AI Summary
5 min readIn 2018, a press release crossed producer Michelle Madigan’s desk about a court hearing in Orange County, California. A woman named Michelle Hadley had just been exonerated. Madigan showed up to the press conference, listened, and knew she had to get an interview. The resulting Dateline episode, “Simply Diabolical,” tells the story of a self-described goody-two-shoes who believed in Disney princess fairy tales, met her Prince Charming, and then watched him turn into the big bad wolf. By the end of the episode, the prime victim had become the prime suspect.
The Condo That Wouldn’t Go Away
Michelle Hadley described herself as the kind of person who kept her hands at ten and two on the steering wheel and crossed at the green, not in between. She believed that if she was a good girl, her prince would come. She met Ian, a U.S. Marshal, and within weeks they were talking about moving in together. The worst decision she made, the reporters agree, was agreeing to buy a condo with a man she barely knew. She paid the entire down payment. When the relationship fell apart, they were stuck with the property. Ian didn’t want to leave. He stayed in the condo with all his stuff, and soon he was living there with a new girlfriend named Angela. The unresolved condo became the engine of the entire nightmare. As Dennis Murphy puts it, “I think if they hadn’t agreed to buy that condo together
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:03) **Story Setup: A Fairy Tale Gone Wrong** - Dennis Murphy and producer Michelle Madigan join host Keith Morrison to introduce the "Simply Diabolical" episode about Michelle Hadley, a woman framed by her ex-fiancé and his new girlfriend.
- 2 (04:13) **The Condo: The Root of All Trouble** - The early relationship between Michelle and Ian moved quickly, leading them to buy a condo together, which became the central source of conflict after their breakup.
- 3 (06:34) **The Escalation: From Emails to a Rape Fantasy** - The scheme began with threatening emails from a "biblical character" and escalated to a fabricated rape fantasy posted on internet bulletin boards.
- 4 (08:45) **The Arrest and the Missing Evidence** - Police arrested Michelle based on Angela's claims, but there was no surveillance footage to support the alleged assault in the garage, which investigators later doubted ever happened.
- 5 (10:58) **The Father's Investigation: A Digital Detective** - Michelle's father, a small business owner with no investigative background, took it upon himself to trace the IP addresses of the threatening emails, finding they came from Angela's own cell phone.
- 6 (12:22) **Angela's Web of Lies: Cancer, Law, and Friendship** - Angela was revealed to be a serial liar, faking a career as a lawyer, a pregnancy, and cervical cancer, even manipulating her friends into a sympathy intervention.
- 7 (14:23) **The Intervention: A Confrontation with Reality** - An extra clip from Dennis's interview with Mary details the intervention, where Angela's friends confronted her with the truth and packed her belongings.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Keith Morrison sits down with Dennis Murphy and Dateline producer Michelle Madigan to discuss their episode, “Simply Diabolical.” In May 2016, 29-year-old Michelle Hadley allegedly sent several threatening emails to her ex-boyfriend, Ian Diaz, and his new wife, Angela. But it wasn’t until Angela called 911 to report that she had been sexually assaulted and that Michelle was responsible for setting it up, that Michelle Hadley was arrested and sent to jail. The only problem was Michelle wasn’t behind the emails, or the alleged plot to have Angela sexually assaulted. She’d been set up by Ian and Angela. Dennis and producer Michelle Madigan tell Keith about the investigative work done by Hadley’s father to try to clear his daughter's name. Dennis shares an extra clip from an interview with one of Angela’s friends, as well as a clip from his interview with Michelle Hadley herself. Plus, our team answers your questions from social media.
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Listen to the full episode of “Simply Diabolical”: https://swap.fm/l/dl_simplydiabolical
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