Peter Van Sant of48 Hoursfame broke down why the story of Mark Stover motivated him to revisit the case in hisnew podcast series,Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard. A famed dog trainer from humble beginnings, Mark Stover’s disappearance in October 2009 led to suspicion of foul play. Things only got more complicated as the case went on, with his ex-wife (and wealthy heiress) Linda Opdycke and her new romantic partner Michael Oakes steadily revealing more and more damning details about their roles in the murder of Mark Stover.
Although the story was featured on48 Hoursin 2011, Peter Van Sant’s experiences researching that story have lingered. Questions about Mark’s dangerous qualities, Linda’s involvement, and Mark’s eventual conviction for murder have stuck with Van Sant, motivating a deeper dive into the story. During an interview with Screen Rant, Peter Van Sant discussed his ties to the region where the murders happened, why this story needed to be a podcast instead of atrue crime TV show, and why it’s become his “obsession.”
How A Personal Connection To The Story Impacted Peter Van Sant’s Approach To Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard
“When We Did This Story For 48 Hours, That’s Like Doing The Magazine Piece. With This, It’s Like We’re Making The Movie”
The focus ofTrained to Killis the death of Mark Stover, a famed dog trainer who lived in the Pacific Northwest. It’s somewhere intimately familiar to Peter Van Sant, who spent plenty of time in the region growing up. “My best friend in the world lives about ten miles from where the murder occurred,” Van Sant revealed. “He called me up and said, ‘you’re not going to believe what is happening.'” After hearing the details, Van Sant recalled making the initial trip to the town of Anacortes, Washington, and cited his own family history in the area.
“My family homesteaded on [the San Juan Islands] back in the 1800s. We go there every year, to an island called Orcas Island. It’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth. That’s always been my launchpad, and Anacortes was paradise. And now there’s blood and howling dogs and extreme violence in a city that simply never sees anything like that. It really burst the bubble for me. I desperately wanted to get to the bottom of this.” That connection to the place he’d known since his youth gave the tragic story a deeper connection to Van Sant.
“It was a really personal story, being a Washington State boy who grew up in Seattle,” Van Sant recalled. “I was able to connect with people like Linda Opdycke. I have a buddy whose wife grew up with her! There were connections that got us access to Linda and Michael Oakes. We interviewed them before the authorities did… that was special to me. There’s such an enormous amount of background information that we can finally get out. When we did this story for 48 Hours, that’s like doing the magazine piece. With this, it’s like we’re making the movie.”
Finding The Humanity In A True Crime Story
“I Always Look At Criminal Violence Like It’s The Canary In The Mine Shaft Of Our Culture And Civilization.”
One of the engaging waysTrained to Killapproaches the story is by making sure to focus on each player in the tale as a full person. One of the benefits of expanding the story away from the typical episodic television format of48 Hourswas the freedom it gave Peter Van Sant and the rest of the team to offer fully fleshed-out portrayals of everyone in the story. This added a great deal of complexity to the story, as Van Sant explained.
“When we dug into Mark Stover — he was loved by his family. We to his sister and his loved ones. But he was also a bit of a pit bull.” Van Sant cited one particularly infamous story where a man who ended up on one of Stover’s islands found himself confronted by the man with a gun, explaining that “some people in that community feared this man. They felt he was not the common type that lived in Anacortes. He was very driven, a very serious guy. He and Linda built a million-dollar business… he had all these big clients, so when he was killed, it was a big deal.”
Counting rock stars, CEOs, and pro athletes among his clientele, Stover’s personal life was far darker than many suspected. After he and Linda divorced, Stover was accused of becoming dangerously obsessed with her and her eventual new romantic partner, security expert Michael Oakes. Oakes would later be convicted of murdering Stover, claiming it was in self-defense. However, more and more details about the story further indicted him and raised suspicions about Linda.
The 2011 episode of48 Hoursfocusing on Mark Stover and Linda Opdycke, “The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard,” is now available to stream onCBS News.
To Van Sant, stories like the ones of Michael Stover touch on one of the great questions about humanity. “It’s this mystery of human violence. Is it in all of us? Linda was from this wealthy family, everything in life was handed to her. She could do anything, be anything she wanted. Could she have been involved in a murder conspiracy? Mark Stover was this guy who had a terrible childhood. His father died when he was 18 months old, he grew up in poverty and built this million-dollar business. How does he become this violent, harassing man?”
To Van Sant, this is the key appeal to stories of true crime. “I always look at criminal violence like it’s the canary in the mine shaft of our culture and civilization. When you have these kinds of stories, you just think about how this could have happened. It’s fascinating.” This story in particular seems to have stuck with Van Sant, who noted that while they had already done a two-hour show about this story for48 Hours, “we can tell everything we wanted to tell.”
Why The Story Of Mark Stover And Linda Opdycke Stuck Out To Peter Van Sant
“For A Journalist, That’s The Dream”
Peter Van Sant has already worked in the podcast space, butTrained to Killuses the freedom of the format to its true strength. Spreading out the story across more episodes and with additional space to include more interviews and breakdowns, the story of Mark Stover’s death becomes clearer — if even more mysterious. There’s a reason the authorities involved in this case have admitted it’s unlikely the full story of what happened to Mark will ever be fully known.
That’s what I love about doing this in the podcast format: the mind can be filling out the visuals, and that can be far more dramatic.
For Van Sant, it was impossible not to dive back into the story as a podcast. “I think the freedom that we have… we’re limited when we do it for 48 Hours, with the images that our cameras can capture. With this, I have the imagination of the mind. We can talk about that early morning when the first person arrived at the Stover home, and where they hear these dogs howling uncontrollably like werewolves. It wouldn’t stop, as the first employee gets there in the pre-dawn darkness and opens the door. It’s like a horror movie!”
“Imagine that all in your head. The darkness, the barking, it’s all suggesting danger. Something dreadful has happened. That’s what I love about doing this in the podcast format: the mind can be filling out the visuals, and that can be far more dramatic.” Looking back at his experiences investigating Mark Stover’s death and the mystery surrounding it, Van Sant noted that Linda remains ‘my fascination." To Van Sant, one of the most intriguing aspects of the entire case is the fact that the lead detective still believes that Linda hasn’t revealed the full side of the story.
Trained to Killis the second season of the48 Hours+podcast series. The first season,Blood is Thicker Than Water, is also available to stream and download.
“I’ve interviewed her three times. I’ve looked into her eyes, and I saw an honest woman. She tells an absolutely convincing story. But when we were shooting this, I had no idea when we were invited into her home what was about to unfold. I had no idea that every six feet or so, she had a firearm that was hidden in a drawer. There was a tapestry hanging down in the next room, but there was cabinet there that had a gun in it. There were more than 20 firearms in her house.
“I had no idea she was going to tell me she once she saw Mark on the side of a hill with a rifle and scope pointed at her. I had no idea she was going to say that ‘I woke up one night and there was Mark. He walked up with a pistol, put it along the side of my head, got on his knees, and started to sob.’ As we were putting this together, I’m reliving all of those moments. For a journalist, that’s the dream.”
“To get all this exclusive information and insight into the terror and harassment she had to go through, to watch it unfold before your eyes, it’s all real. We didn’t know that was coming when we went to her house. It made for compelling television. It makes for perhaps an even more compelling podcast. It’s where our minds can take that information, that imagery, and process it to create a canvas… I’m so excited, because now I’m reliving what I went through as the journalist on this story.”
“Trained to Kill: The Dog Trainer, the Heiress and the Bodyguard and other 48 Hours podcasts are available wherever you get your podcasts
