Bill Mowbray Pt. One Ft. The True Crime Cat Lawyer

In this week's episode Elyse from the True Crime Cat Lawyer podcast breaks down the death of Bill Mowbray, who was shot in the head as he slept in 1987 while his wife Susie lay beside him. Strange inconsistencies would crop up early such as Susie's pristine white nightgown, marital strife, a lack of GSR & blood on Bill's right hand and a 1.8 million dollar life insurance policy. Susie would be convicted of his murder in 1988 but the story definitely doesn't end there. In this episode we go through the potential crime, the scene and the inconsistencies and in the next episode we will get into the legal wrangling that took place.

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Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Riddle Me That is a true crimepodcast that deals with adult themes. Some
episodes explore disturbing topics such as murder, abuse, sexual violence, drug abuse,
suicide, and self harm. Pleaselisten at your own risk. Theories
discussed in episodes may not be theopinion of the host. Hey, everyone,

(00:31):
before we get into the series,I just wanted to let everybody know
that Jusie Mowbray, who we're goingto be discussing at length here because this
is the death of her husband,Bill, was acquitted of these charges.
So anything stated in these episodes arethe opinions of me and a Lease based
on the evidence, but legally sheis not guilty of the crime, so

(00:54):
I just wanted to make that clear. I hope you enjoy these two episodes.
Welcome back to the show, Jewels, and this has Riddle Me That
true crime. So I'm really excitedtoday I'm welcoming back Elise from True Crime
Cat Lawyer Podcast. Welcome back tothe show, Elise. Thank you for
having me again, Jewels. I'mexcited to be back. So what case

(01:14):
are you going to be telling usabout today? Okay, So I'm super
excited because I didn't give you anyhints any clues. So I feel like
today's was total surprise for you.You're going to be kind of put in
the same seat as my listeners normallyare, So I'm going to be telling
you about I'm going to call ita mysterious death for right now. Oh,

(01:38):
those are some of my favorite casesbecause there's so much intrigue and possibility
as to what could have happened.And often on the other side, there's
family members who really want to getto the heart of what happened to their
loved one, and sometimes the policejust aren't investigating or there wasn't a proper
autopsy. So I'm really excited tohear about which case you have for us,

(02:00):
and I'm super excited to tell itbecause I truly don't know what happened
here, Like I really want todiscuss this with you, because it just
has so many questions in my brain. All right, well, let's get
into it. So I do wantto put an extra trigger warning here because
there will be discussion of suicide.So I just did want to, you

(02:23):
know, kind of highlight that upfrontfor people who that might be a trigger
for. But our story takes usto Brownsville, Texas. In the fall
of nineteen eighty seven, nine oneone received a frantic phone call from Freda
Susie Mowbray, who goes by Susie, So that's what we're going to refer
to her. As she made thiscall on September sixteenth, she tells the

(02:46):
nine one one operator that her husband, Bill shot himself while laying in bed
next to her. So when paramedicsand police arrive on scene, they find
Bill in his bed, laying onhis side with the covers pulled up to
his shoulder, so he's kind oftucked in in like a sleeping position essentially.

(03:08):
I mean, this seems, rightfrom the jump, like an odd
way for one to complete suicide.You don't hear often of cases where somebody
does it in bed next to theirloved one, right, And to me,
what's really weird too, is ifyou're doing it in bed, how

(03:29):
are the covers like still over you? Yeah, that doesn't really make any
sense. You'd think that you wouldhave you would be in a position so
that your arm would gain easy accessto your head, and that wouldn't involve
the covers over the head unless hewas trying to shield her from any you

(03:49):
know, blood spatter or brain matter, and he shot through the covers.
But it does seem odd. Yeah, So he had a gunshot wound to
his head, had entered through theright side of his head and exited the
left and it says wounded his lefthand. What I took that to mean

(04:09):
was it kind of like grazed hisleft hand, at least that's how I
took it. So his left handwas actually under his head with a pillow
between his head and his left hand. What so again, like it he's
in like a sleeping position. Thatjust doesn't seem to line up for me,

(04:30):
because, for one, if one'sgoing to choose to do that,
why would you put yourself in asleeping position, pull the covers over your
head, and then put your handunderneath or in the pathway of the bullet.
It just seems completely counterintuitive. Yeah, it's it's very bizarre to mean,
because you know, as they're kindof explaining this entry wound and you

(04:54):
know kind of what happened with theentry wound and what his body is looking
like when they come upon it,it's like you said, it doesn't make
sense that this is how someone woulddo that. No, And I mean,
I'm sure there is the exception toevery rule with regards to people who've
completed suicide, but it just everythingfrom the jump seems off the fact that

(05:17):
she's in bed with him. Mostpeople would never do that with their loved
one next to them. They're goingto go off and be on their own,
and sometimes a love one will findthem. But it's very very rare
to my understanding. And then toa couple that with the strange position of
the body, the covers the handunderneath the head. It's smelling a little
bit fishy, right, So ontop of that already fishiness, there's no

(05:45):
blood or brain matter on Bill's righthand. Well, that's odd because if
he's supposed to have shot himself,then where the gun enters, there should
be blood spatter and brain matter onthe hand of whomever put the muzzle right
up to his head. So ifthat was him that, how is there
none on his hand right? AndI think, you know, it makes

(06:09):
sense that there's none on the lefthand because it was found under this pillow
and presumably that's probably where it wasduring the whole event. But we'll later
find out that Bill is right handed, so if he's shooting himself from his
right hand. It's like you said, if you're shooting yourself in the head,

(06:30):
there's going to be brain matter bloodthat comes out and is probably going
to be on your hand from that. I just can't foresee a scenario in
which somebody could shoot themselves and endup with not a spot of blood spatter
or brain matter on their head.It just seems completely inconceivable because it's done
at such close range. Yeah,and I think it is even more confusing

(06:55):
because in the Mowbray's bedroom, Imean, it was a bloody mess,
Like I saw pictures from the crimescene, and the bed was just covered
in blood, which you would expectfrom this kind of event. But it's
just it's like you said, howis there blood everywhere all over the sheets
the bed, but he doesn't haveany blood on his hands. None of

(07:19):
this makes any sense. And Ibet you're going to go deeper into who
these two people are and what thedynamic between them was. Oh yes,
So before we get there, though, something I found just I guess it's
not a impossibility, but remarkably,Bill was actually still alive and breathing when

(07:40):
paramedics got to the scene. PoorBill. You hear that sometimes about people
who've been shot in the head andin an attempt to complete suicide and they
end up living. Can you imagineif he's all cognizant of what's going on,
how horrific that would be. Yeah, And that's why I was just

(08:03):
beside myself, because I can onlyimagine, even if you're intending to commit
suicide, if it doesn't happen rightaway, just sort of realizing that to
yourself has got to be just overwhelmingmentally and emotionally. I can't even imagine
what was going through his head ifhe was clearly able to have thoughts at

(08:26):
that point. So paramedics performed alllife saving measures that they could, but
unfortunately Bill was pronounced dead at thehospital. So, like I mentioned,
there was blood everywhere. There wasblood on the ceiling and the ceiling fan
in the bedroom and the bed wasjust covered in blood. And according to

(08:48):
Susie, Bill had emotional and mentalissues and because of this, she was
confident that he committed suicide. Imean, is there any group to back
up her claims of him having anyemotional or psychological issues? So there is
When they spoke to some of Bill'sother friends and family. He had attempted

(09:13):
suicide at least one other time,and so there was evidence that he did
have some suicidal intent at some point. And we'll get more into kind of
the other issues in a little bit, but based on everything that they were
kind of seen at the scene atleast initially, and everything that Susie had

(09:35):
told them, which I think itwas mostly what Susie had told them,
they viewed the case initially as asuicide. So because of that, they
didn't properly secure the crime scene,and Susie was allowed to stay in the
house. Do you know if Fayswabbed her hands for gunpowder, residue or
did any of those things? SoI was not able to find that anywhere,

(10:01):
and I hope so, but myinclination is because I couldn't find it
anywhere. Probably not another thing too. If she was lying in bed next
to him, she should have bloodspatter and brain matter all over her.
Do you know if she did.Yes, So to answer that question,

(10:22):
there is an argument for why shedidn't. Apparently Bill had some chronic back
problems and so they actually slept withlike a wall of pillows between them,
and so that sort of was whatthey came to conclude was that this wall
of pillows kind of prevented any bloodspatter or brain matter from getting onto Susie.

(10:48):
Well, that's interesting. I mean, I guess that totally makes sense,
or she managed to clean herself upif she was indeed responsible, because
it seems like there should be somespray of blood spatter and brain matter and
we're not seeing it on the righthand and the wound is on the right
side. So either it's this miraculouswound that didn't spray any blood, or

(11:11):
there's just something not quite lining uphere. It seems to be possible that
maybe somebody's using his past history ofmental health issues and a potential other suicide
attempt maybe at least on one occasion, that it's like, okay, well
it's easy to slide into oh wellthat's what happened here, you know,
open and shut. This is somebodywho had mental health issues, they're suicidal,

(11:33):
they killed themselves, open shut,case boom. But it doesn't mean
just because somebody had mental health issuesand attempted suicide on another occasion that they
couldn't be murdered, right, AndI think that's a great point to make.
And something else that I will noteis that from everything I read and

(11:54):
watched, I only got this pillowwall information from what Susie reported to police.
So I didn't see anything else aboutwhether any other family members or friends.
I know it's kind of a privatething, but at the same time,

(12:15):
it's like nobody really corroborated that,do you know, at the scene.
So there was a pillow wall built, yes, but we don't know
if this pillow wall was built bySusie in an attempt to shield herself from
any blood spatter or brain matter ifshe was intending, if she did,

(12:35):
say, for example, kill Bill. If she did that, then maybe
it was just sort of this preemptivething that she was like, Okay,
well, if I'm going to tryto, I don't know, take suspicion
off myself. I don't want tobe covered in blood spatter and brain matter
because maybe that doesn't look good.So she just built it that night.
I don't know. It would benice to know if there was like some

(12:56):
kind of corroborating witness who could say, oh, yeah, this was the
thing that they did. Yes,And I'm so glad you brought that up
because I was going to bring upthat point too, that it absolutely could
have just been she built it thatnight because she planned to kill him,
and Bill's no longer here, sohe can't corroborate it, and she easily

(13:18):
could have built it, shot him, then called police and you know,
said, oh, yeah, wealways do this. Nobody else, at
least from what I read, wasable to contradict that. That's so frustrating
in so many cases when the personwho's left behind, who is believed by
some to be the murderer, isthe only one left and they make all

(13:39):
this testimony, but the person who'sdead can't refute that testimony. It's so
frustrating. I just covered Jody Ariuson my show and so yes, agreed.
But one of the things that's sofrustrating about that case is that Jody
is the only one that's around tobe able to tell us what happened.

(14:01):
You know, Travis is dead.He can't tell us what happened and why.
And it's like, in this case, maybe it happened the way Susie
said, but we can only gobased on what Susie's telling us because Bill
is no longer here. Yeah,Bill can't speak to what his relationship with
Susie was like if there was apillow wall and what exactly went down that
night. Because Bill's dead, whetherconveniently or inconveniently for Susie, I guess

(14:26):
that remains to be seen. Right. So, like I said, the
crime scene wasn't properly secured because youknow, in their minds, they kind
of had no reason too, becausethey thought it was a suicide. And
so they tell Susie they're going tobe back the next day to collect additional
evidence and further examined the crime scene. So I think this was kind of

(14:48):
the way I took it. Inthe series that I watched was kind of
more out of respect for her becausethey were treating this as a suicide.
They wanted to kind of give herprivacy and things like that. That can
be hard, right when you believeinitially that it's a suicide. You want
to be very respectful because we havesomebody left behind who has potentially suffered a

(15:11):
great deal of trauma. If Susiehad nothing to do with it, and
if Bill did indeed kill himself,if you imagine for a moment what that
would feel like. You wake upin bed and you're not covered in blood
because you have this pillow wall built, but the person that you love is
lying beside you, and they choseto complete suicide in bed next to you.

(15:33):
Like how catastrophic an impact that wouldhave on somebody, And then for
the cops to come in and belike, we're examining this as a murderer.
I think they're trying to, likeyou said, be as respectful as
they can. But in a situationlike that, until you have all the
evidence, you can't determine if whatshe's saying is based in fact or if
she's an unreliable narrator. So Ithink the police wrongly decided to return the

(15:58):
next day and they should have treatedit as a crime scene and then let
the evidence tell them otherwise exactly.And I think you're right. We see
it in so many cases where Ijust in all of the time I've been
doing my podcast, I've read somany times over and over that you should
always treat a crime scene like it'sthe most severe crime, like it's a

(16:22):
homicide, and work your way downfrom there, because it's better to overcollect
evidence than to try to go backand recollect evidence. You know, if
you're always treating it like it's amurder, you're going to be super vigilant
about collecting everything because you don't knowwhat's important. But if you're treating it

(16:42):
like a suicide, you're probably goingto miss a ton of things that may
help you prove a homicide case later. Yeah, if we see that so
often, and the police are oftenleft with not enough evidence to prove it
either way. And if they hadjust initially take in the proper forensic evidence
and secured it as a crime scene, took a ton of photos like you

(17:04):
did, say, there was aphoto that you saw and it was extremely
bloody, but it seems likely thatthey probably didn't take nearly as many as
if they had believed that a crimehad indeed occurred, Right, And what's
really odd is that I saw alot of, like I said, the
pictures of the actual bed and bettingitself, but I didn't actually see any

(17:26):
pictures that they took of the bloodspatter that was on the ceiling and the
ceiling fan. Oh, that wouldhave been extremely useful. Right if we're
thinking that maybe potentially Bill shot himself. Okay, well, there's going to
be a certain directionality to the spatter, and depending on if Susie had indeed
done it, potentially there would bea different directionality depending on how she was

(17:49):
faced. I mean, it couldbe the same. She could have just
ducked under that pillow wall I decidedto do it, and then went and
cleaned her hands off and maybe cleanedthe gun put it in his had.
I don't know how the gun wasfound, but it seems like she had
maybe the time to do that beforeshe called nine one one. Yeah,
So the gun was found lying ina pool of blood next to Bill,

(18:15):
and it wasn't like in a weirdplace, and we'll kind of talk about
how it got there in a littlebit. But the big problem of not
taking pictures of the blood spatter onthe ceiling and not securing the crime scene
comes the next day when police arriveat the Mowbray residence because they received an
interesting call from Bill's daughter, Kristen. Now, just to be clear,

(18:38):
Kristen is a Bill's daughter from apast relationship. She's not Susie's biological daughter.
So when Kristen got to her father'shouse the day after he died,
she found Susie and some of herfriends painting over the blood spatter evidence in
the bedroom, oh dear. Andthis is one of those things where it's

(19:00):
like I can understand from the perspectiveof families and those around who want to
help clean up any reminder, likeif it was indeed a suicide, you
would want to strip every reminder awaythat the person that you love died here.
So I understand it from that perspective. But when we're looking at it
from this perspective of constantly dissecting truecrime cases, we're like, no,

(19:25):
this is potential evidence, and thepolice are supposed to be coming back to
check this out. What are youdoing? Absolutely, And Susie and her
friends, they obviously don't see anythingwrong with what they were doing. Basically,
what they say is Susie's children arecoming to be with her. They're
like teenagers around this time, andso she didn't want them to see the

(19:48):
blood spatter in the bedroom, whichyou know, mothers want to protect their
children, and I completely understand.But the police haven't come back through and
elected their evidence yet, so you'rekind of jumping the gun on cleaning up
the scene. I get the sentimentbehind it one hundred percent, and I

(20:10):
get this is a great deal oftrauma. You want to protect your children.
But at the same time, sheknew full well that the police were
coming back to basically collect any additionalevidence, So she should have waited for
the police to come and give thego ahead to paint over the blood spatter,
and she didn't do that. Soit does look a little bit sketchy,
right. And one of the otherthings they said was the bedroom wasn't

(20:33):
marked off with crime scene tape.But it's like you said, in my
mind, it doesn't really need tobe blocked off because you know that they're
coming back and that's where the deathoccurred, So of course they're going to
want to go back in that bedroomand examine it and collect more evidence.
It's the point of emphasis for them. Yeah, it doesn't really make a

(20:57):
lot of sense to me. Ido get it, and I do get
that families have gone through a greatdeal of trauma. Susie is potentially,
if she had nothing to do withthis, she's gone through a great deal
of trauma, and that you neverdo know how you're going to react in
a situation such as that until youyourself are in it. So it's so
easy to judge the actions of othersand I don't think I would judge her

(21:18):
on just this. I think it'sjust the totality perhaps of everything I'm looking
at and going some questionable stuff here. Yeah, and I also I understand
her friends wanting to help her too, you know, like you've said before,
trying to be supportive and be therefor their friend when she's going through

(21:38):
this. But at the same time, I would kind of hope that my
friends would say, you know,Suthie, I completely understand where you're coming
from, and I really want tobe there for you. But the police
haven't even come through and like finishedprocessing the scene. So maybe we table
this, we've closed the bedroom doors, we just leave this to the police,

(21:59):
and then when they're done, I'mhappy to help you paint or you
know, whatever it is we needto do, but I've got to let
the police do their jobs first.Yeah, you would hope that somebody would
be the voice of reason and theywould step in and go, Okay,
well the police are returning. Waitso the police return, and then we
will happily help you clean this bloodand then paint over it. Because people

(22:22):
often think, oh, there's acrime scene, so it's going to get
cleaned up. Oh, no,that falls on the family. You often
have to hire a crime scene cleanup to come in and do that for
you, otherwise you're left with thisbig mess. It doesn't just magically disappear.
And it's one of those things youdon't really consider until you've studied these
cases, that these family members canbe left with not only the great trauma

(22:44):
of a situation such as a suicide, but they are also left with the
heavy burden of cleaning that up.Right, And so I do you know,
I give compassion to her, likeyou were saying before, because it
is a very traumatic situation, andI stand completely wanting to kind of quote
unquote move on from that situation.But of course, like US, police

(23:07):
found this super suspicious, so theystarted moving away from the suicide theory and
started looking at the case through thelens of an intentional killing. So of
course they don't have photos of theceiling and the ceiling fan, but they
do collect the bedsheets, the pillows, and Susie's white nightgown to be taken

(23:30):
to be analyzed by the forensics lab. So while they're waiting for things to
be processed, they of course continuetheir investigation. They interview friends, family,
everyone who knew Bill trying to geta better picture of who he was
so they could figure out what happenedon the night he died. So Bill

(23:51):
was somewhat of a local celebrity inBrownsville. He owned a Cadillac dealership and
he was well respected in the community. Friends and family described the Mowbrays as
a loving, blended family. Susiebrought two kids from a prior marriage,
Wade and Cricket, and Bill broughthis daughter, Kristen. But despite his

(24:12):
successes, it seemed that Bill hadan overspending problem. So this is where
the financial issues come in for Bill. According to one source, Bill had
a double loan on the inventory athis Cadillac dealership, which in the documentary

(24:33):
I was watching, they kind ofmade it seem like that was a big
no no, like you weren't allowedto do that. What's it? Double
loan? Is that like mortgaging yourhouse a second time? Kind of how
they explained it was that he hasthis dealership, which you know, I'm
sure you've seen what a dealership lookslike. So the cars that they have
and where they're put on the lotessentially is called a floor plan, and

(24:59):
so he took out a loan onthe floor plan, which it sounds like
you're allowed to do just to kindof it sounds like a security measure to
make sure that you have kind ofbackup money if something happened to like a
car, you know, if somebodybroken or some kind of natural disaster destroyed
a car something like that, tokind of be able to replace it if

(25:21):
necessary. But it sounds like youcan only have one of those at a
time. So it's not like gettingthe second mortgage in your house, where
you know you're allowed to do that. I don't think you're allowed to do
that in the context of like yourdealership inventory. So it's sort of like
a house of cards. Things couldjust come tumbling down at any point in

(25:42):
time. Yeah, so they madeit sound like he was like double dipping,
which you weren't really supposed to bedoing. So essentially his financial troubles
had pushed himself and the dealership tothe brink of collapsing. This sort of
double loan information was starting to arousethe suspicions of the government, the irs,

(26:08):
and so that's kind of where thingsstood at the time of Bill's death.
Well, that's a huge load forsomebody to be taking on when you
feel like the walls are closing in, when you've taken out all of these
loans and basically your means by whichto live, which is your car dealership,

(26:30):
clearly isn't making the money that itshould be for the amount that he's
overextended himself. So financial reasons canbe a great motivator for people to take
drastic actions and sometimes do things thatare very destructive, such as attempt suicide.
Right, and like I had mentioned, he's well known, well respected

(26:52):
in the community. One of thethings I was watching had mentioned that if
you owned a Cadillac in this area, you got it from Bill's dealership,
Like he was that well known andrespected for his Cadillacs. So to have,
like you said, the walls closingin, and not just having your

(27:14):
financial troubles, I mean those arehard enough on their own, but also
realizing that if you go through financialruins and your dealership's taken away from you
or something like that, you knowyour reputation is going to be tarnished as
well. I think that's a greatpoint because if he's got a huge amount
of his sense of identity wrapped upin being this Bill, this local celebrity

(27:38):
Bill who's affluent, Bill who ownsthe Cadillac dealership, and all of a
sudden that changes. But if thedealership is taken away, so all of
a sudden, a piece of whohe is then is going to shift entirely
and might have a very negative impacton how he sees himself, right,
And I think to it just theway our society is, it's so embarrassing

(28:04):
to talk about not having money.It's shameful in our society, right,
right, And so being in thisposition where you're going to lose your wealth,
your status, like I'm sure inhis mind he was thinking, like
I'm going to be poor. That'sdevastating. I don't want to be poor.
Just having that feeling too, youknow, Like you said, it's

(28:26):
looked down upon to not be ofa particular wealth status, to have it
and then to lose it, right, it almost feels like you got to
this level and then you came crashingdown, and you would almost feel the
judgment directed from other people, right. And I think we see a lot
of times too in different cases,not necessarily true crime cases, but just

(28:51):
kind of generally in society when somebodywho's a little more affluent loses their money.
They often lose their friends too.Yeah, totally, because you end
up being in different I'm going tosay, like quote social class. There
aren't actual classes here, but they'rekind of are. So people will often

(29:11):
be friends with people who are likethem, you know, who earn a
similar salary, have a similar typeof job. You don't often see somebody
who's a maid friends with somebody who'sa CEO. That's just not typically the
way things go in our society.Right. So, meanwhile, in the
coroner's office, an autopsy was performedon Bill. In his report, the

(29:33):
coroner stated that if Bill had shothimself, there would have been blood and
brain matter on his right hand,fingers, and forearm, but like I
talked about earlier, there wasn't any. And I also mentioned earlier that Bill
was right handed, so presumably ifhe'd shot himself, he would have done
so with his right hand. Butthere wasn't any gunshot residue found on Bill's

(30:00):
right hand. Ooh, that's new. So not only does he have no
blood, no brain matter, buthe also has no gunshot residue. Wow.
Right, And again, it's certainlypossible for someone to shoot themselves with
an opposite hand then their dominant hand. But I think in this case you

(30:23):
don't have any evidence on the righthand, and then the left hand is
one has a wound on it andtwo is under his head and his pillow.
Yeah, you can't make the argumentfor it in this case, right.
So, based on these findings,the coroner issued a death certificate ruling

(30:45):
Bill's death as a homicide. Ohwell, that must have really shook things
up for the investigators. Oh yeah, So, not only do we have
the coroner's report. About seven weeksBill died, a blood spatter expert named
Dusty Heske completed his report of thetesting of Susie's nightgown. So I want

(31:11):
to just go back before. I'mnot sure if I mentioned it, but
this nightgown is a white nightgown,and so to the naked eye, there
was nothing on this nightgown, whichis why it was analyzed and processed by
the forensics team. So Hescu statedthat his luminal testing of the nightgown showed

(31:36):
minuscule specs of what he believed wasblood. So again, this alleged blood
spatter wasn't visible to the naked eye. So Hescu had to actually circle the
location of these specs on the whitenightgown. Well, I mean it's I
just know so little about i mean, blood spatter analysis and blood spatter experts,

(31:57):
and it's so contra virtial and there'sso much subjectivity involved with that.
And we know that they didn't investigateexactly how she was lying at the time,
where only relying on her testimony.So I don't know how much we
can deduce from the blood spatter onthe nightgown. And like, what was
so interesting to me was that basicallyif you looked at this white nightgown,

(32:22):
it was pristine. You couldn't seeany spots or any specs. Like when
I was looking at the pictures atthe trial, I mean I couldn't even
see anything when he had circled theso called specs. So we're definitely going
to talk about the luminal and bloodtesting in forensics as we go along.

(32:45):
Just one more question before we goany further. So we talked about it
a little bit earlier with the pillowwall. So she's saying that she was
sleeping and there was a pillow wallbetween them, but that doesn't really make
sense. Why there would be apillow wall between their heads, right,
Like, I understand if he's gotback problems and there's a pillow wall built
over your bodies, but why wouldyou have it all the way up to

(33:06):
the head. That just seems strange. It seems like she should have been
if she lay either on her backor she laid on her back, she
should have blood spatter on the sideof her face, and if she lay
on her side, she should haveit in her hair. Do you know
what I mean? It doesn't makeany sense why a back problem would make
for you having to put a pillowwall between your heads. Yeah, I

(33:28):
mean the only thing I can thinkof is that maybe they didn't want to
see each other and so they justyou know, made it as complete as
possible. But I just sleep inseparate beds at this point, right.
It just it's very strange because,like you said, if you're building a
whole wall from your head to yourback, why, Yeah, Well,

(33:52):
the second of all, if you'renot starting at the head and you're starting
kind of more around the neck areato the back, why isn't there anything
on her? Yeah, it's justeverything just doesn't really seem to be lining
up here with the story that she'stelling. Right. So, about a

(34:12):
week after the blood spatter expert makeshis report, they do two blood tests
on the nightgown and both of thesetests came back negative. Well, that's
interesting, shouldn't they if the expertwho forensically examined it and said there was
microscopic drops of blood, shouldn't theythen have the technology to be able to

(34:34):
deduce if that is indeed blood ornot? You would think so. The
lab tech stated that the negative resultscould have resulted from the excessive testing that
the nightgown underwent. Oh yeah,because you only get so much testing before
it can ruin the sample, correct, right, And so he also said

(34:55):
that it was possible the gunshot residueesteem that they performed on the nightgown also
could have destroyed the protein in theblood, and so that also could have
created negative results. Because it seemslike there must have been blood on the
nightgown. Either way you look atit, you know whether it was microscopic

(35:15):
or not. I just don't evenbelieve if she was behind wall of pillows,
that some microscopic droplets wouldn't have landedon her nightgown. Yeah, and
so I didn't mention this yet,so I'll mention it here. The nightgown
was probably like knee length, dependingon how tall she was, but the

(35:37):
little spots that they found were atthe bottom of it, So that also
is really interesting to me. That'sstrange. That's not really where I would
expect. No, I guess bloodcan travel quite far, and try to
understand the physics behind it is verycomplex, but I would still think if

(35:58):
you're going to find blood draw oupletsthere, you should find them higher up
to right, closer to the pointof impact of the shot, which should
be closer to her head, andcloser to the top of the nightgown.
And from what I could tell,it was only found in like if you're
looking at it face up, juststaring at the nightgown, it was the
lower left side of the nightgown thathad these little spots. That's strange.

(36:24):
Yeah, okay, so lower leftOkay, So he was thought too shot
himself right to left. She wason his right side. Yes, she
was on his right side. Ifyou're looking at it from his point of
view, it would have been onhis right. But if you're looking at
it straight on and you come intothe room and you see the bed,

(36:45):
she would have been on the leftside and he was on the right side
of the bed. So to getit on her left side of her nightgown,
she would have to be on herback, because that would make sense
that the left side would be facingand would be more exposed to the blood
droplets. I'm guessing so even ifshe did indeed, if we're going to
go with a theory that she didit, she could have kind of leaned

(37:05):
over behind the pillow wall and pointedthe gun and then you did so well,
she was kind of on her back, thinking that that would be maybe
the most believable position if indeed anyof the blood did end up on her
nightgown, right, I think noneof it makes sense. No, none
of it makes sense. I mean, I know how I'm feeling about it
now most of the listeners are likelyfeeling too, is that this could not

(37:30):
be a suicide. It just Billforensics behind it, the hand, the
lack of brain matter and blood spatter, the hand underneath his head on the
pillow, choosing to do it inbed next to Susie. It just doesn't
make any sense to me. Itdoesn't. So the prosecution hired the internationally
renowned blood spatter expert Herbert McDonald andhe testified in the oj Simpson trial,

(37:55):
so he's definitely a big deal.So they hired him to review and analyze
the nightgown. Now, he reviewedHescu's report and he also examined the nightgown
for himself, of course, sohe basically concluded that the luminol staining procedure
that Hescu used wasn't a reliable methodto examine and test blood spatter evidence.

(38:22):
He explained that luminol can react withsubstances other than blood, and none of
the testing that had been performed upuntil that time confirmed that these quote unquote
specs that they found were actually blood. So I guess if she's got no
blood on her, then that couldlead to the potential that she cleaned up

(38:44):
after Yes, and one thing thatdoesn't really get brought up at trial or
before trial really anywhere. I justthought it kind of mentioned once is that
McDonnell kind of anecdotally told an officerthat he believed Susie was naked when she

(39:07):
shot Bill. Well, that wouldmake sense. It would be a lot
easier to shower off and to cleanup if you didn't have to dispose of
any clothing. But if you alsohave everybody believing it's a suicide, you've
got plenty of time to get ridof evidence, right, And I wasn't
able to find I mean, hewas still alive. So obviously she didn't

(39:30):
wait a significant amount of time beforecalling nine one one, But I mean
she still could have gotten rid ofevidence, cleaned herself off something like that
in theory, if you're going todo something like that, I mean you
very easily. Sure, you couldbe naked, or you could be wearing
clothes you plan on disposing of,and you also could wear something like a

(39:52):
plastic shower cap if you don't wantto get it in your hair, because
you could very easily wash it offyour face, but you can't get it
out of your hair very easily.So there's plenty of things they could have
happened, but we're never going toknow the truth because they didn't treat it
as a crime scene, right.So, because McDonald's report didn't fit the

(40:13):
prosecution's narrative, they decided not tocall him as a witness at trial,
and they actually didn't even turn overhis report to the defense until two weeks
before the trial. Was supposed tohappen, even though they had the report
months before the trial. What isthat that they call it exculpatory evidence?

(40:35):
Yes, yeah, so when youdon't do that as a prosecutor, I
mean they did eventually do it,then it would result in the Brady violation.
But do you know or do youhave a feeling as to why they
held that back. I think inthis case, based on everything I read,
they really wanted to push their experthescue and having this sort of report
out there about McDonald was hurtful tothat, you know, is undermining his

(41:00):
testimony essentially, So I think justkind of prolonging the inevitable seemed to be
what it was. Yeah, that'sinteresting because it just seems like a really
bad play. You're either are goingto use it or you're not, but
just waiting till that last moment,and I don't know, a bid to
have them be overloaded with stuff thatyou've probably released that maybe they don't even

(41:24):
get to that, right, whichis obviously super shady. Yeah, well
you're a lawyer. Look, don'tlawyers actually do that to the other side
when they're trying to have them avoidone piece that could be useful. Is
just released so much information so theydon't have time to go through everything.
Absolutely. So speaking of the trial, let's get into the prosecution's case and

(41:49):
find out why they think Bill wasmurdered. So it is true that Susie
called nine one one on the nightof Bill's death, but nine one one
wasn't her first call. Who washer first call? She actually called Bill's
assistant Luke before she called nine oneone. I'm sorry what So? Luke

(42:10):
was Bill's business partner and like hisright hand man, and he knew about,
you know, the prior suicide attemptsand Bill's financial issues and all that.
So that's why Susie said she calledhim first. I would think are
they having an affair or something?So I never saw anything about that.

(42:35):
Basically, I think he just waskind of the It seemed like he was
kind of the cleanup man maybe forthem, and maybe to some extent she
was trying to sort of call someonewho knew about his suicide history to kind
of bolster her claim. It justseems like an odd order in which to

(42:58):
call people. What kind of assistancecan he render at this point in time,
like call nine one one and thencall him if you want to bolster
your narrative. Yeah, And heactually was like when she called him and
got on the phone, he waslike, call nine one one. Like
it didn't seem to register in hermind that like nine one one was who

(43:20):
you should call. This reminds meof the Ellen Greenberg case where the boyfriend
calls his uncle who's a lawyer orwhatever first, or the fiance does,
and it's sort of like, whywould you ever call any other number besides
nine one one. It just alwaysraises all the red flags for me.
Yeah, And like even if youthink that this is a suicide and he

(43:43):
killed himself, I mean, don'tyou want help? Like hello, I
know you talked about like just Imean, if there's something that can be
done to save his life, don'tyou want that to happen? I mean
it usually people are going to dosome thing in the order that it is
important to them. And what seemsto be important to her is bolstering her

(44:06):
narrative before rendering assistance to Bill,who is still alive at this point,
right. And so that's definitely somethingthat the prosecution points out, is that
she doesn't call nine uder one first, She doesn't do anything to help Bill,
even though he's still alive. Imean, obviously he shot himself in

(44:28):
the head or he's been shot inthe head, so you're probably not going
to be able to save him.I do understand that, but I would
want to try to stop the bleedingas best as I could, like,
do whatever I could to try andhelp this person. You would think that
you would find someone cradling their lovedone, crying, screaming, covered in

(44:49):
their blood, do you know whatI mean? Because people in a situation
like that, you never know howyou're going to react, and people always
think, oh, preserve the scenefor law enforcement. No, that's not
how family members feel when their lovedone dies or they're very gravely injured in
front of you, and you mightbe able to help. I would think
you're going to be trying to stopthe bleeding cradling them. She should have

(45:12):
been covered in his blood. Thefact that her nightgown is pristine is so
bizarre. Yeah, And I thinkthat's the most telling that she very clearly
did not help him, because,like you said, his side of the
bed was just covered in blood.If you were over there trying to stop
the bleeding, or like you said, even just cradling him, because you're

(45:35):
so distraught that this has happened,you would have blood all over you.
Yeah, it's more suspicious that she'sgot absolutely no blood on her, because
I can understand, even if thispillow wall thing is actually based in fact
and we're going to go with that, I could buy that she wouldn't be
covered in blood from that. Butthen after that, what makes you not

(45:57):
run to Bill, what makes younot try to render assist, and what
makes you not try to call nineone one as your first call? None
of these things are looking good forSusie. Well, it's not going to
get any better for her because whensome of the initial first responders arrived on
the scene, they actually said thatthey found Susie smoking a cigarette with a

(46:20):
drink in her hand. Geez,I mean no shade to how people are
going to react when there are certainsituations like this. But he's not dead
yet, He's still alive. You'resmoking a cigarette just leisurely and zip in
a cocktail. That seems so strangewhen he isn't even deceased. I could
see if he was deceased and shewas just in the midst of her grief.

(46:44):
And like, I need to pourmyself a drink. Some people are
drinkers, some people are smokers.Okay, I could buy that, but
not in a situation where he's stillalive, probably sputtering for breath, right.
And I think that's the biggest redflag is that all of these things
are piling up while we're looking atthe time frame in which Bill was still

(47:06):
alive again, like she wasn't gonnabe able to save him, for sure,
I completely understand that. But thefact that you're just kind of out
there smoking a cigarette and drinking andnine one one is not your first call.
It's not making you look great,No, it certainly is not.

(47:27):
It just seems like she's not ina hurry. And then you have to
wonder, is she not in ahurry because she wants him to die because
she doesn't want there to be achance that he then survives and tells them
that he didn't do this if heregains his memory. So I think it
seems from the outsider looking in thatshe had invested interest in taking her damn
time exactly. So. The prosecutionalso had evidence of Bill's infidelity and past

(47:57):
affairs, which Susie knew about Ohthat can be a motivator, can't it.
Yes, So of course this is, you know, just once again
compiling on the evidence that they have. So she actually moved herself and her
kids to Austin, Texas for aboutnine months before she came back to Brownsville.

(48:19):
Now, according to Susie and herfriends, Bill begged her to come
back so they could work things out, and he was apologetic all of that.
But according to others, Susie onlycame back so that the couple could
discuss what a divorce proceeding would looklike and how they would divide their assets.

(48:39):
Well, I guess if you weregoing to divide them two ways,
now you're only dividing them one wayand lending credence to the division of assets
being the reason for Susie's return.A few months before Bill died, Susie
inquired about Bill's life insurance policy forthe first time in their marriage. Oh

(49:00):
dear, it's just adding up,isn't it It is? I think for
the first time really stood out toinvestigators. If you're someone who kind of
regularly inquires about a person's life insurancepolicy, you know, maybe you make
yearly calls where you're sort of like, I just want to make sure this

(49:21):
policy is paid up, who's onit, you know, make sure we're
all up to date, that kindof thing. I think that would have
not looked so suspicious. Yeah,but just to out of the blue be
suddenly interested in the type of moneythat you're going to receive when you two
were talking about a divorce, right, So of course she wanted to know

(49:43):
how much the payout was and whothe beneficiaries were. Well, Susie found
out that she was the beneficiary ofthe policy, but Bill with planning on
changing the beneficiary to his daughter Kristen, so there so basically there was a
clock on this. She had toact quickly, if that is indeed what

(50:05):
she did. Correct, So Billdied before that change could be made.
Well, that's certainly convenient, isn'tit. It is. One of his
attorneys was interviewed in the Oxygen specialthat I watched, and from what it
sounded like he was trying to putthe change into motion. But you know,

(50:28):
as we all know, these thingscan take time and it just kind
of hadn't been finalized, is whatit sounded like to me. Why would
he be in a rush to doit. He doesn't assume that somebody's going
to kill him for his life insurance. He's just going, Okay, we're
going to be getting a divorce.It makes sense to switch the beneficiary to
my daughter, Kristen. But he'snot thinking in the back of his mind

(50:50):
that there's a threat to his lifewhile the beneficiary is still Susy. Right.
So she finds out that the valueof the life insurance policy was around
one point eight million. Oh that'sa pretty healthy life insurance policy. So
this plays right into prosecutor's hands thatmoney was the motive for murder. So

(51:15):
I think one by itself, thislife insurance policy and its value is a
motive all on its own. ButI think coupled with the fact that the
dealership and his business is not inthe best financial position, I think that
sort of lends itself to the argumentthat she needed to get this life insurance

(51:39):
policy payout because she probably wasn't goingto get anything from the business when they
divorced. Do you know if therewas a suicide indemnity clause in the life
insurance policy, Yes, there was, so when his attorney spoke in that
special she mentioned that he had herreview if there were suicide clauses in the

(52:04):
insurance policy, and there were,but they were more sort of the beginning
of the life insurance policy, kindof like when it was first enacted,
there was a certain period of timewhere if suicide was completed, they wouldn't
pay out. But she said bythe time Bill's death occurred in nineteen eighty

(52:27):
seven, that time had elapsed,so it wouldn't have been an issue.
So this is obviously a policy thathe's been paying into for quite some time.
And let me just say that thelife insurance premiums that he's going to
be paying on that are going tobe astronomical. When you go over that
one million mark, it is reallycrazy expensive. I haven't actually looked into

(52:50):
life insurance policies, but just kindof knowing insurance policies in general that are
more I guess, I don't wantto say optional, but they are kind
of optional. You know, youdon't have to have life insurance. It
definitely gets expensive, especially if you, like you said, you want to
have a fairly decent sum of money, you know, especially back in nineteen
eighty seven, I don't think onepoint eight million was anything to sneeze at

(53:13):
no. I think that's a prettybig or pretty hefty chunk of change.
I mean, I know about lifeinsurance policies because my husband has one,
because he's the one that makes mostof the money here. So you know,
we just like to know, Okay, well this is how much and
it is pretty expensive. Like Iwon't say the amount he's insured for,
but it is a lot of moneyper month. So I know that one

(53:35):
point eight million would cost a lot, especially for somebody who's going through a
precarious financial situation. As we know, the Bill was to be paying out
an extra like I don't know whatit would have been for him, maybe
fifteen hundred dollars a month for alife insurance policy that big, but it
will be a lot of money.They really played up the Mowbray's wealth and

(53:57):
status at the trial, and we'vekind of talked about that. You know,
they were from an affluent, wealthycommunity. They painted Susie as this
debutante and former homecoming queen, andthey told the jury that Bill spent extravagantly
on boats and shotguns and diving trips. So they sort of, you know,

(54:20):
said that Bill was spending beyond hismeans. But they also kind of
tried to make it seem like Susiewas a gold digger. But she came
from an affluent background, right shedid, And so I never saw what
exactly she did for a career,if she did anything, So I'm not

(54:42):
really sure if she had her ownmoney or her own career or anything like
that. She may have been relyingon Bill. In what year do you
know they got What year it wasit they got married, I am not
sure, like roughly roughly in thelate seventies, early eighties, so I

(55:07):
think you probably have more traditional genderroles at play then, So it could
be possible that she was just like, Okay, I'm going to be the
housewife and you're going to be thebreadwinner, and they settle into their roles
and everything is good until it isn't, and then all of a sudden,
everything is threatening to come crashing down. And not only would everything be taken
away from Bill, but it wouldalso be taken away from Susie, and

(55:30):
that would be a lot for somebodylike her to grapple with. I'm assuming,
right, and I think if shegoes through a divorce and she's obviously
you know, if Phil still alive, she's not going to get the insurance
policy if they're divorced, because hewill have changed it to Kristen by that
point. And if the business isreally doing as badly as everybody says it

(55:52):
was, he's probably not going tohave a lot of money. He had
a really nice house that he owned, maybe there's some value in that,
but he actually owned it outright,and she was never on any of documents.
So in my mind, it seemedlike maybe she saw that his death
would be more beneficial than a divorcebecause she's going to get more that way.

(56:15):
As terrible as that sounds, okay, So do you know how his
debts would then be taken care ofafter? Would they transfer to her?
So the debts on the dealership,would they then become her debts? They
could? It depends on how certainsituations. In this case, it sounded

(56:37):
like the dealership was bills and Luke'shis right hand man, and I don't
think that she was ever tied toany of it, So I think that
it would probably go to Luke,and then maybe if something happened to Luke,
maybe they could try to get itfrom Susie. But I think in
the case of the failed car dealership, the debts of the card dealership.

(57:00):
I think that is going to goto Luke if Bill's gone. But if
she's got fifty percent stake in itafter the fact, like if she then
inherits it, they're a fifty percentof the dealership, and say Luke has
the other half, then wouldn't shebe responsible If she wouldn't she essentially be
stepping in where Bill left off.If that's the way his will was structured,

(57:22):
Yeah, I think so, ButI think it's like you said,
only if the will structured that way, I don't know that, given that
he never put her on the house, I feel like he had something to
where the business wasn't going to behers either if something happened to him.

(57:42):
I obviously don't know this for sure, but just from everything I got,
it seemed like he really wanted tokeep certain things his and separate. And
you can shield the person, rightlike from the business. You can protect
yourself from all things go wrong withthe business. Only the business can be
sued and stuff you can't personally correct. So it would all kind of depend

(58:07):
on how his contracts and you know, the business dealership was kind of set
up and things like that. Soit is possible that maybe this wouldn't have
had any effect on her. ButI think the biggest part if she did
commit the crime is that she wouldn'treceive any financial or monetary proceeds from the

(58:30):
dealership. Yeah, I think thatwould exclude her. You don't get to
benefit off the depth of the spousein which you murdered, potentially, right,
So, prosecutors actually brought the mowbraisebloody mattress into the courtroom and they
had Heskew conduct a demonstration of whathe believed happened on the night of Bill's

(58:54):
death. So, based on thealleged blood spatter that he found the nightgown,
hescue and prosecutors believed that Susie hadstraddled Bill and then shot him.
That is quite the theory. Imean, it's of course, it's possible.
I mean, could explain some things, But can you imagine getting on

(59:16):
top of somebody, whether you lovethem in the past. I mean,
granted, I guess they're painting heras this woman scorned and she's angry because
of his repeated affairs, and nowthey're going to be dividing assets. She
maybe has just never forgiven him,and she's angry, and she's seeing this
as an opportunity to consolidate her ownwealth. And the thing that gives me

(59:39):
pause about this is, Okay,so she's straddling him, she shoots him.
I still don't understand how there's notmore blood. I mean, unless
we're going full balls to the walland she was completely naked and then washed

(01:00:00):
herself off afterwards. The clean nightgownis still just like so confusing in my
brain. I think it likely thatshe could have been wearing something else before.
I don't think most people are goingto think to commit a crime naked.
I just don't think they're going togo that far. I think they'll
wear something and then try to disposeof it. And I think maybe she

(01:00:20):
could have worn something else, stripthat off, put it in a bag,
hit it somewhere, knew that shewould be able to sell it as
suicide and then dispose of that evidencelater. I don't know, I don't.
It seems so strange to me thatshe would like jump on top straddle
him and do that, because thenhe could wake up. I would think
she would want to creep up ratherthan just jump on top of him.
And then put the gun to hishead and shoot him because he looked like

(01:00:43):
he didn't stir right. That handwas still under the pillow, So he's
still asleep. So if she's straddlinghim, he's likely going to wake up.
I think most people would wake upat that point, right, And
if you're allowing him time to wakeup, then aren't you also possibly giving
him the chance to fight with youover the gun? Yeah? I don't
think she was strattling him personally.I'm not an expert, but it just

(01:01:06):
doesn't seem to make any sense.Yeah, So here's what Susie explained about
why Bill's death didn't fit the evidenceor kind of the positioning his body was
found in. So when police initiallycame to the scene, she told them
that she saw Bill's elbow above thewall of pillows, and when she reached

(01:01:30):
over to touch him, he wasrigid, and so it was at that
point that the gunshot took place.Okay, Susie, I mean that doesn't
really make sense either, it doesn't, but let me continue. After the
gunshot, she went around to Bill'sside of the bed. She found that

(01:01:52):
something was wrong with his head,and she removed the gun and put it
in the spot where it was foundon the bed. I'm sorry, but
you didn't check to see if hehad a pulse, or you didn't check
to cradle him. Are you okayanything? You didn't call mine one one
right away. You just took thegun out of his hand. I think
what's done is done. That gunisn't going to be doing any more harm

(01:02:15):
to anybody. So the fact thatthat's what she did, but she didn't
go further to put her hands onhis face to check his pulse. There's
no blood on her No, thatjust didn't happen. I get that too.
It was probably dark because you knowthey were sleeping or whatever. But
if you felt enough to know thatsomething was wrong with his head, wouldn't

(01:02:37):
you probably have like blood on yourhands and you would be like, oh
my god, this is really serious. You'd smell it. You would smell
that blood, smell like copper inthe air. Yeah, like maybe I
need to call nine one one,like, and you'd feel wetness. You'd
take that gun. There should bewetness on that gun. I would think,
you know on his hand. Weknow that he wasn't holding that gun

(01:02:58):
because there's no bloods or a brainmatter on there, and there should have
been if he held it to hisgun. That's just like, there's just
no scenario by which he couldn't havegot any on his right hand. And
so she takes this gun out ofhis hand. Did she also wipe off
his hand? Not that she saidit's so weird. It just doesn't make
any sense. It really doesn't.So her defense a trial was all about

(01:03:22):
Bill's mental and financial issues, hishistory of suicide attempts, and they had
his therapists come and testify. Ithink it was his psychiatrist that came and
testified that he did have at leastone prior suicide attempt where he had actually
shot himself in the chest. Ohgeez, that is very extreme. So

(01:03:45):
it seems strange that somebody who ishaving suicidal thoughts or ideations it actually takes
active steps to try to end theirown life, would then have a gun
in the house. Yeah, AndI get like, maybe, if you're
that suicidal you have thoughts rising tothe degree of actually making plans and taking

(01:04:09):
steps, you're probably going to tryto find any way you can to access
something like that. But as aloved one, if you know that this
person has attempted suicide in the past, and has attempted suicide with a gun
in the past. Like you said, I would think that you would either
not want to have guns, althoughthis is Texas, I don't think that's

(01:04:29):
a possibility, but having them securedin a way where he can't get to
them unless you're going hunting or somethinglike that, just trying to minimize the
risk of him doing something like that. Again, that of it seems to
make any sense that you, asa loved one, Susie in this case,
would allow a gun to be presentin the home due to these past

(01:04:53):
actions by Bill, because he posesclearly a risk to himself, and not
saying that he would hurt anybody else. But when you're looking at the greatest
risk of homicidality, a suicidality,somebody who is a danger to themselves could
very well be a danger to others, you don't want to have a gun
in the home. And was thisgun registered to Bill, Not that I

(01:05:14):
found. I didn't find any informationabout that anywhere, but I assumed so
because he did own guns, youknow, again Texas, I think it
was his own gun. But Inever did find anything that confirmed that.
So, after about four weeks oftestimony and evidence, the jury deliberated for
only two hours before convicting Susie offirst degree murder in June of nineteen eighty

(01:05:39):
eight. Wow, they were prettypretty sure. Two hours for a murder
conviction. That's pretty short, right, super short. Like I remember hearing
in the Oxygen special that one ofthe family friends was in the chambers with
the judge and she said when thejury came back that quick, the judge

(01:06:03):
was like, oh, well,that's not good. Yeah, because usually
it wouldn't it be guilty if youdecided so quickly? But why does a
judge think that that's not good,that the jury hasn't fully gone over the
evidence and come to a decision.Yeah. I think there's that possibility.
But I also think that you eitherhave something so clear that they know the

(01:06:29):
prosecution didn't prove their case beyond areasonable doubt, or on the flip side,
they were just so clearly convinced bythe prosecution's case that they didn't need
any time. Yeah, that makessense. I mean if they had an
airtight case, there just doesn't seemto be a lot. Yes, there's
a past history of mental health issuesand a prior suicide attempt at least other

(01:06:50):
occasions. It seems to allude tothe fact that there's a possibility there could
have been other attempts, but maybethey weren't so cut and dry, And
just because that happened doesn't mean thathe can't be murdered, like we said
early on, so it could justbe that, you know, Susie is
using this as a very convenient kindof scapegoat, like, oh, you
know, he was suicidal, sohe has to have killed himself. But

(01:07:14):
luckily the jury seems to have soughtthrough that and the state presented a pretty
airtight case. Yeah, so shewas sentenced to life in prison. So
that's it, right, you know, case close, the wife did it.
We're done, but by the feelingyou're going to tell me, we're
not done, Yes, not exactly. Tune in next week to hear part

(01:07:34):
two of this series, the conclusionof the series, And for this episode,
I want to thank my friend Elisa, who goes by the name Smy
I'm going to link her music inthe show notes. She does the editing
for me, and I really appreciateher because it saves me so much time
and it helps me put out areally quality product for all of you to
listen to. So until next time, stay safe and remember accept nothing,

(01:07:59):
question, and everything.