Editors’ Note: This story first appeared in an exclusive true-crime issue of Rolling Stone for Apple News published on July 21, 2026.
M
ary Carole McDonnell swept through the glass offices of Banc of California in Los Angeles in 2018 holding two homemade pies in her well-manicured hands.
The 66-year-old was dressed elegantly, though understatedly, in a white-collared button-down shirt and crisp blue jeans. Like always, she wore her signature set of pearls and went heavy on the perfume. In an endearing gesture from a multimillionaire who ran a thriving entertainment production company specializing in true-crime shows, McDonnell was coming to offer a sweet form of thanks to the bank’s sales team.
She was in a jam only the top one percent would know. As heir to the fortune of the McDonnell family, one half of the St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas airplane-manufacturing business that netted $14 billion after the company merged with Boeing in 1997, McDonnell was finally set to come into her $81 million trust. But until the funds were distributed the following year, she needed a quick bridge loan to hold herself over.
