and the very practical polygamy in the home of the pastor stayed carefully under wraps. so if the news got out to the rest of the church did tanya worry at what might happen there? that s what she was covering up. she had to protect james and protect their that was their world. did she do something to marie, to protect james? two months after marie disappeared the detectives got permission to look at the cell phone records of all three of them. would they prove tanya was with marie when she vanished and thus maybe did something to her? the cell phone tower information put her away from the area. no. nowhere near marie. so then they checked the cell towers for james s phone, and what do you know. when marie sent that mass text message saying she was leaving town, both her phone and the pastor s were pinging off the same cell tower two blocks from his house. and when marie s mazda was dropped at the airport we ve got james
came hey hey hey vanished off this earth. a week and a half after marie vanished, or drove hey away, or whatever she did, the detectives went calling on the flanders who said they fully expected marie would return -y soon. this was not the first time she took spur of the moments trips, they said. never to the point where she shade had to be reported to law enforcement missing, though. she came back. although the flanders told the detectives, they were quite worried about marie s state of mind. they noticed a downward spiral that she was going into a depression or something? -y depression state, yes. thing was, said the pastor and his wife, marie could have wild mood swings, and they knew she had a diagnosed mood disorder. did they tell you that she was bipolar? yes, told me she was bipolar. had been taking medication and was off of her medication, probably due because of her giving birth to the child. but there was another-y
the state reduced the charge from second degree murder to manslaughter and james agreed to tell them what he did to marie. and where he put her. marie s family grudgingly agreed. that was the hardest thing. but i wanted to know where my sister was. i didn t wanna go years and years and years and not know. as much as i just absolutely hated to agree to it, i knew it was probably the only way. first, as part of his deal, the pastor told the story of marie. of the polygamy arrangement. it was as if she was another wife. okay? although we never had a ceremony or anything like that. he said marie even had a name for their relationship. marie called it a throuple. throuple. and then the pastor offered his version of that last awful night.
just gets colder. and state attorney, bill eddins, wasn t optimistic it would ever be solved. what chance did you give it? i really felt that it was about a 50/50 chance of it bein solved. i know that it would make the case the law enforcement would have to be very careful and very persistent in their investigation. eddins assigned one of his most experienced prosecutors, angela mason, to work on it. she wasn t optimistic, either. i was certainly vulnerable in that i did not have a body. i was also vulnerable with the tanya element, that people thought she could be a suspect. and then three years after marie disappeared the most amazing thing happened. marie s computer yielded to a new forensics program, and out spilled in crimson blushing clarity text messages between marie and james. i love you.
now she s got a secret. yeah, at that point. wait, at that point? yes. because tanya just couldn t leave it there. the next time, she admitted something very, very shocking. and tanya said, well, we did it the old-fashioned way. james and marie had sex. which tanya told the ladies was okay with her. and as months passed and marie started showing, there was a baby shower. but oh, no. not for marie. this baby shower was for tanya. she put a balloon under her shirt for a funny photo with marie. but something here didn t seem quite right. the inner circle had to keep their secret. if the story got out? it could threaten everything she and the pastor had built. and as it got more and more and more into weird stuff, it was just that the stakes got higher. right? that s right. imagine the secrecy that the inner circle, that tanya