The FBI isn’t the only interested party searching for Mary Carole McDonnell, the 74-year-old producer behind TV series like I Married a Murderer. There are the former employees who allege millions in unpaid wages, and the two sons who claim their mother forged their signatures on bank documents. There’s an entrepreneur in the United Arab Emirates who accuses her of “mind games,” and the former bank vice-president turned true-crime podcaster who’d like to make a documentary about McDonnell. Cheyenne Roundtree goes deep on the woman who, nearly a decade ago, walked into a California bank with a pecan pie and left with a $15 million loan before vanishing.
The story has all the makings of a viral documentary replete with breathless details, similar to the ones McDonnell’s company produced. Her backstory is littered with half-truths and deceptions, including a lie that her mentally disabled younger sister was murdered after being kidnapped. Questions remain on how she was able to pull off such a brazen heist. And it has sparked an ongoinghunt among the FBI, banking institutions, a true-crime podcaster, and television producers to see who can unravel McDonnell’s tangled history, track her down in a foreign land, recoup the financial losses she caused, and perhaps bring the unbelievable tale to screens.
Transgender German federal police officer “Maja S.” has confessed yesterday to the rape of a minor and other serious charges before the Traunstein Regional Court as a part of a plea.
The former officer, who had 35 years of service, admitted to raping a friend’s 14-year-old daughter in the bathroom of a fast-food restaurant in August 2025.
“The injured party was unable to react to this, but stared at the accused in shock,” the court indictment states about the rape. “The accused left the toilet stall and the injured woman locked herself in the toilet, trembling all over her body while suffering from heart palpitations.”
Maja S. confessed to the charges as part of a plea agreement that is expected to result in a sentence of 3 to 3.5 years, according to media reports. Some commentators on social media are already decrying the potential sentence as far too lenient given the gravity of the crimes involved.
Maja S. also confessed to possessing around 2,000 pornographic files depicting brutal assaults and the sexual violence against children, some as young as three.
The transgender former officer also confessed to assault and the sexual abuse of juveniles.
The former officer admitted to producing pornographic videos involving animals, including with other sexual partners and a dog.
According to Bild, the former officer was previously assigned to a special unit of the Federal Police (GSG 9) and was deployed in Afghanistan, among other places. Maja S. continues to receive hormone therapy.
Maja S., who is biologically male, was previously housed in a women’s prison section but is now in the men’s wing of a prison in Munich. Maja’s lawyer has complained that Maja is facing harassment there, including being whistled at by other prisoners.
In addition to the potential prison time, Maja S. must also pay the 14-year-old victim €5,000 and give her a motorcycle. This is the first time Remix News has observed reports of a victim, especially a young victim who cannot even legally ride a motorcycle yet, receiving such a vehicle as part of a plea deal.
Notably, this does not appear to be the first time that Maja S. has offended. Welt newspaper reported that Maja S. must also pay a fine “resulting from a previous, apparently relevant, judgment of the Rosenheim District Court.”
The Welt report notes that the fact that Maja S. reoffended so quickly after this previous verdict from July 2025 was a detrimental factor in this more recent case.
Ali A. had just turned 18 when he decided to drive his brand new BMW X1 over double the speed limit, high on anti-dust spray, striking 33-year-old Dutchwoman Elisabeth in Rotterdam.
On Monday, prosecutors said in court that it was just two days after his eighteenth birthday, in March of last year, when Ali A. drove at 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone, or 71 mph in a 30 mph zone, with the car which his father had just given him as a gift.
Prosecutors say they want him to be sentenced to eight months in prison and given a five-year driving ban.
Dutch news outlet NOS wrote that Ali A. was weaving his car, driving on the wrong side of the road, and is suspected of having been under the influence of propellant anti-dust spray, a kind of narcotic used by young people.
Video footage shows him overtaking a car at very high speed and barely avoiding an oncoming vehicle. Then, he hit Elisabeth’s car, who was on her way to her hockey club, which led her vehicle to slam directly into a tree.
Doctors tried to save her life but she died that same day. She was fourteen weeks pregnant with her first child, who also died.
The suspect, now 19, offered a different account of the accident in the Rotterdam court. He said he lost control of the car and was trying to avoid other cars, but one of his statements also appears to contradict this claim.
“I didn’t know the car well yet and wanted to test it out. I may have been overambitious and thought I was a better driver, but I couldn’t control it,” he said.
After the collision, Ali A. ended up in the ditch with his car. He claims he thought he was unconscious for a while and was “in terrible shock” after the accident.
The prosecution argues the man was high on anti-dust spray, but Ali strongly denies inhaling any drugs.
However, police have recorded him fleeing the scene of the accident and throwing away two aerosol cans. He claims that if police had discovered the aerosol cans, it would have given them the “wrong impression.”
“I am aware that the spray is used to get high. I was afraid they would suspect me of that if they had found the cans in the car,’ he stated.
When asked why he did not go help Elisabeth, or call emergency services, he said: “I was in shock.”
The prosecutor went on attack, saying that Ali A. is claiming he is too shocked to help Elisabeth or call emergency services but had the presence of mind to run away and toss the two anti-dust cans.
He had recently bought two cans of the spray because he saw — right after coming home from a short foreign birthday trip — that there was some dust on his PlayStation. He claims his plan was only to clean his PlayStation. When asked why he bought two cans, he said he had no idea how much cleaning product was needed.
The prosecutor rejected that explanation.
“I don’t see any shock, I see someone deliberately dumping evidence,” she said.
The attorney representing the family, Anne Bleeker, said that Ali A is, “Thoughtful, cunning, self-centered.”
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced,” he said, and added that he was also greatly affected by the accident. That claim was heard with disbelief in the packed courtroom.
When Ali said again during his closing words how much trouble and stress he himself had from the accident, several of Elisabeth’s relatives walked out of the room.
Elisabeth’s partner, mother and brother called on him in their victim statements to take responsibility.
“It is completely disrespectful to us. You say you were in shock after the accident and can’t remember anything. I was also in shock after hearing about the accident, but I can still remember everything exactly,” Elisabeth’s partner said, according to De Telegraaf newspaper.
Her mother said she should not have been in court at all today.
“I should have picked out a present for my grandchild’s first birthday…You drove like crazy. There are too many young people like you. Too much testosterone, too little brain.”
“We were happy to become grandparents again, it was [the other parents of the father] who were preparing to become grandparents for the first time. They had already prepared some old baby clothes,” she added.
Her brother also spoke, saying: “A beautiful vision of the future on a sun-drenched day. It turned into horror in the hospital. We were completely devastated.”
The court will rule in two weeks, on Sept. 28.
Various commentators and political figures are outraged by the case, including Eva Vlaardingerbroek.
“Ali A. (18) hit and killed Elisabeth (33) who was pregnant with her first child. He was driving 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone and was high on laughing gas. The Dutch prosecutor is demanding 8 months in jail. That’s apparently all the life of a Dutch pregnant woman is worth,” she wrote on X.
Ali A. (18) hit and killed Elisabeth (33) who was pregnant with her first child.
He was driving 115 km/h in a 50 km/h zone and was high on laughing gas.
The Dutch prosecutor is demanding 8 months in jail.
Ian Parker does not hold back in painting the egos of the characters in this horse‑world scandal, clearly growing tired at times of the pomposity of Michael Barisone, a U.S. dressage trainer and former Olympian who shot his student, Lauren Kanarek, after an escalating feud. Claiming that Kanarek’s online taunts and complaints drove him insane, Barisone was eventually found not guilty, though later banned from his sport by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. Tread carefully as you enter this arena; narcissism lurks everywhere.
The first time I called him, he said, of the case, “You’re going to find it is a John Grisham novel combined with ‘Fatal Attraction’ combined with ‘Yellowstone.’ ” Barisone’s story has its evident hero, and its villain is Kanarek, his victim. In this presentation of events—a “scum of the earth” client, in his words, and a terrific guy who snapped, as anyone would have—Barisone has enjoyed near-universal support from the dressage community, and beyond. In much of the online discussion about the case, including in the forums of The Chronicle of the Horse, a long-established magazine, commenters have identified two victims, not one, and have almost always found Barisone’s victimhood the more compelling. A woman was shot, but a man was driven to shoot her, because she was annoying, and at times belligerent, in person and on social media. Kanarek has been widely scorned as a dressage interloper and as an embodiment of contemporary ills: a bullshitter, an entitled troll.
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