Worst Neighbor Ever (2026) s01e04 Episode Script
The Executor
1
-[sirens blaring]
-[dramatic music playing]
[man speaking]
[woman speaking]
[man] I'm thinking to myself,
this is just
the most outrageous story I've heard
in all of my years as a detective.
[man speaking]
She's articulate.
[Carrie speaking]
Smart.
[Carrie speaking]
Yet diabolical.
[man 2 speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[tense music playing]
[woman 1] So what makes a good neighbor?
[woman 2] I would consider a good neighbor
to be someone who is friendly
but not overbearing.
Not nosy or in your business,
just kind of a friendly wave,
and mostly just leaving me alone. [laughs]
Los Angeles is made up
of many different suburbs.
Some of them are considered nice or safe.
Some of them are considered not so nice.
The Beverly Glen neighborhood
is considered a safe neighborhood.
The neighborhood's gorgeous.
It's kind of borderline in between
Beverly Hills and Century City.
You see a lot of people walking,
walking their kids in strollers,
walking their dogs.
Most of the people who've lived there
lived there for a very long time.
[Bella] The neighborhood is mostly
small apartment buildings.
And there are only six units
in my building.
Caroline Herrling was my neighbor
from the day I moved in to Beverly Glen,
which was around 2016.
From my understanding, she had
been there for a while before I got there.
Carrie's apartment was across from me,
one apartment down.
She had a vibe of being business casual.
She seemed very smiley and cheery
and very normal.
-[dog barking]
-Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha.
[Bella] I would see Carrie
probably twice a week,
walking our dogs at the same time.
And she'd chitchat about the building
or things we had in common about our dogs.
She never really had friends over.
She was kind of a lone wolf.
And I would say the majority
of the people in our building
kept to themselves
and they valued their privacy.
[contemplative music playing]
[Ashley] I moved in in November of 2019.
The building was set up as six townhouses,
and there was three on each side.
I was unit four,
and Carrie's unit was unit six.
So we actually shared a wall.
The first time I met Caroline,
she knocked on my door and I answered,
and she introduced herself as Carrie.
And then she said to me,
"I can come in and check on your dog
when you're not at home."
She just seemed very kind,
like a good neighbor, just very nice.
My husband and I
used to kind of make jokes
that she reminded us
of a kindergarten teacher
because she was just very sweet.
Carrie and I naturally talked about
what we did for a living.
And I told her I did real estate.
And she told me that she was
in charge of handling
trust, wills and probates for people.
And she said that she had a house
in the Valley that was coming up for sale
that was going through probate,
if we were interested in purchasing it.
At the time, my husband and I weren't
looking to purchase
a home or any property.
So we didn't think anything of it
after that conversation.
[tense music playing]
[man] I'm a detective assigned to
the Valley Bureau Homicide Unit.
I've been a detective since 2005.
We get a lot of crazy phone calls
at the station.
We do have an obligation
to investigate them.
[phone ringing]
But an anonymous phone call
that I received back in October of 2021
seemed a little different to me.
I answered the phone
and was met by a female
who seemed kind of nervous to talk to me.
I asked her what was going on.
And she was concerned
for a man named Charles Wilding
and that people had been
using his identity for financial gain.
Working a homicide unit,
I thought instantly,
"Okay, this is a case that
might need to go to financial crimes."
But she did tell me that she thought
that Mr. Wilding was possibly deceased.
And she thought maybe he was dead
as a result of foul play.
Obviously, at this point, this piqued
my interest as a homicide detective.
So I ran the name of Charles Wilding
to see if possibly
he was a victim or a suspect
in any sort of report made to the LAPD.
And I discovered that, in fact,
back in December of 2020,
officers had been
dispatched to Charles' house
because neighbors hadn't
seen him in some days.
They wanted to make sure that he was okay.
[Carrie] Hi. Are you looking for me?
[man 1] No, I'm looking
for Charles Wilding.
[man 2] Do you live here?
[Carrie] I do not live here,
but I'm, um, the trustee of the estate.
-[man 1] Where's he at?
-Charles is… Charles is in Carpinteria.
I talked to the social worker today.
I'm assuming that's why you are here.
-[man 1] Who is it?
-[Carrie] Hang on.
Let me just grab the dog.
[man 1] Okay.
Carpinteria?
Officers had responded to the location
and they had met with a woman,
Caroline Herrling.
[Carrie] It's C-A-R-O.
[man 1] C-A-R-O.
[Carrie] L-I-N-E.
Is it unlocked?
-[woman] It's not. I got the keys.
-[Carrie] Okay.
[Mark] Another woman
came outside of the gate
that Carrie introduced as her assistant.
[Carrie] Yeah, I came on board.
So I'm the successor trustee
for the estate.
Um… And this details that. So…
I've got trust papers in the car
if you wanna see them.
-[man 2] No, it's okay.
-Um…
You said you have a phone number for him?
We wanna make sure he's okay,
somebody's concerned about his welfare.
[Carrie] Yeah, I mean, I can call his
home phone and it goes to his cell phone.
It takes him a couple of days
to call me back.
He doesn't like having
to necessarily talk to me.
He says I talk too much.
Every question the officers
asked these women,
they had an answer for.
[man 2] What's his phone number?
-[Carrie] His number?
-I can transfer…
[Carrie] His phone number is 818…
[Mark] What they were doing there,
what was their relationship
to the Wilding residence,
and where he was staying.
[eerie music playing]
One thing that stood out to me
is when the officers
walked up the hillside to the property,
it was surrounded by a privacy fence.
[man 2] Not that I don't believe you
that he's not here,
but we gotta make sure he's not here.
[Mark] They needed to check the residence
to make sure, in fact,
that Charles wasn't
in any danger inside the home.
Carrie seemed a little hesitant by this,
which again, piqued my curiosity.
-[man 2] Take your word for it.
-Can I get you a mask?
[man 2] This is good enough.
We're not gonna be there long enough.
It's not good enough, trust me.
You don't wanna go in there.
It's really bad.
Like, it's dangerous bad.
[man 2] I think we can deal
with a little mold.
Okay. Okay.
[man 2] We'll take the risk.
We won't hold you liable.
Okay.
Come on, step over things.
So, go this way.
[indistinct chatter on police radio]
You could tell that the house inside
was in complete disarray.
[woman on radio] …count on David 194-645.
[man 2] Is there…
Is there a garage over there?
Yes, there's a garage right there.
Do you wanna go see that?
[man 1] Yeah.
[eerie music continues]
[Carrie] Do you want us to open
that garage door on that side
so you can see in the other way?
-[man 2] Yeah. No?
-[man 1] No, we're good.
[Carrie] You good?
They went through the entire property
and there was no sign of Charles.
Yeah. Yeah.
[man 2] We need to know he's okay.
I understand that.
-Once he's okay, then…
-[man 1] We'll be out of your hair.
Oh, that's okay.
I totally understand that.
I didn't have you sign a release
for the mold, so don't get sick. [laughs]
[man 2] Appreciate the cooperation.
[Carrie] No problem.
I totally understand, guys. Thank you.
After the welfare check conducted by LAPD,
Adult Protective Services was able
to speak with somebody on the phone
claiming to be Charles.
They closed their case in January.
[tense music playing]
[Mark] We are now 10 months removed
from the first time the officers
had interaction with Carrie
at Charles' residence.
Not having ever heard of
this location before, Kingswood Road,
I googled it and found out that
it was in a pretty wealthy suburban area
of Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks.
Sherman Oaks is known to be
home of several celebrities.
The housing prices there are fairly high
in conjunction with
the rest of Los Angeles.
I met with several neighbors
up on the street where Charles lived
and wanted to find out
a little bit about who he was.
And what I learned was,
Charles lived by himself.
He grew up in that house,
and his father
had moved there back in the 1960s.
So that was his childhood home.
His mother, June Wilding,
had died in 2017.
And Charles was an only child,
and he was rarely seen outside the home.
He was described by some neighbors
as maybe peculiar,
definitely reclusive,
but very pleasant.
From my investigation, the Wilding estate,
which included bank accounts,
brokerage accounts,
and retirement accounts,
was worth millions of dollars.
As the trustee,
Carrie had complete autonomy
over these accounts,
including the property itself.
And Carrie also
controls the purse strings.
She would control all the money.
Having the incident report
that the officers made,
I had a contact number for Carrie.
At this point,
I just wanted to find Charles.
So I called her,
and she said
that he was still in Carpinteria.
And I said, "Hey, fantastic."
"Let's get an address for Charles
so I can set eyes on him
and we can close this case."
And I told her that she needed to provide
that information to me within 24 hours.
[music distorts]
[pensive music playing]
[Bella] Carrie was a good neighbor,
but I would say in 2020,
things started to change.
Throughout the months during COVID,
when we were all at home,
we started noticing
differences in Carrie's personality.
[Bella] She started to have
dark circles under her eyes.
She started wearing, you know, hoodies.
She didn't make eye contact.
She wasn't friendly or talkative anymore.
[indistinct chatter]
[Bella] Carrie had some
suspicious characters around.
They would hang out on the stoop.
One of them had an ankle monitor.
It seemed like he had some prison tattoos.
Carrie also got a roommate
around the same time.
She was very thin,
heroin-chic kind of vibe,
and you could tell that
they were up to no good.
[loud banging]
There started to be loud noises
at bizarre times in the night,
and there would be people in and out,
and it sounded like she was up partying.
[Ashley] When Carrie's guests
started coming over,
they had the code,
so they would just type in the code
and come into the building
at all hours of the night.
My husband would try to tell me
not to worry about it,
but I started feeling a little nervous
because of my children.
[loud bass playing through wall]
[Ashley] I would hear Carrie
play loud music most nights.
It would usually start between midnight
and then go all the way on
until about four o'clock in the morning
and sometimes even wake up my children.
One night I was up, it was late at night,
and I was feeding my daughter…
[baby crying]
…and I can hear the voice of two women,
one being Carrie…
and I can hear her say,
"Oh, look, there's more meth over there.
Grab the meth."
And at that moment,
I just felt a sense of shock.
I couldn't believe what I heard.
I now have a neighbor who was using drugs
and was allowing
other people in the building
who were also using drugs with her.
My automatic thought was just fear.
I did not feel safe.
[Bella] I had gone away for the weekend,
and I had ordered some jewelry online,
and it was delivered
while I was out of town.
I came home from my trip, and I was
really excited to open my packages,
and I noticed that
a bunch of them were missing.
I had $3,000 worth of packages
stolen from me.
I confronted the building manager
and everyone in the building,
and I even confronted Carrie.
When I knocked on Carrie's door,
I could tell she was caught off guard.
She seemed like she didn't really want me
to see inside of her apartment.
She just kind of acted like
she didn't know what I was talking about.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that happened."
"That's so weird."
"Oh, did you check with this person?"
And she came off very suspicious.
Management sent out an e-mail to everybody
in the building and basically said
it's a federal crime to take a package.
They would send them all the time.
Then I started thinking in my head,
like, "Oh, my God,
who is this woman
that we're living next to?"
I feel like I don't even know
who she is anymore.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] At this point, it was just
a matter of finding the location
where Charles was in Carpinteria
and actually making contact with Charles
so this case could be officially closed.
[phone rings]
The next day, my phone rings,
and it's Carrie.
Said she was in the company of Charles.
I said, "Fantastic.
Let me speak with him."
Elderly voice introduces himself
as Charles, apologizes to me,
tells me that he really
doesn't like a lot of attention
and that he is staying with friends
in the city of Simi Valley.
And provides me an address.
And he also provides me
a new contact phone number for him.
I did ask him a couple of
personal identification questions,
such as, "I needed to verify
your Social Security Number."
His response to me was,
"I don't know it offhand,"
which was a little suspicious to me.
Something just doesn't
seem right with this.
But at this point,
I didn't want to let Carrie know
that my suspicions were raised,
so I thanked her
for having Charles call me,
knowing full well
I'm about to take a drive to Simi Valley.
[tense music playing]
I grabbed a partner,
and we took a drive out to the address
provided by quote-unquote "Charles,"
and we met with
an individual, um, at that address.
When he answered the door,
I recognized right away it was not Charles
from the photograph I had of him
from his California ID.
And I asked him point-blank,
"Where's Charles Wilding?"
He looked at me,
and he looked at my partner,
and a little nervously said,
"Oh, I remember Charles."
"I knew him years ago, but he's not here."
"He stayed here briefly,
but last I saw,
he had a pocketful of money,
and he just left one day."
[inaudible conversation]
[Mark] So at this point,
I know something's up.
I thanked him for his time,
and returned to the police station
and filed my missing person report.
I start thinking the worst.
It just seems unlikely to me
that a 70-year-old man
can disappear off the face of the Earth.
And those that are supposed to
care for him, take care of him,
are actually lying to me
about everything involving his life.
I needed to zero my focus in on Carrie.
It seems that all roads
are leading back to her.
[woman] Caroline is a chameleon,
but I certainly never thought that
I would be the subject of her wrath.
I never thought she would
turn on me the way she did.
I met Caroline
through a mutual friend in 2003.
I thought Caroline was a smart person.
She's witty.
She held my interest.
We hit it off rather quickly.
Caroline was a social butterfly.
Caroline could talk to men
about cars, sports.
She could talk to women
about fashion, jewelry.
She knew a little bit about everything.
She really was a jack-of-all-trades.
When she first came to LA,
Caroline wanted to be an actress.
She wanted to get out of the Midwest.
That was her ultimate goal.
I felt like she had
big dreams for herself,
but I never knew Caroline
to go on any auditions,
go to a job every day.
I never knew her to get a paycheck.
So when Caroline and I went on trips,
she never paid for anything.
My husband is a film director.
He did pay for our, you know,
first-class travel,
and I took her as my guest
because I felt she was
so good to me in my life.
[thunder cracks]
[Dusty] The last
few years of our friendship,
we were together nearly constantly.
During this time,
Caroline knew that I was
going through my separation,
and I wanted to get a divorce.
So she kind of said,
"Let's do it. We can do this."
"Let's file. I can help you.
You don't need to get a lawyer."
And she took over.
As far as I know,
Caroline never attended law school
or passed any bar,
but she really felt that she knew the law.
So she gave advice.
It was hard, as any divorce would be,
and she was my friend.
I talked to her about it a lot.
And then one day, I got a bill from her
for $152,000.
For the previous two years,
every phone call we had,
she billed me for it like a lawyer would.
I was shocked.
I'm like, "Carrie, what is this?"
She said, "Well, I'm giving you
advice on your divorce,
so my time is not free."
I thought we were friends.
I was just bouncing ideas off of her.
I didn't think we were having
a legal meeting about this.
But she filed a lawsuit against me
for $152,000.
And my ex-husband, too, she sued him
because it was for litigation support.
So she was going after him, basically,
because she knew that he could pay her.
Caroline's lawsuit against
my husband and myself
was a court-order dismissal.
She's not a lawyer.
She can't bill me for legal services.
And the judge tossed it out.
Looking back, I think Caroline
saw dollar signs in her eyes.
I think she targeted me
because she knew
that my ex-husband is a film director.
She thought that he would just
pay her off and not fight the lawsuit.
And she was wrong.
She's a con artist.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] At this point, what I know is
officers responded to
Charles' house in December of 2020.
They couldn't get ahold of him.
I contact Carrie 10 months later,
and I tell her
I need to get ahold of Charles.
I speak to an elderly man
that purports to be Charles Wilding
that gives me an address that he's not at.
It should not be hard to find this person.
But in fact, we don't know where he is.
The next day, my partner and I drove
to Carrie's Beverly Glen apartment.
[knocking on door]
[Mark] Good morning.
-[Carrie] Hi. Hi, hi.
-[Mark] Hi.
She invited us in
and told us to have a seat
and asked how she could help us.
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
-[Carrie] June.
-[Mark] June. Okay.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
She explained that while
Charles was of sound mind,
he didn't really understand
finance very well.
And so June had asked her
to ensure that Charles was taken care of
with the funds that were left behind
by Charles' father and June Wilding.
And Carrie's sole function
was to ensure Charles' well-being.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
Carrie seemed a little frazzled,
but she still had answers
to the questions that I had.
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
I asked her if she would
call Charles in my presence,
and we could just
put the whole thing to bed right now.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie] Yeah.
[Mark] As she went
to go look for her phone,
one thing I did notice was a receipt
from a local cell phone store.
And it was for a cell phone purchase
that was purchased two days prior.
And the phone number
was the same phone number
that was provided to me
by the Charles Wilding
I had spoke to on the phone.
And I thought it a little suspicious
that a receipt for
that exact same phone number
was on Carrie's coffee table.
She called the number.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark] I remember leaving the apartment
with my partner,
and I looked at him and I said,
"I don't like where this is going."
[intense music playing]
So I dig a little deeper into the trust
documents for the Wilding estate.
I located a notary
on one of the trust documents.
And I wanted to find out if, in fact,
Charles Wilding's signature
was in the notary journals
as it was on the document for the trust.
And it was not.
However, in looking through
the notary journals,
I did find out that the day that Charles
allegedly had his signature notarized,
Carrie Herrling was a client
of the notary public.
So at this point,
I am quite certain that
at least this document is a forgery.
And likely the entire trust was a forgery.
As a homicide investigator,
I'm not in tune very much
with white-collar crime.
And I knew I needed some help.
[tense music playing]
[Bella] At this point,
the other neighbors and I,
we were all pretty infuriated
because our safety was at risk.
[Ashley] I told my husband, "I'm going
to write a letter to management."
I wanted them to actually know,
"Hey, my neighbor, I feel like, is crazy,
and I feel unsafe."
But we learned from our building manager
that Carrie was getting evicted.
On top of many other residents complaining
about Carrie and her friends,
she also wasn't paying rent.
So me and all the neighbors were thrilled.
We all had this bonding experience
over this shared traumatic experience.
We were all just relieved
to have her gone.
[upbeat music playing]
[woman] West Hills is
a very residential area,
mostly family oriented.
I've lived in West Hills,
in the same house,
for about 25 years now.
It was a great place to raise my kids.
Caroline moved next door to me
on Easter Sunday of 2022.
Before Caroline moved in,
the house next door was owned by a man
who lived there for at least 35 years
and was a great neighbor.
The first time I met Caroline Herrling,
I was out walking my dogs
on Easter Sunday,
and she was out in the front yard.
So I stopped to introduce myself
and welcome her to the neighborhood.
Caroline told me
she was a litigation consultant,
and she told me that
she was burnt out on practicing law
and she wanted to open
a sober living home.
[ominous music playing]
As soon as she said that,
my heart dropped into my stomach
and I felt nauseous.
I was very concerned about
what might be going on next door
and what changes
that might bring to the neighborhood.
But giving her the benefit of the doubt,
I thought maybe she was doing this
to pay it forward and help others.
[tense music playing]
[Lyndon] When Detective O'Donnell
came to me,
he thought the federal resources
that I could bring
might help him unravel
what happened to Charles.
I've been a postal inspector for 20 years.
I specialize in
investigating financial crimes,
and it seemed to be a fraud investigation
wrapped up in a potential homicide.
The first thing I do in an investigation
is pull bank records.
It's a long process,
but once I have the records,
I look for large transactions.
I can see money moving
from Charles' accounts
into a Caroline Herrling bank account,
and I noticed she was spending the money.
A true trustee does not
spend the money for themselves.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] After I enlisted
the help of Inspector Versoza,
I discovered that Carrie had been evicted
from the Beverly Glen property,
and this West Hills house
was being run by Carrie
as a sober-living facility.
Basically, a court-ordered rehab facility.
Whoever runs the sober-living facility
is paid by either the city
or the state or the county
to run that program.
So my suspicions were
this could be another scam.
About a month after Caroline moved in,
that's when the problems started.
As the sober-living residents moved in,
there were lots of people
coming in and out of the house.
-[deep bass music playing]
-[party chatter]
[Lisa] But along with the people
came a yard full of trash, broken windows.
It started looking like a junkyard.
And there was a lot of very loud music.
Start as early as 8:00 in the morning
and go till 2:00 in the morning,
as well as marijuana
smelling till all hours of the night.
Just didn't seem there was any evidence
of any attempt at sober-living
and rehab going on here.
As time went on,
the concern for my kids' safety
just kept escalating.
While I was out walking
my dogs one morning,
there was a man sitting in his car
with the door open,
but he was slumped
over the steering wheel.
It appeared as if he was
likely passed out on drugs.
I did try to call 911
and spoke to another neighbor
who said he'd already seen it
and called it in.
Many of the neighbors were concerned.
So with all the incidents
that were building up,
we started to get together
as a neighborhood watch
to make sure that we were
recording all the things going on.
It was starting to feel terrifying
living next door to Caroline.
[man] I'm an assistant
United States attorney.
Currently, I'm the identity theft
coordinator in Los Angeles.
Something bad had happened to Mr. Wilding,
but we didn't know what it was.
[Lyndon] We knew Caroline Herrling
falsified documents to the court
saying she's a trustee
of June Wilding's estate.
We knew the bank accounts that she looted,
and we found that
she used money from Charles' estate
to buy a home in West Hills.
When we felt our investigation was ready,
our next step was
to execute a search warrant.
[Andrew] The court granted us
a search warrant
for her current residence.
[tense music playing]
[Lisa] On the morning of the raid,
the street was filled with cop cars.
[sirens blaring]
[Lisa] It was, "Come out with
your hands up. You are surrounded."
So I told the kids, "Don't go to school."
"You're not walking out
in the middle of this."
"I don't know what's going on.
Just stay inside."
"Oh my gosh, there's something big
going on at the sober house."
[Lyndon] I was present,
along with probably 20 detectives,
and the detectives and officers
surrounded the house,
and it was full of people.
Caroline had just been
woken up by us at 6:00 a.m.,
trying to hide her nervousness,
but it was obvious.
What we found at the house
was absolutely shocking.
It almost seemed
like something out of a movie scene.
She had 16 firearms,
including assault rifles
zip-tied to her bedroom closet door,
many of them loaded.
And several of them
being untraceable ghost guns.
[Lyndon] We found heroin, methamphetamine.
They had scales, the baggies.
They had all the indications
of drug dealing.
In one of the drawers were police badges,
federal badges, DEA,
FBI ID cards.
That was unusual.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] We discovered multiple items
connected to the Wilding estate.
Bank statements, account statements,
account holdings from June Wilding.
From an investigative standpoint,
that was a jackpot.
The evidence we seized confirmed
what we thought now to be true,
that Caroline had stolen all his money
and used fraudulent documents.
We also found evidence
that showed this was bigger
than just Charles Wilding.
She was involved
in defrauding other estates.
I knew I had her for bank fraud,
wire fraud, for identity theft.
But the real question I had:
what happened to Charles?
[Mark] We placed Carrie under arrest
and we decided to
Interview her at the property.
[Lyndon speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
I knew she was lying.
By this time,
Charles had not been seen in two years.
At that point,
we suspected that he was dead.
[Lyndon] So, Carrie.
People were defrauded, you profited.
You're in serious trouble.
-[Mark] It's a house of cards.
-[Lyndon] House of cards. All lies.
[Mark] And it starts with
the Wilding trust that does not exist.
[Carrie] But the trust isn't fake.
[Mark] It's a forgery.
No.
-[Mark] Carrie.
-How is that possible?
[Mark] Well, you have no idea
who the Wildings are.
I do.
Like, I didn't forge these things.
[Lyndon] Let's change gears.
You didn't forge anything.
All we really want is to find
where the body of Charles is.
Did you find his body
deceased in his house?
Or did you have something
to do with his death?
No, I haven't had anything
to do with his death.
I didn't even know he was dead.
It's time to stop. You do not know him.
This is an elaborate fraud scheme
that stops today.
I have told you guys what I know.
As you can see, I try to help people.
I was just literally just trying
to help Charles in all of this.
[Mark] I didn't think
she was truthful at all.
We knew that
something terrible happened to Charles.
[Lyndon] Between all the stocks
and bank accounts,
Charles Wilding's estate was
probably worth about a million dollars,
plus the home, which was worth
between $2 to $2.5 million.
Caroline Herrling established
several trust accounts
in the name of the June Wilding Trust.
And between November 2020 and March 2022,
in one account,
she transacted almost $600,000
from the June Wilding account
to a fake trust account
that she created in her own name.
[Mark] One of the accounts
had a co-account holder
by the name of Jason Kroth.
[tense music playing]
Jason Kroth is a career criminal.
He's an ex-con.
He's a drug user, drug dealer, thief.
He's a fraudster.
I want to know why he is on
bank accounts with Carrie Herrling.
And I want to know everything
that he knows about Charles Wilding.
We found him at a motel.
He was arrested in the parking lot.
We interviewed Jason that evening.
I'm gonna read you your rights. Okay?
[Lyndon] Jason knew Caroline Herrling
because they're both
methamphetamine users.
And eventually,
as they continued the scheme,
fell into a romantic relationship.
[Mark] This is a real test
of your honesty.
-[Jason] Okay.
-[Mark] Okay, Jason? Because…
[Jason] All right.
[Mark] We can account for his money,
and we can account for his property,
but Charles just up and vanishes
like a fucking fart in church.
And not one fucking person
can look us in the eye
and say, "You know what?
If you go here or you go there,
you may find something."
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] Let's talk about
Kingswood Drive and the Wildings.
He admits to looking
for properties in affluent areas
that he can potentially burglarize.
He had found the Wilding property,
and he had, in fact,
broken into that property.
[Jason] I… I went in the house.
[door creaking]
[Jason] And I took
some jewelry that was there.
-[Mark] Okay.
-[Jason] Um, that's when…
I smelled a smell.
It was bad. It was…
And then I kinda shined the light up
and I see old what's-his-face.
-His mouth was open a little bit.
-[rodent squeaking]
And it was just crazy.
-There was, like, rats and shit.
-[rats squeaking]
-I mean, they were in his mouth.
-[Mark chuckles] Okay.
[Jason] Yeah, he was far, far gone.
Yeah, he was… He was dead.
[squeaking continues]
[Jason] He was definitely dead.
So I asked him, what did he do?
And his response to me was,
"Well, I called Carrie."
[Lyndon] When Jason found
financial documents in Charles' house,
he knew he needed to go to somebody
who'd be able to handle
this type of fraud scheme.
[Lyndon] How much money
did you make out of Charles?
Like 140 or something.
[Lyndon] $140,000? Okay.
Who was paying you?
[Jason] Uh, Caroline.
[Lyndon] So who got rid of the body?
[Jason mumbles]
-[Lydon] Who did?
-Caroline.
[Lyndon] With whom?
[mumbling]
-[Lyndon] With you?
-No.
[Lyndon] With whom?
-[Mark] This is the honest part.
-She brought her with her.
[Lyndon] Her and… carried
the body by themselves.
Definitely.
[Lyndon] This shit's gonna haunt you.
No, I'm telling you what happened.
[Lyndon] The soul of this body
is going to haunt you.
She took it to her house.
[Lyndon] Beverly Glen?
How did she carry it there?
[Jason] Her Jeep.
After they put it in bags. You know?
[Mark] They put it in bags?
Big bag. Big bags, yes.
They described to me when they
picked him up, when they picked…
He'd been there for a minute.
I mean, a minute.
Like, he was stuck into the floor.
[Mark] Jason's pointing a finger
at Carrie and her assistant.
I'm thinking,
is this something that
perhaps he did himself
and he's trying to put
the blame on somebody else?
But Carrie surprises me at every turn.
Who knew what she could be capable of?
[dramatic music intensifies]
After interviewing Jason Kroth,
we wanted to dig a little further.
So we went back to the Wilding residence.
According to Jason Kroth,
when Carrie was cleaning out the house,
after Charles was removed,
she went so far
as to remove the floorboards
to get rid of any potential evidence
that somebody had died in that home.
At this point,
the house was completely empty.
But in the second-floor bedroom,
we noticed plywood on the floor.
But once we lifted the plywood,
the floor was gone,
but the subfloor was there.
And we saw there was a stain on the floor
in the shape of what could be a human.
So at this point, we knew
there's some truth to what Jason said.
So we decided to confront Caroline,
and we set her up with a polygraph.
[man] Come on in here. Are you Caroline?
I am.
[man] I don't care what
you've told the investigators
up to this point in time.
If there's more to this situation
than you told investigators before,
do not minimize your involvement,
and do not lie or leave anything out.
[Lyndon] Caroline Herrling
was initially charged
with a conspiracy to commit
wire fraud and identity theft,
and she was charged with
distributing controlled substances.
She was facing a huge sentence.
[man] The Wilding property.
How did you first learn about it?
Through a guy named Jason Kroth.
Who is also…
-[man] Jason Kroth. Okay.
-Yup.
Jason took us to the house where…
where Charles Wilding
was already deceased.
[man] Okay.
Finally, she admitted
Charles was indeed dead,
and to me, that was groundbreaking.
Caroline wanted a lighter sentence,
and part of that lighter sentence required
her to be truthful about what she did.
Ultimately, she knew
when we put her in a polygraph,
we would catch her in a lie.
[Carrie] Because he was already deceased,
it would be a victimless crime
because he didn't have any family.
[man] You wanted to keep Charles…
-Alive.
-[man] Okay, I got you.
Technically, because there was
some access they couldn't get
to certain bank accounts.
If anyone had discovered
that Charles Wilding was really dead,
Caroline Herrling would not have been able
to access his assets ever again,
and that's why she went
to such extraordinary efforts
to make it seem
that Charles Wilding was still alive.
[man] What's your understanding
of what happened with Charles' body?
I have no idea.
I gave the officers every place
I think that it could have gone,
but I honestly don't know where it is.
[man] Well, it's alleged
that Charles' body
ended up back
at your residence at Beverly Glen.
The only way you get through this exam
successfully today
is being 100% honest and candid
in regards to your involvement
with the disposal
of Charles Wilding's remains.
So let me just ask it this way.
Is there more that
you want to share with me
about your involvement
and the disposal of his body
-before we go further?
-Yes.
-Yeah.
-[man] Okay.
At this point, she broke.
[dramatic music playing]
The body was so decayed
that there wasn't any flesh on him.
-That all went in the tarp.
-Mm-hmm.
-[man] Like a blue…
-[Carrie] One of those blue tarps.
-[man] A Home Depot tarp? Okay.
-[Carrie] Yeah.
At that time he was in the garage.
[Lyndon] They bought cadaver deodorizer,
Tyvek suits, and masks,
and different things like that.
That's what somebody who would be dealing
with cadavers would need, right?
The police even came
when he was still there.
They stood in front of the body.
The night that the police were there,
I took him to my house in Beverly Glen.
[Bella] One night in particular,
the noises were next level.
It was totally a different scenario
than previous nights.
[steady thumping]
[Ashley] I didn't know what I was hearing.
I would say it kind of just sounded like
a thumping noise where you drop furniture.
It kind of sounded like that.
[Bella] I heard voices.
I heard them talking.
It seemed like they were carrying things,
heavy, in and out of the building.
[Carrie] And then from there, uh,
we moved him up to my rooftop balcony
because my neighbors
could see in the back patio.
It was either that or the next day
we made a trip to Home Depot
to buy acid and lye.
[man] What sort of acid did you buy?
Do you recall?
Um…
Like stuff for pools. Chlorine.
-[man] Chlorine? Okay.
-Yeah.
[Carrie] I think we bought,
like, five gallons
because we weren't sure
how much it was going to take.
I believe we put the remains into
one of the blue barrels, the tall ones,
filled with acid.
[man] Okay.
We took a bunch of drugs to deal with it.
There's this infamous episode
in Breaking Bad
where Walter and Jesse…
[Jesse] Hey, Mr. White, it's me, pick up.
[Lyndon] …try to dissolve
a body in a plastic tub.
The acts that Caroline did
paralleled that.
[Mark] Carrie and the assistant
purchased a big tub,
acid, and lye, mixed it together,
placed Charles' remains inside
this makeshift tub,
and attempted to dissolve the body
to get rid of any evidence
that may connect her with Charles.
During this time,
apparently, it wasn't working.
[man] How long did the remains
sit in the blue container?
Probably for about a week
trying to get it to dissolve.
[Lyndon] The chemicals were so strong,
the tub started melting.
[man] How did you get the blue bin
down to the patio?
Or did you drain it from the third story?
[Carrie] We drained it
from the third story all the way down.
[man] All the way down? Hose?
[Carrie] Yeah, hose, and we had a pump
that was pulling it out of the…
-[man] Container.
-[Carrie] …container.
The neighbor that lived across from Carrie
had started to complain
about a really bad smell.
And she said that
all the flowers and vegetation
in the back of the building were dying.
[liquid bubbling]
[Carrie] The ligaments and stuff,
that dissolved.
[man] Okay.
[Carrie] So he was not
held together anymore.
-[squelching]
-There was… The bones were just loose,
but the majority of it did dissolve.
The bones did not.
At that point, Caroline decided
it's time to get him out of there.
They took an axe and other tools.
They started dismembering him further
to try to make him unidentifiable.
[loud sawing]
[Ashley] What is she doing in her unit?
Why is there so much banging that's
occurring at all hours of the night?
[Bella] It sounded like a sawing sound.
Something was going on.
[Carrie] I pulled the teeth out
and crushed them.
[man] How'd you pull them out?
[Carrie] I'd just take them
out with my hand.
The bones were just packaged up.
We vacuum-sealed them.
[man] The skull also?
-Yeah.
-[man] Okay.
And then we took them to San Francisco.
[Lyndon] Caroline and her assistant
rented a sports car
and traveled up north
to San Francisco Bay,
where they had a friend
who lived on a boat.
[Mark] They boarded the boat,
went out into the bay,
and disposed of his remains.
And then they got on a private jet
and flew back home.
[man] You need another tissue?
-Yeah. [sniffling]
-[man] All right.
[Andrew] One of
the most frightening things
that we found from the search warrant
was that Caroline Herrling
had spreadsheets
that listed deceased persons,
their property holdings,
and their heirs.
So it appeared that she was trying
to use the Charles Wilding fraud
as a template going forward
to find other wealthy homeowners
who wouldn't have anyone to protect them
if she sought to steal their properties.
[Lyndon] If the body of Charles
had been discovered,
it would have foiled their plans.
The actions she did
showed a complete callousness,
almost a psychopathic-type personality
to not care and not even be fazed
by having to melt a body or chop it.
It was just an item to do
to succeed in her fraud.
KCAL News Assignment Editor
Mike Rogers is here.
He's got details of a disturbing case.
Yeah, Pat and Juan…
I'm laying in bed, and the news pops on,
and it's just a picture of Carrie.
[Mike] Allegedly,
there's the photo of the woman
provided by the Department of Justice,
they say would target elderly and disabled
and vulnerable people in the community.
They tried to dispose
of the body in chemicals
at her West Los Angeles apartment.
It just brought me
to a moment of just shock.
[Andrew] The conspirators themselves
called this a perfect crime.
Charles Wilding was dead,
and he didn't have any heirs.
But for the good efforts of his neighbors,
this fraud would probably never have
come to the attention of the authorities,
and Ms. Herrling and her co-conspirators
would have gotten away
with several million dollars.
[Andrew] Caroline Herrling
was sentenced to 20 years in prison,
which is the statutory maximum
for wire fraud
and conspiracy to commit it.
Anybody who is convicted of a conspiracy
can be held accountable to all the crimes
that occurred within it,
and she was.
[pensive music playing]
[Bella] I couldn't believe that
I was only 50 feet away
from her chopping up a body.
I never in a million years
thought Carrie would be capable
of all the things she did.
I had just assumed
she was a normal meth addict.
In hindsight, now I realize that
you never really know
who your neighbors are.
[dramatic upbeat theme music playing]
-[sirens blaring]
-[dramatic music playing]
[man speaking]
[woman speaking]
[man] I'm thinking to myself,
this is just
the most outrageous story I've heard
in all of my years as a detective.
[man speaking]
She's articulate.
[Carrie speaking]
Smart.
[Carrie speaking]
Yet diabolical.
[man 2 speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[tense music playing]
[woman 1] So what makes a good neighbor?
[woman 2] I would consider a good neighbor
to be someone who is friendly
but not overbearing.
Not nosy or in your business,
just kind of a friendly wave,
and mostly just leaving me alone. [laughs]
Los Angeles is made up
of many different suburbs.
Some of them are considered nice or safe.
Some of them are considered not so nice.
The Beverly Glen neighborhood
is considered a safe neighborhood.
The neighborhood's gorgeous.
It's kind of borderline in between
Beverly Hills and Century City.
You see a lot of people walking,
walking their kids in strollers,
walking their dogs.
Most of the people who've lived there
lived there for a very long time.
[Bella] The neighborhood is mostly
small apartment buildings.
And there are only six units
in my building.
Caroline Herrling was my neighbor
from the day I moved in to Beverly Glen,
which was around 2016.
From my understanding, she had
been there for a while before I got there.
Carrie's apartment was across from me,
one apartment down.
She had a vibe of being business casual.
She seemed very smiley and cheery
and very normal.
-[dog barking]
-Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha.
[Bella] I would see Carrie
probably twice a week,
walking our dogs at the same time.
And she'd chitchat about the building
or things we had in common about our dogs.
She never really had friends over.
She was kind of a lone wolf.
And I would say the majority
of the people in our building
kept to themselves
and they valued their privacy.
[contemplative music playing]
[Ashley] I moved in in November of 2019.
The building was set up as six townhouses,
and there was three on each side.
I was unit four,
and Carrie's unit was unit six.
So we actually shared a wall.
The first time I met Caroline,
she knocked on my door and I answered,
and she introduced herself as Carrie.
And then she said to me,
"I can come in and check on your dog
when you're not at home."
She just seemed very kind,
like a good neighbor, just very nice.
My husband and I
used to kind of make jokes
that she reminded us
of a kindergarten teacher
because she was just very sweet.
Carrie and I naturally talked about
what we did for a living.
And I told her I did real estate.
And she told me that she was
in charge of handling
trust, wills and probates for people.
And she said that she had a house
in the Valley that was coming up for sale
that was going through probate,
if we were interested in purchasing it.
At the time, my husband and I weren't
looking to purchase
a home or any property.
So we didn't think anything of it
after that conversation.
[tense music playing]
[man] I'm a detective assigned to
the Valley Bureau Homicide Unit.
I've been a detective since 2005.
We get a lot of crazy phone calls
at the station.
We do have an obligation
to investigate them.
[phone ringing]
But an anonymous phone call
that I received back in October of 2021
seemed a little different to me.
I answered the phone
and was met by a female
who seemed kind of nervous to talk to me.
I asked her what was going on.
And she was concerned
for a man named Charles Wilding
and that people had been
using his identity for financial gain.
Working a homicide unit,
I thought instantly,
"Okay, this is a case that
might need to go to financial crimes."
But she did tell me that she thought
that Mr. Wilding was possibly deceased.
And she thought maybe he was dead
as a result of foul play.
Obviously, at this point, this piqued
my interest as a homicide detective.
So I ran the name of Charles Wilding
to see if possibly
he was a victim or a suspect
in any sort of report made to the LAPD.
And I discovered that, in fact,
back in December of 2020,
officers had been
dispatched to Charles' house
because neighbors hadn't
seen him in some days.
They wanted to make sure that he was okay.
[Carrie] Hi. Are you looking for me?
[man 1] No, I'm looking
for Charles Wilding.
[man 2] Do you live here?
[Carrie] I do not live here,
but I'm, um, the trustee of the estate.
-[man 1] Where's he at?
-Charles is… Charles is in Carpinteria.
I talked to the social worker today.
I'm assuming that's why you are here.
-[man 1] Who is it?
-[Carrie] Hang on.
Let me just grab the dog.
[man 1] Okay.
Carpinteria?
Officers had responded to the location
and they had met with a woman,
Caroline Herrling.
[Carrie] It's C-A-R-O.
[man 1] C-A-R-O.
[Carrie] L-I-N-E.
Is it unlocked?
-[woman] It's not. I got the keys.
-[Carrie] Okay.
[Mark] Another woman
came outside of the gate
that Carrie introduced as her assistant.
[Carrie] Yeah, I came on board.
So I'm the successor trustee
for the estate.
Um… And this details that. So…
I've got trust papers in the car
if you wanna see them.
-[man 2] No, it's okay.
-Um…
You said you have a phone number for him?
We wanna make sure he's okay,
somebody's concerned about his welfare.
[Carrie] Yeah, I mean, I can call his
home phone and it goes to his cell phone.
It takes him a couple of days
to call me back.
He doesn't like having
to necessarily talk to me.
He says I talk too much.
Every question the officers
asked these women,
they had an answer for.
[man 2] What's his phone number?
-[Carrie] His number?
-I can transfer…
[Carrie] His phone number is 818…
[Mark] What they were doing there,
what was their relationship
to the Wilding residence,
and where he was staying.
[eerie music playing]
One thing that stood out to me
is when the officers
walked up the hillside to the property,
it was surrounded by a privacy fence.
[man 2] Not that I don't believe you
that he's not here,
but we gotta make sure he's not here.
[Mark] They needed to check the residence
to make sure, in fact,
that Charles wasn't
in any danger inside the home.
Carrie seemed a little hesitant by this,
which again, piqued my curiosity.
-[man 2] Take your word for it.
-Can I get you a mask?
[man 2] This is good enough.
We're not gonna be there long enough.
It's not good enough, trust me.
You don't wanna go in there.
It's really bad.
Like, it's dangerous bad.
[man 2] I think we can deal
with a little mold.
Okay. Okay.
[man 2] We'll take the risk.
We won't hold you liable.
Okay.
Come on, step over things.
So, go this way.
[indistinct chatter on police radio]
You could tell that the house inside
was in complete disarray.
[woman on radio] …count on David 194-645.
[man 2] Is there…
Is there a garage over there?
Yes, there's a garage right there.
Do you wanna go see that?
[man 1] Yeah.
[eerie music continues]
[Carrie] Do you want us to open
that garage door on that side
so you can see in the other way?
-[man 2] Yeah. No?
-[man 1] No, we're good.
[Carrie] You good?
They went through the entire property
and there was no sign of Charles.
Yeah. Yeah.
[man 2] We need to know he's okay.
I understand that.
-Once he's okay, then…
-[man 1] We'll be out of your hair.
Oh, that's okay.
I totally understand that.
I didn't have you sign a release
for the mold, so don't get sick. [laughs]
[man 2] Appreciate the cooperation.
[Carrie] No problem.
I totally understand, guys. Thank you.
After the welfare check conducted by LAPD,
Adult Protective Services was able
to speak with somebody on the phone
claiming to be Charles.
They closed their case in January.
[tense music playing]
[Mark] We are now 10 months removed
from the first time the officers
had interaction with Carrie
at Charles' residence.
Not having ever heard of
this location before, Kingswood Road,
I googled it and found out that
it was in a pretty wealthy suburban area
of Los Angeles, Sherman Oaks.
Sherman Oaks is known to be
home of several celebrities.
The housing prices there are fairly high
in conjunction with
the rest of Los Angeles.
I met with several neighbors
up on the street where Charles lived
and wanted to find out
a little bit about who he was.
And what I learned was,
Charles lived by himself.
He grew up in that house,
and his father
had moved there back in the 1960s.
So that was his childhood home.
His mother, June Wilding,
had died in 2017.
And Charles was an only child,
and he was rarely seen outside the home.
He was described by some neighbors
as maybe peculiar,
definitely reclusive,
but very pleasant.
From my investigation, the Wilding estate,
which included bank accounts,
brokerage accounts,
and retirement accounts,
was worth millions of dollars.
As the trustee,
Carrie had complete autonomy
over these accounts,
including the property itself.
And Carrie also
controls the purse strings.
She would control all the money.
Having the incident report
that the officers made,
I had a contact number for Carrie.
At this point,
I just wanted to find Charles.
So I called her,
and she said
that he was still in Carpinteria.
And I said, "Hey, fantastic."
"Let's get an address for Charles
so I can set eyes on him
and we can close this case."
And I told her that she needed to provide
that information to me within 24 hours.
[music distorts]
[pensive music playing]
[Bella] Carrie was a good neighbor,
but I would say in 2020,
things started to change.
Throughout the months during COVID,
when we were all at home,
we started noticing
differences in Carrie's personality.
[Bella] She started to have
dark circles under her eyes.
She started wearing, you know, hoodies.
She didn't make eye contact.
She wasn't friendly or talkative anymore.
[indistinct chatter]
[Bella] Carrie had some
suspicious characters around.
They would hang out on the stoop.
One of them had an ankle monitor.
It seemed like he had some prison tattoos.
Carrie also got a roommate
around the same time.
She was very thin,
heroin-chic kind of vibe,
and you could tell that
they were up to no good.
[loud banging]
There started to be loud noises
at bizarre times in the night,
and there would be people in and out,
and it sounded like she was up partying.
[Ashley] When Carrie's guests
started coming over,
they had the code,
so they would just type in the code
and come into the building
at all hours of the night.
My husband would try to tell me
not to worry about it,
but I started feeling a little nervous
because of my children.
[loud bass playing through wall]
[Ashley] I would hear Carrie
play loud music most nights.
It would usually start between midnight
and then go all the way on
until about four o'clock in the morning
and sometimes even wake up my children.
One night I was up, it was late at night,
and I was feeding my daughter…
[baby crying]
…and I can hear the voice of two women,
one being Carrie…
and I can hear her say,
"Oh, look, there's more meth over there.
Grab the meth."
And at that moment,
I just felt a sense of shock.
I couldn't believe what I heard.
I now have a neighbor who was using drugs
and was allowing
other people in the building
who were also using drugs with her.
My automatic thought was just fear.
I did not feel safe.
[Bella] I had gone away for the weekend,
and I had ordered some jewelry online,
and it was delivered
while I was out of town.
I came home from my trip, and I was
really excited to open my packages,
and I noticed that
a bunch of them were missing.
I had $3,000 worth of packages
stolen from me.
I confronted the building manager
and everyone in the building,
and I even confronted Carrie.
When I knocked on Carrie's door,
I could tell she was caught off guard.
She seemed like she didn't really want me
to see inside of her apartment.
She just kind of acted like
she didn't know what I was talking about.
"Oh, I'm so sorry that happened."
"That's so weird."
"Oh, did you check with this person?"
And she came off very suspicious.
Management sent out an e-mail to everybody
in the building and basically said
it's a federal crime to take a package.
They would send them all the time.
Then I started thinking in my head,
like, "Oh, my God,
who is this woman
that we're living next to?"
I feel like I don't even know
who she is anymore.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] At this point, it was just
a matter of finding the location
where Charles was in Carpinteria
and actually making contact with Charles
so this case could be officially closed.
[phone rings]
The next day, my phone rings,
and it's Carrie.
Said she was in the company of Charles.
I said, "Fantastic.
Let me speak with him."
Elderly voice introduces himself
as Charles, apologizes to me,
tells me that he really
doesn't like a lot of attention
and that he is staying with friends
in the city of Simi Valley.
And provides me an address.
And he also provides me
a new contact phone number for him.
I did ask him a couple of
personal identification questions,
such as, "I needed to verify
your Social Security Number."
His response to me was,
"I don't know it offhand,"
which was a little suspicious to me.
Something just doesn't
seem right with this.
But at this point,
I didn't want to let Carrie know
that my suspicions were raised,
so I thanked her
for having Charles call me,
knowing full well
I'm about to take a drive to Simi Valley.
[tense music playing]
I grabbed a partner,
and we took a drive out to the address
provided by quote-unquote "Charles,"
and we met with
an individual, um, at that address.
When he answered the door,
I recognized right away it was not Charles
from the photograph I had of him
from his California ID.
And I asked him point-blank,
"Where's Charles Wilding?"
He looked at me,
and he looked at my partner,
and a little nervously said,
"Oh, I remember Charles."
"I knew him years ago, but he's not here."
"He stayed here briefly,
but last I saw,
he had a pocketful of money,
and he just left one day."
[inaudible conversation]
[Mark] So at this point,
I know something's up.
I thanked him for his time,
and returned to the police station
and filed my missing person report.
I start thinking the worst.
It just seems unlikely to me
that a 70-year-old man
can disappear off the face of the Earth.
And those that are supposed to
care for him, take care of him,
are actually lying to me
about everything involving his life.
I needed to zero my focus in on Carrie.
It seems that all roads
are leading back to her.
[woman] Caroline is a chameleon,
but I certainly never thought that
I would be the subject of her wrath.
I never thought she would
turn on me the way she did.
I met Caroline
through a mutual friend in 2003.
I thought Caroline was a smart person.
She's witty.
She held my interest.
We hit it off rather quickly.
Caroline was a social butterfly.
Caroline could talk to men
about cars, sports.
She could talk to women
about fashion, jewelry.
She knew a little bit about everything.
She really was a jack-of-all-trades.
When she first came to LA,
Caroline wanted to be an actress.
She wanted to get out of the Midwest.
That was her ultimate goal.
I felt like she had
big dreams for herself,
but I never knew Caroline
to go on any auditions,
go to a job every day.
I never knew her to get a paycheck.
So when Caroline and I went on trips,
she never paid for anything.
My husband is a film director.
He did pay for our, you know,
first-class travel,
and I took her as my guest
because I felt she was
so good to me in my life.
[thunder cracks]
[Dusty] The last
few years of our friendship,
we were together nearly constantly.
During this time,
Caroline knew that I was
going through my separation,
and I wanted to get a divorce.
So she kind of said,
"Let's do it. We can do this."
"Let's file. I can help you.
You don't need to get a lawyer."
And she took over.
As far as I know,
Caroline never attended law school
or passed any bar,
but she really felt that she knew the law.
So she gave advice.
It was hard, as any divorce would be,
and she was my friend.
I talked to her about it a lot.
And then one day, I got a bill from her
for $152,000.
For the previous two years,
every phone call we had,
she billed me for it like a lawyer would.
I was shocked.
I'm like, "Carrie, what is this?"
She said, "Well, I'm giving you
advice on your divorce,
so my time is not free."
I thought we were friends.
I was just bouncing ideas off of her.
I didn't think we were having
a legal meeting about this.
But she filed a lawsuit against me
for $152,000.
And my ex-husband, too, she sued him
because it was for litigation support.
So she was going after him, basically,
because she knew that he could pay her.
Caroline's lawsuit against
my husband and myself
was a court-order dismissal.
She's not a lawyer.
She can't bill me for legal services.
And the judge tossed it out.
Looking back, I think Caroline
saw dollar signs in her eyes.
I think she targeted me
because she knew
that my ex-husband is a film director.
She thought that he would just
pay her off and not fight the lawsuit.
And she was wrong.
She's a con artist.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] At this point, what I know is
officers responded to
Charles' house in December of 2020.
They couldn't get ahold of him.
I contact Carrie 10 months later,
and I tell her
I need to get ahold of Charles.
I speak to an elderly man
that purports to be Charles Wilding
that gives me an address that he's not at.
It should not be hard to find this person.
But in fact, we don't know where he is.
The next day, my partner and I drove
to Carrie's Beverly Glen apartment.
[knocking on door]
[Mark] Good morning.
-[Carrie] Hi. Hi, hi.
-[Mark] Hi.
She invited us in
and told us to have a seat
and asked how she could help us.
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
-[Carrie] June.
-[Mark] June. Okay.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
She explained that while
Charles was of sound mind,
he didn't really understand
finance very well.
And so June had asked her
to ensure that Charles was taken care of
with the funds that were left behind
by Charles' father and June Wilding.
And Carrie's sole function
was to ensure Charles' well-being.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
Carrie seemed a little frazzled,
but she still had answers
to the questions that I had.
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
I asked her if she would
call Charles in my presence,
and we could just
put the whole thing to bed right now.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie] Yeah.
[Mark] As she went
to go look for her phone,
one thing I did notice was a receipt
from a local cell phone store.
And it was for a cell phone purchase
that was purchased two days prior.
And the phone number
was the same phone number
that was provided to me
by the Charles Wilding
I had spoke to on the phone.
And I thought it a little suspicious
that a receipt for
that exact same phone number
was on Carrie's coffee table.
She called the number.
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark] I remember leaving the apartment
with my partner,
and I looked at him and I said,
"I don't like where this is going."
[intense music playing]
So I dig a little deeper into the trust
documents for the Wilding estate.
I located a notary
on one of the trust documents.
And I wanted to find out if, in fact,
Charles Wilding's signature
was in the notary journals
as it was on the document for the trust.
And it was not.
However, in looking through
the notary journals,
I did find out that the day that Charles
allegedly had his signature notarized,
Carrie Herrling was a client
of the notary public.
So at this point,
I am quite certain that
at least this document is a forgery.
And likely the entire trust was a forgery.
As a homicide investigator,
I'm not in tune very much
with white-collar crime.
And I knew I needed some help.
[tense music playing]
[Bella] At this point,
the other neighbors and I,
we were all pretty infuriated
because our safety was at risk.
[Ashley] I told my husband, "I'm going
to write a letter to management."
I wanted them to actually know,
"Hey, my neighbor, I feel like, is crazy,
and I feel unsafe."
But we learned from our building manager
that Carrie was getting evicted.
On top of many other residents complaining
about Carrie and her friends,
she also wasn't paying rent.
So me and all the neighbors were thrilled.
We all had this bonding experience
over this shared traumatic experience.
We were all just relieved
to have her gone.
[upbeat music playing]
[woman] West Hills is
a very residential area,
mostly family oriented.
I've lived in West Hills,
in the same house,
for about 25 years now.
It was a great place to raise my kids.
Caroline moved next door to me
on Easter Sunday of 2022.
Before Caroline moved in,
the house next door was owned by a man
who lived there for at least 35 years
and was a great neighbor.
The first time I met Caroline Herrling,
I was out walking my dogs
on Easter Sunday,
and she was out in the front yard.
So I stopped to introduce myself
and welcome her to the neighborhood.
Caroline told me
she was a litigation consultant,
and she told me that
she was burnt out on practicing law
and she wanted to open
a sober living home.
[ominous music playing]
As soon as she said that,
my heart dropped into my stomach
and I felt nauseous.
I was very concerned about
what might be going on next door
and what changes
that might bring to the neighborhood.
But giving her the benefit of the doubt,
I thought maybe she was doing this
to pay it forward and help others.
[tense music playing]
[Lyndon] When Detective O'Donnell
came to me,
he thought the federal resources
that I could bring
might help him unravel
what happened to Charles.
I've been a postal inspector for 20 years.
I specialize in
investigating financial crimes,
and it seemed to be a fraud investigation
wrapped up in a potential homicide.
The first thing I do in an investigation
is pull bank records.
It's a long process,
but once I have the records,
I look for large transactions.
I can see money moving
from Charles' accounts
into a Caroline Herrling bank account,
and I noticed she was spending the money.
A true trustee does not
spend the money for themselves.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] After I enlisted
the help of Inspector Versoza,
I discovered that Carrie had been evicted
from the Beverly Glen property,
and this West Hills house
was being run by Carrie
as a sober-living facility.
Basically, a court-ordered rehab facility.
Whoever runs the sober-living facility
is paid by either the city
or the state or the county
to run that program.
So my suspicions were
this could be another scam.
About a month after Caroline moved in,
that's when the problems started.
As the sober-living residents moved in,
there were lots of people
coming in and out of the house.
-[deep bass music playing]
-[party chatter]
[Lisa] But along with the people
came a yard full of trash, broken windows.
It started looking like a junkyard.
And there was a lot of very loud music.
Start as early as 8:00 in the morning
and go till 2:00 in the morning,
as well as marijuana
smelling till all hours of the night.
Just didn't seem there was any evidence
of any attempt at sober-living
and rehab going on here.
As time went on,
the concern for my kids' safety
just kept escalating.
While I was out walking
my dogs one morning,
there was a man sitting in his car
with the door open,
but he was slumped
over the steering wheel.
It appeared as if he was
likely passed out on drugs.
I did try to call 911
and spoke to another neighbor
who said he'd already seen it
and called it in.
Many of the neighbors were concerned.
So with all the incidents
that were building up,
we started to get together
as a neighborhood watch
to make sure that we were
recording all the things going on.
It was starting to feel terrifying
living next door to Caroline.
[man] I'm an assistant
United States attorney.
Currently, I'm the identity theft
coordinator in Los Angeles.
Something bad had happened to Mr. Wilding,
but we didn't know what it was.
[Lyndon] We knew Caroline Herrling
falsified documents to the court
saying she's a trustee
of June Wilding's estate.
We knew the bank accounts that she looted,
and we found that
she used money from Charles' estate
to buy a home in West Hills.
When we felt our investigation was ready,
our next step was
to execute a search warrant.
[Andrew] The court granted us
a search warrant
for her current residence.
[tense music playing]
[Lisa] On the morning of the raid,
the street was filled with cop cars.
[sirens blaring]
[Lisa] It was, "Come out with
your hands up. You are surrounded."
So I told the kids, "Don't go to school."
"You're not walking out
in the middle of this."
"I don't know what's going on.
Just stay inside."
"Oh my gosh, there's something big
going on at the sober house."
[Lyndon] I was present,
along with probably 20 detectives,
and the detectives and officers
surrounded the house,
and it was full of people.
Caroline had just been
woken up by us at 6:00 a.m.,
trying to hide her nervousness,
but it was obvious.
What we found at the house
was absolutely shocking.
It almost seemed
like something out of a movie scene.
She had 16 firearms,
including assault rifles
zip-tied to her bedroom closet door,
many of them loaded.
And several of them
being untraceable ghost guns.
[Lyndon] We found heroin, methamphetamine.
They had scales, the baggies.
They had all the indications
of drug dealing.
In one of the drawers were police badges,
federal badges, DEA,
FBI ID cards.
That was unusual.
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] We discovered multiple items
connected to the Wilding estate.
Bank statements, account statements,
account holdings from June Wilding.
From an investigative standpoint,
that was a jackpot.
The evidence we seized confirmed
what we thought now to be true,
that Caroline had stolen all his money
and used fraudulent documents.
We also found evidence
that showed this was bigger
than just Charles Wilding.
She was involved
in defrauding other estates.
I knew I had her for bank fraud,
wire fraud, for identity theft.
But the real question I had:
what happened to Charles?
[Mark] We placed Carrie under arrest
and we decided to
Interview her at the property.
[Lyndon speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
[Carrie speaking]
[Mark speaking]
I knew she was lying.
By this time,
Charles had not been seen in two years.
At that point,
we suspected that he was dead.
[Lyndon] So, Carrie.
People were defrauded, you profited.
You're in serious trouble.
-[Mark] It's a house of cards.
-[Lyndon] House of cards. All lies.
[Mark] And it starts with
the Wilding trust that does not exist.
[Carrie] But the trust isn't fake.
[Mark] It's a forgery.
No.
-[Mark] Carrie.
-How is that possible?
[Mark] Well, you have no idea
who the Wildings are.
I do.
Like, I didn't forge these things.
[Lyndon] Let's change gears.
You didn't forge anything.
All we really want is to find
where the body of Charles is.
Did you find his body
deceased in his house?
Or did you have something
to do with his death?
No, I haven't had anything
to do with his death.
I didn't even know he was dead.
It's time to stop. You do not know him.
This is an elaborate fraud scheme
that stops today.
I have told you guys what I know.
As you can see, I try to help people.
I was just literally just trying
to help Charles in all of this.
[Mark] I didn't think
she was truthful at all.
We knew that
something terrible happened to Charles.
[Lyndon] Between all the stocks
and bank accounts,
Charles Wilding's estate was
probably worth about a million dollars,
plus the home, which was worth
between $2 to $2.5 million.
Caroline Herrling established
several trust accounts
in the name of the June Wilding Trust.
And between November 2020 and March 2022,
in one account,
she transacted almost $600,000
from the June Wilding account
to a fake trust account
that she created in her own name.
[Mark] One of the accounts
had a co-account holder
by the name of Jason Kroth.
[tense music playing]
Jason Kroth is a career criminal.
He's an ex-con.
He's a drug user, drug dealer, thief.
He's a fraudster.
I want to know why he is on
bank accounts with Carrie Herrling.
And I want to know everything
that he knows about Charles Wilding.
We found him at a motel.
He was arrested in the parking lot.
We interviewed Jason that evening.
I'm gonna read you your rights. Okay?
[Lyndon] Jason knew Caroline Herrling
because they're both
methamphetamine users.
And eventually,
as they continued the scheme,
fell into a romantic relationship.
[Mark] This is a real test
of your honesty.
-[Jason] Okay.
-[Mark] Okay, Jason? Because…
[Jason] All right.
[Mark] We can account for his money,
and we can account for his property,
but Charles just up and vanishes
like a fucking fart in church.
And not one fucking person
can look us in the eye
and say, "You know what?
If you go here or you go there,
you may find something."
[dramatic music playing]
[Mark] Let's talk about
Kingswood Drive and the Wildings.
He admits to looking
for properties in affluent areas
that he can potentially burglarize.
He had found the Wilding property,
and he had, in fact,
broken into that property.
[Jason] I… I went in the house.
[door creaking]
[Jason] And I took
some jewelry that was there.
-[Mark] Okay.
-[Jason] Um, that's when…
I smelled a smell.
It was bad. It was…
And then I kinda shined the light up
and I see old what's-his-face.
-His mouth was open a little bit.
-[rodent squeaking]
And it was just crazy.
-There was, like, rats and shit.
-[rats squeaking]
-I mean, they were in his mouth.
-[Mark chuckles] Okay.
[Jason] Yeah, he was far, far gone.
Yeah, he was… He was dead.
[squeaking continues]
[Jason] He was definitely dead.
So I asked him, what did he do?
And his response to me was,
"Well, I called Carrie."
[Lyndon] When Jason found
financial documents in Charles' house,
he knew he needed to go to somebody
who'd be able to handle
this type of fraud scheme.
[Lyndon] How much money
did you make out of Charles?
Like 140 or something.
[Lyndon] $140,000? Okay.
Who was paying you?
[Jason] Uh, Caroline.
[Lyndon] So who got rid of the body?
[Jason mumbles]
-[Lydon] Who did?
-Caroline.
[Lyndon] With whom?
[mumbling]
-[Lyndon] With you?
-No.
[Lyndon] With whom?
-[Mark] This is the honest part.
-She brought her with her.
[Lyndon] Her and… carried
the body by themselves.
Definitely.
[Lyndon] This shit's gonna haunt you.
No, I'm telling you what happened.
[Lyndon] The soul of this body
is going to haunt you.
She took it to her house.
[Lyndon] Beverly Glen?
How did she carry it there?
[Jason] Her Jeep.
After they put it in bags. You know?
[Mark] They put it in bags?
Big bag. Big bags, yes.
They described to me when they
picked him up, when they picked…
He'd been there for a minute.
I mean, a minute.
Like, he was stuck into the floor.
[Mark] Jason's pointing a finger
at Carrie and her assistant.
I'm thinking,
is this something that
perhaps he did himself
and he's trying to put
the blame on somebody else?
But Carrie surprises me at every turn.
Who knew what she could be capable of?
[dramatic music intensifies]
After interviewing Jason Kroth,
we wanted to dig a little further.
So we went back to the Wilding residence.
According to Jason Kroth,
when Carrie was cleaning out the house,
after Charles was removed,
she went so far
as to remove the floorboards
to get rid of any potential evidence
that somebody had died in that home.
At this point,
the house was completely empty.
But in the second-floor bedroom,
we noticed plywood on the floor.
But once we lifted the plywood,
the floor was gone,
but the subfloor was there.
And we saw there was a stain on the floor
in the shape of what could be a human.
So at this point, we knew
there's some truth to what Jason said.
So we decided to confront Caroline,
and we set her up with a polygraph.
[man] Come on in here. Are you Caroline?
I am.
[man] I don't care what
you've told the investigators
up to this point in time.
If there's more to this situation
than you told investigators before,
do not minimize your involvement,
and do not lie or leave anything out.
[Lyndon] Caroline Herrling
was initially charged
with a conspiracy to commit
wire fraud and identity theft,
and she was charged with
distributing controlled substances.
She was facing a huge sentence.
[man] The Wilding property.
How did you first learn about it?
Through a guy named Jason Kroth.
Who is also…
-[man] Jason Kroth. Okay.
-Yup.
Jason took us to the house where…
where Charles Wilding
was already deceased.
[man] Okay.
Finally, she admitted
Charles was indeed dead,
and to me, that was groundbreaking.
Caroline wanted a lighter sentence,
and part of that lighter sentence required
her to be truthful about what she did.
Ultimately, she knew
when we put her in a polygraph,
we would catch her in a lie.
[Carrie] Because he was already deceased,
it would be a victimless crime
because he didn't have any family.
[man] You wanted to keep Charles…
-Alive.
-[man] Okay, I got you.
Technically, because there was
some access they couldn't get
to certain bank accounts.
If anyone had discovered
that Charles Wilding was really dead,
Caroline Herrling would not have been able
to access his assets ever again,
and that's why she went
to such extraordinary efforts
to make it seem
that Charles Wilding was still alive.
[man] What's your understanding
of what happened with Charles' body?
I have no idea.
I gave the officers every place
I think that it could have gone,
but I honestly don't know where it is.
[man] Well, it's alleged
that Charles' body
ended up back
at your residence at Beverly Glen.
The only way you get through this exam
successfully today
is being 100% honest and candid
in regards to your involvement
with the disposal
of Charles Wilding's remains.
So let me just ask it this way.
Is there more that
you want to share with me
about your involvement
and the disposal of his body
-before we go further?
-Yes.
-Yeah.
-[man] Okay.
At this point, she broke.
[dramatic music playing]
The body was so decayed
that there wasn't any flesh on him.
-That all went in the tarp.
-Mm-hmm.
-[man] Like a blue…
-[Carrie] One of those blue tarps.
-[man] A Home Depot tarp? Okay.
-[Carrie] Yeah.
At that time he was in the garage.
[Lyndon] They bought cadaver deodorizer,
Tyvek suits, and masks,
and different things like that.
That's what somebody who would be dealing
with cadavers would need, right?
The police even came
when he was still there.
They stood in front of the body.
The night that the police were there,
I took him to my house in Beverly Glen.
[Bella] One night in particular,
the noises were next level.
It was totally a different scenario
than previous nights.
[steady thumping]
[Ashley] I didn't know what I was hearing.
I would say it kind of just sounded like
a thumping noise where you drop furniture.
It kind of sounded like that.
[Bella] I heard voices.
I heard them talking.
It seemed like they were carrying things,
heavy, in and out of the building.
[Carrie] And then from there, uh,
we moved him up to my rooftop balcony
because my neighbors
could see in the back patio.
It was either that or the next day
we made a trip to Home Depot
to buy acid and lye.
[man] What sort of acid did you buy?
Do you recall?
Um…
Like stuff for pools. Chlorine.
-[man] Chlorine? Okay.
-Yeah.
[Carrie] I think we bought,
like, five gallons
because we weren't sure
how much it was going to take.
I believe we put the remains into
one of the blue barrels, the tall ones,
filled with acid.
[man] Okay.
We took a bunch of drugs to deal with it.
There's this infamous episode
in Breaking Bad
where Walter and Jesse…
[Jesse] Hey, Mr. White, it's me, pick up.
[Lyndon] …try to dissolve
a body in a plastic tub.
The acts that Caroline did
paralleled that.
[Mark] Carrie and the assistant
purchased a big tub,
acid, and lye, mixed it together,
placed Charles' remains inside
this makeshift tub,
and attempted to dissolve the body
to get rid of any evidence
that may connect her with Charles.
During this time,
apparently, it wasn't working.
[man] How long did the remains
sit in the blue container?
Probably for about a week
trying to get it to dissolve.
[Lyndon] The chemicals were so strong,
the tub started melting.
[man] How did you get the blue bin
down to the patio?
Or did you drain it from the third story?
[Carrie] We drained it
from the third story all the way down.
[man] All the way down? Hose?
[Carrie] Yeah, hose, and we had a pump
that was pulling it out of the…
-[man] Container.
-[Carrie] …container.
The neighbor that lived across from Carrie
had started to complain
about a really bad smell.
And she said that
all the flowers and vegetation
in the back of the building were dying.
[liquid bubbling]
[Carrie] The ligaments and stuff,
that dissolved.
[man] Okay.
[Carrie] So he was not
held together anymore.
-[squelching]
-There was… The bones were just loose,
but the majority of it did dissolve.
The bones did not.
At that point, Caroline decided
it's time to get him out of there.
They took an axe and other tools.
They started dismembering him further
to try to make him unidentifiable.
[loud sawing]
[Ashley] What is she doing in her unit?
Why is there so much banging that's
occurring at all hours of the night?
[Bella] It sounded like a sawing sound.
Something was going on.
[Carrie] I pulled the teeth out
and crushed them.
[man] How'd you pull them out?
[Carrie] I'd just take them
out with my hand.
The bones were just packaged up.
We vacuum-sealed them.
[man] The skull also?
-Yeah.
-[man] Okay.
And then we took them to San Francisco.
[Lyndon] Caroline and her assistant
rented a sports car
and traveled up north
to San Francisco Bay,
where they had a friend
who lived on a boat.
[Mark] They boarded the boat,
went out into the bay,
and disposed of his remains.
And then they got on a private jet
and flew back home.
[man] You need another tissue?
-Yeah. [sniffling]
-[man] All right.
[Andrew] One of
the most frightening things
that we found from the search warrant
was that Caroline Herrling
had spreadsheets
that listed deceased persons,
their property holdings,
and their heirs.
So it appeared that she was trying
to use the Charles Wilding fraud
as a template going forward
to find other wealthy homeowners
who wouldn't have anyone to protect them
if she sought to steal their properties.
[Lyndon] If the body of Charles
had been discovered,
it would have foiled their plans.
The actions she did
showed a complete callousness,
almost a psychopathic-type personality
to not care and not even be fazed
by having to melt a body or chop it.
It was just an item to do
to succeed in her fraud.
KCAL News Assignment Editor
Mike Rogers is here.
He's got details of a disturbing case.
Yeah, Pat and Juan…
I'm laying in bed, and the news pops on,
and it's just a picture of Carrie.
[Mike] Allegedly,
there's the photo of the woman
provided by the Department of Justice,
they say would target elderly and disabled
and vulnerable people in the community.
They tried to dispose
of the body in chemicals
at her West Los Angeles apartment.
It just brought me
to a moment of just shock.
[Andrew] The conspirators themselves
called this a perfect crime.
Charles Wilding was dead,
and he didn't have any heirs.
But for the good efforts of his neighbors,
this fraud would probably never have
come to the attention of the authorities,
and Ms. Herrling and her co-conspirators
would have gotten away
with several million dollars.
[Andrew] Caroline Herrling
was sentenced to 20 years in prison,
which is the statutory maximum
for wire fraud
and conspiracy to commit it.
Anybody who is convicted of a conspiracy
can be held accountable to all the crimes
that occurred within it,
and she was.
[pensive music playing]
[Bella] I couldn't believe that
I was only 50 feet away
from her chopping up a body.
I never in a million years
thought Carrie would be capable
of all the things she did.
I had just assumed
she was a normal meth addict.
In hindsight, now I realize that
you never really know
who your neighbors are.
[dramatic upbeat theme music playing]