Naman Shrestha
In the spring of 2023, the remains found five months earlier were identified to be those of a 40-year-old woman named Mindi Kassotis. Her loved ones were shocked by the revelation as they believed that she had met her demise in a hospital in late 2022. As the investigators retraced the deceased woman’s final moments, they uncovered a web of lies that the perpetrator weaved. All the intricate details of the case and the investigation that ensued are covered in CBS’ ’48 Hours: The Woman Who Died Twice,’ which also features insightful interviews from officials linked to the case.
Mindi Kassotis’ Remains Were Found in the Wooded Area of a Hunting Club
On February 22, 1982, in Sanford, Florida, Frank Noell Mebane III and Elizabeth Ann “Betsy” Longwell welcomed a little bundle of joy into the world in the form of Mindi Ruth Mebane. After graduating from high school, she attended Georgia Southern University–Armstrong Campus (formerly known as Armstrong State University) in Savannah, Georgia, where she performed well academically. Later, she tied the knot with Nicholas “Nick” Kassotis, with whom she resided in Savannah.
In late 2022, 40-year-old Mindi suddenly disappeared, but was not reported missing as she was believed to have died at the hospital. However, things got complicated when a woman’s remains were found by a group of hunters on December 2, 2002, in the woods of the Portal Hunting Club, off Jones Road, in Riceboro. In the following days, other remains of the same woman were discovered around the same area. The medical examiners determined that the remains were placed in the area on or around November 27, 2022, by the perpetrator. Upon testing the remains for identification, the authorities concluded on May 11, 2023, that they belonged to Mindi Kassotis.
Mindi Kassotis’ Killer Alleged That a Strange Man Had Been Stalking Him and Mindi
After the authorities identified Mindi’s remains, they launched a homicide investigation and dug deep into her life. When they interviewed her family and friends, they learned that Nick had told her loved ones that she had passed away in the hospital after being admitted for three days. Upon confronting Nick about the same, he claimed that he didn’t pay her a visit at the hospital out of safety, as he felt he and Mindi were allegedly being stalked and harassed by someone named Jim McIntyre due to his past in the US Navy. As per his accounts, when he went to the medical facility where Mindi was allegedly admitted, he claimed that he was told that she had died and was prevented from seeing her. However, when his story could not be verified, Nick was ultimately arrested on May 12, 2023, a day after Mindi’s remains were identified.
At the time, he had changed his name to Nicholas Killian Stark. They also learned that a few months before her death, Mindi was awarded a $1.5 million divorce judgment against Nick. As they delved deeper into his life after her death, they also found out that he had met Samantha Kolesnik online and had allegedly told her his wife and child had passed away two years earlier. The two eventually got married, and the detectives theorized that the newlywed couple was on the run to avoid paying the divorce judgment money as they were in the middle of purchasing a new house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Nick was charged with a total of 12 counts, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and removal of body parts from the scene of death or dismemberment.
Around August 2025, his trial got underway. The defense told the jurors that the defendant had lied to Mindi’s family and friends due to his fear of Jim McIntyre, who had told him that he and Mindi were in danger. In the end, on August 14, 2025, the jury deliberated for about an hour and found him guilty of all the charges against him. Before his sentencing, Mindi’s sister-in-law, Megan Mebane, took the stand and addressed the killer, stating, “You are a pathological liar. You are a psychopath and a sociopath. You thought you were so much smarter than everyone else. You have forever changed the meaning of trust for me and my family…You have no remorse for what you did. You deserve to sit in prison for the rest of your life and think about Mindi every day.” Ultimately, Nick was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and an additional 25 years to be served consecutively.
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