Ep 101: A Home Invaded

Episode Transcript
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(00:36):
Well, hey there, everybody.Welcome back to another episode of All Crime,
No Cattle, a Texas true crimepodcast. I am Shay and I'm
Aaron, and we're here to deliveryou some more true crime content. But
at the top of the show,we have a special announcement and it's something
that Aaron and I have been wantingto get to you guys, And I
know it's been a while since youheard from us, but we had a

(00:57):
few things that we wanted to lety'all know that's going on. Hey everyone,
Yeah, it has been a while. Unfortunately, we were unable to
put out episodes for quite a fewmonths. As y'all know, this podcast
is just the two of us,and we both have lives and careers outside
of it, and it's just beenvery hard to maintain really any kind of
schedule, no matter how hard we'vetried to make it work. But we've

(01:22):
had lots of time over this breakto kind of think and discuss, and
we have decided to officially shut downthe podcast. That's correct. It's been
a really good run and we wantto thank everyone who has listened and supported
the show over the years. Ohyeah, I mean all the listeners and
all your wonderful comments, the Facebookgroup, all of our Patreon supporters who

(01:44):
are just wonderful, everyone who supportedus along this journey from our network to
you know, everybody involved other podcasterswho have helped us and pitched in with
tips and tricks or advice at certaintimes. That's been really great, and
you know, I think we've learneda lot throughout the process, and hopefully
that shows and the quality of ourwork that we've delivered over the years.

(02:05):
And you know, when we firststarted those podcasts, those early episodes sound
way different than what the show soundslike now. But you know, it
was a great run, and wehad millions and millions of downloads of the
show. So that's we got toget on TV at one point because of
the show. You were in anewspaper because of your podcasting at a grade,

(02:25):
so I think, you know,it's we were highly recognized. We
went to a podcasting festival, wewere on panels and all kinds of fun
stuff. We got to live thedream of being true crime podcasters for a
little while, and hopefully we leftour mark. And yeah, I'm happy
to close this wonderful chapter and moveon to the next stage of our lives

(02:47):
and our next adventure. Yeah.So in doing so, we also have
good news. We wanted the showto kind of go out with a bang,
So we have two more cases thatwe plan to cover. That's going
to be today's episode, and thenwe'll have a final two part series coming
out next month. And of course, we do still have all of our

(03:09):
Patreon episodes available over at patreon dotcom Slash All Crime, No Cattle,
and that's going to be all reorganizedas well, so if you're interested in
bonus episodes, go ahead and checkthat out. Yeah, and we will
keep the podcast up there on Patreondot com, and we'll also keep it
up everywhere else you find the podcastnormally, so if you want to go

(03:29):
back and relisten to episodes, they'llstill live on. So again, thank
you so much everyone for all yoursupport. We love you all, and
now let's move on to today's case. It's a really interesting one set in
one of Fort Worth's richest neighborhoods backin nineteen ninety two, and it's a
story that really shook the whole community. As far as sources go, for

(03:51):
the most part, I relied onthe local newspaper, The Fort Worth Star
Telegram, who reported heavily on thestory. The Fort Worth based television channel
k x AS also aired news segmentsand footage from the trials, and that
all can be found on the websitethe Portal to Texas History, which is
a collection of historical documents overseen bythe University of North Texas Libraries. We'll

(04:15):
have a link for that as wellas the other sources in the episode notes.
Now, there are also two prettydecent TV programs that covered this case
as well. One is Power,Privilege and Justice. The other is Snapped
Killer Couples. Now. As usual, both of these are a little cheesy,
but they have a lot of crimescene footage and interviews with some of

(04:36):
the people involved, so they alwaysserve a sort of an interesting watch.
I think sure. Let's begin thisstory with Jack Coslow. After coming back
home from the Vietnam War, wherehe had served as a helicopter pilot,
Jack began a very successful career inbanking. In nineteen seventy he married a
woman named Paula, and five yearslater, in February nineteen seventy five,

(05:00):
the couple adopted a baby girl,just four or five days old. They
named the girl Christie Ann Coslow.However, the marriage eventually broke down,
and by nineteen eighty two, whenChristie was seven, Jack and Paula were
divorced. The divorce was not amicable, and in fact, it was quite
contentious. The couple fought each otherin the courts over the next several years,

(05:26):
and it seems like this was mostlyover child support issues. Oh okay,
and he's probably doing really well sincehe's in banking, so there's probably
some financial stuff, yeah, hasto go through. Yeah. Absolutely.
Now, by this time, Jackhad worked his way up the ladder for
a bank located in Sunset Square indowntown Fort Worth called Texas American Bank,

(05:47):
which would later be called Team Bank. In fact, Jack eventually became the
bank's executive vice president and manager ofcommercial Lending. That sounds important. Yeah,
it doesn't really know what it means, but it sounds important. And
at the bank he met a womannamed Karen Courtney, who was the vice
president of the bank's national accounts lendingdepartment, so she also had a very

(06:11):
high rank in the company. Karenwas a graduate of ut Austin and had
a master's degree in Business administration fromSMU. She was born and raised in
fort Worth and came from a verywealthy and fairly prominent family of oil and
gas wildcatters. In fact, heruncle was oilman hl Sonny Brown, who

(06:31):
made his fortune in Midland. Whenshe was just a child, Sonny had
arranged a trust for her that wasworth several million dollars. Yeah, so
he must have made all of hisoil money when Midland really popped off the
first time, when they had thebig oil rush. Yeah, I think
so. So Karen was wealthy,educated, successful, and she and Jack

(06:53):
really clipped. The two fell deeplyin love and married in nineteen eighty three.
Not long after, Karen resigned herposition at the Bank and dedicated her
life to charitable causes around Fort Worth, as well as becoming a sort of
patron of the arts. Over thenext decade, she served on boards and
committees of many prominent fort Worth institutions. For example, she was the recording

(07:16):
secretary of the fort Worth Garden Cluband sat on the board for the Modern
Art Museum of Fort Worth. Shedid a great amount of work for the
Jewel Charity Ball, which is themain annual charity event benefiting the nonprofit Children's
Hospital, Cook Children's Medical Center.Oh. In fact, she served in
many roles for the ball including assecretary, treasurer, and chairwoman of the

(07:40):
event. That sounds fancy. Itis a very fancy event. You can
check out pictures of it online.But perhaps Karen's strongest tie was with the
Fort Worth Ballet Association, which isnow known as the Texas Ballet Theater.
Oh. I know of this organizationbecause I have friends that I used to
dance with when I was doing ballet. That's right. Became a part of

(08:01):
the Fort Worth Ballet Yeah, exactly. While Karen and Jack served on the
board of directors of the company,and Karen later served on the executive committee.
Through these positions, she oversaw alot of charity drives and fundraisers for
the dance company. Very nice.In the late nineteen eighties, Jack and
Karen moved into a sprawling four thousandsquare foot two story pink brick house at

(08:24):
forty one hundred Clark Avenue in theRivercrest area of West Fort Worth. Rivercrest.
Yeah, okay, so close tothe country Club. I'm assuming that's
right. So this whole area,since its beginnings in the early nineteen hundreds,
has been one of the richest andritziest neighborhoods in Fort Worth. Oh

(08:45):
yeah, Now, technically it iscalled Crest Line, but everyone calls it
Rivercrest because, just like you said, the houses surround the golf course at
Rivercrest Country Club. Yeah, thecity's oldest and fanciest course. It is
definitely one of the spots in FortWorth that has giant homes, fancy cars,

(09:07):
the lifestyles in the rich and thefamous, the whole thing. Yeah,
absolutely, And the neighborhood is alsocharacterized as being very low crime,
very safe. Sure. Over theyears, Jack's daughter Christie visited them frequently
and even lived with them occasionally.However, for the most part, Christie
lived with her mother Paula, onlyabout a mile or so away, and

(09:28):
another pretty upscale neighborhood called Monticello.Oh yes, Monticello. So you know
about Monticello as well. Well,you know, I used to work as
a landscaper, and I used towork in a lot of fancy homes in
both of these neighborhoods. Okay,so you're well aware that Monticello isn't necessarily
a step down from Rivercrest. It'salso a pretty nice neighborhood as well,

(09:50):
yeah, it's a lateral move.They're both extremely fancy in their own right.
Yeah. Well. Jack and Karenbecame a well liked and popular couple
in Fort Worth, especially in amongthe upper crust, and as the years
passed, they seemed happy with theirlives in Rivercrest and with each other.
But the couple's entire world shattered inthe early hours of March twelfth, nineteen

(10:11):
ninety two. Just after three thirtyam, Jack pounded at the front door
of his neighbor's house across the street. The neighbors answered the door to find
Jack wearing only boxers. His facewas swollen and mangled, there was a
large gash in his neck, andhe was completely covered in blood. The

(10:33):
neighbors said. Jack pleaded to themfor help, saying that he and his
wife had been beaten and robbed.While the neighbors called nine one one,
they heard Jack continue to fret aboutKaren, saying, my wife, my
wife's over there, so I'm goingto get to my wife. Emergency medical
personnel and officers with the Fort WorthPolice Department responded within minutes of the call.

(10:56):
The lead investigators of the case becamehomicide detective Kurt Brannon along with Sergeant
Paul Kratz. Now, by thetime they arrived, they described Jack as
appearing groggy and incoherent, and inthis state he wasn't really able to provide
any additional information before being rushed toHarris Methodist Hospital. Yeah, it sounded

(11:18):
like he had some extensive wounds,at least on his head, Yes,
he did. So nobody really knewwhat happened other than there was some sort
of intruder. So while Jack Coslowwent to the hospital, police entered the
Coslow home. In the primary bedroomupstairs, they discovered Karen's lifeless body lying
face down on the floor beside thebed. It was clear she'd been severely

(11:41):
beaten about the head with a bluntobject and her throat had been slashed.
The entire bedroom was a very grizzlyscene. There was blood everywhere, soaked
into the carpets, splashed across allfour walls of the room, and oddly
enough, all over the tell phonethat sat on a night table beside the
bed. Oh wow, it doessound very grizzly. Well, if there's

(12:05):
blood all over the phone, didit look like someone had used it at
all? Like if there were fingerprintson it or yeah, there was smudges
of blood all over the headset ofthe phone. Oh, like the handset,
like I think that's what it's called, right, the handset that goes
what do you even call that partof the phone? You know? Yeah,
exactly the part of the phone thatyou would pick up, and all

(12:26):
over the buttons of the phone.So I mean, just smeared all over
as if somebody with very bloody handshad tried to use it. And remember
Jack had been had gone to theneighbor's house to call the police. Interesting,
okay. Underneath a table, investigatorsfound a buck knife with an ornate
handle covered in blood and hair.This appeared to be the weapon used to

(12:50):
slash Karen and Jack's throats. Anempty shotgun that was identified as Jack's,
as well as some shotgun shells,sat on the bed. On the floor,
located about two feet into the doorwayof the room, was a bullet
hole made by a thirty two caliberbullet near Karen's body. Four unfired thirty

(13:13):
eight caliber bullets were found, sono shotgun holes were found near her body.
Ere Nope, okay, No,it doesn't appear that the shotgun had
been used at all. But itdoes appear that there were two different handguns
that had at least been used orat least present in the room during the

(13:33):
attack. Yet neither one of thetwo victims had suffered gunshot wounds. There
was just the hole in the floor, So somebody just came in and shot
up the floor. Oh, that'swhat it seemed like. And neither one
of those guns was present at thescene, so they weren't recovered, nor
was the object that had caused Jackand Karen's blunt force injuries. But they

(13:56):
did have the knife, right,Yes, okay, so we do have
one potential murder weapon. Yes.The crime scene extended into the bedroom's walking
closet. Clothes and all sorts ofitems had been pulled out and dumped onto
the ground, like the whole areahad been searched. On one side of
the closet was Jack's gun cabinet,where he kept his collection of shotguns,

(14:20):
so the shotgun on the bed wasJack's. Okay. The cabinet was open
and there were shotgun shells that hadspilled out onto the ground. On the
other side of the closet was achest of drawers. It had also been
ransacked with all the drawers pulled outand the contents in disarray, like somebody
looking for something specific. That's correct. And the drawers and the items inside

(14:41):
were smeared with blood, So itwas obvious that the person who had searched
these items had hands that were coveredin blood. And yet there were no
fingerprints found anywhere. Oh well,maybe they're wearing gloves. Yes, this
is intriguing. There's a lot goingon at this crime. Yeah. Now,
there are few other pieces of evidencelocated in and around the house.

(15:05):
For example, there were obvious signsof forced entry on the back door.
It appeared to be pride open withsome kind of tool, most likely a
pride bar or a crowbar. Thatdoor led out to the back property,
which was completely surrounded by a tallwooden fence with a gate. The gate
had also been pride open with whatappeared to be the same tool that had

(15:28):
been used on the house, butit was pride open on the inside,
not on the outside like you mightexpect. Oh weird, like, oh,
like they were leaving and they gotout. That's exactly right. The
pride bar had splintered some of thewood on the fence, and investigators found
a small piece of latex surgical glovesnagged on the wood again. Yeah,

(15:52):
that's right, So this is confirmationthat the killer had worn gloves. Now,
just outside of the back fence therewas a little alleyway with a couple
of AC units. Investigators found twodifferent shoe impressions on top of them.
So it appeared that the killer orkillers, because remember there are two different
shoe impressions, had to use theAC units to boost their way up and

(16:17):
over the fence. And then whenthey were done doing the attack inside,
they again, like you said,had to pry open the gate in order
to get back out again, andwhen they did that, they snagged their
glove. Yeah, fence now again. The investigator's initial thinking was that this
was a robbery gone wrong, basedon what Jack had said, as well

(16:38):
as the fact that it happened inthis very upscale neighborhood. It's not a
leap to think a house like theCoslos could be the target of a robbery,
and that if so, there couldhave been some kind of altercation with
the owners. But upon examining thecrime scene, investigators began to notice things
that didn't seem to fit that narrative. For example, besides the bloody primary

(17:00):
bedroom and its closet that had clearlybeen tossed. The rest of the house
appeared untouched. There was a singletrail of blood leading from the bedroom to
the front door that appeared to beleft behind by Jack when he went to
the neighbor's house to get help,but other than that, nothing appeared disturbed,

(17:22):
and investigators also didn't identify anything missingfrom the home. There were lots
of small valuable objects laying around thatwere still there. Karen's expensive jewelry collection
was still sitting in its place inthe primary bedroom, the place we'd know
that the attackers were in, andeven though the whole closet had clearly been
ransacked, investigators couldn't identify anything actuallymissing, So that didn't sound like robbery

(17:49):
was the primary goal. M Yeah. I wonder if it was like one
specific item that they were looking for, or was someone who knew them,
like it was an inside job orsomething and they had some knowledge of what
they were looking for. I don'tknow. You said there were two different
sets of footprints on the AC units, so what were they there for.

(18:14):
Also, it's weird that if you'regonna go rob some rich people that you
would do it in the middle ofthe night when they're home, because we
covered a famous cat burglar in Dallaswho would cat burgle rich neighborhoods and they
would always do it specifically when theyweren't home and they didn't want to encounter
people. So it doesn't yeah,like you're saying, it doesn't really sound

(18:34):
like a robbery, sounds like somethingelse. Yeah, very interesting. Well,
in addition to all of that,they were pretty clear handprints made in
blood on the back of the Tshirt that Karen was wearing. Two investigators.
This made it appear as if Karen'sbody had been moved sometime after her
death. Huh. In fact,detectives Brandon and Crats began to wonder if

(18:57):
the entire scene, the position ofthe body, the ransacked closet, the
strange gunshot to the floor was staged. So very early on, the investigation
began to shift away from robbery gonewrong to the suspicion that Jack was involved
in Karen's murder. Detectives wondered ifit was a possibility that Jack had killed

(19:22):
Karen and then injured himself and stagethe scene in order to cover up the
crime, or if he'd hired othersto do the work. Oh to like
rough me up afterwards and make itlook real. Attacked. Yeah yeah Wow.
Back at the hospital, Jack wasquickly rushed into surgery, and although
his injuries were quite serious, hewas able to recover. Jack had been

(19:47):
beaten so severely that he'd sustained fracturesin his skull, and he needed stitches
in nine different areas to the backof his head to close the wounds where
he'd been hit. In fact,for months after his attack, he would
complain of having black spots in hisvision. So it does appear that there's
a good chance he suffered some sortof brain damage from being repeatedly hit in

(20:08):
the head. Sure. In addition, Jack's neck had been slashed open,
with the cut coming extremely close tohis carotid artery. The doctor said he
was extraordinarily lucky to be alive.Well, if he did pace people to
do this, they went above andbeyond. Yeah. Jack also had various

(20:30):
bruises and scrapes along his arms,face, hands, and upper back.
The arms probably defensive wounds, yes, that's what they appeared to be for
the most part. Jack arrived atthe hospital just before four am and by
three pm, he was stable enoughto speak to Detective Brandon and Sergeant Kratz.
He said that the night before,he had Karen had gone out to

(20:52):
dinner, had eaten it around nineo'clock, and had left about ten pm.
They'd driven back home and Karen hadgone on to bed. He said
that he had stayed up a bitlonger and set the house's security alarm before
also retiring to bed. Oh,so they had a security alarm, they
did. He said that at sometime during the night, he and Karen
had woken to a crashing noise andthe sound of the security alarm going off.

(21:18):
They heard voices coming from downstairs shouting, we've got guns and this is
a robbery. Jack said that hejumped out of bed and rushed to the
gun cabinet in the closet to grabhis shotgun, but before he was able
to load it, the bedroom doorflew open. He said men came inside
carrying flashlights. A voice ordered Jackto put the shotgun down, and he

(21:41):
did. He said that Karen wasstill frozen on the bed, and he
tried to reassure her that it wouldbe okay. The voice told them to
lay face down on the floor.And he and Karen complied. Without warning,
Jack said he suddenly began being struckin the back of the head.
He said he didn't know how manytimes he was hit, but it felt

(22:03):
like it went on forever. Hesaid. He was dimly aware of some
one saying cut him here, andthen everything went black. He didn't know
how long he was unconscious, buteventually he awoke and saw that the attackers
were gone. He said. Hewent to Karen, who was still faced
down on the floor. He rolledher body over and realized that she was

(22:26):
either dead or dying, and hesaid that he became filled with a cold
sense of rage. He later describedhow he didn't even realize his own throat
was cut until he reached up towipe what he thought was sweat away,
and his thumb got stuck in thewound. Uh He went to the telephone

(22:47):
to call nine one one, buthe said that there was so much blood
in his eyes, and he wasso disoriented that he couldn't find the right
buttons to press, So he rusheddownstairs and out the front door as fast
as he could to go to theneighbor's house for help. Now, there
were several things in this story thatfurther drew detective suspicions. Can I guess,

(23:08):
one sure, the fact that hewas the one that moved her body
and rolled her over and there wasthose handprints. Yeah, absolutely, I
mean that was definitely a part ofit. Okay, as soon as you
said that, I was like suspicious. Yeah, so he does admit to
handling Karen's body at some point during, during, or after the attack.

(23:30):
But there were a lot of inconsistenciesand discrepancies that the detectives found in Jack's
story. For example, he couldn'ttell for sure how many attackers there were.
At one point, Jack said thatit had been dark in the bedroom,
but later he said that the roomwas well lit. They also thought
that Jack's story of being unable tocall nine one one from his telephone located

(23:55):
just feet away from him was verystrange. It seems like a lot of
wasted time for a man who believedhis wife was either dying or dead to
go all the way next door toreport it. You know, it's like
almost like another part of the staging. Maybe can I offer a little reasoning
if in the other direction, Yeah, if he had taken that many blows

(24:15):
to the head and had brain damage. Then. You know, as a
person who's been concussed before, doyou do weird things that don't make any
sense when you have concussions. Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe that's
part of it. Yeah, anotherdefinitely another important piece of the puzzle.
But the main point of contention wasthat Jack said that he and Karen had

(24:37):
woken up to the sound of thehouse's security alarm going off. Yeah.
You see, there had been noalarm sounding when the first responders arrived at
the Coslo home. So the detectivescontacted the security company and they reported they
had received no indication that the alarmhad been triggered that morning. Now,

(25:00):
fortunately this was in nineteen ninety two, and that was pretty much all the
information the security company could offer.Back then, there wasn't the technology to
have to store tons of data suchas time stamps of when entry doors opened
and closed, and when alarm systemswere engaged or disengaged. None of that
information was stored. They could onlytell you whether or not the alarm was

(25:22):
triggered. So that meant that eitherJack was mistaken or lying about setting the
alarm and hearing it go off,or someone had used the security code to
disengage the system before the alarm actuallywent off. So you're saying an alternative
might be that someone put the codein and the pre alarm phase of it

(25:44):
going off so that the signal wasnever sent to the security company. Like,
that's possible, And that's absolutely possible. So as y'all know, you
know, the a normal security systemallows you, I think thirty seconds or
so to input the alarm code todisengage the alarm before the alarm actually goes
off. So they couldn't tell youwhether or not that had happened that pre

(26:07):
alarmed part, or that it hadbeen engaged or disengaged. Yeah, they
could just tell you it had nevergone off. And I'm guessing they didn't
have a ring doorbell camera. Nope. Unfortunately, not even these very very
well off people, we didn't havethat kind of technology back then. Now,
another major issue the detectives had waswith a set of strange angular injuries

(26:27):
to the backs of Jack's hands.The detectives thought that the injuries looked a
whole lot like bite marks. Thequestion was were these bite marks from the
robbers or were they from Karen givenwhile she was fighting off her attacker.
Yeah, and he you know,in his story, he didn't give any

(26:48):
reason why he would have had thosedefensive wounds or the wounds to his back,
so that's interesting. He only gavereason why he would have had wounds
to his neck in the back ofhis head. Yeah. Karen's body was
taken to medical examiner doctor Nizam Perwaniof the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office,
and her autopsy was completed the dayafter her murder. It ended up confirming

(27:11):
the brutality of the attack and greatlyincreased suspicions against Jack Coslow. Karen had
suffered at least twenty seven blunt forcewounds from some kind of long, narrow
object, something like a pipe orpossibly a crowbar or priebar. They knew
that one had been used on thehouse. Like Jack, she had skull

(27:36):
fractures from blows to the back ofher head, but she'd also been struck
in the face, breaking her jawand loosening her teeth. The worst of
the blunt force injuries was a striketo the center of her throat, which
had crushed her larrnix. Doctor Perwanisaid that this injury would have caused Karen
to suffocate to death within minutes.In addition to the blunt force in injuries,

(28:00):
Karen had suffered an eleven inch longknife wound to the throat from ear
to ear, so deep that italmost decapitated her. Either one of these
injuries, the crushed Larrynix or thecut throat, would have been fatal.
However, doctor Perwani concluded that theblunt force injury had come before the knife

(28:22):
injury, and that she was likelyalready dead or very close to it by
the time her throat had been cut. He said he determined this because there
was minimal hemorrhaging at the sight ofthe slashed throat. Therefore, doctor Perwani
listed Karen's cause of death as suffocationdue to the crush injury of the larynx

(28:44):
due to blunt force trauma of theneck. Karen also had defensive injuries to
her hands and arms, along witha wound with a strange angular pattern that
law enforcement and the medical examiner agreedcould potentially be a bite mark. Another
bite mark. Yes, so that'svery strange that both of the victims seemed

(29:06):
to have bite marks on their bodies. Yeah, yeah, and like she
had a lot of frontal wounds,like to the face, which seemed like
personal. Yeah, yeah, Imean, let's talk about the injuries right
away. Investigators were struck with thedifferences between Jack and Karen's injuries. Sure,
Jack had been struck in the headnine times, his neck had been

(29:26):
cut, and his carrotid almost opened, but he'd survived and he'd been able
to provide a pre cohesive statement aboutwhat happened just a few hours later.
Meanwhile, Karen had been struck twentyseven times and had suffered two separate fatal
injuries. Yeah. Then there wasKaren's stomach contents. Jack had told detectives

(29:51):
that he and Karen had eaten dinnerthe night before at around nine pm.
Doctor Perwani concluded that the contents ofKaren's stomach were not as digested as one
would expect if she had died ataround three to three thirty am, around
the time that that nine one onecall was made. Instead, he suggested

(30:11):
that she had likely died a couplehours earlier than that, even as early
as around midnight. Two detectives,this seemed like a huge gap of time
that was unaccounted for and would haveprovided Jack plenty of time to pose the
body, stage the scene and getrid of evidence like the guns and priebar.

(30:33):
Sure. So at this point,the evidence continues to stack against Jack
in the eyes of the investigators,and it only got worse when they identified
that the knife that had been usedto cut the couple's throats had belonged to
Jack. It was something that heusually kept in the bedroom closet. Yeah,
it's not looking good for Jack sofar. Yeah. Now, by

(30:56):
this time, the news that theviolent attack in Rivercrest and the murder of
Karen Coslow had spread fast, andthis murder was the talk of Fort Worth.
It was on you know, thefront page of the Fort Worth Star
Telegram. It was something that everybodywas discussing. Oh. Absolutely, that
type of crime just doesn't happen inthose kind of neighborhoods. Yeah, And
just like the investigators, it seemedlike much of the early speculation around town

(31:22):
was that Jack Coslo had somehow beeninvolved. Yeah, and that's very salacious
and it's going to be the talkof every media outlet too. Like once
the major suspect becomes one of therich and powerful of that neighborhood, you
know, in this case, Ifeel like the journalists were pretty neutral when
they were reporting the story. Ohreally, actually it was really more the

(31:45):
rumor mill going around town. Itsounds like yeah now. The day after
the murder, Jack's daughter, ChristieCoslo, who is now seventeen, dropped
by the Coslow home and spoke tothe reporters who had gathered there hoping for
a break in the story. Shesaid that she had visited her father in
the hospital just hours after the attack, and that he was doing well all

(32:07):
things considered. Quote, it wasscary almost losing my dad, but he
looked good and I was happy tobe able to see him and that he
was alive. When asked if itwas possible that her father was involved,
Christie denied it completely. She saidher father cared deeply for Karen, and
in fact, she said she didn'tknow anyone who would want to hurt Karen.

(32:29):
She described her own relationship with Karenas quote as close as a stepdaughter
and stepmother could be. A fewdays later, Christie, along with her
mother Paula, came in for questioningas part of the normal procedure of interviewing
all the couple's close family and friends. Unfortunately, none of these interviews seemed
to bear any fruit. Four daysafter the murder, on Monday, March

(32:52):
sixteenth, Karen's funeral and burial wereheld. Jack was temporarily released from the
hospital to attend. Footage of himshowed him very stoic, but he was
clearly still in pain. The backof his head had been shaved and the
multiple stitched wounds were exposed, andhe still had a heavy bandage taped to

(33:14):
his throat. Thankfully, though,he did have his friends there to help
support him through a very difficult situationlike this. Sure once the burial was
over, Jack went right back tothe hospital, where he remained for a
couple more days, but by thenhe was acutely aware of the fact that
people suspected that he was Karen's killer. In fact, the day of her

(33:37):
burial, police spoke to him again. According to Jack, they told him
that they believed that the injuries onhis hands were bite marks, and that
they had already concluded that the markswere consistent with Karen's teeth. The same
day, they asked that Jack consentto providing a dental impression of his teeth

(33:58):
so they could compare it to thepattern found on Karen's body, Yeah,
to see if they were both fightingand biting each other in a struggle.
Yeah. Jack was finally released fromthe hospital after six days. He continued
talking to detectives and fully cooperated withthe investigation. He even led the detectives
on a videotaped tour of the housewhere he spent hours going over the details

(34:21):
of the attack. And through allof this, Jack never hired a lawyer
to represent him or just to keepthe investigators off his back. All of
this might have pointed to Jack's innocence, but he still seemed to be the
investigation's main, if not only,suspect. Now check of the Coslo's financial

(34:42):
records confirmed that the majority of thecouple's wealth was Karen's money from her family's
trust, as well as tied upin real estate, property and other investments.
Meanwhile, Jack was no longer thesuccessful banking executive he once had been.
Oh really. In nineteen ninety twoyears before the board of the bank
he worked for decided to restructure thecompany and ended up laying off several of

(35:07):
their top executives, including Jack.He had, of course received a sizable
severance package, but he hadn't actuallybeen employed since then. Instead, he'd
been working on starting his own companyfrom the ground up, and he'd invested
a considerable chunk of his own moneyinto starting this new business venture. What

(35:27):
kind of business venture was it?It was a construction supply company. Oh
okay, so completely different direction frombanking. Yeah, absolutely okay. So
detectives wondered if Jack had killed Karenfor this money to get to where money
to afford his new business venture sincehe had been laid off. Yeah,
maybe his severance nest egg was runningout and he needed a new investor in

(35:52):
the form of his newly departed wife'sinheritance. Yeah, I mean, that
was the consideration. And from oneof Karen's friends, they learned that Karen
had been seen a therapist for thepast four to five years. Detectives thought
that those records might be the perfectopportunity to uncover chinks in their marriage and
therefore possibly motive, so they requestedthat the therapist turn over his records.

(36:17):
However, the therapist refused. Yousee, those had been family therapy sessions
that had included Jack and years beforeeven Christie, and so to release the
records he'd have to break doctor orpatient confidentiality of two living patients. When
he wasn't willing to do so,investigators opted to take the matter to a

(36:39):
grand jury, who then issued asubpoena for the records. Oh wow,
you can do that, yep.And now the therapist still refused to release
the records. But this was somethingthat was being battled over for several days.
And all of this shows how farinvestigators were willing to go to pursue
this case. And it seems toshow how serious the investigators were that they

(37:01):
believed that Jack had something to dowith Karen's death. The investigation continued like
this, seemingly squared directly at Jack, with few if any other suspects of
note, for twelve days after Karen'smurder, So that was the six days
he was in the hospital and thenext six days he was out of the
hospital. Then, on Tuesday,March twenty fourth, Detective Brannon received a

(37:25):
phone call that would completely alter thecourse of the investigation. The caller's name
was Paul, and he said thathe had information about the murder of Karen
Coslow. He agreed to meet thedetectives right away. Paul told them that
a friend of his named Jeffrey Dillinghamhad asked to meet up with him on

(37:45):
March twelfth, the day of theattack on the Coslows. He said that
Jeffrey told him that he and anotherfriend named Brian Salter had been involved and
asked that he get rid of someof the evidence. Paul said that he
had reluctantly agreed, and Jeffrey handedover a bunch of items, including a

(38:06):
bulletproof vest, a leather backpack,a paper bag of bullets, a pair
of jeans covered in blood, anda wallet. Paul said he looked inside
the wallet and saw Jack coslows driver'slicense and credit cards with his name on
them, so at this point heknows that his friend was telling the truth.
Jeffrey also handed over an eighteen inchpriebar that still had blood on it.

(38:31):
Paul said that Jeffrey explained that he'duse the priebar in the attack,
and that he had been surprised tolearn that Jack Coslow was still alive,
as he'd felt like he'd beaten thecouple for around ten minutes. Jeffrey told
him that he'd tried to clean thepriye bar afterward, but had been unable
to get all the blood off ofit. Later, Paul told detectives that

(38:53):
Jeffrey and this other friend, Brian, had approached him about six weeks earlier
about killing the Coslos, but hehad, of course refused at the time.
He hadn't taken it seriously and didn'tuntil Jeffrey dumped this confession and all
of this murder evidence on him.Wow. So it definitely seems like these

(39:15):
other two individuals are definitely involved andhad some role to play in the attacks.
It makes me shift back to theidea that these men were hired to
do this or it was in facta robbery that just went wrong. But
yeah, it leaves me with myhead spinning as to is Jack and valdor
is he not at this point?Yeah, I mean exactly who knows what's

(39:36):
going on now. Paul continued thathe and Jeffrey had been good friends since
high school and he didn't know whatto do, so instead of destroying the
evidence like Jeffrey had asked him to, he just sat on it. He
said that every day part of himexpected the police to just bust down his
door and arrest him, and hewas filled with anxiety over what to do.

(39:59):
Okay, so he has a conscienceabout it, and that's why he
called in. Yeah yeah, exactly. After twelve days, he couldn't deal
with it any longer and he decidedto reach out to police and tell them
everything that he knew. Paul agreedto hand over all of the evidence that
Jeffrey had given him. The bloodon the pride bar was tested and later
shown to have trace amounts of Karencaused those DNA on it. Now,

(40:22):
the name Jeffrey Dillingham had not comeup in the investigation at all up to
this point. Jeffrey was nineteen yearsold, and in fact, the murder
had happened just six days after hisnineteenth birthday. He'd grown up in the
nearby town of White Settlement, althoughhe and his family had recently moved to
Aledo. He'd been in the NationalHonor Society at Brewer High School, where

(40:46):
he had met Paul. He hadgraduated high school the year before, was
working full time as an assistant managerof a Blockbuster in Arlington, and was
planning on starting college soon. Hada steady girlfriend for several years, and
they were supposed to be getting marriedthat summer. Jeffrey, Yeah, I

(41:06):
mean, does not seem to fitthe profile of someone who would do this
exactly. I mean, he wasa good kid from a good Christian family.
His girlfriend's family absolutely adored him.He'd never been in trouble with the
law, so I mean, andagain, there was no connection between him
and the Coslos. Yeah, sothis whole thing was so bizarre. However,

(41:30):
the name Brian Salter did bring abell to detectives. Detectives knew that
this was Christie Coslo's boyfriend. Infact, when Christie came in for questioning
just days after the murder, Brianhad been with her and had also been
interviewed. WHOA, Okay, somaybe the daughter has something to do with

(41:52):
this. Maybe weird? Okay,boy, there's some twist and turns in
this case. Yeah. Around midnightthat night, Jeffrey Dillingham was arrested as
he left his job at Blockbuster.He was taken in for questioning, where
he fully and very politely confessed tothe entire crime. In fact, he

(42:14):
provided a thirty seven minute long audiotapedstatement describing planning and carrying out the attack.
Jeffrey said that it all started severalmonths before, when his good friend
Brian had started dating Christie Coslow.So to keep this simple, Jeffrey,
Brian, and Paul had all goneto school together, but at some point

(42:37):
Brian had been transferred to another school, which is where he had met Christie.
So Paul and Jeffrey didn't know Christieat all other than her being Brian's
girlfriend. Jeffrey said that one dayBrian told him that Christie didn't get along
with her parents and that if theywere both dead, she stood to inherit

(42:58):
a large sum of money. Shegets somewhere around twelve million dollars. He
said that Christie was offering to givethem each one million dollars of the inheritance
if they killed her parents. Geez, that's yeah. And it's also a
lot of money. In nineteen eightytwo, this was about two million dollars.
Yeah, inflation upset by about twotimes the amount, right, So

(43:22):
it's quite a lot of money thatshe's offering them for this. So this
is patricide and matricide for profit.Yeah, I mean, that's that's what
it's looking like so far. WhenDetective Brandon asked Jeffrey what he planned to
do with the money, Jeffrey saidthat he and Brian were going to go
into business together. So basically theythought they were going to be set up

(43:44):
for life with this money, Jeffreysaid. Brian told him that Christie's idea
for Jeffrey said, Brian told himthat Christie's idea was for them to break
in in the middle of the nightand kill the couple while they were sleeping.
To that end, had furnished themwith information. First, she drew
out a three page floor plan ofthe Coslos home, pointing out places in

(44:08):
the house where she knew that theycould find money, where the alarm system
was, and where her parents' bedroomwas. Second, she also provided the
alarm code to the security system,so that's why the alarm didn't actually go
all the way off. It wasjust alerting that it was going to go
off, and they put the codein. That's right, And this is

(44:30):
also why they have two different setsof footprints, two different calibers of gun
holes. Things are starting to makesense, he said. Christy also told
them that her parents kept around fourthousand dollars in cash for emergencies and in
drawer in their bedroom closet, andthat she told them to be sure to

(44:51):
grab the money during the murder.Though this was all you'd almost consider this
like a down payment for the murders. Yeah, but that's why the whole
walk in closet was just shredded,because they were looking for that four thousand
dollars. Yeah, okay. Jeffreysaid that they spent a good amount of
time planning the attack, telling DetectiveBrandon in his statement quote, it was
planned out to the best of myability because I did not want to get

(45:15):
caught. He said. They spenttime assembling all the tools and supplies they
needed, including the priebar, abulletproof vest, latex gloves, and even
a glass cutter in case they couldn'tpry open the back door. For weapons,
Brian had taken two of his father'sguns, a thirty eight caliber revolver

(45:35):
and a thirty two caliber automatic pistol. However, Jeffrey stated that they only
brought the guns for self defense incase things went down the wrong way,
mostly because they knew from Christie thatJack had all of those shotguns. Yeah.
Well, that was really dumb ofthem to enter the house and announce
we have guns, we're here torob you. That seems really stupid,

(45:57):
especially if you know that he hasshotguns. Well, I think they were
just hoping that the shock of itwould keep them in place, keep them
terrified, sort of huddled in bed, yeah, which I mean ended up
kind of working in a way,right, So they hadn't actually wanted to
use the guns and risk a neighboror somebody hearing the noise and calling police.

(46:19):
Their plan was to hit Karen andJack over the head, knock them
unconscious, and then cut their throats. Brian gave Jeffrey a fishy knife to
use for this purpose. Jeffrey saidthat on the morning of the murder,
Brian picked him up and they droveto Christie's house, where Brian parked the
car. They then walked to theCoslo home on foot again. That was

(46:43):
a short distance of about a mile. Jeffrey said that he and Brian stood
awkwardly in the alley outside the backgate of the home for about half an
hour, psyching themselves up for theattack. Finally, at around three am,
they climbed onto the A V unitsand over the fence. Jeffrey said
that he struggled with the door foranother fifteen minutes, but finally got it

(47:05):
open. That's when the pre alarmstarted going off and Brian went to the
unit to enter the code. Meanwhile, Jeffrey said that he dashed straight up
the stairs to the primary bedroom andkicked down the bedroom door. He saw
Jack with a shotgun and he orderedhim to put it down. By that
time, Brian had joined him inthe bedroom and they ordered the couple to

(47:28):
the floor. Jeffrey said he startedhitting them in the head with the pride
bar. He said he began hittingJack first, but when Karen started screaming,
he turned and started hitting her too, and then he kind of went
back and forth like this between them. He said that at one point Karen
turned her head and he ended uphitting her in the throat. After that,

(47:52):
he said that Karen stopped resisting quote, she kind of laid down and
let it pass. He didn't knowit at the time, but he was
actually describing what the emmy concluded wasthe deathblow in his statement. Meanwhile,
he said Brian had gone into thecloset to start looking for the money,

(48:12):
but he couldn't find it. Hesaid he did find something else, though,
Jack's hunting knife. Jeffrey said hesaw Brian go to Karen and draw
the knife across her throat. Hewent to Jack next, but Jeffrey said
his back was turned and he didn'tsee him actually cut him. But at
some point around this time, Jeffreysaid, the gun that Brian was carrying

(48:35):
accidentally went off. It was justa total accident. That's why the hole
in the floor, and Jeffrey saidthat it scared them so much that they
decided to hurry up and get outof there. Essentially, detectives believe that
this errant gunshot might have been thething to save Jack's life. They were
so freaked out by it that theystarted rushing and they didn't stop to make

(48:58):
sure that Jack was actually dead.Jeez, yeah, that's crazy. Before
leaving, though, they first wentback to the closet to look for the
money, leaving behind the bloody mess. But once again, they couldn't find
a secret stash anywhere, so thatfour thousand dollars that Christie said was in
the closet couldn't find it. Frustrated, they grabbed two things right there on

(49:21):
the bedside table, Jack's wallet alongwith one of his expensive gold watches.
Oh okay, so there were actuallytwo things missing from the crime scene,
the wallet and the watch. Jeffreysaid. They rushed out of the house,
pried open the back gate to getout of the yard, and then
ran back to their car and droveaway. Jeffrey said that there had only

(49:45):
been one hundred and twenty dollars inJack's wallet and they were sure to take
it. Before he gave the walletover to Paul, along with the other
supplies, they had sold the watchfor money. What a paltry haul for
your robbery. Yeah, and theyexpect to walk away from the murders with
cash in hand, and they reallydidn't get that. Now, with this

(50:06):
physical evidence, along with Jeffrey Dillingham'sfull confession, it was then time to
arrest Christie Coslow and Brian Salter.Detective sat on Paula's house, Christie's mother,
and at seven thirty am, Christie, Brian, and Paula were seen
getting into a vehicle and backing outof their driveway at an intersection nearby.

(50:27):
Police swarmed the car, ordered everyoneout, and arrested Christie and Brian.
This happened only about seven hours afterJeffrey was arrested, and less than twenty
four hours after Paul had come forward. So things were really moving fast.
Yeah. Well, and again,thank goodness, Paul came forward because otherwise
they wouldn't have known about any ofthis. Yeah. Well, during Christie's

(50:51):
first interview with Detective Brandon after herarrest, she fully denied offering money to
anyone to kill her parents. Shesaid that she sometimes joked around about inheriting
money once her parents died, butthat was it. However, she did
admit that at one point she hadtoyed with the idea of robbing her parents'
house, and she admitted to givingBrian the diagram of the house and the

(51:15):
alarm code for this purpose only.When asked why she'd plan to rob her
parents, she said it was becauseher father was mean to her and that
this would be a way to gethis attention. She denied having any knowledge
of or involvement in any plot tokill her father and stepmother. Detectives then

(51:35):
turned to Brian's palter. Now,Brian had a lot in common with Jeffrey.
He had also come from a lowermiddle class background, had also been
an honor student in high school,and like Jeffrey, detectives found that he
was very quick to divulge the fullstory, and he gave a very thorough
confession of the plotting and commission ofthe attack. What's up with these honor

(51:57):
students just being so forthright but allso willing to commit murder? Not sure?
It is very weird, isn't it. It is I had the same
reaction. Yeah. However, unlikeJeffrey and Christie, Brian had been in
trouble before. In fact, inFebruary of nineteen ninety one, so just
over a year before Karen's murder,he'd been arrested for burglarizing a vehicle belonging

(52:22):
to a Fort Worth City councilman onpurpose. I'm not sure if it was
an intentional burglary of this particular councilman'sstuff, but he stole like a bunch
of equipment and briefcases and a voicerecorder and all of these things and try
to pawn at all. Essentially forhonor students, they're not particularly intelligent about

(52:42):
crime. Brian said that he andChristie had been dating for about five months,
and he said that he learned abouther hatred of her parents and that
she wanted them dead only weeks intothe relationship. He said that Christie constantly
complained about her parents. She saidher father ignored her and didn't love her.
She said that Karen had taken hermother's place and had tried to turn

(53:06):
her into a snob, and hadtaken her father away from her. He
said that at first the idea hadbeen just robbing the house, but during
Christmas of nineteen ninety one, hesaid that he and Christie had gotten engaged,
and around the same time the plancrystallized into a double murder. Brian

(53:28):
said Christie told him she believed shewould inherit about twelve million dollars if her
parents were dead, and she wouldgive him and whoever helped him a million
dollars each. So again this iscorroborates the other version of the story.
Yes, but also, what away to celebrate your engagement. Yeah,
hey, all right, congratulation,we're gonna get married. Great, let's

(53:49):
we're so happy. Also, let'smurder my parents. Well, here's another
weird thing. At some point duringthis planning process, Brian also considered killing
him his parents as well his own. Yes, Eventually that part of the
plan was abandoned, but it wassomething that they had taken into consideration.
Geez okay. Now. Brian saidthat Christie was very specific that both her

(54:12):
stepmother and her father would need todie for the plan to work. She
reasoned that if only one was killed, then the other parent would inherit the
money and she'd still be in thesame position. When Detective Brandon asked him
if Christie told him how she wantedthem to die, Brian said that she'd
stayed out of the specifics, butthat she told him to do it quietly

(54:34):
and to try to make it aspainless as possible. This doesn't seem painless
at all, well exactly, andthat really shows, I think the naivety
of these young people planning a murderlike this. They actually chose this plan
because in their minds, this wasgoing to be a painless, simple death
for these two people. And ofcourse murder is not simple or painless,

(54:59):
and this one certainly was not eitherone of those things. This one was
brutal, and it went on fora while. Yeah. Brian said he
was the one to reach out toJeffrey to get him involved, as well
as contacting other people for supplies andfor help. He said that Jeffrey came
up with all sorts of wild ideasabout killing the couple, including blowing up

(55:19):
their car, poisoning them, orsetting the crime scene up to look like
a murder suicide. Brian also saidthat he and Christie had started a plan
on how they were going to spendtheir newly acquired money. They went out
house hunting in some of the wealthyneighborhoods around Fort Worth, and they'd gone
to car dealerships to pick out theirnew cars. She wanted a red BMW

(55:43):
convertible and he planned on getting aToyota land Cruiser. Wow. Yeah,
you were right about the naivete partof it. Yeah. Brian said that
they'd set a date to kill theCoslos on four to five different occasions before
the actual attack, but that hekept coming up with excuses to cancel because
he was nervous. He said thatChristie had become increasingly frustrated and wanted the

(56:07):
job done, and he also wasclear that Christie was along for the ride
every step of the way. Infact, the day before the murder,
he told her that it was theplan for that night and she had told
him that's good. He had updatedher again around midnight before they were leaving
to go commit the murders and shehad told him, okay, be careful.

(56:29):
And then when he got home afterthe attack, at about four am.
Brian said that he called Christie totell her what had happened. He
said the first thing she asked wasif her parents were dead. He told
her he didn't know, and sheresponded, I hope they are now.
Of course. Shortly thereafter, theylearned that Jack had survived the assault.

(56:52):
Brian said that when Christie found out, she asked him, quote, what
went wrong? A few hours later, he'd gone with Christie to visit Jack
in the hospital. Wow wow,yeah, And he actually was at the
bedside of the person he tried tomurder. Yes, And afterward he'd worried
that Jack was going to recognize himfrom the attack, but he said Christie

(57:14):
assured him not to worry that nothingbad was going to happen. He wasn't
going to get caught. And aftershe made her little press conference to the
reporters the day after the murder,he said he told her that she should
be an actress and that was somethingthat made her laugh. This is wild,
yeah, now. Brian's story aboutwhat happened during the murder matched Jeffreys

(57:37):
very closely except for one major detail. Brian said that it was Jeffrey who
had cut their throats, not him, So essentially he blamed all of the
violence and the murder itself entirely onJeffrey. Okay, but he's just trying
to push heat off onto Jeffrey sinceJeffrey had already said he'd hit them with
a crowbar. Yeah, potentially,you know, they're definitely kind of trying

(57:59):
to blame each other, at least, I would say Brian at this point
was for sure. With both JeffreyDillingham and Brian Salter claiming that not only
did Christie Coslow know about the plan, but it was her idea. Detective
Brandon said that he went back toChristie again. He said he told her
the truth, that her friends werenot protecting her and she needed to come

(58:22):
forward with what she knew. Brandonsaid that's when Christie decided to provide a
second statement. This time, Christieadmitted four separate times that not only had
she asked Jeffrey and Brian to killher parents, but that she'd also offered
them money to do so, althoughshe said she never gave specific figures.

(58:45):
She didn't admit that it was heridea, but she said that it was
an idea that her and Brian hadquote pushed on each other. She kind
of went back and forth on thereason why. She said that of course
she wanted the money, but thenlater she said that she did it because
she resented Karen and that her fatherhad made her and her mother's lives miserable

(59:07):
for the past ten years or so, essentially since the divorce. In fact,
she said that she didn't care aboutthe money at all and had planned
on giving away her whole inheritance toBrian and her mother once she got it.
We know that's not true. Yeah, this does sound like something where
she's trying to assuage her guilt alittle by saying I did this because I

(59:28):
was angry at them, not simplybecause I just wanted all their money.
Yeah, she's confessing, but she'spatting the confession with like and of course
yeah, and of course making sureto point out how bad Karen and Jack
were to her and why they kindof deserved this to happen. With all
three statements entered into the record,Jeffrey Dillingham and Brian Salter were officially charged

(59:50):
and indicted for the capital murder ofKaren Coslow and the attempted capital murder of
Jack Coslow. Christie Coslow was chargedand indicted with conspiracy to commit capital murder.
The charges were capital based on thefact that the murder was committed over
a promise of payment, and thatcan be applied to both parties, so

(01:00:10):
the killer and the employer. Thecapital charge applied to Christie as well,
meaning that even though she was onlyseventeen at the time of the murder,
she could potentially also receive the deathsentence. That's because this was nineteen ninety
two and the Supreme Court decision thatforbid the execution of offenders under the age

(01:00:31):
of eighteen didn't happen until two thousandand five. Okay, and yes,
Texas was sending juveniles to death rowall through the nineties and into the two
thousands, so this was not particularlyunusual for the time, although it was
unusual because this was a young girlinstead of a young boy. Yeah,

(01:00:52):
that's true. Most of the juvenilesthat were sent to death row were mail
Yeah, I mean, that's thetrend across the board. Yes, Karen
Coslo's murder was already the talk ofthe town, but things really exploded once
the arrests were made and it waslearned that Karen's own stepdaughter had been involved
in the brutal attack. So nowthis is a national news story. Oh

(01:01:14):
sure. Now, obviously there wasno one more stunned than Jack himself.
He was able to tell investigators thedetails about his very tumultuous relationship with his
daughter. Oh good, okay,interesting, I'm excited to see Jack's perspective
on this whole situation. Yeah.Well, He said that things really started
going downhill when Christie turned thirteen.He said that she started acting out a

(01:01:38):
lot, skipping school, running awayfrom home, as well as hanging out
with a bad crowd. He saidthat he and Karen had tried everything to
get through to her, which iswhy they had started seeing the family therapist
together. He said that they hadtransferred her to different schools, including expensive
private schools, to try to finda good fit for her so she would

(01:02:00):
start doing well. They even senther to a three month psychiatric program for
emotionally disturbed teens, but Jack saidthat none of the measures seemed to help,
and her bad behavior continued to escalate, even to the point where Christie
actually struck Karen. All of thiscaused them to become estranged for two years,

(01:02:21):
starting from when Christie was about fifteenup until recently, so they weren't
really seeing each other much at allduring that period. No, absolutely not.
For two years they did not speak, but then over the past two
to three months, Jack said Christiehad suddenly popped back up in their lives.
The month before the murder, shehad personally hand delivered him a card

(01:02:44):
for Valentine's Day, and they hadall gone out to eat for her seventeenth
birthday, and just two weeks beforethe murder, she had come over for
another unexpected visit. Jack said thatshe had kissed him on his cheek and
then introduced him to her new boyfriendRyan. He said that even at the
time, he thought all of thiswas odd because Christie usually wasn't this friendly

(01:03:07):
towards him. Now, given whatwe now know about the attack and the
fact that it had been plotted formonths, it seems like this was Christie's
way to perhaps suck up to herparents or to try to get close to
them while also actively plotting their murderers. Yeah, it would be if they
were in the house right and theymet the family. So it's also a

(01:03:29):
good time to like, Yeah,I don't look around well kind of.
I'm not sure Brian necessarily went insideof the house. I think they were
outside. But still, Brian himselfconfirmed that one of the reasons why he
came with Christie that day was sohe knew where they lived and he could
better identify his targets. Wow,that's cold, man. But the arrests

(01:03:49):
weren't just shocking to Jack. Theywere pretty shocking to investigators too. After
all, they had been pretty deadset that Jack was their killer. So
those marks on the backs of Jack'shands and the injuries Karen sustained that were
suggested to look like bite marks,well, upon closer inspection, it was

(01:04:11):
found that those injuries were made bythe pride bar, you know how like
the teeth of the pride bar.Yes, it has that little notch in
it. So it's my best guess. I could and can't necessarily find this
information amongst the trial records because itwas never presented because it wasn't real.
Okay, but yeah, it's mybest assessment that that was the disconnect,

(01:04:34):
that those marks looked like teeth,and they jumped to a whole lot of
conclusions about those marks based on nothing. Yeah, no kidding, because at
one point they thought that they almostmatched some dentition of Karen's right, and
that's why they took that. That'swhat Jack was told. Yes, and
it's also clear that the assessment ofKaren's time of death at midnight, based

(01:04:57):
on her stomach contents was simply incorrect. Both killers confirmed that they broke
into the house at about three o'clockin the morning, and we know that
the nine one one called Jack's neighbor'smaid happened at three thirty nine am,
So she died somewhere in this spanof time. And all of Jack's inconsistencies
or uncertainties in his story simply camedown to the fact that he'd suffered through

(01:05:23):
an extremely traumatic event as well asa tremendous head injury. He had been
recounting the story as best he couldunder those conditions. Yeah, concussions are
a hell of a thing, man. Yeah, it's hard that they cause
memory issues and short term and longterm memory issues. Absolutely, they're very
serious. Yeah, and I'm notsure how serious they would have been taken

(01:05:45):
in nineteen ninety two. You know, a sort of head injury or brain
injury back then, and that mighthave added to their suspicion against Jack because
they didn't understand maybe why he wasso disoriented or confused. Probably. I
mean, I know in my ownexperience, I was having him in the
nineties, and there wasn't a wholelot of weight given to them when I
was receiving concussions. So we knowa lot more about them today than we

(01:06:10):
did back then, most definitely.Yeah, And the light of the news
of Christie Coslo's arrest, at leasttwo more of her other classmates from a
private school called West Academy came forward. They were seventeen year old John and
fifteen year old Josh. Each ofthem also said that Christie had asked them
to kill her parents, and thatshe'd offered the money from her inheritance.

(01:06:34):
Wow, so she was just shoppingthis around, That's what it seemed like.
John actually sat down for an interviewwith the news station kx AS.
In this interview, John said thatChristie brought the idea to him around eight
months before the murder. Remember,Christie had only been dating Brian for five

(01:06:56):
months, so this suggested that herplanning had started before the relationship and independently
from him. John said that Christietold him that he could break into the
house at night while they were sleeping, that she had the security code to
the alarm system, and she couldshow him the layout of the house.
All of these things sound eerily familiar, right, Yeah, definitely matchup and

(01:07:18):
corroborate with the other stories that we'veheard. Yeah. He said that he
stopped talking to Christie after this,but about two weeks before the murder,
Brian and Christie called him. Nowhe'd actually known Brian too, they'd been
roommates at one point, so hewas familiar with both Christie and Brian.

(01:07:39):
So they were looking for the extramuscle. They were looking for their Jeffrey
at this point, I think theywere looking for a third person. Yeah,
at this point, Okay, likea Paul. We're looking for somebody
to fill Paul. Yeah, sheturned out, Yes, paula dog also
turned it down. John said thatthey implored him to help with the murder
and asked if he knew anyone witha gun. Christie once again that she

(01:08:00):
could pay him well. Of course, John had refused, but he said
he didn't take them seriously until helearned about the attack. Just like Paul.
John told the Fort Worth Star Telegramthat the day after Karen's murder,
he'd submitted an anonymous tip to crimestoppers, reporting all of these conversations that
he'd had with them. Yes,and for whatever reason, either the message

(01:08:23):
didn't reach the right hands, orit wasn't taken seriously, or what it
was never followed up on. That'swild. Yes, that seems like something
that you would want to get capturedin the flagging process of this anonymous tipline
service. Yeah, and that's mybiggest question out of all of this is
did human eyeball see that and wasit just ignored? Was it not taken

(01:08:48):
seriously? I have no idea becausethis part of is never really brought up
again, the fact that this tiphappened. But it's very interesting. Yeah,
Jeffrey didn't him was the first ofthe three teenagers to go on trial.
Due to the huge publicity of thecase, especially in Tarrant County,

(01:09:08):
the trial was moved to Wichita County. It began in June of nineteen ninety
three, a little over a yearafter the attack. The very first day
of the trial, the jury heardthe entire thirty seven minute taped statement Jeffrey
gave to police after his arrest.So as you can imagine, this set
a pretty abysmal tone for the defense. Sure, the tape was also very

(01:09:32):
chilling because there's no emotion or remorsein his voice. He's very neutral on
the tape when he's describing these things, and yet also strangely polite, like
the whole way while he's describing tryingto kill these people, he's calling them
mister and missus Coslow. It's verystrange. So he never gets emotional or

(01:09:54):
tia anything. No, not atall. Meanwhile, his behavior in court
strongly contra trasted with him on therecording. In court every day he sniffled
and sometimes openly wept through the entirething. So it kind of made people
and jurors feel like he was cryingbecause he had been caught, not because

(01:10:14):
he actually felt remorse. Yeah,he knew it was over at this point.
He was gonna he was headed fora really stiff sentence. Yeah.
To add to that, the prosecutionhad all of that physical evidence to trot
out as well, the bloody clothes, Jack's wallet, the bloody pryebar with
DNA consistent with Karen on it.Paul testified as well, describing how Jeffrey

(01:10:36):
had asked him to destroy the evidence. Jack also testified, and he described
his relationship with his daughter, aswell as the events of the morning of
the attack. Quote, I rememberthe whole world turning black. I remember
him beating me and beating me andbeating me until I didn't remember anymore.

(01:10:57):
The defense's main tactic was to tryto cast doubt on the medical examiner's findings
that Karen had died of a crushedlarnix, an injury that Jeffrey is heard
clearly describing in his taped confession.Yeah, that seems like a slam dunk.
Yeah, So this was definitely apart that they were trying to push
back on a little. So theybrought in their own experts to testify that

(01:11:20):
Karen had actually died of blood lossfrom the cut to her throat, an
injury that Jeffrey had claimed Brian hadinflicted. Okay, so the defense is
doing their job trying to push murderblame onto another party that was there at
the scene. Yes, Okay.Now, legally which of the two struck
the killing blow didn't matter, butthe defense hoped that if the jury could

(01:11:44):
believe that it wasn't Jeffrey, thenthey would go easier on him. But
after just one hour and forty minutesof deliberation, the jury found Jeffrey Dillingham
guilty of capital murder and the scentingscene phase. Many people took the stand
for the defense. Family members,friends, teachers, fellow churchgoers, even

(01:12:04):
one of his jailers, all ascharacter witnesses. And again, these were
all people telling these stories about whata good kid Jeffrey was. So what
happened, clearly he's not well.The prosecution put on an impressive witness of
their own. FBI criminologist Robert Wrestler. Now, I know we've talked about

(01:12:26):
him on the show before, butthis is the og. From the early
days of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, Robert Wrestler helped develop the field of
psychological profiling of violent offenders. Heworked on cases such as John Wayne Gacy,
Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, RichardChase, and in fact, he's
credited with coming up with the termserial killer. So this is a very

(01:12:50):
serious get for the prosecution to gethim to come in to testify. He's
the guy. Yes, Wrestler testifiedthat contract killers, people who kill for
money, are amongst the most dangerouscriminals to exist. He said that the
extensive planning over a period of severalmonths would give a reasonable man time to

(01:13:13):
stop and think about the consequences ofhis actions and stand down. Therefore,
he said it was his expert opinionthat Jeffrey Dillingham was indeed a future threat
to society. This was really importantbecause that's one of the questions jurors ask
when assessing the death penalty versus lifein prison. Yeah, future risk to

(01:13:33):
society is important. And also thatcold and calculated way he gave his statement,
and when they were talking about theplanning process, he was the one
that was coming up with all thesedifferent ideas on how they were going to
do it, whether it be poisoningor some other way. It's very interesting.
He seemed very up for this.Well, the jury, i guess,

(01:13:56):
agreed with you on that, becauseafter three and a half hours of
diller ration, they returned and sentencedJeffrey to death. Now, the fact
that Jeffrey was convicted and sentenced todeath is probably not shocking, giving the
sheer amount of evidence against him andthe brutality of the crime, but it
might surprise you to learn that beforethe trial began, prosecutors had actually offered

(01:14:19):
Jeffrey a plea deal that would haveallowed him to avoid the death penalty.
Yes, that does surprise me.Yeah. If he agreed to testify against
the others and plead guilty to thecharges, he would have received a term
of life in prison. For reasonsthat are completely unclear, Jeffrey had rejected

(01:14:40):
that offer. That's strange in lightof the fact that he had to have
been aware of how strong the casewas against him. That is extremely strange,
and his lawyers must have known thattoo. So I'm imagining like it's
something he had to talk as tellhis lawyers like, no, I'm doing
this, I'm not going to takethe plea deal. Yeah. I mean,
it's not clear either he thought forsome reason he was going to be

(01:15:03):
found not guilty, or found guiltyhe'd only be sentenced to life, or
maybe he just didn't want to testifyagainst the others. Again, it's not
clear what his thinking was. Thatis weird, but it obviously he was
probably not the right decision. Yeah, yeah, strategically or for his life

(01:15:24):
and his further trying to survive inexistence on this planet. Yeah, it
was the wrong move for sure.Now, Brian's salter was up next,
and the prosecution offered him the samedeal they offered Jeffrey testify against Christie Coslow
at her trial and plead guilty inexchange for a life sentence. Perhaps because

(01:15:45):
he'd seen what might happen if hedidn't, Brian had no qualms about accepting
this arrangement, and because Christie wasseen as the mastermind behind the plot,
she was not offered such a deal. Therefore, the trial move forward against
Christie Coslo. So finally it wastime for Christie Coslo to head to trial

(01:16:06):
in June of nineteen ninety four,just two years after Karen's murder. Much
of her trial paralleled Jeffrey's trial.Both of her tape recorded statements were played
for the jury, including the secondone in which she admitted four times to
offering Brian and Jeffrey money to killher parents. Jack also took the stand

(01:16:28):
against his daughter to testify to therelationship and to the attack itself. At
one point, with the jury outof the room, Jack was asked if
he believed his daughter deserved the deathpenalty. He responded, quote, yes,
that's what she gave Karen. Heain't wrong though. That is harsh

(01:16:49):
and that is cold. Yeah,it's really harsh, But he ain't wrong
though. Well, I mean,obviously he has his right to feel that
way, but yeah, really harshto hear or something like that. Brian
also took the stand against his formergirlfriend, testifying that the murder plot was
her idea, that she helped aplant and that she was aformed of it

(01:17:12):
every step of the way. Thistime, though, on the stand,
Brian admitted to finding Jack's knife inthe closet. He said that he offered
it to Jeffrey to use on theCoslows, but Jeffrey had said no,
so Brian admitted that he was theone to use it to cut Karen and
Jack's throats, and then he justtossed it underneath the bed where it was

(01:17:32):
later found. Yeah, I mean, I think it just got dropped in
the struggle, especially after the gunwent off they were trying to get out
of there, because that's one ofthe things I would think you would take
with you. But yeah, you'reright, if it was that much chaos
going on, had just got left. Yeah. Christie's main defense was that
her complaints about her parents were simplyidle threats and that Brian and Jeffrey had

(01:17:55):
acted alone. Her defense team arguedthat the first statement she gave after her
arrest was the truth, and thatshe hadn't known about the plan to kill
her parents at all. They paintedthe investigation into the attack as botched right
from the beginning due to bad policework. They pointed out that investigators had

(01:18:15):
missed crucial details such as the stolenwallet and watched and had woefully misinterpreted evidence.
The defense pointed out that on Marchthirteenth, just the day after the
murder, Detective Brandon had written inhis case notes that he found Jack to
be a quote guilty but deceitful person. In fact, the defense argued that

(01:18:39):
the entire investigation had such bad tunnelvision when it came to Jack, that
detectives were in the process of filingfor an arrest warrant on him when Paul's
tip came in that led to thebreak in the case. Well, that
is an interesting defense strategy, andif that is true, I mean definitely
parts of it are true of whatthe defense is saying. So, the

(01:19:00):
defense said that the detectives felt humiliatedbecause they had been under a lot of
pressure to solve this big case,and the whole time the actual murderers had
been right under their nose. Imean, Brian and Christie had even been
interviewed by them. The defense calledBrandon quote embarrassed and vindictive and said that

(01:19:21):
when Christie provided her first statement,the truthful one, according to the defense,
he just wouldn't accept it. Theysaid that he quote berated, bullied,
and badgered Christie for over an hourwithout letting her speak to her attorney.
In the end, the defense arguedChristie had ended up giving the second

(01:19:41):
statement, but only because she wasscared of the detective now. Detective Brandon,
on the other hand, admitted tobeing suspicious of Jack, but he
totally denied that they were close toarresting him or that they had any sort
of tunnel vision. He was like, this was just the normal part of
the investigation, and that's not howit was, So that might not have

(01:20:03):
been completely the full scope of theinvestigation. I feel like maybe somewhere in
the middle. Yeah, you know, obviously they're arguing for both sides,
so probably the truth is somewhere alongthe middle. He also said that Christie
never requested her attorney during their interview, and that she had opted to provide

(01:20:23):
that second statement willingly. Now,as far as Christie being the mastermind of
a plot to commit double murder,her attorney said that she did not quote
have the intellect or maturity to organizea rock fight, Okay, which I
always thought, think that's so interestingwhen defense attorneys insult their own clients to

(01:20:45):
try to prove their point, youknow what I mean. The defense also
accused Jack of being an absent andcold father towards Christie, suggesting that he
was really at fault for their estrangement. Oh victim blaming. Great. So
Christine might have had a stronger defensethan Jeffrey, But this phase of the
trial ended the same. After threehours and fifteen minutes of deliberation, the

(01:21:09):
jury found Christie guilty of capital murder. However, at the end of it
all, the jury ended up sentencingher to life in prison instead of death
row. Okay, so we havetwo different sentences for the same crime.
Yeah, So it's a really interestingway of the case would have unfolded in
that way. Yeah, I wasexpecting capital punishment. Shortly after Christie's trial,

(01:21:32):
Brian was also sentenced to life inprison. Both Brian and Christie will
be eligible for parole after serving thirtyfive years in prison. In twenty twenty
seven. Christie will be fifty twoand Brian will be fifty four. Wow,
that's actually coming up fairly soon.Yeah, that's not that far away.

(01:21:54):
Four years. Yeah. Jeffrey triedto appeal his case eight times over
the next few years, largely onthe fact that he received a death sentence
while his co conspirators received life sentencesfor the same crime. And obviously this
does sound pretty damn unfair really whenyou get down to it. Yeah.
However, none of his appeals madeany sway, and on November first,

(01:22:17):
two thousand, Jeffrey Dillingham was executedby lethal injection at the age of twenty
seven. His final words included anapology quote, I would like to apologize
to the victims of the family forwhat I did. I take full responsibility
for that poor woman's death and forthe pain and suffering I inflicted on mister
Coslow. From there, he reciteda prayer, thinked God, and told

(01:22:42):
his family he loved them before beingput to sleep. Sometime after the trials
were completed, the Associated Press reporteddetails about Karen's will that had never been
released before. It turns out thather will had been signed on March thirtieth,
nineteen hind so about two years beforeher death. And it's very interesting

(01:23:03):
because it's clear that Karen had fashionedher will specifically to ensure that Christie would
never see a dime of her money. The will stated that her beneficiaries would
include her natural children, but shallnot include step children. Of course,
she didn't have natural children, butshe was. She was opening that possibility

(01:23:26):
up in the state of the willwhile making sure that that did not include
Christie. This is very It's kindof similar to a Patreon episode that we
just did, where all this planningto kill someone and get money and then
it's all for not because of awill. What's in the will? Yeah,
I mean, it's always about money, it seems like, isn't it.
Yeah. In addition, Karen hadleft Jack a five hundred thousand dollar

(01:23:48):
trust, but it specified that hecould not receive any money until a specific
date in the future that was afterChristie had finished high school. So Karen
had made it so Christie wouldn't beable to see any of that money either.
She just made it so that Jackcouldn't inadvertently give her some of the

(01:24:09):
money to help her out, yeah, essentially, or if Jack died,
the money wouldn't go to Christie becauseshe was no longer one of his dependents,
she was now an adults. Asfar as the number that Jeffrey and
Brian said, Christie told them thatshe stood to inherit twelve million dollars,
No one knows where that figure camefrom. Karen's estate was around a million

(01:24:31):
dollars at the time, and sureChristie might have expected to get an inheritance
from Jack as well, plus maybeinsurance money or something like that, but
either way, it would have beena far cry from twelve million dollars.
So she was either seriously deluded whenit came to the wealth of her parents,
or she had just been lying toconvince the others, to convince the

(01:24:55):
others that she had the money tomake the murders worthwhile, which one do
you think of? Was a littlebit of both. Yeah, I could
see how she would have a grossoverestment of the worth of the estate just
to lure the kid. Yeah,I mean, she's a kid. She
doesn't understand how many of those thingswork, you know. And it sounds
a lot better to be like youcould get a million dollars or two million

(01:25:17):
dollars. Oh, absolutely, that'sa that's a fat number. That's an
enticing number. And that's exactly whythis ended up going on the way it
did. Jack has done very wellfor himself since the attack. He sold
the house shortly after Karen's death andmoved to the small and very wealthy community
of west Over Hills. If youthought Rivercrest was rich, apparently west Over

(01:25:41):
Hills was like one of the richestareas of the country. Wow, it's
a suburb of Fort Worth. I'venever really heard of it, but I
mean I wouldn't because I'm not rich. I guess He has since remarried.
He also did end up starting hisown business, that construction supply company,
and it was a he got aroundto doing it, yeah, and it
was a incredible success and he isstill in business today. Well good for

(01:26:04):
Jack. Jack has also served onthe City Council of west Over Hills since
twenty twelve. Karen Coslow's legacy,meanwhile, continues to live on in Fort
Worth. Before her death, Karenhad been working on a concept for a
charity fashion show to benefit the TexasBallet Theater, and the event was actually

(01:26:26):
planned for March twenty fourth, justtwelve days after her murder. Well,
the company decided to continue Karen's workwhile paying their respects to Karen for all
of her hard work for them,so they created a huge annual event called
the Karen Coslow Fashion Show and Luncheon. It's a huge event where the ballet
dancers model, the designer's close andyou know, it's a huge charity thing.

(01:26:51):
Lots of people and the whole enterprisebenefits the company's scholarship program. Oh
wow, that's amazing. Yeah.It is actually one of the two holiday
fundraisers for the company held every year, the other one being the Two two
Chic in Dallas. Huh. That'sjust really interesting. I think I stopped
doing ballet around like nineteen ninety six, so that's interesting. I wonder if

(01:27:15):
any of my friends that I dancedwith, like we're in this fashion shows
maybe. Yeah. Wow. Inin nineteen ninety three, Karen's family donated
two bronze sculptures to the Fort WorthGarden Club. They were sculptures of two
young women. They're sort of supposedto look like goddesses or nymphs sort of
frolicking in the sun. And ifwe remember, the fort Worth Garden Club

(01:27:38):
was one of the organizations Karen workedwith. Yeah, the club in turn
arranged the sculptures to be installed atthe Fort Worth Botanic Garden. I was
wondering if that's what you were goingto say, because there are those big
bronze sculptures out there. Yes,they're just to the right of the main
entrance to the conservatory and they're setup as a little memorial to Karen Coslo's

(01:28:00):
amazing. I never knew that.I didn't know that either, and I
thought that was a really interesting sortof part of the of the history of
Fort Worth. We don't live thereanymore. We're still always back in town,
though, and of course it's acity that remains close to us because
we lived there, you know,practically our whole lives. Oh yeah,
and so many times, like mymom has been to the Botanic Gardens for
the Garden Club plant show, andlike we used to go up there all

(01:28:23):
the time to do stuff up there. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah,
I'm glad her legacy lives on.I'm glad that Jack is doing really well.
For himself. Absolutely, Yeah,that's awesome. That's just I feel
it feels so terrible about like whathappened to Karen though, and like everything
else, that's unfathomable to imagine somethinglike this ever happening. And of course

(01:28:45):
if you're Jack, like I don'teven know what you're thinking once you like
awake in the hospital and then youstart thinking they're coming after you and you're
innocent, and then you find outthat your daughter's involved and her boyfriend that
you just recently met. Just Imean, misery after misery for that poor
man is just awful. Yeah,what do you went through? Wow?

(01:29:05):
But you painted a really detailed picturefor us with the case that you presented
today, and it was really fascinating. Thank you so much. I really
appreciate that. I hope you allthought this was an interesting case and it's
certainly a historical one as well importantI think for the city for Worth.
Yeah, for sure, I definitelywent down memory lane a few times in

(01:29:28):
this episode. I knew most ofthe places you talked about today. I
know that was another thing too.Well. Thank you so much everyone,
And now it is time for somegood news, that's right, And I
know I love to cook. Doyou love to cook? Aaron M.
It's fine. Well, how aboutsome good cooking news? Okay, right
after this, Well, welcome backeverybody to the show and to the part

(01:30:09):
of the show that I really enjoy, which is the pick me up section.
This is good news, and today'sgood news story comes to us from
Sarah Acosta of KSAT News San Antonioand Vincent T. Davis of the San
Antonio Express News. Now, Aaron, both of us have worked in the
food industry, the service industry,restaurants, stuff like that. At some

(01:30:30):
point, I've worked in a coupleof upscale, professional chef run kitchens and
some excellent restaurants. And the atmospherein those can be extremely high pressure,
um, you know, tense,stressful. There's you know, sharp objects
flying around, dishes grew, thereare well sometimes I mean there's at least

(01:30:54):
you know, knives involved, andthere's plates that can break, glassware or
so on and so forth. It'snot the kind of environment that you would
expect to find like peace and focusand harmony in. But that's exactly the
environment the Victoria Taylor found when shefound professional cooking. Now, Victoria Taylor

(01:31:15):
is not an adult, yet sheis a twelve year old junior executive sus
chef in San Antonio. That soundsfancy, it is. It's a really
hard title to get and it usuallytakes till you're in your twenties or thirties
to become an executive sus chef.It's a high title to attain in the
culinary world. Now. Victoria hasbeen training in professional kitchens since she was

(01:31:40):
eight years old, and just thispast year, when she was eleven,
she was actually awarded the coveted titleof executive sus chef and her white coat
that has her name on it andthe professional organization that gave her the title
of sus chef. Also, forthe past two years, Victoria has not
only been competing in team cooking competitions, but also leading her team of junior

(01:32:04):
chefs that range between ten and seventeento several championships and culinary awards. So
she's like a team leader of thesejunior chefs. Wow, that's crazy.
And you know, this junior executivesus chef is also quite the entrepreneur,
as she has already started her owncatering business called chef Vicki. Now the

(01:32:26):
proceeds of this organization go to hercharity, and also her mother and her
sister help her run it, soshe's not doing this all by herself.
Though Victoria's future appears very bright now, it wasn't always that way. According
to her mother, Tori Warford,Victoria was diagnosed with ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity

(01:32:48):
disorder at an early age and itreally affected her. And you know,
her mom, Tori told KSAT Newsthat her daughter had been struggling with ADHD
for a while and she was lookingfor other options to help her out,
and she switched her over to adifferent educational program that had a local junior

(01:33:11):
chef program at the school. Andyou know, after she got into this
junior chef program, Victoria took toworking and training in the kitchen immediately,
saying, quote, it helps meto stay focused and helps my mind stay
off of bad things. I can'tplay in the kitchen. I have to
do things around heat. There's allkinds of stuff I have to worry about.
I have to be on my game. But I like to learn how

(01:33:33):
to make different food and learn newskills, and I pride myself on my
time in the kitchen. Now,after joining this program when she was eight,
Victoria went from having issues and failingin her classes to becoming a model
student in all of her classrooms anda straight A student. Really seemed to
have an effect on her school lifeand her day to day life. She

(01:33:54):
even cooks for her mom, who'sa single mom and has multiple kids,
and she makes all the meals athome so her mom doesn't have to when
she gets home from a long day'swork. Now this past year, Victoria
has catered several events, and sheprides herself on specializing in several different foods
from soul food to French and Mexicancuisines, and has even catered an all

(01:34:17):
vegan menu for an event. ThisValentine's Day, she took several orders for
romantic pre made dinners that were deliveredto homes all around San Antonio. And
as far as what's next, Victoriais saving up for college and already receiving
interest for scholarships to highly regarded culinaryschools. Her dreams include opening a restaurant

(01:34:38):
one day called Victoria's Cafe, andworking to develop cooking classes for other kids
who have ADHD. Like her quote, I want to help other people,
not only people with ADHD, becauseI suffer from ADHD, but because I
want people to know that if theywant to do a dream, you can.
You just have to pursue it.And sometimes people need to find their
way into cooking to pursue other thingsin their life. Well, that's so

(01:35:00):
sweet. That sounds really great thatshe found something that's so rewarding for her
at such a young age especially.Yeah. Yeah, and she's just so
well spoken and professional for like atwelve year old. It was very surprising.
I was like, Wow, she'salready an executive soux chef at the
age of twelve. That's absolutely incredible. And I love the idea of her
developing cooking classes for other neurodivergent children. It sounds like a really great opportunity

(01:35:25):
to help others in a way thatshe's been helped. Yeah, and I've
heard of other things similarly being donewith like art classes and stuff like that
for neurodivergent kids, and it's greatto do that in a cooking environment.
Yeah, that seems really cool.Well, excellent, congratulations. Yeah,
go Victoria. I can't wait toeat at Victoria's cafe the next time I'm

(01:35:46):
in San Antonio. Thanks for joiningus in the after show. We have
some lovely people who need to bethanked for just being so wonderful. That's
right, and that's our Patreon crew. Let's start off with our wonderful Texas

(01:36:09):
Rangers. Yes, let's do it. We have Amanda Mattaphord, Blue Hills
Ranch, Don Maloney, e gGaile Parker, Jamie Gray, Jennifer and
Magnolia, Jessica lay Field, LeahDardy, Mickey Sweet, and Sarah Nicholson.
Thank you Texas Rangers. Y'all areawesome. We love you so much.

(01:36:30):
And we also have some people thatneed shout outs, and those include
Meghan Romero, Jennifer Davidson, JohnRichie, Sheila Tubbs, and Leah Well.
Thank you so much everybody. We'llhave some more stuff for you next
month. We've got that two partercoming up. It's a big un It's
a big fish, so yeah,and hopefully it should be something interesting.

(01:36:55):
It's a case that we've wanted tocover for a while, so I'm I'm
excited to get into it. Yeah, it's a big case for sure,
But until next time, I thinkthat's all we have for now, So
always remember that crime is bigger inTexas, y'all audios, goodbye,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep 101: A Home Invaded

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Ep 101: A Home Invaded

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