“Is the money going to be there?”
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Warning: this episode includes description of suicide and may be upsetting to some listeners.
Welcome to Episode 15 of Hollow Hype. In Episode 14, the bankruptcy court postponed a final hearing for Southtown. Plans to pay off Southtown’s creditors and reorganize were delayed to October.
There were two potential plans to resolve the bankruptcy of Southtown. Before either of them could be confirmed, the probate court would need to approve one or both, on behalf of Marge’s estate. The interests of Marge’s estate are essentially the interests of Heidi, because she is the only heir.
The probate court approved both bankruptcy plans and gave Heidi an opportunity to comment.
[Court hearing 2026]
JUDGE:
So Ms. Poscher, is there anything that you want to tell us today?
HEIDI:
Your Honor, I'm deeply, I have deep understanding of both options. We're working very hard to confirm the veracity of both. And I think my counsel is doing a great job of managing the process. So I'm comfortable with what's gone into the probate filing.
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
My name is Elizabeth Nelson. From 2018 to 2022, I served on Ann Arbor City Council. That experience taught me a lot. Mostly, I learned: people will say just about anything if they think you’ll believe it. This is HOLLOW HYPE.
When Marge died, the probate court received claims from everyone she owed money to. These claims included over $30 million in debt related to Southtown. When Heidi took control and Southtown filed for bankruptcy, that $30 million became part of bankruptcy court proceedings.
Other claims against Marge’s estate are not related to Southtown. Those debts tell a more personal story about how Marge and Heidi were living.
[MUSIC]
Marge’s last credit card bill included charges from a trip she and Heidi made to Paris. Two months before she died, Marge and Heidi spent five nights at the Hotel le Meurice. The bill was $16,000.
The largest claim against Marge’s estate, unrelated to Southtown, is from a design build firm specializing in high-end new homes, additions and renovations.
In November 2022, Heidi and Marge spent $575,000 on a house just outside the City of Ann Arbor. The neighborhood was decidedly different from where they had been living in Lower Burns Park. The homes in Scio Township, just north of Skyline high school, sit on large lots, over an acre. Whippoorwill Way was just across the river from the most expensive neighborhood in the whole state of Michigan: Barton Hills.
Heidi and Marge had big plans to demolish the home they had bought in order to construct something much bigger and grander. They cleared trees and stripped the house in preparation.
The new bigger, grander home was never built. The firm they hired to do it now has claims of over $800,000 in work and purchased materials that Heidi and Marge refused to pay for.
An attorney for the design build firm made an appearance at bankruptcy court for Southtown.
[Court hearing 2026]
LAWYER:
We're not a creditor of Southtown. We're a creditor of the two individuals that Uh make up Southtown by 4M LLC.
Margaret Poscher and Heidi Poscher entered into a construction contract to build a new residence for themselves. There is a breach of contract case involving those two. Margaret Poscher has passed away, and so we have a claim against the estate of Margaret Poscher and then a claim against Heidi Poscher individually. We are in the process of arbitrating that and the results of how Southtown by 4M may exit bankruptcy or what happens to Southtown by 4M will have a direct impact on the financial status of Heidi Poscher and the estate of Margaret Poscher.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
If the bankruptcy of Southtown is resolved as Heidi hopes, investors will provide $54 million, enough money to pay off all debts and buy Marge’s interest for $13 million. Heidi will inherit that $13 million. This money will, presumably, be available to cover claims like the unpaid construction contract.
[MUSIC]
A re-organization of Southtown will begin with something called a Special Purpose Entity or SPE. Bankruptcy documents explain the need for the SPE because,
“Based on the Debtor’s diligence and understanding from lenders and investors it has spoken with, in a development of this magnitude, the lender will insist that the assets of the borrower be held in an SPE and not in an entity that has undergone a proceeding under Chapter 11.”
In other words, Southtown will struggle to borrow more money as the same entity that survived bankruptcy. The debtor - Heidi - believes that Southtown should be renamed and reborn, as if the bankruptcy never happened. Heidi will maintain a stake in Southtown, and her holdings will exist under another new name: Blue Phoenix.
The bankruptcy court is planning carefully, to make sure that all of Southtown’s creditors are paid off as promised. In August 2026, the court discussed how to make sure that the $54 million transferred into the Special Purpose Entity does, in fact, pay off the creditors.
[Court hearing 2026]
JUDGE:
I don't want at 9 a.m. on the effective date for assets to move and then at ten to four in the afternoon the payment to be made. Am I making myself clear?
LAWYER:
Completely. So you’re saying that on the effective date
JUDGE:
And after the full payment. Mr. Deal, are you following me? Payment first and then, it may all happen at the on the same calendar date, but the sequence is pay first. Yes. And the reason is you can't possibly transfer the assets to the SPE free and clear without paying.
LAWYER:
Exactly.
JUDGE:
Right. Are these payments going to be made by wire or is there going to be a check and then do we have to wait for the check to clear? I I hate to get into the nitty-gritty.
LAWYER:
I don't know, but I'm sure it will be a wire.
I'm sure this will be like a title company transaction where the sequence of things follows the payment. to the creditors in full and then transfer of assets.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The judge suggested adding time between transfers, to confirm that creditors had been paid.
[Court hearing 2026]
JUDGE:
Does it make sense? And just hear me out, Mr. Deal. The last payment you got from Ms. Poscher was a few days late. The court is concerned. I don't want anything transferred to the single special purpose entity without the payment having been made, for real. Does it make sense to have it a certain number of days after the effective date to make sure payment is received?
LAWYER:
Normally you have a payoff number from the current lien holders and then the new lender makes those payments by wire transfer and then the recipient acknowledges receipt of the wire transfers. if you're asking me how I think this should be handled, I think it should be handled typically through a title company and with wire transfers made and with the recipients acknowledging receipt.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Ultimately, Heidi weighed in.
[Court hearing 2026]
JUDGE:
Ms. Poscher, is there a title company involved?
HEIDI:
Yes, your honor
JUDGE:
Okay. And has anyone run this language or the sequence by the title company?
HEIDI:
In my experience, that's something that you start - obviously this is way outside my experience - but that's something you start two to three weeks ahead, is starting to plan the closing.
JUDGE:
Even for a loan this size with this many moving parts?
HEIDI:
Yes, Your Honor. Uh, because the title company has a plan for the closing time, for the loans to come in from the lender. And then they'll just take a look at all the dispersals that have to be made. I think it's probably more a factor of the number of dispersals as opposed to the amount, the dollar amount of those. As Mr. Deal referenced, they have to receive confirmation that the wire was received and then they can do all the filings that they have to do with the with the county and then that triggers another chain of events in terms of what happens after that in terms of ownership and the property and that type of thing. So it's highly orchestrated for sure. I totally agree with that.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In September, the bankruptcy court considered more process, to confirm that the plan was real, that $54 million would be provided, as promised, by Agile Solar
[Court hearing 2026]
LAWYER:
yeah, I mean the funding is required on the effective date. And then it says anticipated to be November 11.
JUDGE
Okay.
LAWYER:
So yes, Your Honor, we do believe that Agile is still very much alive and well and is fully aware of its obligations and we have signatures
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi’s attorney admitted that the only point of concern was feasibility, whether or not the money would actually materialize. They discussed exactly how to prove that the money was available to move forward.
[Court hearing 2026]
LAWYER:
I anticipate that the only objection to confirmation that we're going to receive is as to feasibility. So obviously it's going to be our duty to show to the court, primarily through documentation that has been executed.
LAWYER:
The debtor would choose its witness and normally would be in writing and and then i if there are no objectives and the proffer is sufficient. Then the proffer and the exhibits introduced are the evidence that the court relies upon in determining feasibility and so there aren't going to be a series of witnesses called but I do think evidence has to be put into the record in order to prove feasibility. That has been my general experience on confirmation hearings.
It could be it could be the debtor's representative, uh it could be uh a representative agile, I think just a a proffer by a representative of the debtor with all of the documents you know I mean that the recites exactly what the current situation is and that the conditions have been met
JUDGE:
what I'm hearing you just say is it may require a proffer from both a representative of the debtor, not a lawyer but the perhaps the responsible person of the debtor and perhaps someone from the funder. Um since they're going with equity A, it would be Agile, correct?
LAWYER:
Yes.
JUDGE:
But it's usually done in the form of an affidavit, a declaration, what have you. um that recites where we are now, what these documents say, what the probate court has done, and especially, you know, as to Agile, yeah, I I know where my obligations are and I've got the money to fund it, that sort of thing. It's the having the money to fund it, which I think is the the nugget of the proffer that I believe Mr. Deal I know the court, but I believe also Mr. Deal will be looking for.
LAWYER:
Your Honor, Jay Walford, we have uh no issue on putting forth a proffer in writing by way of affidavit or declaration in support of confirmation. In filing the act before the confirmation hearing.
JUDGE:
And it might be more than one. Correct?
LAWYER:
It could be more than one, yes, Your Honor. It could very well be.
JUDGE:
It could very well be, because the issue here is not just from Ms. Poscher to say that all the letters on the page you know, have been agreed to by parties. That's one thing. And the nugget that everyone's listening for is is the money going to be there? Because that that's the the essence of feasibility.
[MUSIC]
DR.DAN BERLAND:
So I'm a U of M faculty physician, and I practice a mixture of primary care and I see the patients that nobody else wants to see, chronic pain and addiction patients. Board certified in addiction. I'm the person who sorts out problems with controlled medications and illicit drugs. and either helping people manage their patients because I spend a lot of time teaching physicians. Or actually trying to help straighten out some of those patients' problems.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
That’s my friend Dan. He moved to Ann Arbor twenty years ago. His early career was in Chicago.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
So after finishing training I was at the University of Chicago as a similar kind of position, a faculty physician, educator.
So I wrote protocols and order sets and worked with pharmacies to develop protocols for them to monitor things going on on the floor in the hospital and I saw people in the hospital in the clinics.
And then I also ran a consulting service for preoperative evaluation of patients so that surgery wouldn't kill them basically. I did that for 12 years.
At U of M I've done a mixture of primary care, but also it became obvious that things we had done in our inner city in Chicago ten years before needed to be done at U of M.
I was the chief author of the U of M chronic pain guideline, which is a Bible of how to manage chronic pain and all the medications involved with it and worked with anesthesia and deciding about procedures and that sort of thing, but I didn't do procedures. That's not my thing
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Dan has testified as an expert witness in multiple malpractice and wrongful death cases.
I talked to Dan about the medications that caused Marge’s death. He’s seen the investigation reports from the police and the medical examiner. One report includes a list of prescriptions, based on the labelled containers collected on the scene where Marge died.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
The names were blipped out, but it's pretty obvious what four of them were. Because they were prescriptions for a fairly unique sized disintegrating tablet that probably had to be alprazolam or Xanax.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Heidi told the police that Marge only took the Xanax “occasionally”
DR. DAN BERLAND:
Now that's interesting because it's worth knowing that she had been prescribed mainly two milligram tablets, which is the highest potency tablet. I've never prescribed more than a half a milligram. I've probably only written two or three Xanax prescriptions in decades because it's not a very useful drug for much of anything because it's not very long-acting. It's nothing that should be taken continuously, though lots of doctors prescribe it that way.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Marge’s doctor gave her a prescription for xanax days before she died
DR. DAN BERLAND:
This is 10-4 okay, so a week before, she got a prescription for 60 tablets now when you prescribed 60 tablets, that's not “I take them occasionally” that's “I take it twice a day.” Now that would make more sense for a two milligram tablet to be taken regularly but I can promise you that an anxious patient who is taking this very potent sedative twice a day feels bad. This is why I don't prescribe Xanax and I've trained hundreds and hundreds of doctors not to prescribe Xanax.
The more you take it the more tolerant you get to it the less useful it is and basically people who take a short-acting potent benzodiazepine like that are almost always in withdrawal. So they take it they get whatever little jolt effect that they were looking for to settle them down or whatever and then their blood level drops and they're basically in withdrawal.
It'd be interesting to know what the prescription registry says about that. Did she have a regular legal supply? if she was taking it irregularly, then she would not be tolerant to the drug and then when she would take it it would really whack her because she had no resistance to it. So it's just it doesn't make sense the way it was prescribed.
We know that she lived in Michigan and she lived in California and we know she had prescriptions from Michigan doctors or doctor and a California doctor in 2018 so California and Michigan so be easy to go in and check for California and Michigan
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The investigation reports of Marge’s death don’t include any reference to the prescription registry or Marge’s medication history. A toxicology report for Marge listed xanax, alcohol, and one other medication: hydromorphone, a strong opioid used for pain relief.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
Now I didn't see any prescription for the Dilaudid, the hydromorphone, so I don't know where that came from.
It comes as a variety of tablet sizes. And of course, it's injectable. I didn't hear anybody examine her for signs of puncture wounds. You know not sounding like she had had a recent or history of injections. So you can take it as a pill or an oral liquid, most people don't do that unless they're doing by tube, you know, like in a hospice patient or something. Or it's a liquid but it's given IV, so the preparation is a little different. Concentration is totally different.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The hydromorphone is what caused Marge’s death. Not the xanax or even the combination of xanax and alcohol. I asked Dan about the combination of just the xanax and the alcohol.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
She would have had a long nap that wouldn't be fatal.
She'd be sound asleep for a while. You can't overdose and kill yourself with benzos.
It would take a lot of alcohol. The reason people die is with the hydromorphone Xanax combinations is because hydromorphone stops your breathing. Alprazolam doesn't really stop your breathing.
She had a lethal amount of hydromorphone in her.
[MUSIC]
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Marge’s suicide note mentioned the recent death of her father. Hydromorphone may have been part of his treatment, particularly if he was in hospice
DR, DAN BERLAND:
Did he die in the hospital? If he was in hospice and he was at home, they would have a stash of pills or oral solution at home, which the family could administer. Or the nurse the hospice nurse could come in and administer. But they didn't have to come in and give it every time. Family would give it or whoever is doing the bodily care. So it'd be easy to abscond with whatever's left over.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
It’s a drug that can also be bought on the street.
DR, DAN BERLAND:
Oh definitely. It's not the favorite treatment shall we say on the street.
Hydromorphone is not a favorite on the street, oxycodone is, Norco is, sometimes methadone. Not so much hydromorphone, which is interesting because it's among the most potent of the oral opioids.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Again, the prescription registry would answer more questions.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
So there's a prescription registry that physicians and law enforcement people have access to where you can search by the patient's name or you can search by physicians - although really only law enforcement has access to that - to find out what controlled medications patients have been prescribed and it has a lot of information. It has the name and birth date of the recipient of the prescription - we'll call it a patient - and the date the prescription was written, when it was filled, where it was filled, who did the prescribing, how many tablets. and in the case of some controlled meds that are refillable if there were refills
That would be very worthwhile. because if there's no prescription for a hydromorphone now it's really a mystery. Where did it come from? Supposedly there was a death kit. Possibly from the father, but it seems like we should know that.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
The police investigation does not explain where the hydromorphone came from. Officers found no vial or other container for it.
DR. DAN BERLAND:
So the only other source of information would have been from the drug registry, the prescription registry which those people at the scene would not have had access to. But certainly the people who did the autopsy would have had access to it, if for some reason they wanted to know the origin of where the control meds. No, it was a cut-and-dried report basically saying here's what we found, you know on exam and in tissue and in the toxicology lab.
They don't make judgments. Though they did say that she died of drug toxicity, which is true, but doesn't give us anything about the nature of how that happened.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
Another detail about Marge’s death: she was found with a plastic bag over her head. From a medical perspective this, also, is puzzling
DR. DAN BERLAND:
If she takes all those drugs, she doesn't really need to suffocate herself. She's gonna stop breathing within 15 minutes or so, 20 minutes. It doesn't take long for the drugs to be absorbed and active. Especially because she had the rapidly acting Alprazolam the disintegrating tablets.
If she hadn't fallen asleep yet from the drugs, it wouldn't be surprising if she loosened or ripped off the bag. But again, there was really no point for the bag.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
In bodycam footage from the night Marge died, officers on the scene can be heard getting this bag mixed up with other materials.
AAPD OFFICER 1:
Was one of these bags the bags?
AAPD OFFICER 2:
I’m assuming it was the one that was under the book.
AAPD OFFICER 3:
It’s the one with the condensation.
AAPD OFFICER 1:
Whoopsie.
ELIZABETH NELSON:
It was not handled carefully as a piece of evidence. Police reports do not include any explanation of fingerprints taken from the bag. Officers very nearly threw it away.
[MUSIC]
It’s been nearly one year since Marge died. Heidi does not appear to be troubled by the financial crisis that had such an impact on Marge.
The house where Marge died was repossessed by the bank but Heidi now rents a condo in one of the most expensive buildings downtown. Heidi has evicted Marge’s stepdaughter from the modest home she had been leasing from Marge.
Weeks after Marge’s death, Heidi went to Paris on a trip they had planned to take together. Marge’s ticket was transferred to Heidi’s daughter and more Ann Arbor friends tagged along. Outside of bankruptcy court, no one would ever know that Heidi had any financial troubles at all.
Where is the money coming from? Where did the money ever come from? The future of Southtown depends on $54 million from investors. Can Heidi do it? Will she pull it off?
Thanks for listening. Visit HollowHype.com to find more information about this episode.
Coming up in episode 16: who thinks that Southtown is worth $54 million? Who plans to do business with Heidi moving forward?
If you have something to share about Heidi’s activities in Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, or California. Please reach out to hollowhypepodcast@gmail.com
