Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows?
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I'm Blayne Alexander, and today we are talking Dateline. I'm here with the one and only Andrea Canning. Hi, Andrea. Hey, Blayne. Good to see you. We are here to talk about your episode, Take Two. This case truly has just about everything. An undercover sting, hidden cameras, a murder-for-hire plot, and a twist that investigators say that they almost never see.
So if you haven't listened to this episode yet, it's the one right below this one, or you can go watch it on Peacock. So go there, watch or listen, and then come right back here. And when you come back, we'll play a moment from Andrea's interview with detectives that didn't make it into our broadcast. All right, Andrea, let's talk Dateline. Let's do it.
This one was, I mean, I think we say this at every Talking Dateline, but this one truly was, this was wild. This was all over the place. I didn't know what to expect, almost from the very first second the episode started. This one was insane. Yeah. It really was. I mean, yeah, this is like what you call like a wild roller coaster, you know, of a case. And it really felt like a movie.
So, Andrea, just in case folks haven't seen it or before we get into our discussion, just kind of summarize this for me. Give me a quick version of what happened in this episode. Yeah. I mean, this is about a couple, Susan and Ira Bernstein, who had troubles in their marriage for quite a while. They have three kids.
And Ira claims he's working like crazy to pay the bills because they have an extravagant lifestyle. Then he is reunited with a patient, Kelly Gribluck. Kelly is eclectic career, mortician, former mortician, model. Now she's like selling shoe orthotics. So she comes to Ira and she says, I want you to help me with this shoe business. They start an affair.
Next thing you know, they are plotting to have Susan killed. And they went to the wrong person. They went to Markenzie because Markenzie decided, you know what? I'm going to bring you two down because this is wrong. So Markenzie was responsible, along with the police, for stopping the plot to have Susan killed. Ira and Kelly go off to prison. Ira comes out. And what does he do?
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Chapter 2: What is the murder-for-hire plot involving Ira Bernstein about?
Like we're talking about two murder plots, but they never actually come to fruition, thankfully. And I think a big piece of this is thanks to Markenzie the first time around, right? Oh, yeah. Like the fact that somebody comes to him and says, hey – Do you know how to kill somebody?
I mean, some people could have just said, no, I don't know how to do that and just gone about their business, right? Not gotten involved with the police to try and bring this person down. It would be scary to, you know, if someone's serious about that. Also, Blaine, would you be like a little offended if someone thought that either you could kill someone or that you have friends who kill people?
I feel like, wait, is there something about me? Like, why are you picking me to – I know. You know? Well, I thought about that with Mark Kinsey because – and you asked him. You're like, why – did you say something maybe that made her think? And he said something like, oh, if you're not happy, like we can help or I know someone who can take care of – something like that.
But it was a rather large leap to get to think so. And, you know, I've gotten to know Markenzie a little bit, you know, through this story because now, you know, I re-interviewed him. And he's such a nice man. Like he's really – I just found him to be really sweet. He's a father.
You know, he's – for me anyway, he's not somebody that I would like first instincts peg to be someone who's going to find me sweet. A hit man. Right. Right. He seemed – I was really just struck by how much time he spent trying to bring this case down. There were so many meetups. He had to have his car wired.
And then you said not only did he go and meet up with her repeated times in these parking lots, he had to go meet with investigators like 45 minutes beforehand. So we're talking about a dad of kids. Like that's a big chunk of time to kind of devote to this. It was a lot of work.
And not only that, he's really putting himself in danger too because if these people are willing to have someone killed – Now you're messing around with people capable of murder, right? And then there's that moment that everyone, I feel like, talks about with this story. And it's that moment where Ira turns in the car and he sees a camera or something. Was that a camera?
And it's like heart pounding, right? Because you're like, oh my gosh, he's about to figure this out. And Markenzie, thinking on his feet, is like, oh, it's for the kids' games or whatever. And Ira totally buys it. Markenzi was brilliant, by the way. He was the right person for this. I mean, there were multiple times when he really thought on his feet. He did.
And also, like, it shows you like Ira really doesn't trust his gut. He sees this thing and he's on the right track that something's amiss. But he ignores his gut. He's like, oh, well, maybe it's fine. It's fine. You know, I have to say, you described this as a movie at the beginning. This is maybe the first one in a while that I can remember that I really felt like I was watching a movie.
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Chapter 3: How did the undercover sting operation unfold?
I can't remember exactly what he said. But, like, really? I screwed you over? How about you screwed yourself over, buddy? You can never get inside the minds of folks, but the interview was very fair. Like, he gave him a chance to say everything that he needed to say. He got his side out. I mean, look— you know, we are journalists. We try to stay neutral and, you know, unbiased.
But I can honestly sit here and tell you, Ira considers himself like a victim forever.
Chapter 4: What shocking twist occurred after Ira and Kelly served their time?
He is always the victim, right? He blames other people for everything.
Chapter 5: How did Ira Bernstein attempt to target Susan again after prison?
It's just he, everybody, even what in his sentencing, and by the way, funny story about the sentencing too. I was sitting there in the courtroom and I'm, you know, I'm kind of on my phone waiting and just looking at my phone and And someone like passes me or whatever. And I honestly was like really engrossed in like something I was reading.
And I look up from my phone and I'm in the front row and I look up and Ira's sitting right next to me in the courtroom. What? Yeah, he's right beside me. It was just so weird. And we both looked at each other. Did he say anything? No, but he had already made that comment, like, outside going in, you know?
And something else, as he was actually—we were waiting for him, obviously, at the courthouse, right? We knew his sentencing was at 2 o'clock. And I—
Chapter 6: What roles did Markenzie and the police play in stopping the plot?
I see these two men walking and I'm like pretty far away. But I was like, that's not Ira. Like those are like two attorneys or something. Like there's no way that's Ira. And then I see Logan, our associate producer, running. And I'm like, okay, wait. Logan knows something I don't. Like what? Wait, guys, go outside now. Like Logan's running.
So we run outside and then I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm like, I actually have pretty good eyesight from far away and yet I still didn't know – And it was Ira. And he had gained weight. He had dark glasses on. His toupee was gone. So they were like scrambling. And, you know, he comes up. And then, of course, he made his nice little comment to me. Sorry, I got off track. Oh, yeah.
I was talking about him being, you know, playing the victim. Because even in his statement, during his sentencing, he blamed the landscaper. That it was all the landscaper's fault. And I'm thinking, what? You know, take some responsibility. Yeah. Yeah.
When we come back, we'll hear a moment from Andrea's interview with detectives that reveals another shocking idea investigators say Ira had for targeting Susan. Hey guys, Willie Geist here. We're celebrating 10 years of Sunday today by hosting a very special Sunday sit-down live event, and our guest is one of the biggest stars on the planet, Ryan Reynolds.
We're taking our conversation to the stage in front of an audience of you for one night only at City Winery in New York on April 7th, an intimate in-person evening I promise you won't want to miss. Tickets are limited, so grab yours now at today.com. You know, I think what's – you talked about his victim mentality and that was so apparent.
That was so apparent really from the first moment that we heard him speaking because I was just floored at the way that he described Susan. Like, oh, she's lazy. She doesn't do anything. She just takes care of the kids. I'm the one who's out here working. I'm the one who's keeping up our lifestyle.
And I'm thinking to myself, like, this man has a very low understanding of just what it takes to raise kids. And what it takes to keep a household. You know what I mean? Being a stay-at-home mom. Like, the whole thing was just so – he had such a clear contempt for her from the very beginning. Before we even knew what his role in all of this was. Absolutely.
And you just hear in her – through her words the pain that it caused her. You know, the fear that she lives in. Like, with 24 hours a day. I mean, she just said – she basically said, like, you destroyed –
our life this life that we had um and he did divorce is hard enough on children but not just divorce but but then dad's trying to kill mom and it also shows that he didn't learn his lesson right so even after he gets out of prison especially after it's like okay might he come back for a third he's not somebody who is easily dissuaded from this thing that he wants to do the judge called it mind-boggling the judge said that he was confused
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