May 5, 2023 • 43 mins
In March of 1996, a cat named Scarlett made national news when she ran into a burning building five separate times to rescue her kittens. She sustained severe burns to her paws, she was blinded by the heat and smoke, and her whiskers had burned, but that didn’t stop her. Again and again, she faced danger to save her babies and after her task was completed, she touched each kitten with her nose, counting them all, making sure they were all safe. Scarlett is probably the platonic ideal of motherhood. Despite immense pain and immense danger, she sacrificed herself to save her babies. Last week, we began to tell you the story of a mother who was not so ideal. Who at the same time that Scarlett was saving her kittens, would be under investigation for arson and the murder of her children. Join us for part 2 of the chilling story of Dr. Debora Green, a brilliant but troubled doctor who ultimately chose her own desire for revenge over the lives of her family.
Sources:
Bitter Harvest by Ann Rule
Murderpedia, various articles: https://murderpedia.org/female.G/g/green-debora.htm
Forensic Files, episode "Tennis and Madness"
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Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.
Sources:
Bitter Harvest by Ann Rule
Murderpedia, various articles: https://murderpedia.org/female.G/g/green-debora.htm
Forensic Files, episode "Tennis and Madness"
Follow us, campers!
Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire
Facebook: True Crime Campfire
Instagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079
Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire
Email: truecrimecampfirepod@gmail.com
MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, campers, Grab your marshmallows, and gather round the true crime camp
fire. We're your camp counselors.I'm Katy and I'm Whitney, and we're
here to tell you a true storythat is way stranger than fiction or roasting
murderers and marshmallows around the true crimecamp fire. In March of nineteen ninety
(00:25):
six, a cat named Scarlet madenational news when she ran into a burning
building five separate times to rescue herkittens. She sustained severe burns to her
paws, she was blinded by theheat and smoke, and her whiskers had
burned, but that didn't stop her. Again and again she faced danger to
save her babies, and after hertask was completed, she touched each kitten
(00:47):
with her nose, counting them all, making sure they were all safe.
Scarlett is probably the platonic ideal ofmotherhood. Despite immense pain and immense danger,
she sacrificed herself to save her babies. Last week, we began to
tell you the story of a motherwho was not so ideal, who,
at the same time that Scarlett wassaving her kittens, would be under investigation
(01:10):
for arson and the murder of herchildren. Join us now for part two
of A Mother's Hate The Crimes ofDoctor Deborah Green. Please note that this
(01:33):
episode contains discussion of the death ofanimals and children. Listen at your discretion,
So campers, when we left youat the end of part one,
Mike ferrar was searching through his soonto be ex wife Deborah's stuff, looking
for anything she might use to hurtherself. In her purse, he found
a dozen packets of castor beans.And castor plants aren't uncommon in Kansas.
(01:56):
They grow fast, they have veryleafy foliage, and they're perfect for the
region. The seeds are poisonous andcontain a compound called ricin, which is
so gnarly that in some countries it'slisted as a weapon of mass destruction.
When consumed, ricin can cause stomachpain, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea,
muscle weakness, and seizures, notto mention grim and very unpleasant death.
(02:17):
Some of these symptoms probably sound unfamiliarright about now, Right like exactly what
Mike Ferrara just gone through months before. Yeah, So, Mike wasn't sure
what to make of this discovery,but his inner alarm bells were clanging.
He also found a receipt for thecastor beans from August seventh, a few
empty vials of potassium chloride along withsome syringes, in a handwritten note,
(02:40):
Now I know some of y'all's eyebrowshit the ceiling at potassium chloride. This
stuff is often used to help patientssuffering from dehydration to balance out their electrolytes,
but if you give it an excess, it can cause what essentially amounts
to a heart attack. This wasnotable because Deborah had been in charge of
administering the nutrients to Mike's pickline whenat home from the hospital. If she
(03:01):
wanted him dead, it would beas simple as injecting him with that potassium
chloride along with the rest of thenutrients. Maybe she had been The pickline
wasn't doing its job and wasn't flowing, so he had the doctor take it
out after a few days. Maybeit wasn't flowing right because somebody had been
injecting potassium chloride into it. Wedon't know anyway. As for the note
(03:23):
he found, it was a carboncopy of one that he'd found in his
mailbox earlier that summer. The note, which was clearly supposed to look like
it was written by another parent fromTim and Kate's school. Wanted Mike to
know that divorcing Deborah would ruin thekid's social lives. They wouldn't be invited
to parties, and worst of all, the girls wouldn't be eligible to be
botars. Oh lord, okay,quick side by discussion. I know what
(03:46):
you're thinking, but no, Botarisn't some kind of Pokemon that eventually evolves
into a Botox. Botar stands forthe Bells of the American Royal, which
is the Kansas City version of likea Debutante ball. Yeah, only twenty
girls from Kansas City get picked eachyear, and Deborah had been obsessed about
(04:06):
both Kelly and Kate breathing the rarefiedair of the Kansas City elite as bills.
From what I can tell, it'slike a club where the smartest,
prettiest, richest, whitest girls canbe smart, pretty, rich, and
white altogether. In other words,the Botars are the children of the Botox
(04:29):
God. The things people fixate onin this live I just cannot so.
Anywhoo, the letter made Mike suspiciousright out the gate. It was typed
and the font looked an awful lotlike the one from their home computer.
Yes, kids, this was thenineties, before computers came with a billion
fonts, So Mike figured Deborah wrotethe dumbass thing. This handwritten copy he
found in her purse was probably afirst draft, you know, really carefully
(04:51):
crafting her argument there. You know, join me in an eye roll,
won't you. Now. At thispoint, Mike didn't realize that Deborah suspected
his affair with Margaret from the Perutrip. If he had, he might
have had more of a sense ofurgency about all this stuff. But as
we've seen before, it can takepeople a long time to face the truth
about the danger they're in from theirpartners, even in the face of terrifying
(05:15):
evidence like this. But Mike didknow that Deborah was coming apart at the
seems pretty good. One afternoon,Kate called him at work in a panic.
She told him that her mom hadthe flu again, which is what
Deborah would always tell her kids whenshe was slashed brue flu more like yeah.
Anyway, poor little Kate couldn't wakeher mama up, and she was
(05:36):
terrified. Mike rushed home to findDeborah passed out next to an empty handle
of gin. He took the kidsover to his sister's house for the night,
and then went back to the houseto tend to Deborah, except she
was nowhere to be found. Helooked everywhere. Her car was still there,
so thank god she wasn't driving,but he was still troubled that he
(05:57):
couldn't find her. Deborah had noreal friends, she didn't have family in
town. She had nowhere to go. Mike tried to get some sleep but
couldn't. Eventually, Margaret called him. They talked about his marriage and they're
fair, and then they said goodnight. Soon after that, the phone rang
again. It was Deborah. Despitebeing blackout drunk a couple hours before,
(06:18):
she sounded stone cold, sober now. He said, where are you as
if you cared? Deborah said itdoesn't matter, somewhere I can think,
and then she hung up again.She called about ten more times, each
call more enigmatic and taunting than thelast. On her final call, she
said, Mike, you think youhave secrets, but you don't have any
(06:40):
secrets. You're so stupid and transparent. I know everything about you. Before
she could go on, Mike hungup again. Good for him, She
had have ripped the damn phone outof the wall after call number two.
Yeah, well, get this creepyshit. Later, Deborah admitted that she'd
been hiding in the house that wholetime, under a bed in the guest
room in the basement, calling fromthe kid's phone line. She'd been there
(07:04):
the whole time, listening as Mikefrantically searched for her, listening as he
spoke with his mistress, and maybeas she sat in the dark dialing her
home phone number over and over again, Deborah's thought started taking shape. Maybe
she already had an inkling. Afterall, the true crime book she had
been reading all summer were full ofblood and guts. Deborah had failed at
(07:28):
being a doctor, she failed ather duties as a housewife. She would
not let her marriage be another failure. Deborah knew for sure about the affair
now, and needless to say,she was supremely unhappy. So after Mike
found the castor beans, he askedDeborah what they were for. She told
him that she was going to plantthem. Yeah. Right, This woman
(07:51):
had never planted a single flower inher life, and now she had a
dozen packets of castor beans, andonly castor beans and castor plants are usually
planted in the spring, not theend of summer. Mike called her out
and then she said, oh wellfine, I was going to use them
to kill myself. This, alongwith her continuous erratic behavior, freaked Mike
(08:11):
right out. He called a ritzymental health hospital in Topeka to see what
he needed to do to get hercommitted. Mike k had seen what suicide
can do to a family that summer. Margaret's husband, David, had taken
his own life after she asked fora divorce. His death had devastated her,
It had devastated their sons, andMike was going to do everything in
his power to make sure his kidsdidn't lose their mom. The day of
(08:35):
the confrontation, deb drank herself sloppy. She screamed at Mike and her behavior
was scaring the kids. So Mikecalled nine one one and the dispatcher sent
over a patrol car. When theofficers got there, they found Mike outside
with Tim, Kelly, and Kate, all four of them in tears,
which is just heartbreaking. Mike toldthe officers that his wife had been binge
(08:56):
drinking for days and was threatening suicide. He told them that he had found
the potassium chloride and castor beans andbelieved that Deborah planned to use them on
herself. She's just my heke,She's using them on you, my man
Ah. When the officers went tothe main bedroom talked to Deborah, the
smell of booze hit him like asemitruck, and when they told her that
her husband had called for them,she absolutely lost it. She called Mike
(09:20):
an asshole and a fuck hole wow, and she was screaming so loud that
they were sure the kids could hearevery word. They talked to her for
like an hour and eventually decided sheneeded to be brought in. Deborah,
of course, tried to argue shewas drunk, sure, but that's not
illegal, and why on earth wouldshe kill herself. She told him,
I have three beautiful children here andI don't want to do anything to leave
(09:41):
them. Eventually they convinced her tocomply and allowed her to say goodbye to
the kids before she left. Kelly, sweet, sweet little Kelly, was
trying to comb her mama's hair soshe'd looked presentable Mama's youngest little soldier,
and this whole time, instead ofassuring the kids Deborah was just telling him
that this was all Mike's fault,This was all because of him. She
(10:07):
is the worst. When they gotto the hospital, Deborah was evaluated by
an old colleague of hers, doctorPamela McCoy. McCoy's perspective on Deborah is
fascinating because it really shows Deborah's abilityto project different personalities to different people.
McCoy was obviously surprised to see somebodyshe knew and promised to use discretion.
(10:31):
None of Deborah's former colleagues would haveto know anything about this. She thought
Deborah seemed sober, and when shewas asked why she was brought in,
Deborah told her that she'd had halfa bottle of wine and her husband accused
her being drunken out of control.The doctor said that Deborah looked unkempt and
that she was possibly depressed, butshe really wasn't sure if she was suicidal
or endangered anybody else. Deborah keptinsisting that Mike was just railroading her.
(10:54):
McCoy had started to empathize with Deborah, and it pretty much decided that she
was actually eligible for an involuntary hold. When suddenly Mike Ferrar walked into the
hospital, and Deborah, who hadup to this point seemed completely calm and
rational, just did a complete oneeighty. She spat at him, called
him a fuck hole repeatedly, andstarted lunging toward her husband. Doctor McCoy
(11:18):
had to physically hold her back asDebora was struggling to get it Mike.
She snarled, You're gonna get thesekids over our dead bodies. Oh,
You're gonna get these kids over ourdead bodies. Wow. So McCoy took
Mike in for an interview and leftDeborah in the hospital room. In her
(11:39):
interview with crime writer Ann Rule,whose book was one of our main sources
for this case, doctor McCoy saidshe didn't want to humiliate Deborah by having
the hospital police officer watch her whileshe interviewed Mike, which bad idea,
but okay, also, can weused to talk for a second about fuck
hole? I can't let it pass. I'm sorry now. Don't get me
wrong, y'all, y'all know Ilike philth in its place. I'm actually
(12:00):
bit of a connoisseur. I knowsomeby y'all love it about me and someby
y'all hate it. But it's partof my charm, okay, but fuck
hole was a new one on me, and my verdict is oo, no,
I'm just I'm gonna pass way toovisually evocative. Yeah, it's not
one of my favorites. But ourgirl Deborah freaking loved it. It was
like her favorite thing to call Mike. Oh my god, yeah, just
(12:22):
yucky. It's like she just shedragged the bottom of the barrel and found
the yuckiest possible word. Yes.Now, for some reason, doctor McCoy
was pretty skeptical of Mike's story abouthis wife hiding in the house and making
menacing phone calls and stowing away packetsof poisonous seeds and vials of potassium chloride.
In fact, she was like,well, I mean, Debra is
(12:43):
an oncologist, so that's something shewould use. Oh my god, I
know this woman is so fucking oblivious. Deborah isn't a working on collegist anymore.
You would know this if you didn'tkeep treating her with kid gloves.
Oh my god. It Finally,doctor McCoy called Tim and asked him about
(13:03):
his mother's demeanor. He told hershe's been very sad and very upset lately.
She hadn't got out of bed inseveral days, just been lying around.
He told her he'd been hiding herbottles of liquor from her so she
couldn't keep drinking. Doctor McCoy wasa little confused. Deborah had seemed so
normal, so rational, But therewere now two witnesses, one pretty unbiased
(13:26):
in Tim, telling her that Deborahwas showing signs of depression and would likely
need to be committed. This issomething we hear over and over again.
In this case, Deborah's ability tomanipulate others perceptions of her is up there
with Ted Bundy's. And that's notan exaggeration about Yeah, there are people
in this story who would say Deborahwas a helpless baby while she was actively
(13:50):
terrorizing her family. No, herchild was hiding liquor from her, her
child was brushing her hair. Meanwhileshe made rice and its methodically poisoning her
husband. Deborah is many things,but she's not a fucking victim. Hell
no, And I will die onthat hill. I don't feel a bit
sorry for this woman. And I'veseen like the odd you know, review
(14:11):
of Anne Rule's book where people werelike, well, I'm like, oh
new, just don't try it onme. I don't care what she's going
through. She flipped and set herkids on fire. That is absolutely not
okay, evil, Yeah, she'sthe worst. Now, were you clutching
your pearls when Whitney said that McCoydidn't think Deborah needed a babysitter, because
you should have been. Yeah,because when McCoy went to go find her,
(14:35):
Deborah had flown the coop. Eventually, the police were able to locate
Deborah several miles away from the hospital. She told the police that she wanted
to be home. As she wasdriven back to the hospital, Deborah's calmed
to be in her cracked and shestarted melting down. She told the officer
that he was making her suicidal becauseit was taking her so long to get
(14:56):
committed. When it was all saidand done, Mike had given the police
Deborah's suicide kit and returned home tohis children. With Deborah gone being diagnosed
with bipolar depression. Mike told AnneRule that he and the kids got along
swimmingly. He bought a book ona hairstyle so he could do Kayton Kelly's
(15:16):
hair, and even his strained relationshipwith Tim improved immensely without Deborah playing iago
Wow, a Shakespeare reference. I'mimpressed. What I'm not allowed to make
dick jokes and Shakespeare references? Ihave layers okay. Plus, as we
always say, we're English majors.If we don't get one Shakespeare reference in
per year, we both get ourlicenses revoked. Anyway, it was around
(15:41):
this time that Mike finally started piecingtogether the evidence of his poisoning. Perhaps
it was the distance away from hisabuser, but the cold realization hit him
that his illness could have been rising. Like any doctor, he dove into
research, and by the time hepresented the evidence to his medical team,
he was sure Deborah had poisoned him. He requested a test, and his
(16:03):
doctors told him that while he maybe right about the poisoning, rice and
antibodies don't form right away. Itwas only a few weeks from his last
illness, so they would have towait to run the tests on his blood.
This was the final straw for Mike. When Deborah got back from the
hospital in the first week of October, he packed his bags and left.
Wasn't safe for him to be inthe house anymore, not if his wife
(16:25):
was poisoning him. Plus, hethought that if he was away, Deborah
would have a harder time railing upthe kids and alienating them from him.
Deborah seemed to love the kids somuch it never even occurred to him that
she might hurt them. He genuinelybelieved that her four days at the hospital
had changed her attitude. He hadn'tseen her drinking. She was downright polite
to him. She was, however, still drinking and taking every chance she
(16:48):
could to put the kids in themiddle of their arguments. Deborah even gone
as far as getting a lawyer forthe divorce. A woman named Ellen Ryan,
who liked doctor McCoy, seems tohave severely infantalized Deborah. For some
reason. She thought Deba was ahelpless little baby who didn't even understand money,
which just I'd like to remind youall that Deborah was a doctor,
okay, who went to school tobecome a doctor, who previously wanted to
(17:11):
be an engineer, both careers thatrequire a pretty good understanding of math.
And I'm not saying you can't bebad with money and be a doctor.
I'm saying Deborah wasn't okay. Deborahis a certified genius with a resume to
prove it. Yeah, I getthe impression that Deborah went out of her
way to give other women the sensethat she was just this weak little woman
(17:32):
being victimized by an evil, controllinghusband. Ellen told Anne Rule, I
think I really thought of her asa child, as a little baby who
needed to be held and comforted.She seems so lost and so confused.
Meanwhile, like the men she gotclose to were almost always like, yo,
this bitch is crazy. But likeI guess I get where the women
(17:53):
were coming from to an extent,because you do see bad men invalidating women
like that, saying she's crazy,Like you know, I would actually say
when a guy talks about all hisex girlfriends, oh they're all crazy,
that's our red flag. Does alot of very non crazy women get labeled
like that by the asshole men whotreated them like garbage. But the problem
(18:14):
is you can't think of this shitin black and white terms, because sometimes,
even if it's only once in awhile, the bitch really do be
crazy. Okay, sometimes it's justthe truth. I hate to say it.
Deborah Green was certainly not a powerlesshousewife here, and it's not like
she was going to come out ofthis divorce with nessent either. There's a
very good chance that as a stayat home mom, she'd be getting alimony,
(18:37):
she'd be getting child support. Andshe was a trained doctor, for
God's sake, she could go backto work and make good money anytime she
wanted. On October twenty first,Tim had a soccer game Mike went,
and while he was on the sidelines, Deborah walked up to him and trying
to hand him a thermos, Shesaid, here, Tim made this cappuccino
for you, be a good fatherand drink it. Okay what Something about
(19:00):
her tone just hit Mike's ears wrong, and he was like, no,
that's okay, you you have it, but Deborah insisted. She said,
Nan, I've already had one.But Mike was already pretty much convinced by
this point that she poisoned him,so the chances of him taking any food
and drink from her was precisely zero. She seemed annoyed by that and walked
back to her car with the drinkin her hand, and Mike kicked himself
(19:22):
later for not taking it and gettinga testin, Oh, that is like
the one thing that I just thatis The one detail in this case I
think that makes me the most upsetis that that opportunity got missed. I
think, I bet you if hehad done that, yeah, there,
it would have been the rising,and that would have been that oh totally.
And I think in his mind hewas so scared of her that he
was like, get it away fromme, get it away from and get
(19:44):
it away from her. I don'tblame him, but it was that.
I think later he was like,yo, I should have but like I'm
sure he was like, oh fuck, no, no, no, like
a minute later. I think herealized it as soon as he saw her
walking away with it, and sheprobably poured it out right next to her
car and everything. But yeah,it's a horrible missed opportunity. So anyway,
(20:27):
that brings us to where we startedthis story, which is the night
of the fire. On Monday,October twenty third, Mike picked Tim and
Kelly up from the family home andaround six thirty because Tim had a hockey
game, Kate was at ballet practicerehearsing for the role of Clara and the
Nutcracker, and Deborah was at therapy. So Mike was looking forward to spending
(20:47):
time with at least two of hiskids without any interference. Tim played an
incredible game that night. By thetime they were driving home at around eight
thirty, Tim, Mike, andKelly were all laughing and just having a
great time. He walked both ofhis kids into the house, where Deborah
was reheating some fried chicken for thekids dinner. Mike grabbed some of his
mail, just chatted back and forthwith his kids for a while, and
(21:08):
then left for the evening. Sucha mundane thing, you know, just
a night full of laughter and loveand Tim playing that rock Star game,
and that would be the last timehe would see two of his kids alive.
Mike drove to Margaret's house and haddinner with her and her sons and
watched football. At around ten thirtypm, his pager went off and showed
the family home number. When hecalled, though, Deborah told him she
(21:32):
didn't page him, but maybe oneof the kids did. But even if
they did, they're asleep, soyou should probably forget about it unless you
want to wake you know, ourlittle sleeping angels up. Mike was like,
okay, no, it's fine andhung up. He thought that maybe
she was just trying to figure outwhere he was. Five minutes later,
another page came in from Deborah.He called, and she gave him some
(21:55):
mundane news about the divorce lawyers theywanted to use. Mike was like,
did you really need to page totell me that? At eleven PM,
she wanted to know where he was, and he told her that he was
at dinner with some friends. Ateleven fifteen, Mike left to go to
his apartment, and while he wasdriving, Deborah paged him again. When
he called from his home phone.About twenty minutes later, he noticed that
(22:17):
she was slurring her words. Deborahwas drinking again. This infuriated Mike.
She was on meds for her bipolardisorder that would react badly with alcohol,
and she was responsible for his kidsand something, and Mike finally snapped.
For years and years, he'd takenwhat Deborah had dished out, her tantrums,
her rage, her constant name callingand degradation on the phone. That
(22:41):
night, he unleashed what he'd beenholding in all along. Later, he
told Anne rule, I told herI was angry with her, that she
needed to buckle down and take careof the kids. I told her that
there were some parents at the school, who had noticed her behavior in poor
parenting and were considering calling social services. I told her that she needed to
get her act and gear to getall this taken care of. Once he
(23:03):
started, he couldn't stop. Itold her I thought she was crazy.
I told her I thought she neededcontinued psychiatric care. I told her I
knew she was poisoning me. AndI told her I was going to try
to take the kids away from her. Later, after one of them hung
up in rage, Mike remembered thesilence of the empty apartment. He could
only hear his own heartbeat, thecadence of his breath. Five minutes later,
(23:30):
Deborah called him again. She said, Oh, I didn't know your
home. I thought you were stillout driving around. I really did not
want to talk to you. Ijust wanted to leave a message on the
machine. And since you're home,I'm not going to say anything. And
she hung up. Less than anhour later, Mike's neighbor, doctor Mary
Foreman, would call to tell himthat there was a fire at his house.
(23:51):
She would scream into the receiver,your wife is a fucking arsonist.
Wow. What could she have possiblywanted to say to him? On voicemail?
Knowing how the evening ended, Ican't help but wonder if she was
going to taunt him with what shewas about to do. First responders arrived
fast, and they did their verybest to get Tim and Kelly out of
(24:11):
the house, but the fire wastoo hot and moving too fast for them
to save anyone. Even the familydogs Boomer and Russell, were trapped.
The police brought Mike, Deborah,and Katon for questioning. That same night,
detectives Greg Brunetta and Rod Smith decidedto interview Deborah first, and she
was in the house when the firestarted. What followed is possibly the most
(24:33):
chilling, bizarre interview that I've everread. There are clips of it on
forensic files if you want to catchhow weird it is, and Anne Rule's
book Bitter Harvest covers it almost entirely. It's truly something else. Deborah was
a barefoot and still wearing that sheepnightgown. Her demeanor was calm, even
lighthearted. When they started the interviewat four am. The detectives immediately noticed
(24:57):
the smell of alcohol on her,but she seemed sober. She was immediately
chatty. She asked if the firewas out and if she was talking to
the police or the fire department,and notably, she did not ask if
Tim and Kelly were okay. Deborahtold them that she woke up to the
fire alarm and when she opened herbedroom door, she found the hallway full
(25:18):
of smoke. She immediately went outonto the balcony to get help. She
told them, as I went aroundthe corner to inform the neighbors to call
nine one one, that's when Iheard Tim on the intercom by the pool
deck. He used to be mythirteen year old. Oh yeah, the
first time I heard that, mystomach just clenched, like remember, at
this point in the interview, herkids haven't been found yet. The house
(25:41):
is just still on fire. Andhere she is referring to Tim in the
past, tense and almost as ifhe's an object rather than a person.
He used to be my thirteen yearold. This woman deserves to be tossed
in a volcano. But Denborah didn'tseem to notice the slip up. Tim
had asked her what he should do, she said, and she told him
(26:02):
to wait for help to arrive.When he asked if he should find Kelly
and Kate and bring them out,she said no, and then conversationally told
the detectives, I'm sure that wasthe kiss of death. She commented on
her separation from Mike in a veryblaze tone, but as she kept talking,
it was clear to the detectives thatshe was trying to dirty Mike up.
(26:22):
She kept talking about how unfair itwas and he was leaving her,
and how angry the children were.She seemed to take great pleasure recounting that
Tim and Kate had both started tosay fuck you to their father. Nice
deb some top tier parental alienation yougot going on their beach. When asked
why she didn't call ninety one oneherself, she told investigators that it never
occurred to her. The smoke inthe hallway made her panic. She didn't
(26:45):
even think of finding her children.All she could do was get out.
When asked about the dogs, shetold detectives that they usually slept with her,
but they'd both gotten into a packageof coffee beans, and since she
decided they weren't going to sleep,she'd put them in with the kids.
Boomer the last slept with Kelly,and Kate slept with Russell the greyhound.
It's just another example of how selfishthis hosebag is. It did not ever
(27:08):
occur to her that a parent shouldn'tjeopardize their children's sleep, so it made
sense in her story that the dogswouldn't stay with her like a parent would
likely either put up with the dogsbeing awake, or create them for the
night, or put them outside forthe night if they were bouncing off the
walls. Like I said, thisinterview is just bizarre. And meanwhile,
the firefighters were finally in control ofthe flames. As they went into the
(27:32):
house, they immediately found the burnedremains of a bed frame that had fallen
through the floor above. Lying nextto it was the body of a teenage
boy, Tim Ferrar. An autopsywould confirm that he'd most likely died of
heat and smoke inhalation in one ofthe bedrooms. Still lying in the bed
she fell asleep and was little Kelly, the body of a big black lab
(27:53):
Boomer, was curled up underneath thebed. It didn't look like either of
them had even woken up. Theydied of carbon monoxide poisoning, most likely
in their sleep. Small mercies right, so sad. Meanwhile, when the
detectives told Deborah that Tim and Kellyhadn't made it out of the home.
Deborah showed a strong emotion for thefirst time that night. She dropped her
(28:17):
head onto the interview table and cried, Oh God, beautiful Tim and beautiful
Kelly are both dead. And thenlike a switch flipped, she started raging,
Jesus Christ, did they make anyattempt at all to save them?
I saved one of the kids,I could have gotten the second one out
and didn't. I'll never forgive myselffor that. She's a normal enough statement,
but the tone was just all wrong. It didn't have the right tone
(28:41):
to it, and it seemed likeshe was almost reading it. It also
like reads like what a character wouldsay in a book, not like a
real human response. Yeah, definitely. Then Deborah made a strange request.
I would love to see my husband, she said, even though we're getting
a divorce, because he and Iwill be the only ones who can share
in this mammoth grief. Her tonewas a semblance of sad and desperate,
(29:07):
But then when she was told thatshe couldn't see him, she vacillated again
into rage. Jesus Christ, thereare two people here that care about what
happened, so why can't we betogether, but apparently you don't have compassion
for anyone else. I want totell him. I want to tell my
husband that our babies are dead.I want to tell my husband that our
(29:30):
babies are dead. Wow. Justwow. Yeah, she wanted to see
the look on his face. Thatwould have been her payoff. You know,
it's the same reason why why yousaid she probably wanted to leave a
voicemail on his answering machine then night. It's part of why I get so
frustrated with people acting like she's hishelpless little baby. She wanted to taunt
(29:51):
her husband with the lives of thechildren that she had just killed. Ugh
sick freak, Yeah, by andtrust. Mike's interview with the detectives was
clearly very painful. He cried alot and asked a lot of questions about
how his children were found, whatmight have happened to them, when he
might be able to collect the remains. He was visibly emotional talking about his
(30:14):
children and his wife. He alsotold them about the first fire. He
explained about his mysterious illness and hissuspicions about its origins, about that final
terrible phone call. Later, Debrawould assume that Mike would let her stay
with him. That is, afterall, what happened after the first fire.
Yeah, good fucking luck with that. Mike was done with a capital
(30:38):
d. He gave her about threehundred dollars in cash, let her use
his phone, and loaned her hiscar, And after she left, he
called his lawyer to officially file fordivorce and request full custody of Kate,
who was staying with his parents.For now, Debra stayed in a hotel.
She'd later get supervised visits with Kate. Ars investigations are often slow and
(31:02):
complicated because obviously a lot of theevidence gets destroyed or damaged. This case
was no exception. The investigators broughtin and an arson investigator who brought in
her sniffer dog, Avon, whowas a very good girl, to look
for accelerants and find them. Shedid in several places around the house,
important because accidental fires usually have justone point of origin, where arsons usually
(31:26):
have a few. Right, theyfound poor patterns in several unconnected rooms throughout
the house, meaning that somebody hadgone from room to room pouring some kind
of accelerant and setting each fire individually. And this is the worst part.
They discovered that whoever set this firehad purposely blocked every escape route from the
(31:47):
children's rooms, and on the floorof the main bathroom, Deborah's bathroom,
they discovered a woman's bathrobe with alittle burn hole in it. Huh drop
a match on your bathrobe? Didyou? The investigators now had proof that
this fire was a double murder andthey could get started on a formal investigation.
(32:07):
A lot of police work is monotonous. For example, remember how Deborah's
neighbors noticed her wet hair on thenight of the murders. What was up
with that? Well, arsonists oftenexperienced what's called a flash fire, which
is what happens when an accelerant isignited and burns really quickly. Did she
accidentally set herself on fire and thendunk her head underwater to put it out.
(32:30):
More often than not, arsonists doburn themselves, so detectives usually look
for singed hair and eyebrows during arsoninvestigation. In this case, detectives got
a search warrant for a sample ofDeborah's hair. Her lawyers were furious that
they didn't let them know that theywanted her hair before they gave her the
warrant. Ellen said Deborah wanted tocooperate. These detectives were just too aggressive.
(32:51):
But where they though? Because investigatorsfound out that before the kid's funeral,
Debora had not one, but twohaircuts. She insisted that the first
one just looked really bad and shehad to go get it fixed. But
despite her best efforts and the effortsof some poor Kansas City hair stylists that
had to deal with Deborah, forans E Sciences found that the hair at
(33:12):
the front of Deborah's head showed signsof significant singing. At no point in
Deborah's interview did she ever say she'dbeen close enough to a fire to be
burned, But we have a bathrobe and her hair that proved that's not
true. This wasn't quite enough forthe habeas grabus yet, so detectives kept
digging. Then they decided to followup on doctor Ferrar's poisoning to see if
(33:35):
they could find proof that she boughtthe castor beans in the first place.
This is a weird, little investigativefun fact, but when officers reported to
the house and the night Deborah gotcommitted, they noticed Debora's open a dress
book on her nightstand, and init was an address for a garden store
in a Latha, Kansas, whichis about thirty minutes away from the house,
and one of the cops somehow rememberedthis weird little detail and told the
(33:58):
detectives about it, who called astore. This is just incredible, fascinating.
Now. Unfortunately, I know,like, how do you remember a
little detail like that? But youknow, stuff does stick in your head
like that right now. Unfortunately,nobody at that location remembered selling that many
castor beans to anybody. Because mostdetective work is not nearly so sexy as
Law and Order SPU would have usbelieve. The detectives proceeded to call every
(34:20):
location of that store in Kansas City, and eventually they struck Gold. An
employee at one of the locations rememberedSpecial ordering a big old order of castor
beans to a woman in September,and when asked, she identified a photo
of Deborah Green as the buyer outof a lineup of photos. This purchase
can't have been her first one,because days later Mike would find the seed
(34:43):
packets in her purse, but itwas a pretty good piece of circumstantial evidence.
They also sent some of Mike's bloodto be tested for rice and antibodies.
It would be a long time beforethey got that back, but they
felt confident that the results would comeback positive. The day felt good about
the evidence they'd found, the hairat the bathrobe, the signs of arson,
Deborah's increasingly weird behavior leading up tothe fire, Mike's poisoning the seed
(35:06):
packets. The picture was pretty clear. Deborah Green had tried to kill her
husband and had succeeded in killing twoof her children, so the DA issued
a warrant for the grabs on Novembertwenty second, nineteen ninety five. Deborah
had brought Kate to dress rehearsal forthe Nutcracker that night, and the detectives
wanted to be sure that Kate wassafely in the theater when they arrested her
(35:27):
mother. Deborah was calm when theyslapped the cuffs on her. Ellen Ryan
once again failed to beat the riderdie allegations when she got big mat at
the cops for arresting her instead ofallowing Deborah the dignity of turning herself in
for Pete's sake. I don't know, Ellen, She's already getting arrested for
killing two of her children and She'sgot a documented history of threatening to kill
(35:49):
herself, so maybe the cops werejust ensuring that Deborah didn't hurt herself for
anybody else before they arrested her.I think they should have frog marched her
up and down in front of themedia cameras, make sure she gets good
humiliated. But that's just me.Yeah, I'm no exit, I'm no
expert, but God. The casewent to a preliminary hearing in January of
(36:09):
nineteen ninety six, kind of likea mini trial. The prosecutor, Paul
Morrison, laid out his case clearly. Deborah Green, desperate to keep her
family together, had set a firein their first house and was pleased to
find that it actually worked. Herhusband stayed, But then when Mike asked
for a divorce again and Deborah foundout about his affair, she'd poisoned him,
(36:30):
whether in an attempt to kill himor to make him so reliant on
her that he couldn't leave. Whenthat didn't work, and after Mike snapped
at her on the phone, callingher a failure of a mother and telling
her that he wanted to take thekids away from her, and letting it
slip that he suspected she'd poisoned him. She set fire to their house,
and she did it in a waythat prevented two of her children from escaping.
(36:53):
He let out the evidence, thesinged hair, the burned bathrobe,
the bizarre behavior leading up to thefire, castor beans, Mike's illness.
It was a damn good case.Those in the courtroom wondered how the defense
would respond. Now Here at TCC, we typically don't dunk on defense attorneys
for just doing their jobs, Sowe're gonna try and be fair in our
(37:14):
assessment of the defense. But ourassessment is that it sucked ass, just
straight up sucked ass. Deborah's lawyersthe technical legal term is that it sucked
ass like I have no other words. And we're laughing, not because it's
funny, but because it's so fuckinghorrific. Yeah. Deborah's lawyer Dennis Moore
(37:37):
started by dirtying up Mike, pointingout his affair and that he planned to
leave Deborah long before he told herabout it. He also insinuated that Mike's
illness was from some kind of virushe caught on the trip to Peru,
not from poisoning. Finally, hedid one of the most disgusting things that
I've ever heard a defense attorney do. He said, there's going to be
(37:57):
evidence presented that Tim Ferrar had anun natural fascination with fire. He also
insinuated that thirteen year old Tim wasquote a very disturbed young man. Yes,
that's right. Deborah's defense was,it wasn't me, it was my
child who was dead. Yeah,like many family annihilators before and after,
(38:20):
it's what they always do. Yeah. He did bring in classmates of Tims
to testify that he did occasionally setthings on fire and had allegedly had some
kind of an anarchist cookbook style document. But genuinely, have you met a
thirteen year old boy. Of coursehe liked setting things on fire, but
there was no proof whatsoever that he'dset anything aside from maybe a pile of
(38:45):
leaves on fire, nor was thereforensic proof indicating that he was responsible for
this. Look, I was notthat much older than Tim when this happened.
I had the anarchist cookbook in thenineties. Okay, every self respecting
weird kid had it. In thosedays. You would lose your weird kid
card if they sold the flipping thingat Walden Books come on. According to
(39:06):
Deb's lawyer, Tim was a juveniledelinquent capable of a monstrous act of violence.
But that's not who Tim was.Tim was a sweetheart. He defended
kids at school from bullies. Hewas funny, he was strong, He
loved sports, and his coaches allsaid that they expected great things from him.
He was a good brother. Whenhis mother was on drinking binges,
(39:27):
he hid or threw away her liquor. He had a complicated relationship with his
father, of course, but whatteenager doesn't. Mike fortunately remembers the last
night he spent with his son asa good one. They were laughing together,
celebrating his great game. Tim wasnot a monster. He was a
child being manipulated by one, andin his death, he was being sacrificed
(39:47):
by one as well. Gross Fortunately, the judge sided with the prosecution.
Deborah Green would be going to trial, and the prosecution announced that they'd be
pursued the death penalty. As bothsides prepared for trial, it was becoming
crystal clear to the defense that theirclient was going to be found guilty or
not. Butter shit, Deborah wasuncooperative with her male attorneys and needy with
(40:12):
Ellen Ryan, who by this pointhad started allowing her children to speak to
Deborah on the phone. Just Ellen, really, dang girl, Ellen,
I don't understand Ellen at all.Ellen decided to try and convince Deborah to
take a deal. She laid outthe fact as the prosecution would present them,
and eventually Deborah agreed, but notbefore confiding in Ellen that it was
(40:35):
Tim and Deborah who actually poisoned Miketogether, probably almost certainly alive. Of
course, Tim couldn't make ricin hisdoctor genius engineer mother could one last indignity
for the boy who so passionately defendedhis mom. She pleaded no contest,
and on April seventeenth, nineteen ninetysix, doctor Deborah Green was sentenced to
(40:59):
forty years in prison without the possibilityof parole. If she gets out,
she'll be eighty five upon her release. This is one of those cases that
sticks with you. I read thisbook probably twenty years ago, and I
mean I still think about this caseregularly, like long before we decided to
(41:19):
cover it on the show. It'sjust one of those that's going to live
in your brain for the rest ofyour life. Tim and Kelly had loved
their mother so much, only tobe betrayed by her in the worst way,
the most cruel way you could possiblyimagine. Innocent lives used to further
the agenda of a woman who claimedto love them more than anything else.
But the problem is, for somebodylike dab Breast, somebody who's narcissistic to
(41:43):
the core, losing those kids forher would have been ego death. She
had built her entire identity around beinga great mom and she was afraid I
think that she was about to losethat, And for a narcissist, ego
death is death, period, There'sno difference. So that night, I
(42:04):
just think she had nothing to loseand those kids were tools to her and
absolutely nothing else. They were justaway for her to get at Mike,
and the ripples of those actions aregoing to be felt for years to come.
We hope Mike and Kate have foundsome peace in the intervening years,
but I mean, I'm sure ithas to haunt them of course, So
yeah, we wish him nothing butthe best. So that was one hell
(42:28):
of a wild one, right,campers. You know we'll have another one
for you next week, but fornow, lock your doors, light your
lights, and stay safe. Untilwe get together again around the True Crime
camp Fire. And as always,we want to send a grateful shout out
to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Sarah,
Hannah, Dan Tory, Erica,Rachel Jin Juice Awesome, and Leah.
(42:51):
We appreciate y'all to the moon andback. And if you're not yet a
patron, you are missing out.Patrons of our show get every episode ad
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(43:13):
those getting ready to go out totheir brand new owners virtual events with Katie
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Hello, campers, Grab your marshmallows, and gather round the true crime camp
fire. We're your camp counselors.I'm Katy and I'm Whitney, and we're
here to tell you a true storythat is way stranger than fiction or roasting
murderers and marshmallows around the true crimecamp fire. In March of nineteen ninety
(00:25):
six, a cat named Scarlet madenational news when she ran into a burning
building five separate times to rescue herkittens. She sustained severe burns to her
paws, she was blinded by theheat and smoke, and her whiskers had
burned, but that didn't stop her. Again and again she faced danger to
save her babies, and after hertask was completed, she touched each kitten
(00:47):
with her nose, counting them all, making sure they were all safe.
Scarlett is probably the platonic ideal ofmotherhood. Despite immense pain and immense danger,
she sacrificed herself to save her babies. Last week, we began to
tell you the story of a motherwho was not so ideal, who,
at the same time that Scarlett wassaving her kittens, would be under investigation
(01:10):
for arson and the murder of herchildren. Join us now for part two
of A Mother's Hate The Crimes ofDoctor Deborah Green. Please note that this
(01:33):
episode contains discussion of the death ofanimals and children. Listen at your discretion,
So campers, when we left youat the end of part one,
Mike ferrar was searching through his soonto be ex wife Deborah's stuff, looking
for anything she might use to hurtherself. In her purse, he found
a dozen packets of castor beans.And castor plants aren't uncommon in Kansas.
(01:56):
They grow fast, they have veryleafy foliage, and they're perfect for the
region. The seeds are poisonous andcontain a compound called ricin, which is
so gnarly that in some countries it'slisted as a weapon of mass destruction.
When consumed, ricin can cause stomachpain, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea,
muscle weakness, and seizures, notto mention grim and very unpleasant death.
(02:17):
Some of these symptoms probably sound unfamiliarright about now, Right like exactly what
Mike Ferrara just gone through months before. Yeah, So, Mike wasn't sure
what to make of this discovery,but his inner alarm bells were clanging.
He also found a receipt for thecastor beans from August seventh, a few
empty vials of potassium chloride along withsome syringes, in a handwritten note,
(02:40):
Now I know some of y'all's eyebrowshit the ceiling at potassium chloride. This
stuff is often used to help patientssuffering from dehydration to balance out their electrolytes,
but if you give it an excess, it can cause what essentially amounts
to a heart attack. This wasnotable because Deborah had been in charge of
administering the nutrients to Mike's pickline whenat home from the hospital. If she
(03:01):
wanted him dead, it would beas simple as injecting him with that potassium
chloride along with the rest of thenutrients. Maybe she had been The pickline
wasn't doing its job and wasn't flowing, so he had the doctor take it
out after a few days. Maybeit wasn't flowing right because somebody had been
injecting potassium chloride into it. Wedon't know anyway. As for the note
(03:23):
he found, it was a carboncopy of one that he'd found in his
mailbox earlier that summer. The note, which was clearly supposed to look like
it was written by another parent fromTim and Kate's school. Wanted Mike to
know that divorcing Deborah would ruin thekid's social lives. They wouldn't be invited
to parties, and worst of all, the girls wouldn't be eligible to be
botars. Oh lord, okay,quick side by discussion. I know what
(03:46):
you're thinking, but no, Botarisn't some kind of Pokemon that eventually evolves
into a Botox. Botar stands forthe Bells of the American Royal, which
is the Kansas City version of likea Debutante ball. Yeah, only twenty
girls from Kansas City get picked eachyear, and Deborah had been obsessed about
(04:06):
both Kelly and Kate breathing the rarefiedair of the Kansas City elite as bills.
From what I can tell, it'slike a club where the smartest,
prettiest, richest, whitest girls canbe smart, pretty, rich, and
white altogether. In other words,the Botars are the children of the Botox
(04:29):
God. The things people fixate onin this live I just cannot so.
Anywhoo, the letter made Mike suspiciousright out the gate. It was typed
and the font looked an awful lotlike the one from their home computer.
Yes, kids, this was thenineties, before computers came with a billion
fonts, So Mike figured Deborah wrotethe dumbass thing. This handwritten copy he
found in her purse was probably afirst draft, you know, really carefully
(04:51):
crafting her argument there. You know, join me in an eye roll,
won't you. Now. At thispoint, Mike didn't realize that Deborah suspected
his affair with Margaret from the Perutrip. If he had, he might
have had more of a sense ofurgency about all this stuff. But as
we've seen before, it can takepeople a long time to face the truth
about the danger they're in from theirpartners, even in the face of terrifying
(05:15):
evidence like this. But Mike didknow that Deborah was coming apart at the
seems pretty good. One afternoon,Kate called him at work in a panic.
She told him that her mom hadthe flu again, which is what
Deborah would always tell her kids whenshe was slashed brue flu more like yeah.
Anyway, poor little Kate couldn't wakeher mama up, and she was
(05:36):
terrified. Mike rushed home to findDeborah passed out next to an empty handle
of gin. He took the kidsover to his sister's house for the night,
and then went back to the houseto tend to Deborah, except she
was nowhere to be found. Helooked everywhere. Her car was still there,
so thank god she wasn't driving,but he was still troubled that he
(05:57):
couldn't find her. Deborah had noreal friends, she didn't have family in
town. She had nowhere to go. Mike tried to get some sleep but
couldn't. Eventually, Margaret called him. They talked about his marriage and they're
fair, and then they said goodnight. Soon after that, the phone rang
again. It was Deborah. Despitebeing blackout drunk a couple hours before,
(06:18):
she sounded stone cold, sober now. He said, where are you as
if you cared? Deborah said itdoesn't matter, somewhere I can think,
and then she hung up again.She called about ten more times, each
call more enigmatic and taunting than thelast. On her final call, she
said, Mike, you think youhave secrets, but you don't have any
(06:40):
secrets. You're so stupid and transparent. I know everything about you. Before
she could go on, Mike hungup again. Good for him, She
had have ripped the damn phone outof the wall after call number two.
Yeah, well, get this creepyshit. Later, Deborah admitted that she'd
been hiding in the house that wholetime, under a bed in the guest
room in the basement, calling fromthe kid's phone line. She'd been there
(07:04):
the whole time, listening as Mikefrantically searched for her, listening as he
spoke with his mistress, and maybeas she sat in the dark dialing her
home phone number over and over again, Deborah's thought started taking shape. Maybe
she already had an inkling. Afterall, the true crime book she had
been reading all summer were full ofblood and guts. Deborah had failed at
(07:28):
being a doctor, she failed ather duties as a housewife. She would
not let her marriage be another failure. Deborah knew for sure about the affair
now, and needless to say,she was supremely unhappy. So after Mike
found the castor beans, he askedDeborah what they were for. She told
him that she was going to plantthem. Yeah. Right, This woman
(07:51):
had never planted a single flower inher life, and now she had a
dozen packets of castor beans, andonly castor beans and castor plants are usually
planted in the spring, not theend of summer. Mike called her out
and then she said, oh wellfine, I was going to use them
to kill myself. This, alongwith her continuous erratic behavior, freaked Mike
(08:11):
right out. He called a ritzymental health hospital in Topeka to see what
he needed to do to get hercommitted. Mike k had seen what suicide
can do to a family that summer. Margaret's husband, David, had taken
his own life after she asked fora divorce. His death had devastated her,
It had devastated their sons, andMike was going to do everything in
his power to make sure his kidsdidn't lose their mom. The day of
(08:35):
the confrontation, deb drank herself sloppy. She screamed at Mike and her behavior
was scaring the kids. So Mikecalled nine one one and the dispatcher sent
over a patrol car. When theofficers got there, they found Mike outside
with Tim, Kelly, and Kate, all four of them in tears,
which is just heartbreaking. Mike toldthe officers that his wife had been binge
(08:56):
drinking for days and was threatening suicide. He told them that he had found
the potassium chloride and castor beans andbelieved that Deborah planned to use them on
herself. She's just my heke,She's using them on you, my man
Ah. When the officers went tothe main bedroom talked to Deborah, the
smell of booze hit him like asemitruck, and when they told her that
her husband had called for them,she absolutely lost it. She called Mike
(09:20):
an asshole and a fuck hole wow, and she was screaming so loud that
they were sure the kids could hearevery word. They talked to her for
like an hour and eventually decided sheneeded to be brought in. Deborah,
of course, tried to argue shewas drunk, sure, but that's not
illegal, and why on earth wouldshe kill herself. She told him,
I have three beautiful children here andI don't want to do anything to leave
(09:41):
them. Eventually they convinced her tocomply and allowed her to say goodbye to
the kids before she left. Kelly, sweet, sweet little Kelly, was
trying to comb her mama's hair soshe'd looked presentable Mama's youngest little soldier,
and this whole time, instead ofassuring the kids Deborah was just telling him
that this was all Mike's fault,This was all because of him. She
(10:07):
is the worst. When they gotto the hospital, Deborah was evaluated by
an old colleague of hers, doctorPamela McCoy. McCoy's perspective on Deborah is
fascinating because it really shows Deborah's abilityto project different personalities to different people.
McCoy was obviously surprised to see somebodyshe knew and promised to use discretion.
(10:31):
None of Deborah's former colleagues would haveto know anything about this. She thought
Deborah seemed sober, and when shewas asked why she was brought in,
Deborah told her that she'd had halfa bottle of wine and her husband accused
her being drunken out of control.The doctor said that Deborah looked unkempt and
that she was possibly depressed, butshe really wasn't sure if she was suicidal
or endangered anybody else. Deborah keptinsisting that Mike was just railroading her.
(10:54):
McCoy had started to empathize with Deborah, and it pretty much decided that she
was actually eligible for an involuntary hold. When suddenly Mike Ferrar walked into the
hospital, and Deborah, who hadup to this point seemed completely calm and
rational, just did a complete oneeighty. She spat at him, called
him a fuck hole repeatedly, andstarted lunging toward her husband. Doctor McCoy
(11:18):
had to physically hold her back asDebora was struggling to get it Mike.
She snarled, You're gonna get thesekids over our dead bodies. Oh,
You're gonna get these kids over ourdead bodies. Wow. So McCoy took
Mike in for an interview and leftDeborah in the hospital room. In her
(11:39):
interview with crime writer Ann Rule,whose book was one of our main sources
for this case, doctor McCoy saidshe didn't want to humiliate Deborah by having
the hospital police officer watch her whileshe interviewed Mike, which bad idea,
but okay, also, can weused to talk for a second about fuck
hole? I can't let it pass. I'm sorry now. Don't get me
wrong, y'all, y'all know Ilike philth in its place. I'm actually
(12:00):
bit of a connoisseur. I knowsomeby y'all love it about me and someby
y'all hate it. But it's partof my charm, okay, but fuck
hole was a new one on me, and my verdict is oo, no,
I'm just I'm gonna pass way toovisually evocative. Yeah, it's not
one of my favorites. But ourgirl Deborah freaking loved it. It was
like her favorite thing to call Mike. Oh my god, yeah, just
(12:22):
yucky. It's like she just shedragged the bottom of the barrel and found
the yuckiest possible word. Yes.Now, for some reason, doctor McCoy
was pretty skeptical of Mike's story abouthis wife hiding in the house and making
menacing phone calls and stowing away packetsof poisonous seeds and vials of potassium chloride.
In fact, she was like,well, I mean, Debra is
(12:43):
an oncologist, so that's something shewould use. Oh my god, I
know this woman is so fucking oblivious. Deborah isn't a working on collegist anymore.
You would know this if you didn'tkeep treating her with kid gloves.
Oh my god. It Finally,doctor McCoy called Tim and asked him about
(13:03):
his mother's demeanor. He told hershe's been very sad and very upset lately.
She hadn't got out of bed inseveral days, just been lying around.
He told her he'd been hiding herbottles of liquor from her so she
couldn't keep drinking. Doctor McCoy wasa little confused. Deborah had seemed so
normal, so rational, But therewere now two witnesses, one pretty unbiased
(13:26):
in Tim, telling her that Deborahwas showing signs of depression and would likely
need to be committed. This issomething we hear over and over again.
In this case, Deborah's ability tomanipulate others perceptions of her is up there
with Ted Bundy's. And that's notan exaggeration about Yeah, there are people
in this story who would say Deborahwas a helpless baby while she was actively
(13:50):
terrorizing her family. No, herchild was hiding liquor from her, her
child was brushing her hair. Meanwhileshe made rice and its methodically poisoning her
husband. Deborah is many things,but she's not a fucking victim. Hell
no, And I will die onthat hill. I don't feel a bit
sorry for this woman. And I'veseen like the odd you know, review
(14:11):
of Anne Rule's book where people werelike, well, I'm like, oh
new, just don't try it onme. I don't care what she's going
through. She flipped and set herkids on fire. That is absolutely not
okay, evil, Yeah, she'sthe worst. Now, were you clutching
your pearls when Whitney said that McCoydidn't think Deborah needed a babysitter, because
you should have been. Yeah,because when McCoy went to go find her,
(14:35):
Deborah had flown the coop. Eventually, the police were able to locate
Deborah several miles away from the hospital. She told the police that she wanted
to be home. As she wasdriven back to the hospital, Deborah's calmed
to be in her cracked and shestarted melting down. She told the officer
that he was making her suicidal becauseit was taking her so long to get
(14:56):
committed. When it was all saidand done, Mike had given the police
Deborah's suicide kit and returned home tohis children. With Deborah gone being diagnosed
with bipolar depression. Mike told AnneRule that he and the kids got along
swimmingly. He bought a book ona hairstyle so he could do Kayton Kelly's
(15:16):
hair, and even his strained relationshipwith Tim improved immensely without Deborah playing iago
Wow, a Shakespeare reference. I'mimpressed. What I'm not allowed to make
dick jokes and Shakespeare references? Ihave layers okay. Plus, as we
always say, we're English majors.If we don't get one Shakespeare reference in
per year, we both get ourlicenses revoked. Anyway, it was around
(15:41):
this time that Mike finally started piecingtogether the evidence of his poisoning. Perhaps
it was the distance away from hisabuser, but the cold realization hit him
that his illness could have been rising. Like any doctor, he dove into
research, and by the time hepresented the evidence to his medical team,
he was sure Deborah had poisoned him. He requested a test, and his
(16:03):
doctors told him that while he maybe right about the poisoning, rice and
antibodies don't form right away. Itwas only a few weeks from his last
illness, so they would have towait to run the tests on his blood.
This was the final straw for Mike. When Deborah got back from the
hospital in the first week of October, he packed his bags and left.
Wasn't safe for him to be inthe house anymore, not if his wife
(16:25):
was poisoning him. Plus, hethought that if he was away, Deborah
would have a harder time railing upthe kids and alienating them from him.
Deborah seemed to love the kids somuch it never even occurred to him that
she might hurt them. He genuinelybelieved that her four days at the hospital
had changed her attitude. He hadn'tseen her drinking. She was downright polite
to him. She was, however, still drinking and taking every chance she
(16:48):
could to put the kids in themiddle of their arguments. Deborah even gone
as far as getting a lawyer forthe divorce. A woman named Ellen Ryan,
who liked doctor McCoy, seems tohave severely infantalized Deborah. For some
reason. She thought Deba was ahelpless little baby who didn't even understand money,
which just I'd like to remind youall that Deborah was a doctor,
okay, who went to school tobecome a doctor, who previously wanted to
(17:11):
be an engineer, both careers thatrequire a pretty good understanding of math.
And I'm not saying you can't bebad with money and be a doctor.
I'm saying Deborah wasn't okay. Deborahis a certified genius with a resume to
prove it. Yeah, I getthe impression that Deborah went out of her
way to give other women the sensethat she was just this weak little woman
(17:32):
being victimized by an evil, controllinghusband. Ellen told Anne Rule, I
think I really thought of her asa child, as a little baby who
needed to be held and comforted.She seems so lost and so confused.
Meanwhile, like the men she gotclose to were almost always like, yo,
this bitch is crazy. But likeI guess I get where the women
(17:53):
were coming from to an extent,because you do see bad men invalidating women
like that, saying she's crazy,Like you know, I would actually say
when a guy talks about all hisex girlfriends, oh they're all crazy,
that's our red flag. Does alot of very non crazy women get labeled
like that by the asshole men whotreated them like garbage. But the problem
(18:14):
is you can't think of this shitin black and white terms, because sometimes,
even if it's only once in awhile, the bitch really do be
crazy. Okay, sometimes it's justthe truth. I hate to say it.
Deborah Green was certainly not a powerlesshousewife here, and it's not like
she was going to come out ofthis divorce with nessent either. There's a
very good chance that as a stayat home mom, she'd be getting alimony,
(18:37):
she'd be getting child support. Andshe was a trained doctor, for
God's sake, she could go backto work and make good money anytime she
wanted. On October twenty first,Tim had a soccer game Mike went,
and while he was on the sidelines, Deborah walked up to him and trying
to hand him a thermos, Shesaid, here, Tim made this cappuccino
for you, be a good fatherand drink it. Okay what Something about
(19:00):
her tone just hit Mike's ears wrong, and he was like, no,
that's okay, you you have it, but Deborah insisted. She said,
Nan, I've already had one.But Mike was already pretty much convinced by
this point that she poisoned him,so the chances of him taking any food
and drink from her was precisely zero. She seemed annoyed by that and walked
back to her car with the drinkin her hand, and Mike kicked himself
(19:22):
later for not taking it and gettinga testin, Oh, that is like
the one thing that I just thatis The one detail in this case I
think that makes me the most upsetis that that opportunity got missed. I
think, I bet you if hehad done that, yeah, there,
it would have been the rising,and that would have been that oh totally.
And I think in his mind hewas so scared of her that he
was like, get it away fromme, get it away from and get
(19:44):
it away from her. I don'tblame him, but it was that.
I think later he was like,yo, I should have but like I'm
sure he was like, oh fuck, no, no, no, like
a minute later. I think herealized it as soon as he saw her
walking away with it, and sheprobably poured it out right next to her
car and everything. But yeah,it's a horrible missed opportunity. So anyway,
(20:27):
that brings us to where we startedthis story, which is the night
of the fire. On Monday,October twenty third, Mike picked Tim and
Kelly up from the family home andaround six thirty because Tim had a hockey
game, Kate was at ballet practicerehearsing for the role of Clara and the
Nutcracker, and Deborah was at therapy. So Mike was looking forward to spending
(20:47):
time with at least two of hiskids without any interference. Tim played an
incredible game that night. By thetime they were driving home at around eight
thirty, Tim, Mike, andKelly were all laughing and just having a
great time. He walked both ofhis kids into the house, where Deborah
was reheating some fried chicken for thekids dinner. Mike grabbed some of his
mail, just chatted back and forthwith his kids for a while, and
(21:08):
then left for the evening. Sucha mundane thing, you know, just
a night full of laughter and loveand Tim playing that rock Star game,
and that would be the last timehe would see two of his kids alive.
Mike drove to Margaret's house and haddinner with her and her sons and
watched football. At around ten thirtypm, his pager went off and showed
the family home number. When hecalled, though, Deborah told him she
(21:32):
didn't page him, but maybe oneof the kids did. But even if
they did, they're asleep, soyou should probably forget about it unless you
want to wake you know, ourlittle sleeping angels up. Mike was like,
okay, no, it's fine andhung up. He thought that maybe
she was just trying to figure outwhere he was. Five minutes later,
another page came in from Deborah.He called, and she gave him some
(21:55):
mundane news about the divorce lawyers theywanted to use. Mike was like,
did you really need to page totell me that? At eleven PM,
she wanted to know where he was, and he told her that he was
at dinner with some friends. Ateleven fifteen, Mike left to go to
his apartment, and while he wasdriving, Deborah paged him again. When
he called from his home phone.About twenty minutes later, he noticed that
(22:17):
she was slurring her words. Deborahwas drinking again. This infuriated Mike.
She was on meds for her bipolardisorder that would react badly with alcohol,
and she was responsible for his kidsand something, and Mike finally snapped.
For years and years, he'd takenwhat Deborah had dished out, her tantrums,
her rage, her constant name callingand degradation on the phone. That
(22:41):
night, he unleashed what he'd beenholding in all along. Later, he
told Anne rule, I told herI was angry with her, that she
needed to buckle down and take careof the kids. I told her that
there were some parents at the school, who had noticed her behavior in poor
parenting and were considering calling social services. I told her that she needed to
get her act and gear to getall this taken care of. Once he
(23:03):
started, he couldn't stop. Itold her I thought she was crazy.
I told her I thought she neededcontinued psychiatric care. I told her I
knew she was poisoning me. AndI told her I was going to try
to take the kids away from her. Later, after one of them hung
up in rage, Mike remembered thesilence of the empty apartment. He could
only hear his own heartbeat, thecadence of his breath. Five minutes later,
(23:30):
Deborah called him again. She said, Oh, I didn't know your
home. I thought you were stillout driving around. I really did not
want to talk to you. Ijust wanted to leave a message on the
machine. And since you're home,I'm not going to say anything. And
she hung up. Less than anhour later, Mike's neighbor, doctor Mary
Foreman, would call to tell himthat there was a fire at his house.
(23:51):
She would scream into the receiver,your wife is a fucking arsonist.
Wow. What could she have possiblywanted to say to him? On voicemail?
Knowing how the evening ended, Ican't help but wonder if she was
going to taunt him with what shewas about to do. First responders arrived
fast, and they did their verybest to get Tim and Kelly out of
(24:11):
the house, but the fire wastoo hot and moving too fast for them
to save anyone. Even the familydogs Boomer and Russell, were trapped.
The police brought Mike, Deborah,and Katon for questioning. That same night,
detectives Greg Brunetta and Rod Smith decidedto interview Deborah first, and she
was in the house when the firestarted. What followed is possibly the most
(24:33):
chilling, bizarre interview that I've everread. There are clips of it on
forensic files if you want to catchhow weird it is, and Anne Rule's
book Bitter Harvest covers it almost entirely. It's truly something else. Deborah was
a barefoot and still wearing that sheepnightgown. Her demeanor was calm, even
lighthearted. When they started the interviewat four am. The detectives immediately noticed
(24:57):
the smell of alcohol on her,but she seemed sober. She was immediately
chatty. She asked if the firewas out and if she was talking to
the police or the fire department,and notably, she did not ask if
Tim and Kelly were okay. Deborahtold them that she woke up to the
fire alarm and when she opened herbedroom door, she found the hallway full
(25:18):
of smoke. She immediately went outonto the balcony to get help. She
told them, as I went aroundthe corner to inform the neighbors to call
nine one one, that's when Iheard Tim on the intercom by the pool
deck. He used to be mythirteen year old. Oh yeah, the
first time I heard that, mystomach just clenched, like remember, at
this point in the interview, herkids haven't been found yet. The house
(25:41):
is just still on fire. Andhere she is referring to Tim in the
past, tense and almost as ifhe's an object rather than a person.
He used to be my thirteen yearold. This woman deserves to be tossed
in a volcano. But Denborah didn'tseem to notice the slip up. Tim
had asked her what he should do, she said, and she told him
(26:02):
to wait for help to arrive.When he asked if he should find Kelly
and Kate and bring them out,she said no, and then conversationally told
the detectives, I'm sure that wasthe kiss of death. She commented on
her separation from Mike in a veryblaze tone, but as she kept talking,
it was clear to the detectives thatshe was trying to dirty Mike up.
(26:22):
She kept talking about how unfair itwas and he was leaving her,
and how angry the children were.She seemed to take great pleasure recounting that
Tim and Kate had both started tosay fuck you to their father. Nice
deb some top tier parental alienation yougot going on their beach. When asked
why she didn't call ninety one oneherself, she told investigators that it never
occurred to her. The smoke inthe hallway made her panic. She didn't
(26:45):
even think of finding her children.All she could do was get out.
When asked about the dogs, shetold detectives that they usually slept with her,
but they'd both gotten into a packageof coffee beans, and since she
decided they weren't going to sleep,she'd put them in with the kids.
Boomer the last slept with Kelly,and Kate slept with Russell the greyhound.
It's just another example of how selfishthis hosebag is. It did not ever
(27:08):
occur to her that a parent shouldn'tjeopardize their children's sleep, so it made
sense in her story that the dogswouldn't stay with her like a parent would
likely either put up with the dogsbeing awake, or create them for the
night, or put them outside forthe night if they were bouncing off the
walls. Like I said, thisinterview is just bizarre. And meanwhile,
the firefighters were finally in control ofthe flames. As they went into the
(27:32):
house, they immediately found the burnedremains of a bed frame that had fallen
through the floor above. Lying nextto it was the body of a teenage
boy, Tim Ferrar. An autopsywould confirm that he'd most likely died of
heat and smoke inhalation in one ofthe bedrooms. Still lying in the bed
she fell asleep and was little Kelly, the body of a big black lab
(27:53):
Boomer, was curled up underneath thebed. It didn't look like either of
them had even woken up. Theydied of carbon monoxide poisoning, most likely
in their sleep. Small mercies right, so sad. Meanwhile, when the
detectives told Deborah that Tim and Kellyhadn't made it out of the home.
Deborah showed a strong emotion for thefirst time that night. She dropped her
(28:17):
head onto the interview table and cried, Oh God, beautiful Tim and beautiful
Kelly are both dead. And thenlike a switch flipped, she started raging,
Jesus Christ, did they make anyattempt at all to save them?
I saved one of the kids,I could have gotten the second one out
and didn't. I'll never forgive myselffor that. She's a normal enough statement,
but the tone was just all wrong. It didn't have the right tone
(28:41):
to it, and it seemed likeshe was almost reading it. It also
like reads like what a character wouldsay in a book, not like a
real human response. Yeah, definitely. Then Deborah made a strange request.
I would love to see my husband, she said, even though we're getting
a divorce, because he and Iwill be the only ones who can share
in this mammoth grief. Her tonewas a semblance of sad and desperate,
(29:07):
But then when she was told thatshe couldn't see him, she vacillated again
into rage. Jesus Christ, thereare two people here that care about what
happened, so why can't we betogether, but apparently you don't have compassion
for anyone else. I want totell him. I want to tell my
husband that our babies are dead.I want to tell my husband that our
(29:30):
babies are dead. Wow. Justwow. Yeah, she wanted to see
the look on his face. Thatwould have been her payoff. You know,
it's the same reason why why yousaid she probably wanted to leave a
voicemail on his answering machine then night. It's part of why I get so
frustrated with people acting like she's hishelpless little baby. She wanted to taunt
(29:51):
her husband with the lives of thechildren that she had just killed. Ugh
sick freak, Yeah, by andtrust. Mike's interview with the detectives was
clearly very painful. He cried alot and asked a lot of questions about
how his children were found, whatmight have happened to them, when he
might be able to collect the remains. He was visibly emotional talking about his
(30:14):
children and his wife. He alsotold them about the first fire. He
explained about his mysterious illness and hissuspicions about its origins, about that final
terrible phone call. Later, Debrawould assume that Mike would let her stay
with him. That is, afterall, what happened after the first fire.
Yeah, good fucking luck with that. Mike was done with a capital
(30:38):
d. He gave her about threehundred dollars in cash, let her use
his phone, and loaned her hiscar, And after she left, he
called his lawyer to officially file fordivorce and request full custody of Kate,
who was staying with his parents.For now, Debra stayed in a hotel.
She'd later get supervised visits with Kate. Ars investigations are often slow and
(31:02):
complicated because obviously a lot of theevidence gets destroyed or damaged. This case
was no exception. The investigators broughtin and an arson investigator who brought in
her sniffer dog, Avon, whowas a very good girl, to look
for accelerants and find them. Shedid in several places around the house,
important because accidental fires usually have justone point of origin, where arsons usually
(31:26):
have a few. Right, theyfound poor patterns in several unconnected rooms throughout
the house, meaning that somebody hadgone from room to room pouring some kind
of accelerant and setting each fire individually. And this is the worst part.
They discovered that whoever set this firehad purposely blocked every escape route from the
(31:47):
children's rooms, and on the floorof the main bathroom, Deborah's bathroom,
they discovered a woman's bathrobe with alittle burn hole in it. Huh drop
a match on your bathrobe? Didyou? The investigators now had proof that
this fire was a double murder andthey could get started on a formal investigation.
(32:07):
A lot of police work is monotonous. For example, remember how Deborah's
neighbors noticed her wet hair on thenight of the murders. What was up
with that? Well, arsonists oftenexperienced what's called a flash fire, which
is what happens when an accelerant isignited and burns really quickly. Did she
accidentally set herself on fire and thendunk her head underwater to put it out.
(32:30):
More often than not, arsonists doburn themselves, so detectives usually look
for singed hair and eyebrows during arsoninvestigation. In this case, detectives got
a search warrant for a sample ofDeborah's hair. Her lawyers were furious that
they didn't let them know that theywanted her hair before they gave her the
warrant. Ellen said Deborah wanted tocooperate. These detectives were just too aggressive.
(32:51):
But where they though? Because investigatorsfound out that before the kid's funeral,
Debora had not one, but twohaircuts. She insisted that the first
one just looked really bad and shehad to go get it fixed. But
despite her best efforts and the effortsof some poor Kansas City hair stylists that
had to deal with Deborah, forans E Sciences found that the hair at
(33:12):
the front of Deborah's head showed signsof significant singing. At no point in
Deborah's interview did she ever say she'dbeen close enough to a fire to be
burned, But we have a bathrobe and her hair that proved that's not
true. This wasn't quite enough forthe habeas grabus yet, so detectives kept
digging. Then they decided to followup on doctor Ferrar's poisoning to see if
(33:35):
they could find proof that she boughtthe castor beans in the first place.
This is a weird, little investigativefun fact, but when officers reported to
the house and the night Deborah gotcommitted, they noticed Debora's open a dress
book on her nightstand, and init was an address for a garden store
in a Latha, Kansas, whichis about thirty minutes away from the house,
and one of the cops somehow rememberedthis weird little detail and told the
(33:58):
detectives about it, who called astore. This is just incredible, fascinating.
Now. Unfortunately, I know,like, how do you remember a
little detail like that? But youknow, stuff does stick in your head
like that right now. Unfortunately,nobody at that location remembered selling that many
castor beans to anybody. Because mostdetective work is not nearly so sexy as
Law and Order SPU would have usbelieve. The detectives proceeded to call every
(34:20):
location of that store in Kansas City, and eventually they struck Gold. An
employee at one of the locations rememberedSpecial ordering a big old order of castor
beans to a woman in September,and when asked, she identified a photo
of Deborah Green as the buyer outof a lineup of photos. This purchase
can't have been her first one,because days later Mike would find the seed
(34:43):
packets in her purse, but itwas a pretty good piece of circumstantial evidence.
They also sent some of Mike's bloodto be tested for rice and antibodies.
It would be a long time beforethey got that back, but they
felt confident that the results would comeback positive. The day felt good about
the evidence they'd found, the hairat the bathrobe, the signs of arson,
Deborah's increasingly weird behavior leading up tothe fire, Mike's poisoning the seed
(35:06):
packets. The picture was pretty clear. Deborah Green had tried to kill her
husband and had succeeded in killing twoof her children, so the DA issued
a warrant for the grabs on Novembertwenty second, nineteen ninety five. Deborah
had brought Kate to dress rehearsal forthe Nutcracker that night, and the detectives
wanted to be sure that Kate wassafely in the theater when they arrested her
(35:27):
mother. Deborah was calm when theyslapped the cuffs on her. Ellen Ryan
once again failed to beat the riderdie allegations when she got big mat at
the cops for arresting her instead ofallowing Deborah the dignity of turning herself in
for Pete's sake. I don't know, Ellen, She's already getting arrested for
killing two of her children and She'sgot a documented history of threatening to kill
(35:49):
herself, so maybe the cops werejust ensuring that Deborah didn't hurt herself for
anybody else before they arrested her.I think they should have frog marched her
up and down in front of themedia cameras, make sure she gets good
humiliated. But that's just me.Yeah, I'm no exit, I'm no
expert, but God. The casewent to a preliminary hearing in January of
(36:09):
nineteen ninety six, kind of likea mini trial. The prosecutor, Paul
Morrison, laid out his case clearly. Deborah Green, desperate to keep her
family together, had set a firein their first house and was pleased to
find that it actually worked. Herhusband stayed, But then when Mike asked
for a divorce again and Deborah foundout about his affair, she'd poisoned him,
(36:30):
whether in an attempt to kill himor to make him so reliant on
her that he couldn't leave. Whenthat didn't work, and after Mike snapped
at her on the phone, callingher a failure of a mother and telling
her that he wanted to take thekids away from her, and letting it
slip that he suspected she'd poisoned him. She set fire to their house,
and she did it in a waythat prevented two of her children from escaping.
(36:53):
He let out the evidence, thesinged hair, the burned bathrobe,
the bizarre behavior leading up to thefire, castor beans, Mike's illness.
It was a damn good case.Those in the courtroom wondered how the defense
would respond. Now Here at TCC, we typically don't dunk on defense attorneys
for just doing their jobs, Sowe're gonna try and be fair in our
(37:14):
assessment of the defense. But ourassessment is that it sucked ass, just
straight up sucked ass. Deborah's lawyersthe technical legal term is that it sucked
ass like I have no other words. And we're laughing, not because it's
funny, but because it's so fuckinghorrific. Yeah. Deborah's lawyer Dennis Moore
(37:37):
started by dirtying up Mike, pointingout his affair and that he planned to
leave Deborah long before he told herabout it. He also insinuated that Mike's
illness was from some kind of virushe caught on the trip to Peru,
not from poisoning. Finally, hedid one of the most disgusting things that
I've ever heard a defense attorney do. He said, there's going to be
(37:57):
evidence presented that Tim Ferrar had anun natural fascination with fire. He also
insinuated that thirteen year old Tim wasquote a very disturbed young man. Yes,
that's right. Deborah's defense was,it wasn't me, it was my
child who was dead. Yeah,like many family annihilators before and after,
(38:20):
it's what they always do. Yeah. He did bring in classmates of Tims
to testify that he did occasionally setthings on fire and had allegedly had some
kind of an anarchist cookbook style document. But genuinely, have you met a
thirteen year old boy. Of coursehe liked setting things on fire, but
there was no proof whatsoever that he'dset anything aside from maybe a pile of
(38:45):
leaves on fire, nor was thereforensic proof indicating that he was responsible for
this. Look, I was notthat much older than Tim when this happened.
I had the anarchist cookbook in thenineties. Okay, every self respecting
weird kid had it. In thosedays. You would lose your weird kid
card if they sold the flipping thingat Walden Books come on. According to
(39:06):
Deb's lawyer, Tim was a juveniledelinquent capable of a monstrous act of violence.
But that's not who Tim was.Tim was a sweetheart. He defended
kids at school from bullies. Hewas funny, he was strong, He
loved sports, and his coaches allsaid that they expected great things from him.
He was a good brother. Whenhis mother was on drinking binges,
(39:27):
he hid or threw away her liquor. He had a complicated relationship with his
father, of course, but whatteenager doesn't. Mike fortunately remembers the last
night he spent with his son asa good one. They were laughing together,
celebrating his great game. Tim wasnot a monster. He was a
child being manipulated by one, andin his death, he was being sacrificed
(39:47):
by one as well. Gross Fortunately, the judge sided with the prosecution.
Deborah Green would be going to trial, and the prosecution announced that they'd be
pursued the death penalty. As bothsides prepared for trial, it was becoming
crystal clear to the defense that theirclient was going to be found guilty or
not. Butter shit, Deborah wasuncooperative with her male attorneys and needy with
(40:12):
Ellen Ryan, who by this pointhad started allowing her children to speak to
Deborah on the phone. Just Ellen, really, dang girl, Ellen,
I don't understand Ellen at all.Ellen decided to try and convince Deborah to
take a deal. She laid outthe fact as the prosecution would present them,
and eventually Deborah agreed, but notbefore confiding in Ellen that it was
(40:35):
Tim and Deborah who actually poisoned Miketogether, probably almost certainly alive. Of
course, Tim couldn't make ricin hisdoctor genius engineer mother could one last indignity
for the boy who so passionately defendedhis mom. She pleaded no contest,
and on April seventeenth, nineteen ninetysix, doctor Deborah Green was sentenced to
(40:59):
forty years in prison without the possibilityof parole. If she gets out,
she'll be eighty five upon her release. This is one of those cases that
sticks with you. I read thisbook probably twenty years ago, and I
mean I still think about this caseregularly, like long before we decided to
(41:19):
cover it on the show. It'sjust one of those that's going to live
in your brain for the rest ofyour life. Tim and Kelly had loved
their mother so much, only tobe betrayed by her in the worst way,
the most cruel way you could possiblyimagine. Innocent lives used to further
the agenda of a woman who claimedto love them more than anything else.
But the problem is, for somebodylike dab Breast, somebody who's narcissistic to
(41:43):
the core, losing those kids forher would have been ego death. She
had built her entire identity around beinga great mom and she was afraid I
think that she was about to losethat, And for a narcissist, ego
death is death, period, There'sno difference. So that night, I
(42:04):
just think she had nothing to loseand those kids were tools to her and
absolutely nothing else. They were justaway for her to get at Mike,
and the ripples of those actions aregoing to be felt for years to come.
We hope Mike and Kate have foundsome peace in the intervening years,
but I mean, I'm sure ithas to haunt them of course, So
yeah, we wish him nothing butthe best. So that was one hell
(42:28):
of a wild one, right,campers. You know we'll have another one
for you next week, but fornow, lock your doors, light your
lights, and stay safe. Untilwe get together again around the True Crime
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(42:51):
We appreciate y'all to the moon andback. And if you're not yet a
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