Solve is the interactive crime podcast that presents you with a murder mystery inspired by a true crime, all done in an exciting narrative format with great casts and superior sound design. Then you get a chance to try out your investigative skills and crack the case before the episode ends. This episode, Pretty Dead, tells us about the case of Leanne LâNotti, owner of a Miami hair salon. We hear her on the phone with someone when she starts pleading with an unknown assailant. She drops the phone and runs away, but we hear gunshots, and a heavy thud. Then a gun is reloaded and fired again. Who killed Leanne? And why?
Her boyfriend, Mario, is devastated by the murder; he reveals that Leanne had a stalker, who he claims is âone sick puppy.â We hear some of the harassment Leanne was experiencing, from strange, perverted phone calls to flyers all over the streets of Leanneâs head on an adult film starâs body. Her salonâs receptionist, Aaron, jokes that he thought the flyers would be âgood for business,â but that Leanne âalmost had a conniption.â He says the harassment was happening the whole time he was working for Leanne. Leanne tells Mario all the harassment started only a couple weeks after a competitor, Sophia, opened up a salon on the same street as Leanneâs, and sheâs sure itâs her; the same day she hires Aaron, her tires are slashed, and she storms into Sophiaâs salon screaming and accusing her. For her part, Sophia says she tried to befriend Leanne, but that she was too jealous: âShe started telling everyone I was obsessed with her when, in reality, it was the other way around.âÂ
Leanne meets an old friend of Marioâs named Carl, and over drinks she tells him that sheâs been dealing with a stalker. He says heâs âin the business of problem-solving,â so if she ever needs someone to handle her harasser, heâs available. Mario laughs it off, but Leanne sees heâs serious and asks for more information. Sheâs in a good mood the next morning, when Aaron calls her and says that Mario is cheating on her with Sophia. When Leanne confronts him, she reveals that he works for the Mob, and we see a very different Mario to the devastated boyfriend from earlier: he tells Leanne that if she says âone wordâ to Sophia about his connections, âitâll be the end of you.â She calls Sophia telling her to admit sheâs her stalker, and Sophia calls her âcoo-coo bananas.â Then, Leanne calls Carl, saying âoperation blowout...is a go.âÂ
However, she discovers one of the pornographic flyers in Aaronâs bag, and decides she was wrong about Sophia; Aaron must have been her stalker the whole time. Aaron claims he was taking down the flyers, not putting them up, and says that heâs always been âa real friendâ to Leanne, but she fires him anyway. She tells Carl to call off the hit on Sophia, but still gets arrested for conspiracy to murder. Sophia says she was âterrifiedâ when Leanne got out on bail, but that itâs terrible she was murdered; âShe got mixed up with some bad, bad people.âÂ
Who was angry enough with Leanne to shoot her? Mario, her cheating ex? Sophia, wanting to eliminate her business competition? Aaron, who may have been behind the stalking and harassment? Or Carl, the assassin with ties to the mob, angry that she dissolved their agreement? See if you can figure it out before the end of this episode of Solve.
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