but for mark, he had dozens of guns. he loved his guns. it was a passion for him. he loved his hunting. keith morrison: no, guns no contact with linda. and mark agreed. here s what teresa says mark told her. this will make it all stop. keith morrison: in other words, he was telling you, i m going to let her win. he said that was important. that she needed to win. keith morrison: was he afraid of her? oh, yes. keith morrison: still, after that, things seemed to settle down. mark s business thrived in his new location here in anacortes. he continued to service his clients in seattle. and of course, by then he had found teresa. but then, in the summer of 2009, two strange 911 calls came into the skagit county sheriff s office. an anonymous male caller claimed mark stover was transporting drugs in his car. anonymous caller: there is a crime that s going to take place in the morning.
and then divorce, about as ugly as divorce can be. i was shocked, i really was. keith morrison: so was mark, apparently. quite thoroughly devastated by all accounts, because now he had lost not just the love of his life, but he had to leave kiket island too. losing her, losing all this, it was, we hardly need say, a black period just about here. some quite disturbing episodes actually. we get to those later. suffice to say for now that eventually, life went on. it was just divorce, after all, not death. not yet anyway. mark found a new property in nearby anacortes, washington. and if it wasn t kiket island, it was not bad. he moved into a new house, new kennels, new start. he had found the place that was
o clock, i got one of the employees on the phone and i said, what is going on there? where s mark? and so they told me, you know, we haven t seen mark. we didn t see him all day yesterday. and i knew in my heart something terrible had happened. keith morrison: but what? well, there s the puzzle. does anybody know, even now? coming up, strange goings on at mark stover s place. the dogs are restless. the kennel dogs were very, very upset. it was a huge ruckus next door. keith morrison: the neighbors are about to find out why. before i even got to the door, there was this immense smell of bleach. keith morrison: bleach? and inside the house. there was three wet, what looked like blood spots. keith morrison: when dateline continues. [music playing]
keith morrison: and another time, she said, when she looked out her bathroom window i see mark on a hillside behind my house. he s looking through the scope, pointing the rifle at me. keith morrison: and once, said linda, long after she left him, after mark agreed to plead guilty to the stalking charge, she visited their abandoned paradise, kiket island, to retrieve some personal things. and she said she found in a cubbyhole in the master bedroom a wedding candle that she d thrown away during the divorce. i found the wedding candle in there with a .22 bullet casing and a picture of me along with that in the cubbyhole. keith morrison: was it a message, a threat? in her cross-examination, it was pretty clear that prosecutor rosemary kaholokula was deeply skeptical about linda s fears and allegations. no proof at all from michiel s claims. and linda hadn t seen or heard a word
luvera s investigation team had been knocked back by the overwhelming odor of bleach. and here in the bathroom off the hall they found clorox bottles. looked like someone tried to wash away evidence. this had to be more than just an injured dog. mark stover s employees told about the strange events the previous morning. the barking dogs, the odd business of the locked carport door, the man wearing mark s clothes roaring down the driveway in mark s white chevy station wagon. mark never drove that fast. it didn t look good. the policeman poked around, sniffed, measured, and still, no mark stover. the evidence, even without a body, seemed clear. this was homicide. so by now, a couple of days after mark s disappearance, his employees were shifting from puzzled to shocked to grief stricken. mark took a role in my life like a surrogate father.