The Bundle in the Back | Trained to Kill

episode

Previously titled “The Bundle in the Back” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026

Blood is Thicker: The Farris Wheel 28 min 12 speakers 2 chapters transcribed
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What happened on October 28, 2009?

Peter Van Sant 0:01
I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode Island fraudsters.
Michael Oakes 0:15
I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying.
Ad Voice 0:23
Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah, wherever you get your podcasts.
Dispatcher 0:32
Gadget 911, what's your emergency? It's not an emergency, but I need a sheriff to come out here to Summit Park Grange.
Tammy Gilden 0:43
This is Tammy Gilden in Anacortes, Washington. She called 911 sometime before 1150, the morning of October 28, 2009, when she and her mother noticed a man trespassing behind the Grange Hall. It's an event facility about half a mile from Mark Stover's house.
Dispatcher 1:05
I just saw one guy. Okay. Did you say anything to him? Nope. I just backed up and pulled in front.
Tammy Gilden 1:14
Tammy noticed that the guy was at the back of the property, where no one should be parked.
Dispatcher 1:19
There's two vehicles. They're facing back to back.
Tammy Gilden 1:23
One of those two vehicles was a white station wagon. The other was a black SUV.
Dispatcher 1:29
They were transferring something back and forth or living back and forth or something.
Tammy Gilden 1:33
What Tammy saw was both odd and disturbing. Whatever the object being transferred was, Tammy remembered it was large and covered in plastic.
Witness 1:43
My first thought was, oh, a body. I thought, oh, you know, you're reading a murder mystery. You know, silly girl. You know, that's not a body.
Tammy Gilden 1:53
As they sat in their car at the front of the property, Tammy and her mom waited for a deputy to arrive. Tammy said the stranger got into the black SUV, leaving the station wagon behind.
Witness 2:06
I didn't see his face head on when we first pulled in. I saw him when he pulled next to us to leave.
Tammy Gilden 2:14
He drove right up next to their car before stepping on the gas and speeding away.
Witness 2:22
We were scrambling to find pen and paper and write the license plate number down.
Tammy Gilden 2:27
Tammy called the sheriff again.
Dispatcher 2:29
Dispatch, can I help you? Yeah, hi. I called about meeting the sheriff.
Tammy Gilden 2:35
They gave the dispatcher the license plate number and a description of the trespasser's car.
Dispatcher 2:41
It's a black SUV. Which direction did it leave? He turned on Stevenson. He turned west on Stevenson.
Tammy Gilden 2:49
He was driving toward downtown Anacortes. Minutes later, Skagit County Sheriff's Deputy Rick Duhame arrived and checked out the station wagon and then went looking for the black SUV. It didn't take long.
Deputy Rick Duhame 3:11
I noticed the license number matched the piece of paper that the reporting party had given me. I turned around in the vehicle, made a traffic stop.
Tammy Gilden 3:18
The deputy went up to the car window.
Deputy Rick Duhame 3:21
It was raining. He had sunglasses on, which is unusual. He was extremely nervous.
Tammy Gilden 3:27
Deputy Duhaime asked the man, who was hiding his eyes, for an ID.
Deputy Rick Duhame 3:33
He didn't listen to the question and then repeated my question to me, so he wasn't tracking the conversation we were having.
Tammy Gilden 3:40
The deputy explained that he pulled the driver over for trespassing.
Deputy Rick Duhame 3:44
His story was he was headed to the casino, which is down the road,
Tammy Gilden 3:53
During the conversation, the deputy noticed that the driver had some dog hair on his clothing. And he noticed a big bundle of blankets in the back of the SUV. He didn't think much of it. This just so happened to be the same morning that Mark Stover's employees reported seeing their boss tear out of his driveway in his white Chevy station wagon. And this traffic stop was just a few hours later. no one yet knew Mark was missing. The deputy took the driver's ID.
Deputy Rick Duhame 4:29
And went back to my patrol car, ran a driver's check on him, made sure that the car was registered to him. I pulled over Michael Oakes.
Tammy Gilden 4:38
And the bundle of blankets in the back? Only later would he learn that was Mark's dead body. The whole case took off. I'm Peter Van Sant. From 48 Hours, this is Trained to Kill. The dog trainer, the heiress, and the bodyguard. Episode 4, The Bundle in the Back. After the sheriff's deputy let Michael Oakes drive away with just a warning, Michael made a phone call, but not to his girlfriend, Linda Updike.
Jennifer Thompson 5:15
It was unexpected. It was out of the blue. It wasn't pre-coordinated.

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