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The Everyday Earbuds Classic are the perfect way to level up your everyday routine. Go to byracon.com/kendler to get 15% off. Thanks Raycon for sponsoring. [music] Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of True Crime with Kendall Ray. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you’re new to the show, then welcome.
I’m happy to have you here. and make sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode from me. So guys, I am still on my maternity leave. Uh not sure where in the leave this is coming out. Not sure what’s going on in life. Um but I am pre-recording this episode. And the case that I have for you all today is so batshit.
I don’t even know how to put it into words. It is the most ridiculous story I may have ever heard. It is so insane. And some of the people involved in this are truly some of the stupidest yet highly educated people I think I have ever heard of. This is truly a desperate housewives or more like real housewives situation.
And we’re going to be talking about a really ruthless harassment campaign that led to a PTA president mom who volunteered tons of her time was, you know, seen as one of the best people working at this school, ending up with felony charges. And I am really looking forward to diving into this one because I was just blown away uh when I heard all the details and I think you are going to be too.
So, let’s just jump in and start with turning it back to 2010. Okay. Kelly Peters, she was in her 40s living with her husband and her 10-year-old daughter in Irvine, California. Now, Irvine, California seems to be a very idealic kind of place. Uh, not much going on. Very, very safe, very cookie cutter neighborhoods. sort of, you know, the life that you see in the movies when it comes to the California suburbs.
The two of them had moved there just before their daughter was born because they liked that it was a safe community and because it had a very highly rated school system. And then Kelly decided to make another change when her daughter was just a couple years old. She decided to become a full-time mom and leave her very high pressure job as a mortgage loan officer behind. And she was very excited.
And when her daughter started attending school at Plaza Vista Elementary, she had time to volunteer there nearly every day. And soon she really became a permanent fixture of the school. I mean, people loved her there. And over the years, she served as the PTA president and then also ran the after school program.
And she enjoyed it so much and people really enjoyed having her there as well. So she decided to go ahead and eventually get her teaching accreditation so that she could eventually just work there as a substitute teacher. and other teachers and people that worked at the school told her like, “Yeah, if you do that, I will definitely hire you as a teacher.
It’s going to be great.” And she was so excited to start working into that next phase of life. But everything about her life and her, you know, idealic reality of living in Irvine in this perfect school system and being so involved with her child drastically changed on February 17th, 2010. On that day, like most afternoons, Kelly was overseeing the afterchool program as it wrapped up for the day.
And as always, Kelly had all the kids line up and walked them out to the front of the school so that she could make sure each kid was picked up by their parent and was, you know, headed into the right place at the end of the school day. And around the same time, a woman named Jill Peters showed up at the front of the school to pick up her six-year-old son, but he wasn’t there.
So understandably, she starts freaking out, which I totally get. I would be the same way, right? I think any parent would if you showed up to pick your kid up from school and they weren’t there. So she’s really concerned. She’s yelling at people. She’s demanding to know where her son is. But then just a moment later, the school’s tennis coach approaches and she has her son with her.
And it turns out he had been in the back of the school at his tennis lesson, which was part of the after school activities. So not that big of a deal. It is a very quick reunion. There wasn’t much time for her to be freaking out. They’re reunited very quickly. And after his lesson, it turns out he didn’t line up with the rest of the kids.
So, he was left behind and ended up being locked out in the back of the playground for about 5 minutes. That’s it. Until he was found by another teacher knocking on the back door to be let in. Of course, I totally understand being frustrated by this, right? But things do happen. And even though the whole ordeal was only just a few minutes, everything about this really upset Jill.
And I’m talking really upset her. Um, in fact, you could say this pissed her the off. She starts berating Kelly over it since she had been the main adult who was in charge. Now, in response, Kelly seemed to understand why Jill was so upset, so she stayed calm and apologized for everything. Jill, on the other hand, was furious and refused to let it go.
And she even accused Kelly and the tennis coach of trying to intentionally harm her son, which is a big accusation and clearly not the case. But Kelly, she’s a chill person, okay? She’s trying to ease Jill’s concern, trying to be understanding, telling her that it’s normal for instructors to walk kids up at the end of the day like that.
And she said that it only happened because Jill’s son was slow to line up with the rest of the kids. slow as in he was slow to walk over there. But saying slow was like pouring gasoline on the fire that is Jill. Because Jill took this as Kelly saying that her son is slow in general, as in his mental capacity, as in he has a smaller intellect that he is slow.
I mean, we all know what Jill thought Kelly was trying to say, which she was not saying at all. She was saying the kid was slow walking to the line. And this comment sent Jill over the edge because she thinks Kelly is making fun of her son that she is calling him stupid. So Jill starts freaking at this point.
And Kelly decides, okay, this is too much. We’re in a professional atmosphere. There’s clearly a mistake. It’s not that big of a deal. I’ve already apologized. cuz I’m not going to sit here and be bered by you for things I didn’t do and for things I didn’t say. So, she doesn’t want to take it anymore. And she turned around and walked away while Jill screamed out, “How do you sleep at night? I’ll get you.
” Yeah, she really said, “I’ll get you.” So, things only got worse from here, as you can imagine. So, Kelly was so frazzled and upset by the whole ordeal, understandably, that she went back into the school and started crying. And the school staff tries to comfort her, say, you know, yeah, that’s not fun to be yelled at, but sometimes parents lose it like that.
It’s um very stressful, but I wouldn’t take it too seriously. It’s going to blow over. Everything’s going to be okay. But little did they know, this wasn’t just a heated in the- moment type of threat. This was a real threat. This was a promise of an action that Jill immediately started on. And it started the next day because Jill ends up calling the school’s principal and files a formal complaint against Kelly and demands that she be fired from her position.
And in this complaint, Jill blew everything out of proportion. Remember how I said they were reunited after 5 minutes? Well, she stated that her son had been locked out of the school for 19 minutes and was in emotional distress. And she also took great issue, of course, with Kelly saying that her son was slow. Here’s what she specifically wrote. Okay.
She said, “She told me that she blames my son because he is slow and often gets left behind because it’s hard to wait for him. For the record, my son is very intelligent, mature, and athletic, and has successfully participated in many ACE classes. He is receiving good grades and has earned many awards this year.
He is not mentally or physically slow by any standard.” Now, the school didn’t want to jump to any conclusions here and just do whatever Jill wanted them to do. So, they did a little investigation into the complaint and they interviewed some witnesses and found out that he was left outside for only 5 minutes or yeah, possibly even less than 5 minutes and nowhere near the 19 minutes that Jill had claimed.
And they also determined, of course, that Kelly had no malicious intent in this accident. So, she was cleared of any wrongdoing and the school kept her in her position. The students loved her, the parents loved her. I mean, everyone loved Kelly. Now, okay, most people would stop here, right? I mean, it’s understandable how Jill acted to some extent.
Like I said, being concerned when he wasn’t there when you went to pick him up after school, very, very reasonable. Wanting to protect your kids and being upset when it seems like adults weren’t watching him the way that they should, which it kind of seems like they didn’t, is not uh out of the norm. I’d say that is very normal.
In fact, it’s definitely not too crazy to have this type of reaction. But I think after a formal investigation took place, it’s time to let things go and move on. Accidents happened. Kelly clearly didn’t mean to leave her son behind. She apologized and she never called him intellectually slow. And that’s it. Jill just decided to get over it and they all moved on happily ever after.
And that is the end of today’s episode. [music] Of course not. Jill took it up from here. But before I get into everything, all of the real that Jill did to Kelly and how she almost destroyed her life over this, let me tell you a little bit more about exactly who Jill is. So, she grew up in Southern California and then moved to the north end of the state to attend law school at UC Berkeley.
And after graduation, she started working at a law firm in Palo Alto, where she met her future husband, Kent Easter. Now, Kent was a practicing lawyer who had recently attended Stanford and the UCLA School of Law before joining the firm. The two of them had a big fancy wedding. They had a very uh picture perfect wedding.
In fact, it was so picture perfect that a picture made it onto a bridal magazine or a like the not.com, something like that was featured somewhere. And they were very proud of that. And after they got married, the two of them decided to move down to Irvine. And they moved there for the same reason that Kelly and her husband did and why so many people moved to Irving because it’s this idealic, perfect, great place to start a family.
So Ken ends up getting a job at a very prestigious law firm he’s doing very, very well. And Jill decides that she wanted to stop practicing when she became pregnant and become a mother full-time. And over time, the two of them grew their family. They had three kids and Jill really settled in nicely into being a stay-at-home mom. And everyone that came across her said that she seemed like someone who really always had it together.
Seemed very perfect. And between social engagements and being very involved in all of her kids activities, Jill became a very prominent figure in the community. So by 2010, it appeared to the people of Irvine that Jill and Kent were living a very wonderful and very glamorous life. But something about that incident with Kelly Peters really made the cracks start to show and soon everyone would know just how messy, angry, petty, and vengeful the two of them really were.
Now, this is important to note. Kelly never had direct contact with the Easter again after that day, but she clearly stayed on their minds. So much so that Jill started approaching other parents at the school and telling them that Kelly was a danger to their children and urge them to help her try and get her removed.
And people were kind of like, you know, it’s awkward when someone’s telling you something like that and you want to be uh supportive and listen, but at the same time, you’re like, “Okay, wacko. We all really like Kelly a So, when that didn’t work, she takes things a step further and she creates flyers about Kelly and starts passing them out in the school parking lot. Awesome.
And some of these flyers even apparently stated that Kelly had intentionally locked Jill’s son out of the school and warned parents that she’s a danger to all the children. Look at this woman. Okay, look at Kelly. Does she look like a danger to all children to you? Now, the school’s principal catches wind of this and she’s like, “Okay, uh Jill, you need to stop because our campus has rules of civility.
You can’t harass other parents like this.” Um, you know, obviously she works at the school, but her son also attends the school and she’s a staff member here who we value. You cannot treat her like this. But Jill told her that she was protected under the First Amendment, which she of course knew about because she and her husband were both attorneys.
And then she bluntly said that she wasn’t planning to stop until Kelly Peters was gone. And this wasn’t her only method of trying to attack Kelly. I’m sure you could guess the next step in her plan, right? She files a police report, of course. How Karen of her. But when officers investigated the situation, of course, they came to the conclusion pretty quickly that no crime had been committed at all.
So, they weren’t going to take any action. But, of course, that’s not going to stop Jill. So Jill ends up emailing her husband Kent, which is strange. You think you would just talk to him about it at home, little pillow talk or something. I don’t know. But she sends him a list of things that she wants to do to Kelly. And the subject line read, “Need to get serious.
” And on her list of demands was a background check on Kelly, filing a restraining order, arresting her, and suing her along with the school, the district, and the entire school board. And the email ended with, “Why are we letting this no one abuse our son and then trash our family? Why?” Obviously, this email is absolutely batshit. And so is Jill.
I mean, also, she is clearly very, very bored. And you can tell by this email, too, that this whole situation is making Jill unravel. Like, she is fully crashing out at this point. But instead of trying to calm his wife down and encourage her to be rational, Kent just goes along with the demands.
So just a few days after Jill emails her husband about this, they file a restraining order against Kelly and the claims, you guys. Oh my god. They claimed that she was trying to kill her and also stalking their son. Yep. Trying to kill Jill and stalking their son. And as a reminder, Kelly still has not talked to them ever since this day.
Ever since the five minutes of her son waiting outside. So, of course, this comes into the court system and they’re like, “What the hell is this We don’t have time for this. There is no evidence for any of this.” So, they dismiss it. Um, but then Kent go aheads and files a lawsuit against Kelly, claiming that their son was a victim of false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
And the suit also claims that he was suffering from extreme and severe mental anguish. I really like that. Extreme and severe. I’m sure this kid is still that upset about his 5 minutes outside from a long time ago at this point. And I don’t know, maybe this kid was dealing with some mental anguish, but that’s probably now because of how his parents were acting.
Now, the Easterers end up, of course, dropping the suit because it’s not going to go anywhere. But it was still terrifying for Kelly. I mean, she does not have the money or the resources that Jill and Ken Easter have. Plus, the fact that they were attorneys was really freaky for her because they know how to work the system in a way that she simply just did it.
So, it’s a very unbalanced fight. And Kelly the whole time is like, “Why is this happening? Oh my god, this is the most ridiculous situation I’ve ever been in in my life.” Thankfully though, none of their efforts up until this point to ruin Kelly ever actually worked. And through all of it, the school was sticking by Kelly’s side.
Like I said, they just adored her. And they did take some action though to put the Easter at ease a little bit. They ended up refunding their after-school program tuition and implemented a more diligent headcount system during pickups. And after that, it appeared that all of this nonsense might actually be over because after 6 months of this constant harassment and back and forth, Jill, well, I guess it’s not really back and forth.
It was really like just back or just forth, I don’t know. But anyway, Jill and Kent suddenly went quiet after 6 months. So, on the outside, it kind of seemed like maybe they were done. Maybe they were throwing in the towel after taking things too far this whole time and it never panning out to anything. But in actuality, they were just ramping up for their most vicious attack against Kelly yet.
Which brings us to February 16th, 2011. And at first, it was a pretty normal day at Plaza Vista Elementary School. Kelly was at the school when she got a text from the school’s karate teacher saying that he was running late and asking if she could watch over his students. Of course, Kelly being the helpful person that she is, always willing to jump in, agrees.
And while leading the kids through some warm-up stretches, the school administrator came into the room to say that a police officer had just shown up at the school and was demanding to speak with Kelly. So, she runs to the front of the school freaking out because she’s thinking maybe something happened to her husband.
And when she gets there, they calm her down. She actually was tearing up and really getting upset, thinking the worst. Unfortunately, it was much worse than she could have even imagined. But they tell her, “Your husband’s fine. We’re actually just here to investigate you.” And I guess Irvine police had received a call from somebody saying that Kelly was driving around the school erratically.
This unknown caller described her white PT Cruiser and even mentioned a decal on the car that said only for the Groovy, which was the name of Kelly’s small little tie dying business she ran on the side. And this person said they witnessed her putting drugs into the back of her car. So, Kelly is thinking, uh, absolutely not. That is ridiculous. I don’t do drugs.
I don’t have drugs in my car. But because of this caller, the officer asked to search her car, and Kelly has nothing to hide. So, she agrees. And so, Kelly walks out to the parking lot with this officer and she sees that her car is already surrounded by officers. And then she notices that a helicopter was flying over the school.
So, of course, she’s thinking, “What the hell is going on?” And she’s getting really freaked out and nervous. And while she was unlocking her car, she jokingly asked the officer if there was a dead body in her car, which was her way of kind of trying to diffuse the situation and make a joke. But this officer did not find that joke funny and he told her it would be best for her not to speak anymore.
So Kelly takes the hint and she listens. She silently watches as this officer opens her car and starts searching and before long he pulls out a massive bag of weed and Kelly is astounded. This isn’t hers. She’s totally confused and she tries to tell them, “Okay, that is not mine.” You know, often times people do say that when it is in fact theirs.
So officers ignore her and keep digging and they found a pipe, a bag of 30 Vicodin, and then another bag with 10 Percoet pills inside. And one by one, they dramatically put each item on top of the police car. And as you can imagine, by this point, Kelly is absolutely beside herself, freaking out. She’s so confused.
She’s begging them to believe that these drugs were not her. She has never seen any of this in her life. And when I first heard about this moment and heard her describe it in an interview, I just felt so bad for her. So much anxiety for her. How shocking this would be, how humiliating and confusing. I mean, God, I would just start, I think, having a panic attack in a situation like this.
And to make matters worse, the school day was just ending and kids were starting to come out of the building. So, she is begging these officers to please put the drugs away, put them into the squad car, get them out of sight because this looks really bad. And she’s very worried about other kids, all the kids at the school, all the parents, and not to mention her own child seeing all these drugs and her standing next to the squad cars, her cars being searched.
They eventually did listen and they put the drugs away, but a lot of children and their parents had already seen them and saw what happened. you know, made a judgment about Kelly in that moment and she was absolutely humiliated. And to add to the stress, her own daughter could come out of the school looking for her at any minute.
So, her anxiety just went through the roof. And before long, her knees buckled. She falls to the ground. She’s sobbing. She’s begging them, pleading that she’s innocent. And surprisingly, the responding officers seemed to believe her and just kind of picked up that something seemed off here. And it wasn’t just her reaction in the scene and the tone of it all that felt weird to them, but it was also the drugs themselves.
Okay, so first of all, the massive bag of weed was seen just sticking out of the pocket of the driver’s seat, like the back of the seat. It’s not exactly a good way to stash drugs, especially if you’re at a school. So then officers noticed that the pipe is actually just floating in all the weed, just tossed into the bag, which is not normally how you do it, right? and not something that they normally see in drug busts.
But of course, they couldn’t just rule her out based on that or her word or just a hunch that things were off. So, they still had to investigate Kelly. So, they started giving her a field sobriety test, which of course she passes. Then, she just gives them permission to search her apartment and no evidence connected to the drugs was found there.
Nothing at all, completely clean. And then she went even further with her cooperation and she agreed to allow authorities to take DNA samples from her and her daughter to test what was found on the drugs. However, even though they at this point really believed her, they still had to question her to get to the bottom of who did this.
So, they kept questioning her at the school and they first asked if maybe her husband could have planted the drugs. Maybe he had been cheating and did this as a way to get rid of her. And she was like, “Absolutely not. There is no way he would have done that. And at the same time though, she still had no idea who would have done this to her.
They asked her if she had any enemies. She’s like, “No, I don’t think so.” But then the principal interrupted her and said, “Actually, you do.” Jill and Kent Easter. And then the principal had a huge realization. It had been 1 year to the day since the incident between them at the school.
So, it seemed like Jill wasn’t done. that she was still trying to make good on her promise to get Kelly. And so at this point, the Irvine Police Department began investigating the drugs as a frame job. So, first they go back to square one and they start listening to the 911 call that they received about Kelly. And whoever did this really tried to take some steps to conceal their identity, starting with how they called it in.
Because this person didn’t just call 911 or even the non-emergency number. Instead, they actually called the front office of the department, which meant that it couldn’t be traced as easily as it would have if it had just been called into dispatch. Almost as if whoever made this call, knew specific details about how law enforcement worked, maybe someone like an attorney perhaps.
But anyway, Irvine PD ended up having to issue a warrant for their own offices just to trace the call. And while they were waiting for that to come through, they examined the call some more on their own. And it sounded like the person who called was a male. The voice sounded male. But something about it really stood out because halfway through their call.
And this was so awesome. The accent completely changed. At first it was an American accent, but halfway through it’s becoming an Indian accent. Almost as if the person calling had realized that their voice could be recognized and made a lastditch effort to hide it. But that wasn’t the only part that was complete Okay, so the dispatch worker asked what their name was and they stated VJ Shandra Shikar.
And detectives couldn’t find anyone associated with the school under that name. And when they did a search of the name, they found something interesting and pretty stupid because whoever made this call must have been a fan of uh stoner comedy, you could say. Because Jay Shandra Shikar is actually the director and star of movies like Super Troopers and Beerfest.
And why this person even gave a name, let alone something so close to a famous person’s name instead of just saying they wanted to remain anonymous, I don’t know. But so many more ridiculously stupid things are going to be coming out here soon, guys. We’re really just scratching the surface because after a warrant was processed, police were able to trace the call and they learned that it came from the business center of the Island Hotel, which was located 11 miles away from the school in the neighboring town of Newport Beach. So, detectives went to
the hotel to obtain footage from the surveillance cameras. And while they were reviewing it, they noticed a man walking to the business center with what looked like written notes in their hand. And that man was none other than Kent Easter. And imagine this, detectives also learned that the law firm he worked at was just right across the street from the hotel.
So, it seemed pretty convenient for him to just pop on over to the hotel during his lunch break to frame someone for felony charges. And with all of this, it’s pretty clear to see what was going on here, right? Like, they already knew. But when the DNA test came back on the drugs, um it was undeniable that Jill and Kent were the true ones behind all of this because Kelly’s DNA wasn’t on anything, but Jill’s DNA was on the pipe and the Vicodin pills and Kent was on every single item.
Just brilliant that these two attorneys don’t understand how DNA works. Didn’t really think any of this through even though it seems like they were planning this for at least 6 months. Interesting. Very interesting. So now detectives are able to secure a search warrant for the Easter’s home. And when they went to serve it, man, it is awesome.
It is like something out of a movie or Desperate Housewives because the police, they’re sitting in their car waiting to go serve this warrant. And they notice this random man walking up to the Easter’s home. And then the man notices them, too, and has this oh moment and quickly hightails it out of there.
And as he’s quickly walking away, they notice that Jill comes out of the house looking for this man. And she’s wearing red lingerie at 11:00 a.m. on a weekday. So, pretty clear what’s happening here, right? But then she notices the officers watching and quickly scured back into her house, but it was too late. Jill Easter had just been caught having an affair.
So, the officers go after this guy and they start to talk to him. And when they did, they learn some truly fascinating information. He revealed to them that he was a firefighter who was married from a few towns over and he and Jill had been carrying out this affair for the last 2 years.
He would regularly come to the Easter’s house. The two of them would meet up while Kent was at the office. And I don’t think I have to explain what they did. But that’s not all. Apparently, he and Jill would also participate in swinging with a group of friends, which is fine when you’re not married and have children. So, it seems like while Kent was busting his ass at work and, you know, spending whatever other time he had filing paperwork against Kelly trying to take her down and taking his lunch break to make these fraudulent calls to the police, Jill was
busy having her own fun the entire time. So, while they’re learning about all of this and they’re realizing what a real piece of Jill is, Kent is getting a surprise of his own at work because officers confronted him in the parking lot and they started asking him questions about Kelly and he of course, you know, just played dumb, acted like he didn’t know what they were talking about.
But then they searched his car and it became clear that he definitely did because officers found diet pills that were contained in small drug bags that just so happened to exactly match the ones found in Kelly’s car. And at the same time, this whole thing just becomes more and more ridiculous by the minute because they’re searching the home.
They find something that is so fantastic uh or embarrassing depending on how you look at it. They come across Holding House, which is Jill’s new self-published book under the pen name Ava Bujork, and it was a romance novel, of course, where the main protagonist, a Berkeley graduate named Libby, carries out a foolproof crime in order to get back at her lover for abandoning her.
And to make matters even more bizarre, Kent narrated a promo video for it. Where he is saying lines like, “If you knew how to commit the perfect crime, would you do it? The crime is shockingly simple and 100% possible. No one will get hurt, and there’s no way to get caught.” But the wackest part of all of that is they posted that promo video on YouTube the day after they planted the drugs in Kelly’s car.
I mean, you cannot make this up. Now, while the search warrants definitely did end up uncovering some uh salacious stuff, certainly there were no traces of drugs at all. And the only other evidence that they ended up taking was their phones and devices, which did end up containing some information that pointed to the eers conspiring together. Big shocker.
And you would think, you would really, really think that two lawyers would consider using burner phones to communicate about their crimes, but not these two dummies. Absolutely not. Between 2:37 and 4:21 a.m., on the same day that the drugs were seized from Kelly’s car, Jill and Kent exchanged 15 texts.
During that time, Jill’s phone pinged off of a tower near their home, while Kent pinged near Kelly’s place. And also, I should mention that Kelly lived in a gated community, and it’s still unclear how they got around that. I’m sure there’s plenty of ways they could weasle their way in, but Kelly had also stated that it’s possible that she did leave her car unlocked.
So, once he did get to the car, it was probably pretty easy for him to plant the drugs. And it really makes you wonder because if that really was the case and the car was just unlocked and he was able to open the door and put the drugs in and that was the plan the whole time. Makes you wonder if Kent or Jill had maybe been stalking Kelly.
Maybe they had noticed that she normally doesn’t lock the car or they had made sure that that specific day she didn’t lock the car and knew that that was going to be an easy way for them to get in. It’s possible they also could have uh had a backup plan if it wasn’t unlocked, but I don’t know, just something to think about.
But anyway, even though there was a lot, and I mean a lot of evidence that pointed to Jill and Kent at this point, they still were not arrested right away. And while waiting to see what would happen, Kelly was incredibly stressed and very fearful. Honestly, she was just flat out terrified about what the Easter could do to her to continue to ruin her life.
and she was constantly concerned that they might try to frame her for something else. And she said that her anxiety got so bad that she started to lose a lot of weight and her hair even began to fall out. And sadly, because of everything that was going on, she just had to give up her dream of becoming a substitute teacher.
And the impact of this was really, really horrible. Uh, I know I’ve been goofing around, but this was awful for Kelly. And not just for Kelly, her husband as well. He started to suffer from panic attacks and their poor daughter was getting bullied at school and it got so bad that they eventually had to transfer her to a different school.
They had to leave Plaza Vista, which was a place that once meant so much to them. But her mind was put at ease a little bit in June of 2012, over a year after she was framed, when Jill and Kent were finally arrested and charged with conspiracy to procure false arrest, false imprisonment, and conspiracy to report a false crime. And I just have to say Jill’s mugsh shot that is excellent.
Now, of course, almost immediately, these two boneheads try to pull off some in court. First, they requested separate trials, but a judge denied that. So, they came up with a new plan. Jill would plead guilty to the charges, but Kent would still go to trial. And it’s been speculated a lot about the reason they did this.
And I have to say, I agree with this following speculation. A lot of people think that they did this so that Kent would still have a chance of being found not guilty because if that happened, he wouldn’t have been stripped of his law license and could keep practicing. Basically, the money could keep rolling in and Jill wouldn’t have to worry about getting a job or, you know, losing their glamorous lifestyle, which you might think it’s pretty ridiculous, the idea that they would even think that maybe he’d be able to keep practicing with his law firm, but I
guess the law firm he worked at was pretty lax about the whole thing. Because after the search warrants were served at the office, Kent was able to still keep practicing at the firm and was even made partner. And that’s just wild to me. I mean, what kind of whack-ass firm would want to keep someone on who was under investigation? So, no wonder Kent and Jill really thought that they were untouchable.
But the truth is, the walls were really starting to close in all around them. So, to fight that and have the best possible chance of continuing their glamorous lifestyle, they decided to just put everything on Jill. So, she plead guilty and was sentenced to 120 days in prison, 100 hours of community service at a soup kitchen, and disbarment from practicing law again, which I’m sure she wasn’t planning on anyway.
And now her being a convicted criminal really helped to pave the way for the defense team at Kent’s trial because their defense, which is quite embarrassing, is that Kent simply didn’t have a backbone, that he could not say no to his manipulative wife. They argued that he was like a pathetic little dog who would just do whatever she said to do and he was really under her spell.
He had been under her control for so long. He just didn’t have a choice. And to help support this, his lawyers even brought up her affair with the firefighter. And this is so embarrassing. I think I have a tiny bit of sympathy for Kent in this moment because he claimed that he even knew about the affair but was too meek to do anything about it.
and his defense brought in evidence as a way to show what Jill was like if someone tried to push against her. Turns out during the investigation, law enforcement had the firefighter wear a wire when he was around Jill to try and probe her for any information. She didn’t really give up anything, but she did have a complete meltdown over her affair partner, the firefighter, not supporting her enough during the investigation.
And we already knew that Jill was a terrible person. But listen to this. After this meeting, Jill apparently told his wife about the affair, which had to have been awful for his wife on its own. But then, in typical Jill fashion, she began to frequently harass her, even contacting her place of work to tell them about the affair.
But this was great for Kent’s lawyers because they were able to play this in court to show how vicious Jill actually was. So, it seems like Kelly wasn’t the only person who had to deal with her wrath. And look, I think it’s pretty clear that Jill is a terrible vindictive monster really, and no one is safe in her path.
But Kent is a grown ass man who decided to participate in destroying an innocent woman’s life. So, do we really feel bad for him? Absolutely not. But it is just ridiculous to plant drugs on someone, call it in with a fake Indian accent, and then try to claim that you’re the victim in it all because you’re too meek to stand up to your wife.
And that’s not all he tried to claim. He said on the stand, actually, that Jill and he had swapped phones the night that the drugs were planted, and he had no idea that she snuck out of the house to plant the drugs. And the weird phone call that he made switching up his accent halfway through to the police about Kelly.
Oh, he had an explanation for that, too. He said that Jill had called him and said that she saw Kelly popping pills and driving erratically. So, she demanded that he called the police and he had no other choice because Jill is a monster. Now, obviously, this is a very clear way for Kent to try and save himself and most importantly to save his law license.
But one juror actually bought into his act and the judge declared a mistrial after there was a deadlock of 11 to1. So 10 months later his second trial began and once again his lawyers tried to argue that he is just a sad shell of a man who was simply just going along with his wife’s evil plan. But during this trial the theatrics were out in full force with the eers and Kent’s defense lawyers called Jill up to the stand.
And by this point, she had already served her 2-month prison stay, and her time served definitely did not humble her at all. She was still the same old Jilly. She opened up her testimony by saying that she went to the best law school out of everyone in the courtroom, including the judge. So, she wasn’t exactly trying to be relatable to the jury, you could say.
And then the next day, she was called back in for the rest of her testimony. But when she enters the courtroom, the dramatics really start. And now she is claiming that she can’t testify. And I’m sure if you haven’t heard this case, you will not be able to guess why. Go ahead, take a guess. Guarantee you you didn’t guess this.
She can’t testify now because she is deaf. That’s right. She’s deaf. Which was very shocking to everyone because she didn’t have any hearing issues the day before. And you would think that if she really had lost her hearing overnight, she wouldn’t be at court. She’d be at the hospital.
But even though the court offered her an ASL interpreter, she refused that and instead demanded a screen that would display the lawyer’s questions for her to read. But since the court wasn’t equipped to provide that on such short notice, her testimony was cancelled. And of course, everyone was very sus about this loss of hearing overnight and it being so conveniently tied with her having to testify.
But it quickly became very apparent that this was just a bizarre act because during the lunch break, the jury caught her having a conversation with Kent in the hallway, seemingly hearing everything he was saying totally fine. Imagine that. And so after this whole mess, Kent’s lawyers didn’t even try to call her again.
I mean, these two really thought that they were the smartest in the whole room. But no one actually believed that. And that became abundantly clear when the jury was sent for deliberations. And just 2 hours later, they came back in with a guilty verdict. So Kent was sentenced to 180 days in prison, 100 hours of community service, and 3 years of probation.
But of course, this didn’t stop Jill from trying to get money out of him. I mean, what is she going to do now that her cash cow’s in jail? So after the trial, she told Kent that he should take his own life so that he could avoid jail time and she could collect his $500,000 life insurance policy. She apparently suggested that they take their kids on the run to Bise.
But he didn’t take her up on this idea either, though. Instead, he served half of his sentence before being released. Lucky him. And the Esters officially divorced when he did get out of prison. But Kelly wasn’t done trying to clear her name. In 2016, she brought a lawsuit against the Esters for false imprisonment and emotional distress.
And this court case was just as ridiculous as the last one. This time, Kent once again just tried to make himself look as pathetic as possible. He represented himself and really tried to make himself look like a downtrodden man who was too broke to handle any of this. Instead of the fancy suits that he would typically wear in court, he wore this ratty blue sweater every day.
And when he testified, he told the jury that he was being buried by spousal and child support. He also said he shouldn’t have done this to Kelly, but he’d already paid for it, and now he couldn’t financially pay for it, too. But Kelly’s lawyers, of course, were quick to call out this act. And they told the jury that while he was cosplaying as poor, his family still had a multi-million dollar mansion.
And as for Jill, she couldn’t even bother to show up for court. According to her social media, she was in Cuba with a new boyfriend, unbothered by her ex-husband’s effort to get them out of this mess, which he was not successful with because the jury sided with Kelly, and she was awarded $5.7 million. Go, Kelly.
Now, hearing that, you would automatically think or you would hope that she was just set for life and had a happy ending. Well, because we’re talking about Jill and Kent here, they have tried to get out of responsibility. Kent ended up transferring their home to Jill’s dad to prevent the courts from forcing him to sell it. And then he filed for bankruptcy, but filing doesn’t stop payments for a civil case, so he was still on the hook for all of it.
Eventually, Kelly did get some money, but she had to pay her attorneys, which didn’t leave much left for her. And after that, she claims that she hasn’t seen a dime from them, which is so disappointing. But Kelly really seems to be a very downto-earth person. And the lawsuit was never really about money for her.
It was about standing up for herself after being bullied by two grown, pathetic adults. And she actually has had a happy ending. She is doing just fine. And I think it just shows all the strength that Kelly has had through all of this. She is super inspiring. After everything she’s been through, she’s been able to pick up the pieces and move on with her life.
She and her family did end up staying in Irvine after everything. And when she was later asked why, she said she likes it there. She’s not going to be bullied out of there. And in 2016, Kelly actually released a book detailing her entire ordeal called I’ll Get You: Drugs, Lies, and the Terrorizing of a PTA Mom. And it would be nice if we could support Kelly.
So, I will have that book linked below if you want to check it out. And that same year, Kelly actually went on Dr. Phil to share her story. And she wasn’t the only guest on that episode. Jill also took an opportunity for some attention and sat down for an interview with Dr. Phil McGra and let me just say it was uh extremely annoying.
I would love to play some clips of it, but Dr. Phil’s real strict on the copyright here, but she did exactly what you would think. She denied everything and implied that there was evidence that Kelly was abusive towards her son, but the police just covered it up. So, even after everything, she was still trying to come after Kelly with these crazy lies.
I mean, some people can never learn. Uh oh, and she did change her name. That’s fun. She now goes by Sarah Everheart, but it’s not like she did so to be more anonymous because she openly talks about her new identity. I think she just did it for the fun of it, you know, for the plot.
Now, as for Kent, he is still out on a mission trying to prove that he is the smartest in the room. In 2021, he appeared on an episode of Jeopardy and was introduced as a business consultant from Orange County, but he did end up losing that episode. And honestly, I think the Esters got everything they deserve. I honestly wish they got way more of a punishment.
I feel like Jill really got off the hook the most. The vindictiveness in which they came after Kelly is just unbelievable. I cannot wrap my mind around why these two established successful people would go after her like this and ruin their lives in the process over something that’s just such a non-issue.
I mean, their son was unattended for 5 minutes at school as an accident and then all Kelly said was he was slow getting in line and that made you want to ruin your entire life and try to ruin hers. It’s like hard to believe. It’s unfathomable that someone would do this, that two people together would team up and think this was a good idea.
I think at the end of the day, this is a great reminder for us all. You know, we may not be in as extreme situations as Jill and Kent were here with Kelly, but we’ve all probably had times in our life where someone wrongs us. We feel angry, they aren’t held responsible, and you feel a little petty about it. And even if you don’t take an action, you’re still holding on to that in your heart.
You know, it’s still eating at you. And there’s just no reason for it. Life is too short. And if things go too far, it could really destroy everything around you. If anything, it could just destroy your mood of the day, and we don’t want that. So, it’s a reminder to be more like Kelly and less like Jill and Kent. But that is going to be it for me today, you guys. I hope you’re having a great day.
Um, I will hopefully be back next week with another case. I don’t know when this is going up. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Um, but you can check in with me on Instagram @ kendlerayonyt. It’s kind of an old outdated username, but I’ll put any updates about my plans for the show there, like what’s going on with me.
Uh, I don’t know how long my leave is going to be. I don’t know. I don’t know anything at this point. It’s uh the end of September of 2025 when I’m recording this. But yeah, I I don’t know. I’ll see you soon. I will see you eventually. Maybe next week, maybe maybe longer. Who knows? Um, but stay safe out there and stay smart out there.
