Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast · Moms and Mysteries Podcast

A Deadly Inheritance: The Von Stein Murder

·42 min·2 clips

Bonnie calls 911: "My husband may be dying, and I think I may be too."

1. Moms and Mysteries: A True Crime Podcast tells the 1988 Washington, North Carolina, murder of Leith von Stein and the attack on Bonnie von Stein. 2. Hosts Mandi and Melissa narrate the case and frame Leith as a Navy veteran-turned-computer programmer and Bonnie as a mother of Christopher and Angela. 3. The episode asks how a family argument over college money and inheritance turned into a planned home invasion. 4. Leith marries Bonnie, raises Chris and Angela in Washington, North Carolina, and pays for Chris's tuition, housing, books, and weekly allowance at North Carolina State University. 5. Chris struggles at NC State, spends time partying and playing fantasy role-playing games, and tells friends that Leith is ruining his life. 6. Bart Upchurch and Neil Henderson enter Chris's orbit, and the hosts describe Bart as an older former NC State student who encourages Chris's dark talk. 7. The episode places the case in the late-1980s Satanic Panic, when Dungeons & Dragons was widely blamed by parents for dangerous behavior. 8. Chris and Bart talk about Leith's $700,000 life insurance policy and a $600,000 trust fund, and the plan begins to sound like real logistics. 9. A first attempt uses crushed sleeping pills in the family hamburgers and an electrical-fire setup, but that plan fails. 10. Chris then maps the house, notes which doors stay unlocked, and gives Bart directions to the Smallwood neighborhood home. 11. On July 24, 1988, Bart and Neil drive from Raleigh to Washington in Neil's gray 1982 Honda with a knife, a bat, and gloves. 12. They enter through the back door, and Bart attacks Leith in bed before stabbing Bonnie when she wakes up. 13. Bonnie crawls for the phone and dials 911 at 4:27 a.m., saying, "My husband may be dying, and I think I may be too." 14. Police find Leith dead, Bonnie critically injured, and evidence that the scene was not a random burglary because little value is missing. 15. Investigators trace footprints, tire tracks, and Neil Henderson's confession back to Chris's house diagram and the planning sessions with Bart. 16. Neil says Chris wanted Leith dead for money, and Bart later tells police that the three of them treated the killing like a role-playing mission. 17. The episode keeps a steady true-crime narration style, with Mandi and Melissa adding brief reactions and side comments as they move through the timeline. 18. The tone stays conversational but detailed, with sponsor breaks dividing the story into long chronological sections. 19. Listeners who follow 1980s true crime and family betrayal. 20. Skip if you want light listening without graphic violence.

As heard by us

A failed fire setup leads into a coldly mapped attack on a family.

Washington, North Carolina, in the summer of 1988 gives this Moms and Mysteries episode a quiet surface that makes the case feel even more unsettling.

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Why you'd press play

You get a quiet Washington, North Carolina summer, a failed fire plot, and a family attack planned down to doors, bedtime, and diagrams.

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