How a sketch of an unknown woman found in a Georgia swamp revealed a twisted case of death and deception

Investigator Jack Frost, now with the Liberty County, Georgia, district attorney’s office, was one of the first detectives called to the scene of a swamp in south Georgia on Dec. 2, 2022.

Investigator Jack Frost: Down here is where the hunters had discovered the torso of a female in the ditch. …

Investigator Jack Frost: The hunters had seen a knife and a tote and some wipes back there.

Detectives recovered a razor-sharp Milwaukee brand knife, a plastic storage tub with what looked like traces of blood, and wipes.

Erin Moriarty: Do you think whoever brought her out here had to know this area?

Investigator Jack Frost: That would be a … safe assumption because it’s so desolate.

It would take five days until Frost found the rest of her body. Authorities said it appeared the woman had defensive wounds.

Laurie Baio is an assistant district attorney with the Atlantic Judicial Circuit.

Laurie Baio: There’s no one that winds up dismembered in the woods that’s not a — a victim of homicide.

Who is the woman found in the swamp?

Investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation released two sketches.

Laurie Baio: There were hundreds and hundreds of calls and leads that came in through the forensic sketches that were published from civilians calling in.

One call came from a woman 500 miles away in Virginia — Heather Thomas.

Heather Thomas: I was like, whoa, wait a minute. Like, that looks like Mindi.

Mindi Kassotis.

Laurie Baio: Heather Thomas turned out as one of the people that recognized the photograph and said this could be Mindi.

Heather recognized Mindi because Mindi was married to Heather’s ex-husband, Nick Kassotis, a Naval officer — a lawyer in JAG, the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps.

Nick had traveled the globe and was deployed to Iraq. He served in Italy and the Pentagon. He dealt with sensitive cases involving Afghanistan.

Heather Thomas: He definitely had an air about him of — of confidence, of, you know, reassurance, but never in an egotistical way. Cause you could sort of pick that out from a mile away.

Heather and Nick got married in 2009.

Erin Moriarty: Was he wearing a uniform?

Heather Thomas: Yes, he was in his uniform. I was in — I had two different dresses. It was a very big deal. … It was a — it was a happy day. 

Heather Thomas: He had a lot of friends, and he just knew everyone, and he had a very outgoing personality and just was a talker and loved to read and just was — it was very different than kind of how I — I was.

Things started out well. But eventually, after six years, their marriage faded.

Heather Thomas: I felt like we had grown apart. … I felt like he was my best friend, but at the same time, like, didn’t have the romance.

And in 2015 they divorced.

Nick Kassotis bounced back quickly. That same year, he started dating Mindi. She was working as a legal secretary in Washington D.C.

Angela Wynn: Mindi was the consummate romantic for a while there, right?

Angela Wynn and Morgan Paddock were longtime friends of Mindi. Angela says Mindi met Nick on a dating app.

Angela Wynn: When she finally did meet him, that was just her fairy-tale ending, coming to fruition.

Even Heather was happy.

Heather Thomas: He told me all about it. He was so excited that they met and I was excited for him.

Nick and Mindi married in 2016. Her friends say the couple soon started looking for a home and planning a family.

Angela Wynn: That’s one of the things that, that she wanted, she wanted to have kids.

And Mindi became a podcaster.

Morgan Paddock: We both were on her podcast.

MINDI KASSOTIS (podcast): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the “Compelling Women” podcast.

Morgan Paddock: She just wanted to find the stories of women and elevate them.

MINDI KASSOTIS (podcast): I’m Mindi, your host, and I’m really excited to share with you another thought-provoking interview with a different compelling woman.

Mindi and Nick’s life seemed good. After leaving active duty, he was still practicing law.

Angela Wynn: I was so happy that she was so in love and just so enamored and ready to move on to that next phase of her life.

But her friends say Mindi’s life began taking some strange turns.

Morgan Paddock: She once told me, Morgan, if you knew everything that was going on, like this is something that would be like a best-selling novel or — a best-selling movie.

Mindi and Nick started moving around a lot, living in three different states. She rarely saw her friends, they say, and was so worried about security, she started communicating through the encrypted Signal app.

Morgan Paddock: We only ever talked on Signal. … If we called it was through the Signal app and if we texted, it was through the Signal app.

Erin Moriarty: And whose idea was to use this Signal app?

Angela Wynn: Oh, Nick.

And Mindi said at one point she was being spied upon.

Morgan Paddock: I remember her saying … I may have had a tail. …

Erin Moriarty: Someone following her.

Morgan Paddock: Yeah, yeah. … It ramped up after that.

Mindi’s life ramped up into a series of stranger and stranger events.

Morgan Paddock: She told me … they had been hacked by a hacker group. … Their bank accounts had been completely frozen. …

Angela Wynn: They didn’t have any money at all.

Morgan Paddock: None.

And she told friends that Nick said they were being surveilled, and that he told her:

Angela Wynn: We have a security issue now, and now we are, you know, we’re in danger.

Morgan Paddock: Mm-hmm.

Erin Moriarty: She thought her life was in danger?

Angela Wynn: Mm-hmm.

Morgan Paddock: Mm-hmm.

It was, according to Mindi, all connected to Nick and some classified work that he  had been involved in during his time in the Navy.

Morgan Paddock: There had to be video surveillance … in a van down the street … to just keep watch, to make sure the comings and goings of their home were safe.

Nick warned Mindi that an undercover team disguised as tree surgeons were planting surveillance cameras around their house.

Morgan Paddock: It sounded crazy. It did sound crazy because that does sound like something you see in a movie or read in a novel. But again, you’re talking to Mindi, whose husband is a JAG who has all of this military clearance. …

By June 2022, Nick and Mindi were living in Savannah. Friends say she was afraid to leave the house.

Erin Moriarty: Did she sound scared?

Morgan Paddock: Oh, she was, she was scared. 

Tracking down Nick Kassotis

As Mindi’s friends worried about the strange events in her life in Savannah, 500 miles away in Virginia, Heather Thomas had been trying to track down her ex-husband Nick Kassotis for nearly two years.

Heather Thomas: I tracked him going to … South Carolina. … He had said something about Georgia and that was always in the back of my mind.

He owed her money from their divorce — $1.5 million. A court had ordered him to pay and issued a warrant for his arrest. His law career was now in jeopardy.

Heather Thomas: If he was willing to throw away his … license to practice ever, and he was just gonna throw all caution to the wind, you’re now dealing with a scenario where you can’t assume anything. So, you have to be prepared, I had to be prepared for anything.

Heather had a friend who was training to be a private investigator. Through him she would discover that Nick had been on the move. She would later find out that he had gone from state to state, living in Airbnb’s and motels.

Heather didn’t know it, but Nick and Mindi were now hiding out in Savannah, Georgia. That summer, Mindi had told her friend Angela that she was pregnant.

Angela Wynn: She was very excited and very happy.

But months later, just after Thanksgiving 2022, Angela got an unexpected call from Nick and couldn’t believe what he told her.

Angela Wynn: He called me … he told me that Mindi was gone.

Mindi, Nick said, had died from a sudden medical problem. But his details were sketchy. He told her she had been cremated. There was no funeral or memorial.

Angela Wynn: I’m not hearing anything from anybody, and I need to know what the hell is going on. … cause in my mind, you know, Mindi’s not gone until I see that she is gone and I told him that several times, like I need to see it, I need to see her, I — I need to see her.

She tried to reach Nick again and again.

Angela Wynn: He just dropped off the face of the earth. …

Angela Wynn: It was a very hard and confusing time.

At around the same time, Nick’s ex-wife Heather had also gotten a message telling her that Mindi had died in the hospital.

Heather Thomas: I was contacted saying, hey, you know, Mindi’s dead. …

Erin Moriarty: What was your reaction?

Heather Thomas: Horror. I was just like, oh my God. I felt terrible because no matter what our beef was, Nick and my, like, to hear that a woman around my age is now dead … I was sad.

And just weeks after that sad news was still sinking in, Heather received more surprising news in a text from an acquaintance.

Heather Thomas: This person says Nick is dead.

Nick Kassotis had died in a car crash.

Heather Thomas: And I said, “Hmm.”

Erin Moriarty: So, you didn’t believe that then?

Heather Thomas: I immediately didn’t believe it. … I’m like, well, something is fishy here.

But Heather wasn’t the only one who heard that Nick had died. Mindi’s parents received an email from the security department at the tech company where Nick told them he was working. It read: “I’m very sorry to inform you that Nicholas passed away late Wednesday evening.”

As Heather tried to get more details Googling news sites online, she came across that police sketch — the one that looked so much like Mindi… and called authorities in Georgia. That helped police make a positive identification, and once they got a DNA and genetic genealogy confirmation, they finally had proof that the woman found in the swamp was, indeed, Mindi Kassotis.

Laurie Baio: Once they figure out who she is, all of these things that they’ve been learning about the evidence found at the scene, all ties in.

Investigators could find no evidence of Nick Kassotis dying in a car crash. What they did find was a new driver’s license in a new name: Nicholas Kilian James Stark. They tracked him to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he was now living with a third wife —  tech worker and fiction writer Samantha Kolesnik. He had told her he was a widower.

In May 2023, detectives bought Nick Kassotis back to Georgia for questioning. He told them a detailed story similar to what Mindi’s family and friends had heard – about being pursued and harassed by unknown individuals connected to government work he had done.

Investigator Jack Frost: There was different, a couple different stories … one was that there was, some fallout from some stuff that Nick had done at the Pentagon. … He was … potential target for a terrorist group. …

Investigator Jack Frost: It was real top-secret stuff and that it was really super sensitive … and almost like a, you know, secret agent type of life where they just hid in plain sight but had to kind of be careful.

The once buttoned-down, straightlaced attorney and former Naval JAG officer now looked scruffy. Kassotis claimed that he reported the conspiracy to the FBI. And that’s when he says a federal agent came to their home offering to protect them. His name: Jim McIntyre.

NICK KASSOTIS (interrogation): I came home one day, and Mindi said that — that an FBI agent had come to the house … that, you know, he was serious about what was going on and, you know, wanted to meet with us both and talk about it. …

INVESTIGATOR JACK FROST: And that was Jim?

NICK KASSOTIS: That was Jim.

INVESTIGATOR JACK FROST: Did he show you any credentials or anything?

NICK KASSOTIS: I don’t recall.

According to Nick, for four years, Jim McIntrye took control of everything in the couple’s lives, telling them when to move and where.

AGENT TRACY SANDS (interrogation): If Jim told you to jump off a cliff, you were going to go jump off a cliff?

NICK KASSOTIS: Yes, sir. For — for years — for years we did exactly what Jim told us to do. He wanted full access to our lives. He said he was keeping us safe. …

INVESTIGATOR JACK FROST: Nick, you live in a web of lies…. You talk in parallel realities. …That’s what you’re doing here.

NICK KASSOTIS: No, sir.

The evidence against Nick Kassotis

Nick Kassotis had spun such an elaborate story for detectives they had a hard time believing anything he said. They began to suspect that he had made up everything — that he was the author of the email sent to Mindi’s parents announcing his death, complete with a company he didn’t work for.

Investigator Jack Frost: It’s kind of like, yeah, we — we can see through all the lies now.

NICK KASSOTIS (interrogation): This is such a nightmare. Why is this happening?

Detectives began asking him about Mindi’s last days.

Right around Thanksgiving 2022, while Nick was out of town, he said, Mindi texted him, saying she had taken a fall and had checked herself into a clinic. He was vague on details.

AGENT TRACY SANDS (interrogation): Tell me about the day that you got called to the doctor’s office. …

NICK KASSOTIS: I got a phone call, I forget from who. I don’t know if it was somebody I knew or not asking if I could — I don’t think it was somebody I knew — asking if — if I could come and pick her up — that afternoon.

When Nick arrived, he told investigators, the doctor gave him bad news.

NICK KASSOTIS (interrogation): I – I sat down and — and he — he said that — that he, you know, was very sorry to tell me that Mindi had passed away suddenly. …

AGENT TRACY SANDS: So he said Mindi had passed away?

NICK KASSOTIS: Suddenly. …

AGENT TRACY SANDS: Then what happened?

NICK KASSOTIS: He — he — I — I was — I was extremely upset. I was, you know, I — like, I — I thought I was — I was coming there just to — just to pick her up and bring her back. Um — he said — he said he — he wasn’t sure what had happened. …

AGENT TRACY SANDS: You go to this doctor’s office. They tell you wife died. You don’t ask to see her. You immediately —

NICK KASSOTIS: I did ask to see her.

AGENT TRACY SANDS: You don’t get to see her.

Nick couldn’t tell investigators where the facility was, or the names of anyone he spoke to.

AGENT TRACY SANDS(interrogation): You don’t forcefully go any further to see her. You just take ’em at their word. You don’t know their names. You don’t know their addresses. Don’t know how to return there, whatever. You just leave.

But if Mindi had died at a Savannah clinic, how did her remains end up in a swamp? Nick told detectives he had no idea but insisted he didn’t do it.

What Nick didn’t know at the time was that detectives were already building a case against him.

Investigator Jack Frost: I think it’s easy for people to think about doing something, but I think the act of doing it and then trying to cover up all the loose ends after you’ve started … almost impossible.

For starters, when detectives ran a background check on Nick, they discovered he owned a green Ford Explorer — a green Ford Explorer that looked just like the vehicle investigators had spotted on a surveillance video from a remote pumping station near the crime scene.

Erin Moriarty: And why was that camera so significant in this case?

Laurie Baio: Because it captured Nicholas Kassotis’ Explorer driving past it, going in and out of that area.

And that wasn’t all. On a hunch, days after Frost had processed the crime scene, he checked with Home Depot stores, which sold that Milwaukee brand of knife.

LAURIE BAIO: Agent Frost had contacted Home Depot because he had worked another case and was familiar with the brands.

One of those knives had been purchased from a store just 50 minutes from the hunting club with a debit card belonging to Nick Kassotis.

A surveillance photo shows Nicholas Kassotis right after he paid for that knife.

And there were more knives. When Frost had checked out a Bass Pro Shop in Savannah, he discovered that Nick Kassotis had also used his debit card there and bought a knife kit designed for hunters.

Investigator Jack Frost: This is a seven-piece Pursuit field dressing kit for animals. This is like the same kit that was purchased by Kassotis. … And there is an assortment of knives.

Erin Moriarty: Oh my God, look, oh. … I’m not touching this. These are very sharp.

Investigator Jack Frost: Very sharp. … And then there is also a bone saw.

Now with Nick apparently tied to the knives and the Ford Explorer, they subpoenaed records from his phone and the Ford’s GPS system.

Laurie Baio: The car records showing his vehicle and phone traveling down to exactly where her body is. …

Laurie Baio: He has no reason whatsoever to be there other than that his dismembered wife happens to be found there when he told everyone else, she was cremated.

Back in the interrogation room, detectives confronted Nick with their discoveries.

AGENT TRACY SANDS (interrogation): I mean, who else has the luck of going on a 25,000-acre property and getting captured on video? …

AGENT TRACY SANDS: It just so happens your phone, even your car shows clearly where you were at down this long dirt road that just happened to pass a camera and tracks your every movement. …

INVESTIGATOR JACK FROST: We put you and your cellular device in your vehicle, out there in these places where your wife’s body is found dismembered with the knife that you just bought. …

AGENT TRACY SANDS: Why did you kill Mindi?

NICK KASSOTIS: Sir, I didn’t kill Mindi.

AGENT TRACY SANDS: You killed Mindi.

NICK KASSOTIS: I did not.

AGENT TRACY SANDS: All the evidence shows that you killed Mindi and will continue to show. It’s kind of like a thousand-piece puzzle. You burned some of the pieces. … But we’ve got enough to see a very clear picture.

But Nick insisted he was innocent and pointed the finger at the man he says had been controlling their lives: Jim McIntyre.

AGENT TRACY SANDS (interrogation): Are you alleging that Jim killed your wife?

NICK KASSOTIS: I don’t know, but I think it’s possible. …

NICK KASSOTIS: She should have never been in this situation. We should have never listened to Jim.

In February 2024, a little over a year after Mindi’s death, Nick Kassotis was indicted for the murder of Mindi Kassotis.

Doug Weinstein: It’s very difficult for me to believe that Nick Kassotis could murder anyone.

Defense claims accused killer was duped by mystery man

Phillip McCallar had walked the grounds of the Portal Hunting Club for years before the December day in 2022, when he made that gruesome discovery.

Phillip McCallar: Just laying in the ditch. …

Phillip McCallar: Kind of thought it was a mannequin to start with. It didn’t look real.

Strewn along the swamp, the remains of the once vibrant 40-year-old Mindi Kassotis.

More than two-and-a-half years later, her husband Nick Kassotis, charged with her murder, was in a Hinesville, Georgia, courtroom.

JUDGE CHARLES ROSE (in court): We’ll begin the trial at this time with the opening statements.

This trial would prove to be unlike any other from the get-go.

In an unusual move, the prosecution forced defense attorney Doug Weinstein to open his case first.

Doug Weinstein: I honestly think it was purely … a tactic to try to get into my head a little bit and make me off balance.

DOUG WEINSTEIN (in court): Mr. and Mrs. Kassotis were told that they were targets.

Weinstein immediately set the scene for the defense: the alleged killer, he says, was actually another victim running for his life.

DOUG WEINSTEIN (in court): Nick Kassotis is … a man who lived in fear. Relentless all-consuming fear.

Doug Weinstein: It’s hard for me to ever believe that Nick killed Mindi.

Instead, Weinstein told the jury, Nick Kassotis had been duped and deluded by the mysterious figure Jim McIntyre.

DOUG WEINSTEIN (in court): You’ll hear testimony that a man call – calling himself Jim McIntyre … claiming to be with the FBI told them that their lives were in danger.

Nick Kassotis is not a killer, he says — more like a frightened, desperate hero.

DOUG WEINSTEIN (in court): A decorated military veteran. … He served in Iraq. He was in the Pentagon.

But Prosecutor Laurie Baio says the real Nick Kassotis is revealed by the gruesome evidence left behind.

LAURIE BAIO (in court): And unfortunately, you’re going to hear about the dismemberment.

Baio showed the weapon found near Mindi’s mangled body.

LAURIE BAIO (in court): A Milwaukee, orange handled black sheathed knife.

Kassotis’ DNA was not found at the crime scene but that knife is the same brand, investigators say— as the one seen under his arm.

LAURIE BAIO (in court): That’s him on surveillance from Home Depot.

On the same day that authorities say Mindi may have been murdered.

Along with the facts and forensics, the jury heard tales of betrayal, including one by Kassotis’ third wife, Samantha Kolesnik. She believed she had married a loving widower—but later learned that Mindi was still alive when Nick first started messaging her.

Laurie Baio: She had no idea that – that he was leading this double life.

SAMANTHA KOLESNIK (in court): I don’t think words will ever capture how I felt, but I felt if I had to choose some words, I’d say horrified, shocked … traumatized, violated, deceived.

Samantha also told jurors Nick wanted to quickly start a family.

SAMANTHA KOLESNIK (in court): I went to a, a preconception appointment … right around the date of our marriage. Yep.

CAMERON NELSON (in court): Nick and I met at Naval Justice School in 2008.

Retired Commander Cameron Nelson described the “Nick” that she and others had once believed was an honorable, proud patriot. She received a serious cancer diagnosis.

CAMERON NELSON (in court): And I was scheduled to deploy aboard the USNS Comfort. …

CAMERON NELSON (in court): Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go on that deployment.

Kassotis, she told the jury, stepped up and stepped in.

CAMERON NELSON (in court): Nick immediately volunteered to take that deployment so that I could focus on treatment.

But that same Nick Kassotis, she says, also betrayed her trust. When he told her that his financial accounts had been hacked, she lent him money and even gave him a credit card.

GREG MCCONNELL (in court): How much did the defendant charge to that credit card? …

CAMERON NELSON: Approximately $198,000. …

GREG MCCONNELL: Has he ever paid a penny towards that debt?

CAMERON NELSON: Not a penny.

The man Cameron thought was a patriot, now seemed like a calculating conman.

CAMERON NELSON (in court): And we decided that it was just not sustainable to continue to allow him to borrow money.

First wife Heather Thomas testified about her own betrayal, with its court order for Kassotis to pay up on their divorce agreement.

GREG MCCONNELL (in court): Did the defendant cooperate with the divorce obligations?

HEATHER THOMAS: No.

GREG MCCONNELL: Did that cause any kind of hardship to you?

HEATHER THOMAS: Of course. … It put me through a lot of emotional stress. …

GREG MCCONNELL: Did he ever comply with that court order for the $1.5 million, and the interest and the attorney fees?

HEATHER THOMAS: No.

The jury watched that video of Kassotis’ green Ford Explorer less than a mile from where Mindi’s remains were found.

LAURIE BAIO (in court):And that camera captured that vehicle, is that correct?

AGENT TRACY SANDS: The water pumping station camera, yes.

Special Agent Tracy Sands said he wasn’t just sifting through physical evidence. He had been on a hunt for a star witness.

LAURIE BAIO (in court): Did you ever make an effort to locate Jim McIntyre?

AGENT TRACY SANDS: Yes ma’am I did. … There was only one in this area, in the Savannah area.

And this McIntyre was definitely not an FBI agent.

AGENT TRACY SANDS: An older gentleman. … He managed a company that sold dental implants. …

LAURIE BAIO: Could you identify any connection between that Jim McIntyre to this case?

AGENT TRACY SANDS: I could not.

It’s a powerful circumstantial case against Nick Kassotis  that only one man can rebut.

For more than three hours, Kassotis repeated to the jury his story about the mystery man who he insists controlled every detail of Mindi’s life and his.

NICK KASSOTIS (in court): I gave Jim McIntyre access to literally everything. … He had access to our home. … He had all of our bank accounts.

Erin Moriarty: Why would an accomplished attorney listen to some guy who just shows up and do whatever he says?

Doug Weinstein: Well, is — that’s the million-dollar question, right? Why would he do that? All I can think is panic.

The defense offered no pictures of McIntyre, no records — just Kassotis’ testimony.

NICK KASSOTIS (in court): I had no reason to doubt that he was who he said he was.

And Kassotis claimed he was only in the area where his wife’s remains were found because the manipulative McIntyre had told him to go there.

DOUG WEINSTEIN (in court): Did you kill your wife, Mindi Kassotis?

NICK KASSOTIS: I absolutely did not. … I would never have hurt Mindi. …

DOUG WEINSTEIN: Did you dismember her body?

NICK KASSOTIS: No, absolutely not.

Then what about that knife cradled under his arm? Kassotis said it wasn’t about murder. It was for home improvement — a broken screen.

NICK KASSOTIS: I was having a very hard time keeping the netting on it and keeping it secured up there. So, I was looking for something that kind of long and thin.

Erin Moriarty: What is Nick’s strongest defense?

Doug Weinstein: His strongest defense is it’s entirely circumstantial. There was zero evidence presented at trial of how Mindi was killed and frankly, oh, how — where Mindi was killed. They don’t know.

Attorney Weinstein closed his defense with this reminder to the jurors.

Doug Weinstein: The state has an incredibly high burden to meet. … Because they have got to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. … And they haven’t done that. They just — they just haven’t done that.

As the trial wrapped up, the mystery man Jim McIntyre never appeared in the Georgia courtroom.

LAURIE BAIO (in court): Can’t find a person that doesn’t exist. …

LAURIE BAIO (in court): I submit to you there is no Jim. …

LAURIE BAIO (in court): He killed her. He took her from everyone — a bright light, kind, good natured. … I submit to you, Mindi, she deserves your attention. This case is about her. … Look at the evidence and come back with what is the only appropriate outcome — guilty of all charges.

What was Nick Kassotis’ motive to kill?

Nick Kassotis and his attorney had hoped to convince the jury that he wasn’t capable of killing his wife Mindi, but somebody else was.

Doug Weinstein: It is not my job to figure out who killed Mindi Kassotis. That is the state’s job. It’s a huge job. It’s an important job. And it’s a high burden. …

Erin Moriarty: What’s the motive for someone else to kill her?

Doug Weinstein: Well, again, we go back to Jim McIntyre. … That’s the only person that could possibly — that’s the only person.

The mysterious Jim McIntyre.

Erin Moriarty: Prosecutors say there is no Jim McIntyre, that he doesn’t exist. Do you have any evidence he does? …

Doug Weinstein: I – I have no evidence that Jim McIntyre exists.

Erin Moriarty: Do you have a picture of him?

Doug Weinstein: I have no picture.

Erin Moriarty: Any kind of documentation that showed that he worked for a federal agency?

Doug Weinstein: All that we have on Jim McIntyre is what Nick has told Mindi. … If I had any way to prove that Jim McIntyre existed, you would’ve seen it at the trial. …

Erin Moriarty: Why should anyone believe Nick Kassotis’ story when he’s a liar? …

DOUG WEINSTEIN: He lies a lot. … He told some big lies, but nothing like murdering your wife. …

Doug Weinstein: I just refuse to take the leap of, because you lie about certain things, you’re a murderer. I just, it’s just too far for me to go.

Even prosecutor Laurie Baio admitted that, despite Kassotis’ inconsistencies, jurors might have doubts about his guilt.

Laurie Baio: If you look at him on paper, he looks like Prince Charming. My mom and dad would’ve said, oh my gosh, he’s a wonderful catch. … He looks fantastic. So why wouldn’t you believe him?

But Baio says Kassotis has been fooling people for years.

Laurie Baio: He gaslighted everybody. … Not stupid people, not people that are unaware. And they all bought it.

Including Mindi.

Laurie Baio: She believed him. I mean, there’s no one disputes that Mindi never left the house, that she was terrified and that she stayed home every moment of her life, afraid that if she left, that she’d be killed.

The real story, says Baio, was much more mundane. Nick Kassotis was hiding, she says, because he didn’t want to pay his ex-wife.

Erin Moriarty: Was Nick Kassotis gaslighting his wife and making her believe that their lives were in danger when in fact he’s just running from a debt?

Doug Weinstein: You know, that’s possible, but —

Erin Moriarty: I mean, he’s a prosecutor, he’s a lawyer. He might be able to convince her of that. …

Doug Weinstein: He also knows how to handle the legal system. So, there’s a million-and-a-half-dollar judgment against him. … There’s all kinds of ways to get rid of this debt. You don’t need to live a miserable life for five years because of a judgment that you can’t pay. 

But why kill Mindi?

Erin Moriarty: Why do you believe Nick Kassotis killed his wife? What — what’s the motive for it?

Laurie Baio: That was the hardest question to answer. …

Erin Moriarty: But a jury needs —

Laurie Baio: — but juries want to know. … It was my argument to the jury that everybody said, Nick wanted a family. He wanted kids. He really wanted to have kids. …

Erin Moriarty: But — so why kill her?

Laurie Baio: I think he found out she wasn’t pregnant.

In fact, Mindi’s death certificate said she was not pregnant.

Jurors took just a little over an hour to reach a verdict.

JUDGE CHARLES ROSE: It’s my understanding that the jury has reached a verdict.

CLERK: Count 1, malice murder, guilty. Count 2, felony murder, guilty.

Guilty on all charges.

Doug Weinstein: I don’t believe for a minute, Nick ever expected a guilty verdict to come back.

Before sentencing, Mindi’s friend Morgan Paddock spoke directly to Kassotis.

MORGAN PADDOCK (in court): She loved you and trusted you to tell her the truth, to protect her, to live out your marriage vows. And yet you were the one that she needed protection from.

The judge sentenced Nick Kassotis to life without parole.

Erin Moriarty: Why did so many people believe Nick Kassotis? …

Doug Weinstein: You know, all — all I have are questions from this case, right? Just — I don’t have answers. … So many people … college grads, professionals, career Navy officers believed everything that Nick and Mindi told them about … why they were living the life. … And I think it’s because … when Nick would tell them something, they, they believed him.

The people in his life are still struggling with the betrayal.

Erin Moriarty: Is that hard for you then to think that you were married to this man who then killed his wife?

Heather Thomas: The thing that I struggle with, I think even now is the fact that survivor’s guilt is very real. … Out of the two of us, I probably had — he probably had more reasons to perhaps maybe come after me. …

Heather Thomas: I trusted him with my literal life and I believed him.

Mindi’s friends now accept that they were all betrayed by Nick. But they hope Mindi will be remembered, not as a victim, but a woman who saw the light in other women and tried to capture that in a podcast.

Morgan Paddock: And it was beautiful, and it was special and it was talking to a friend … and knowing that she had a platform and she wanted to use it for good.

MINDI KASSOTIS (podcast): The “Compelling Women” podcast is written and hosted by me, Mindi Kassotis. … Thank you so much for listening to the first season … and I promise to be back with another season as soon as I can. 

Produced by Chuck Stevenson and Jamie Stolz. Elena DiFiore, Ryan Smith and Tamara Weitzman are the development producers. Chelsea Narvaez is the associate producer. Marcus Balsam and Greg Kaplan are the editors. Anthony Batson is the senior broadcast producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.