting prepared for this trial. And boy, are they something.
A man named Ken Fairchild is walking Terry through how best to respond to allegations that she was liable for Sandra's death.
So Terry Hoffman is often heard on the tapes, suggesting she has no influence over anyone, least of all Sandra. In these tapes, Terry would have the court believe that she's nothing more than a gal pal, a friendly ear. Terry wouldn't even admit she was Sandra's spiritual advisor. This advisor, Ken, seems to be reminding her that her freedom is on the line. They could lose this case.
When she talks about Sandra, she doesn't speak as a grieving friend. Her voice doesn't waver. Terry's advisor tells her to avoid words that indicate she had any control. So, Terry suggests that Sandra made her executor of her will of her own accord.
Incredibly, Terry tries to argue that she found out after the fact. While the trial to contest the will was set against Terry, Croom and the Cleavers wanted law enforcement to launch a criminal investigation into her.
The assistant DA was a guy by the name of Cecil Emerson. He very much wanted to pursue a criminal investigation, despite the fact that Terry was not at the scene of either supposed crime. She wasn't at the beach when Devereaux drowned. She wasn't in the car when Sandra and Luis drove into the Garden of the Gods.
Showing 1101–1120 of 1,168 · page 56 of 59
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