13: The Home Owners’ Association From Hell & Jennifer Jackson’s Murder

When Jim Hildenbrand moved to the Avignon Villas in Olathe, Kansas, he thought he’d found the perfect place to live. But pretty soon, he started butting heads with the neighborhood’s home owners association. Then one day, he did the unthinkable. He installed some unapproved landscaping. What followed was a costly, lengthy legal battle that epitomized first world problems. Be ready to clutch your pearls. But they can’t all be lawsuits about landscaping. This week, Brandi tells about the hunt for Jennifer Jackson’s murderer. Her murder appeared so deeply personal that police quickly zeroed in on Jennifer’s teenage daughter, Noura. But did they catch Jennifer’s actual murderer? And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Olathe man’s war with HOA over landscaping: $400,000 at stake,” the Kansas City Star “Church deacon’s relative has cancer, but HOA says he can’t park extra car in driveway,” the Kansas City Star “$400,000 case pitting Olathe man, HOA needs more work, court rules,” the Kansas City Star In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “My Mother’s Murder” episode, 48 Hours “She Was Convicted of Killing Her Mother.  Prosecutors Withheld the Evidence That Would Have Freed Her.” by Emily Bazelon, New York Times