Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
So I'm pretty terrible at marketing myself, that's for sure, even though it's my job. A lot of people that have been listening to this show for many years don't even realize we have a sister program called Nightmares. It's a different kind of a show. It's still about true crime and they're still about true stories. But it's a shorter show and it doesn't have any 911 calls or blaring clips.
It's great for playing when you're going to bed. If you like to hear my voice right before going to sleep. Telling you a true crime tale. Anyway, we're going to play you a whole episode right here on this feed to see if you like it, and if you do, I ask that you search for Sword and Scale Nightmares, or just Nightmares, and subscribe to it.
If you already do, then apologies for the extra episode in your feed. Rhonda Smith sits in the office at Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, leaning her head on her hand with her elbow on the desk. The computer screen casts a soft blue light in the quiet room, shining in her eyes as she scrolls through yet another dating profile. She exhales a little louder than she means to.
She thinks about her last relationship. He lived about an hour away. At first, the drive didn't seem too bad, but over time it felt longer. Their conversations faded. In the end, they both agreed the distance wouldn't work. The breakup was mutual and clean, but still disappointing. She clicks to the next profile. There was a time when rejection like that would have overwhelmed her.
Even small setbacks felt like proof that something was wrong with her. Those were the years when depression crept in and stayed too long. Hospitals felt more familiar than home. She didn't trust herself to be alone with her thoughts. But that was before she found the church. Rhonda leans back and lets herself smile.
She joined the church a couple of years ago, not to find faith, but because she needed structure. She needed a place to go, something steady. Over time, the congregation got to know her and accepted her. With Pastor Shreve's support, she started to rebuild her life slowly and carefully. Now she has a routine. She has friends, people who count on her, and who let her count on them.
That balance means more to her than anything she ever expected. She thinks about her plans for tonight. She's having dinner with Greg, a man she met in her bipolar support group. He might be someone who understands the hard parts without her having to explain. He might be someone who truly gets her. She reaches for the mouse to look at the next profile.
Suddenly, she hears a sound that doesn't belong in the quiet building. Rhonda sits up and turns. She gasps, barely having time to raise her hand. Then, everything goes dark. Let's talk about something most people don't think about until it's too late.
If you drink, even occasionally, you already know how unpredictable the next morning can be. Sometimes you're fine.
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Chapter 2: What happened to Rhonda Smith on that January morning?
Pastor Shreves often leaves it on, sometimes the radio also. She steps into the office and calls out softly, but no one answers. She sets down her purse, hangs up her coat, and her footsteps echo in the empty space as she moves through the office. As she gets closer to the receptionist's desk, she notices something that shouldn't be there.
It takes her a moment to understand what she's seeing, just long enough for confusion to turn into dread. A woman's body is crumpled up on the floor in an unnatural position. Blood everywhere. Her dark brown hair matted with it. Judy freezes, her breath catching in her throat. Her mind flashes absurdly to episodes of CSI. She doesn't touch anything.
Suddenly, she worries the person who did this might still be there. She grabs the cordless phone and runs for the door, panicking. When the dispatcher answers, she stumbles over her words. Outside, she waits, pacing and crying, trying to keep warm in the January cold. The minutes drag on. Every sound feels too loud. And the stillness is heavy.
When the sirens finally arrive, they break the silence with both relief and fear. Paramedics rush past her, their boots heavy, their voices quick and focused. They don't notice her. Judy hears herself speak before she realizes it. Look behind the desk, she says. Paramedics find the woman and see something Judy missed. The woman is still breathing. They kneel, check on her, and move quickly.
Judy notices the air now smells metallic. The paramedics gently move the body and roll her onto a stretcher. They lift it and the wheels snap out with a hollow sound. Judy steps back and gives them space as they approach the door. Her heart pounds as they pass. The sheet shifts and the woman's head turns. It's the first time Judy sees a face.
With an audible gasp, she says, That's my friend Rhonda.
The End
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Chapter 3: How did Rhonda's relationship with her church impact her life?
Drawers are closed. Papers are still stacked on the desk. There are no signs of struggle or a search for money or valuables. If this were a robbery, the room would show it. If it were random violence, someone likely would have forced their way in. Instead, the scene suggests someone was close. They stood near the victim. fired, and left without disturbing anything else.
Stempo steps back in the hallway and looks towards the sanctuary beyond the office. For centuries, this church was a place of routine and ritual. Today, it is the scene of a shooting. Stempo finds Judy Zellner in her car in the church lot, the engine running to keep warm. Her hands are wrapped tightly around a tissue as he asks her to walk him through the afternoon.
Stempo listens as Judy speaks through sniffles, telling him that she didn't know anyone would be there, and about the unlocked door. She nearly starts crying when she gets to the part about finding Rhonda. He takes notes as Judy talks about Rhonda. She says Rhonda started coming to the church a couple of years ago.
Rhonda spoke openly about her money and her career troubles, all related to her bipolar diagnosis. She had been hospitalized before. There were times when she struggled deeply, even talked about hurting herself. But lately, Judy says, Rhonda seemed stable. She was dating and making plans for the future.
Just a couple of weeks ago, she stood in front of the congregation and thanked everyone for their support. Judy's tears burst forward, but Stumpo has to ask an uncomfortable question. Did she ever mention having a gun, he asks. Judy shakes her head no. In a quiet church in the middle of the day, with no forced entry and no witnesses, one possibility stood out.
Rhonda was alone, had a history of depression, and was found with a bullet wound. Stumpo writes this in his notes, though he doesn't think it really fits. By the time Stumpo reached the hospital, doctors confirmed what he suspected. Rhonda had been shot in the head, but she was shot twice at close range.
She was hit directly on the right side of her head but also had grazing wounds on her hand and forehead, likely from a shot that missed. Crime scene techs later found a bullet lodged in the church office ceiling. She also had stifling, a sign that the gun was fired up close. Stumbo asks the necessary question. Could she have done this to herself?
He listens and takes notes as doctors explain that the way she was found makes it unlikely. Two shots to the head are rare in suicides. And the angles didn't show any kind of hesitation, which is common. It's a little harder than you think to put a gun up to your head and pull the trigger. Also, there was no gun at the scene, Stumpo thought.
He closed his notepad and thanked the doctors for their work. He asked them to keep him updated about her condition, but they didn't think she would survive the night. The damage was too severe. Rhonda was alive, but barely. Her head and right eye were heavily bandaged. She lay motionless with her tongue protruding from her lips. She was brain dead.
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Chapter 4: What led to the discovery of a crime scene at the church?
The father panics when he sees his son with a gun and gently snatches it from him. The gun didn't appear to be rusted. It wasn't something you'd expect to find underwater. He opens the cylinder and finds three spent casings and two live rounds. He dumped them in his hand and, at that, they were done fishing for the day. The boy and his father went home and called the police.
The End
The revolver recovered from Lake Nockamixon is sent to the Pennsylvania State Police Crime Lab. The .38 caliber Rossi revolver pulled from the shallow water is the gun that killed Rhonda. They stake out the church waiting for Mary Jane to arrive. When she does, they approached her. She isn't hysterical. She isn't combative.
According to investigators, she looked at them and said, I figured you'd be coming. She's quickly placed under arrest and charged with the murder of Rhonda. I didn't do it, she said. But now the denial has to compete with a gun pulled from shallow water. Prosecutors argued that on the morning of January 23rd, Mary Jane went to the church knowing Rhonda would be alone in the office.
She brought her .38 caliber Rossi revolver. The first shot grazed Rhonda's hand and forehead. The second shot struck the right side of her head at close range. Then Mary Jane left. She drove to a scheduled hair appointment and signed in at 11.22 a.m., like nothing ever happened. Prosecutors would later lay out a simple theory. Mary Jane didn't just kill a stranger. She killed a rival.
For months, she had become attached to Pastor Greg Shreves. She called him a, quote, real man, admitted she had very sexual, warm feelings for him. She interpreted pastoral kindness as intimacy. But then Rhonda entered the picture. Rhonda met with the pastor for counseling. She received financial help from the congregation. She stood before the church and publicly thanked them.
She was welcomed into social gatherings. Mary Jane was not. In the week before the murder, Rhonda's life appeared to be stabilizing. She was working at the church, dating, rebuilding. To Mary Jane, that attention felt like displacement. Mary Jane was convicted of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Even then, she maintained her innocence.
"'I didn't do this terrible thing,' she said." Years passed. From prison, Mary Jane started writing letters to the authors who documented her case. The tone of those letters was different from that of the woman who sat in that interview room, insisting she had done nothing wrong. She wrote about having vivid dreams in which she was back inside the church office. In those dreams, she had the gun.
In those dreams, she saw Rhonda fall. She started to question herself. She wondered whether something had happened that she couldn't fully remember. She suggested that maybe she had gone to church just to talk. Maybe things escalated. Maybe she blacked out. She never clearly confessed, but she stopped insisting she had not been there. Mary Jane died in prison years later.
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