things to say about him. but now it was clear oakes attorneys would use whatever evidence they could to paint the dog trainer as a threatening, gun-loving predator, someone michiel oakes would have feared. and here, the real work of the defense began. they focused to a large degree on stover s behavior with his ex-wife. linda opdycke, said browne, was stalked and harassed for years after leaving stover. it wasn t just the incident in which her ex-husband was caught rummaging through her garbage. he made a habit of showing up at her house uninvited, said browne, exposing himself, appearing in her bathroom as she got out of the shower, pointing a rifle at her through a window, leaving handwritten notes, threatening voicemails. the fact that he goes into linda s house with a .45 and puts it on a pillow and threatens to kill himself or her, the fact that he breaks into her house, the fact that he steals her journal, the fact that he steals her garbage, the fact you know, all those things
the person who s dead here is mark stover. yeah. he s the one against whom the violence was committed. here s something that we ve learned in this country, haven t we, you don t negotiate with terrorists. michiel didn t know that. or michiel felt he could negotiate with terrorists. linda felt she could negotiate with terrorists. the reality is you can t negotiate with a terrorist. and mark stover was a domestic violence terrorist. keith morrison: mark s friends and clients had by now gathered around the courthouse here in mount vernon determined to tell the world, anybody who would listen, that those claims were both unfair and untrue. most of all these reports that we hear are filed by her alone and by her eyewitness alone and absolutely no one else s. so you ve got to weigh that in at some point too, that it doesn t have that much meat to it. woman: i just knew that wasn t true about him. there was there was nothing in him that was malicious or vindictive.
of each other. what happened to that marriage, the one on the heavenly island? in fact, there was a record, the detective discovered. and it was more hell than heaven. well, mark had issues with linda, and linda had issues with mark. reporter: to put it mildly. here s the story mark s fiancee teresa told the detective. the story, she said, mark told her that linda seemed to be doing her level best to destroy mark s dog training business. she had been calling key clients and saying really horrible things about him to damage the business. she called and tried to shut the website down and tried to shut his phones down. reporter: which is why again, this is the story teresa said mark told her why he snooped in her garbage one march morning in 2008. this was a three-hour drive from his own house. he went there, said, teresa, to look for a paper trail to prove linda wanted to destroy his
a few days before my trip and still save up to 40%. just tap and go. for the best savings on flights, go to priceline. miss opdycke, raise your right hand. keith morrison: for months and months, since the murder of mark stover, his ex-wife linda opdycke had maintained absolute public silence. in the face of questions from police and prosecutors, she invoked her fifth amendment right. so this, at the end of michiel oakes murder trial, was quite a surprise. linda opdycke, defense witness. i felt this was an important part of the story that i could tell, about a dangerous stalking situation. and if there s any information that i could offer up, i wanted to do so. keith morrison: and as she began, it was clear she was here to join the defense s campaign against victim mark stover s character.
looked around for a place to dump his body. michiel oakes: there s kind of a dilapidated-looking dock thing. and i got my car as close to that as possible and muscled him out and dropped him in the water. keith morrison: an area investigators had searched but never found anything. then, he said, he drove across the state not to his kids, but to linda s house, though he insisted he did not tell her any of what just happened, didn t tell her what he d done. i just said i had a really bad day. and when the police showed up the next night, he admitted, he did try to throw out some evidence. what was your intent? i needed i needed one more day. i didn t i was trying not to get arrested just yet. keith morrison: but of course, he was arrested and charged. and now, it was prosecutor rich weyrich s turn to challenge his story about, for example, that morning at mark stover s house.