“John Green does what John Green does, right? He’s a charmer. He’s a smooth talker. I think he could talk his way in anyone’s life.”
“Beneath the surface, there’s something really dark.”
“Is this a man who just happens to have really bad luck or is he a bad guy?”
“He’s a bad guy.”
“We had good times together. I never uh felt like I’m with a bad person.”
“I think he’s unlucky. I think he’s unlucky.”
“We were so happy when he met Kim Lark, his wife. They went skiing together. They loved dogs together. I had not seen him so happy in all these years that we’ve known him.”
“I think John Green saw Dr. Kim and saw dollar signs.”
“You think he targeted her?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“It all turned sour really quick. They were not only separating, but he took the dogs. She loves her dogs. Those are her babies. It’s like if he had taken her children.”
“He’s stealing your dogs. He’s kidnapping your dogs.”
“Oh, I was scared to death that he would get rid of them.”
“Now it became just one thing after another. He’s on the road, on the road, and on the run with the dogs.”
“He’s actually arrested in San Antonio.”
“He’s a thief, he’s a liar, a con artist.”
“At Eddie County Detention Center, I met John, and he kept asking me if I knew somebody that could kill his wife.”
“So here’s my husband in jail talking with somebody about the various different ways to kill me and take care of the body.”
“Do you believe that this was a real plan?”
“Yes.”
“This isn’t the first time he’s been in question of a heinous crime. If he did it once, he can do it again.”
“Who was this man really? He wasn’t John Green. His real name was Ted Maher, and he had been convicted of an arson resulting in the death of a billionaire.”
“I am innocent.”
“At guard. So much of it still remains a mystery. I mean, this guy’s story is just crazy.”
Carlsbad, New Mexico, a small city dwarfed by a vast dirt red desert, was home to John Green in 2017. That was the year a routine medical exam would become a turning point for him and his new doctor, Kim Lark.
“The very first day, when he walks in, how would you have described him?”
“Smiling, happy, wanted to talk, just kind of made you feel comfortable.”
Months later, they began texting, then dating.
“He liked everything that I liked. We started skiing together. We started riding bikes together.”
Early in their relationship, Kim says Green told her about his troubled past, that he had been falsely accused of arson more than 20 years ago, causing the deaths of two people, including a billionaire banker in Monte Carlo.
“I believed him at first. I kind of believed his side of the story.”
She says she wanted to believe the best about the new man in her life.
“He said all the right things. He did all the things that I needed my best friend to be.”
By the time they married on Valentine’s Day 2020, they’d already settled into a comfortable life. Kim had a lucrative medical practice, an $800,000 retirement account tucked away, and a home on 4 acres outside of town.
“At that time, did you realize what he was capable of?”
“No, I had no idea.”
“I think he’s motivated by money, motivated by power.”
Molly Forester, a documentary filmmaker and CBS News consultant, has spent years reporting Green’s story for a new series streaming on the Eplus online platform.
“He likes skiing. This is like, he was a chameleon.”
She says the man who calls himself John Green has led a life of deception.
“He’s been able to fool a lot of people and caused a lot of trauma, trauma that would eventually crumble their marriage in just a few years,” says Kim.
“Just ’cause he’s so willing to lie, cheat, steal.”
In April 2022, Kim noticed her checkbook was missing.
“And that’s when the bank called me and said, ‘Hey, did you write this check?'”
She learned that her husband, seen here on bank security footage, was trying to cash thousands of dollars in checks by forging her name at banks all over town.
Kim filed for divorce and changed the locks on her house. About a month later, he stole something else from her that mattered a lot more than money.
“He’s kidnapping your dogs.”
“My dogs and my vehicle.”
“Yeah. Storm, Zero, and Felony are not only precious pets, they’re extremely valuable, highly trained search and rescue dogs,” says Kim. “And she is their trainer.”
“We have a really special bond. My dogs are with me 24/7.”
For years, Kim and her K-9 companions have assisted FEMA during national disasters and law enforcement at crime scenes.
“He could have taken anything except my dogs.”
“And Zero was pregnant at the time.”
“I really was scared to death.”
Kim believed her estranged husband might have taken the dogs to Texas, and she found someone there who could help. Abel Pena had 26 years with the FBI before he retired and founded a nonprofit called Project Absent to help find missing people.
“What is the difference between looking for missing people and missing dogs?”
“Dogs don’t maintain a paw print online. It’s more challenging to try and find dogs.”
It was more than a month before he got a good tip. And it wasn’t about the dogs, but about Green himself.
On June 13th, 2022, Pena called law enforcement for help staking out a parking lot in San Antonio. Shortly after, Green arrived in a BMW, authorities arrested and charged him with forgery and larceny. He had changed his appearance, shaving his head.
“I ran over to the vehicle, looked in the back windows to see if the dogs were there.”
“Um, the dogs were not there.”
But Pena had another lead and headed to a nearby house belonging to the aunt of one of Green’s friends.
“I knock on the door, and I’m greeted by an older woman.”
“She was like, ‘I know why you’re here. Come on in.'”
He found Kim’s dogs in a back bedroom, and by then, Zero had multiplied. There were now eight puppies in a box.
“And how did you feel?”
“I was ecstatic.”
Abel Pena took all 11 dogs to his house and waited for Kim to arrive.
“Look who we have here. Come on, Philly.”
“My girls were so happy to see me. I was so relieved. It was a fantastic ending.”
“Good boy.”
Kim was so thankful she named one of the puppies Abel after the man who had found them.
“Bye, bye. Thank you. See you later.”
“Did you think at that point you had it all behind you?”
“Yes.”
The forgery and larceny charges landed John Green here, locked up in the Eddy County detention center in Carlsbad, where he met this man, Greg Markham, detained on drug charges.
“Was he angry with Kim?”
“Oh, he’s furious with her.”
Markham says they bonded over a chess board.
“I played chess with him every day. Got to know the guy. He kept asking me if I knew somebody that could kill his wife.”
Greg Markham says he saw an opportunity to make John Green his pawn.
“And I was like, ‘You know what, man, I can’t find anybody. I’ll do it. How do you want it done?'”
“So you promised to kill his wife?”
“I… I said, ‘Oh yeah, man. I’ll do it. I’ll do it for you.'”
“Were you going to?”
“No.”
Markham says he’s a con man, not a hitman, and was never serious about killing Kim Lark.
“Living on my own, it’s me and my dog.”
He desperately needed bail money, he says, to save his dog Atlas from being euthanized.
“I got to convince this guy to bail me out so I can go take care of my dog, make sure he’s okay.”
He says Green paid for the bail.
“Once he was convinced that I was going to do it, he wouldn’t stop talking about it. Let’s talk about it again. What are you going to do?”
Markham says Green had a specific way he…
“Ridiculous.”
“But how then did Markham seem to know so much about the layout of Kim Lark’s house?”
“But this was the basic layout. Markham made us a diagram, too. I knew where the keys were and we compared it to the house itself. It wasn’t exactly a match, but there were disturbing similarities.”
“It shows where the power sources are, right, and where the safe was. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“He did a drawing of her house. How would he have those details if you didn’t give it to him?”
“That drawing was not at all 100% factual.”
“Then you had, like, a dining room.”
Ted echoed what his lawyer argued in the trial. Whatever Markham knew about the home’s layout came from innocent conversations.
“I explained how I had re-put done electrical panels and I talked about how I had a bookcase to put a safe at a high level so she would have to bend down.”
In fact, he told us he was a doing husband, devoted to making life easier for Kim.
“You said you loved Kim Lark.”
“I still love her.”
He admitted he forged her signature on a check but said as the marriage crumbled, he had no income and needed money. And he said he had a right to the dogs since his divorce settlement with Kim hadn’t been finalized yet. Those dogs were still community property. Now, just like he once claimed in Monaco, he told us he’s an innocent and fundamentally good man taken advantage of by others.
“As you sit here today, do you feel responsible for Edmund Safra’s death?”
“No, I don’t.”
“But the couple who once believed Ted Maher’s proclamations of innocence…”
“I’m not responsible for the death of two people.”
“Now wonder what really happened on the December night in Monte Carlo that ended with the death of a billionaire and his nurse.”
“There is a chance in my mind now that he did orchestrate that.”
Bill Hayes still believes Ted told the truth about intruders attacking him that night. But Hayes and Thomas agree that when it comes to Ted’s plot to kill Kim Lark, the plot they say he sucked them into, he is guilty as charged.
“I feel betrayed. I would want to know why. Why you lied?”
And while we may never know the whole truth for sure, we found evidence that Ted had hedged one of his most basic claims, which he repeatedly made over the years.
“Were you in fact Special Forces and a Green Beret?”
“I went through all three phases.”
“You’re saying you went through the training?”
“I finished the three programs.”
“Come on, Ted. Don’t double talk here.”
“I never was assigned to a unit as a Green Beret.”
“So you never served as a Green Beret?”
“I served… I… I went down into Special Forces. Yes, I did.”
If Ted Maher didn’t give us a straight answer, the Army certainly did, telling us, quote, “There is no evidence that Theodore Maher served in the Special Forces.”
“He’s a thief. He’s a liar, a con artist.”
And Kim Lark says she’s worried she hasn’t seen the last of him.
“When he gets out, I’ll be in trouble.”
“Does Kim Lark have a reason to be scared of you?”
“Yeah, absolutely not.”
“There’s no telling what he may do.”
Detective Garrett Silva, who helped piece the murder solicitation case together, was promoted to sergeant with the K-9 unit. He told us that if he were in Kim’s position, he would keep a dog by his side for protection. And that’s exactly what Kim Lark is doing.
“I don’t trust anybody. I’m always on alert.”
She told us Ted has demanded money as part of their divorce and she’s infuriated. Kim admits that anger can be lonely.
“Come on, Philly.”
“But anyone who knows Kim knows…”
“Yeah, we’re just going for a ride.”
“She’s never really alone.”
“Kim, do they follow you everywhere?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god, that makes me laugh. Dogs just want to be with you all the time.”
“And you can trust them?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Okay.”
“Heat, heat.”
Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
