Latest / The Path Went Chilly / Patsy Wright Pt. Two

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Patsy Wright Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of our series about the
0:32
Speaker 1: murder of Patsy Wright. Let's dive right back into it.
0:35
Speaker 1: But even so, they never found any direct evidence that
0:38
Speaker 1: Steve and Sally were involved in this, even though Sally
0:41
Speaker 1: had been struggling with cancer at the time. I do
0:43
Speaker 1: believe that she is still alive today. I haven't found
0:46
Speaker 1: any obituary for her, and as far as I can tell,
0:49
Speaker 1: she remained with Steve, and a lot of people from
0:51
Speaker 1: their personal lives were saying that, yeah, I could kind
0:54
Speaker 1: of see Steve doing something like this because of his
0:56
Speaker 1: financial issues. But they also said that Sally and Patsy
1:00
Speaker 1: had a really strong relationship and they don't think she
1:03
Speaker 1: would have been capable of being involved in this or
1:05
Speaker 1: covering for Steve if he was involved in this. And
1:08
Speaker 1: when you look at the series of events, you're thinking
1:10
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, if they killed her, then both of
1:12
Speaker 1: them would have to be involved. But they just don't
1:14
Speaker 1: think that that fits Sally's character.
1:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean I could see a
1:20
Speaker 2: scenario where Sally could have her suspicions and turn a
1:24
Speaker 2: blind eye and maybe even do things to support her husband.
1:29
Speaker 2: Because in the end, it's like my sister is deceased now,
1:33
Speaker 2: and there's nothing that I can do to bring her back.
1:35
Speaker 2: But what I can do is try to preserve my
1:38
Speaker 2: lifestyle and preserve my life and not have Steve go
1:43
Speaker 2: to prison and not have our name sullied and have
1:46
Speaker 2: all the drama and theatrics that goes along with it.
1:49
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different motivations that somebody can
1:52
Speaker 2: have after the fact, covering up a crime without maybe
1:55
Speaker 2: even having direct knowledge, but just having a suspicion of it.
1:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean she did benefit from it, even
2:02
Speaker 1: though she apparently had a close relationship with her sister,
2:04
Speaker 1: because she wound up inheriting the six million dollars net
2:07
Speaker 1: worth from the two wax museums, so well, they didn't
2:10
Speaker 1: consider her to be a suspect. It could be a
2:12
Speaker 1: thing where maybe she becomes suspicious about Steve after the fact.
2:16
Speaker 1: But she's saying to herself, well, I've got these two
2:18
Speaker 1: successful museums. I've now got a lot of money. It's
2:20
Speaker 1: solved dollar financial problems. So maybe I'll stay quiet about
2:24
Speaker 1: the whole thing in order to avoid ruining our lives.
2:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, like don't rock the boat type of a thing,
2:30
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that she was dealing with the grief
2:32
Speaker 2: of losing her sister, and then the idea of blowing
2:35
Speaker 2: up her life in order to get justice might not
2:39
Speaker 2: have been the top priority for her when she may
2:42
Speaker 2: have felt like she was getting everything that she wanted. Unfortunately,
2:46
Speaker 2: she was with somebody that wasn't responsible financially, and she
2:50
Speaker 2: was in a much better position now, So if she
2:53
Speaker 2: was to go to law enforcement, all that could be
2:54
Speaker 2: taken away.
2:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I'm thinking that even if she got
2:58
Speaker 1: justice for her sister, financially, her life would be completely
3:01
Speaker 1: ruined and she might not been wanting to rock the boat.
3:04
Speaker 1: So another suspect that they looked at was a man
3:06
Speaker 1: named Leo Fikes, as this had been Patsy's last serious
3:09
Speaker 1: relationship before she got involved with Larry Todd. I know
3:13
Speaker 1: that Patsy started dating Leo after her second marriage came
3:16
Speaker 1: to an end, and he was apparently crazy about her
3:19
Speaker 1: and wanted to get married, but after going through two
3:22
Speaker 1: previous divorces, Patsy said that she was in no hurry
3:25
Speaker 1: to get married again, so that pretty much spelled the
3:27
Speaker 1: end of the relationship, and Leo started looking like a
3:30
Speaker 1: potential suspect because he owned a chemical company, so they
3:33
Speaker 1: started thinking, hmm, I wonder if he may have had
3:36
Speaker 1: access to Strict nine. But Leo was described as being
3:39
Speaker 1: very cooperative with the authorities, and he also passed a
3:42
Speaker 1: polygraph and they did look into the chemical company's background
3:45
Speaker 1: and find out that they did not use Strict nine
3:48
Speaker 1: or have access to it. So they pretty much cleared
3:51
Speaker 1: Leo as a suspect and did not believe that he
3:53
Speaker 1: had a motive to do this.
3:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean it's sort of like
3:57
Speaker 2: if he was going to use chemical, it would be
4:00
Speaker 2: like a chemical of opportunity. I would think something that
4:03
Speaker 2: he would have access to at a chemical company, you
4:05
Speaker 2: wouldn't go and procure something outside of that because that
4:09
Speaker 2: may draw attention to you. So yeah, he's not really
4:12
Speaker 2: looking like that grade of a suspect.
4:14
Speaker 1: But a crazy side story is that one of the
4:16
Speaker 1: reasons that Leo popped up on the radar is because
4:19
Speaker 1: someone made an anonymous phone call to the police saying
4:22
Speaker 1: you should look at Leo. He was involved in a
4:24
Speaker 1: relationship with a woman named Linda Donna, who who was
4:27
Speaker 1: murdered in June of nineteen eighty seven, only three months
4:30
Speaker 1: before Patsy's death, and Leo said that he'd only dated
4:34
Speaker 1: Linda a few times, the relationship was not that serious.
4:37
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand and five, they finally used
4:39
Speaker 1: DNA evidence to link the crime to a serial killer
4:43
Speaker 1: named Roger Fain, which proved beyond a shadow of a
4:46
Speaker 1: doubt that Leo had nothing to do with it. But
4:48
Speaker 1: then you look at the timeline and you're like, this
4:50
Speaker 1: poor man, two women that he dated wound up being
4:53
Speaker 1: murdered within three months of each other, and he had
4:55
Speaker 1: nothing to do with either of the crimes. So talk
4:57
Speaker 1: about rotten luck.
5:00
Speaker 2: This is some horrible luck. The probability seems so low
5:03
Speaker 2: that you would be with one person that's murdered, let
5:05
Speaker 2: alone two people, and then it just the probability is
5:09
Speaker 2: even lower that it would be within like a three
5:11
Speaker 2: month period, And it seems so suspicious when you look
5:14
Speaker 2: at it on the surface without delving into the details.
5:17
Speaker 2: But when you do, you realize, this poor man is
5:21
Speaker 2: just his life is marred with all of this tragedy.
5:24
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the impact it must have had.
5:26
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, but I don't see Leo being a
5:29
Speaker 1: even though this case is technically still Unsolved. I don't
5:32
Speaker 1: see Leo being a compelling suspect in that Patsy's case.
5:36
Speaker 1: And one other thing I wanted to mention is that
5:37
Speaker 1: because this was on the first season of Unsolved Mysteries,
5:40
Speaker 1: this was back during the era when they used a
5:42
Speaker 1: lot of the real people associated with the case and
5:45
Speaker 1: the reenactments, and the one about Patsy starts out with
5:48
Speaker 1: the reenactment of your funeral, and you see a lot
5:51
Speaker 1: of the real people like Leo and her two children
5:53
Speaker 1: and Sally and Steve playing themselves in the reenactment of
5:57
Speaker 1: the funeral, and watching it today, that just seems bob
6:00
Speaker 1: because this is one of the most traumatic moments of
6:02
Speaker 1: their lives and here they are willing to appear on TV,
6:05
Speaker 1: even though they are not actors, to like recreate a
6:07
Speaker 1: funeral of someone they loved.
6:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild times back then to think of
6:14
Speaker 2: these recreations even being done. To ask family members to
6:19
Speaker 2: do that, to relive, like what would have been some
6:22
Speaker 2: of the most traumatic and emotionally impactful times of their lives,
6:27
Speaker 2: and to share it with viewers at home, that's a
6:30
Speaker 2: big ask. Like it's one thing to do in interview,
6:32
Speaker 2: but it's a whole other to reenact.
6:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can see why Unsolved Mysteries during their
6:37
Speaker 1: later seasons pretty much stopped doing that and they would
6:40
Speaker 1: pretty much get actors every single time for the reenactments.
6:43
Speaker 1: But if you look at the early seasons, I guess
6:45
Speaker 1: it adds a feeling of realism and authenticity to them
6:48
Speaker 1: when you see the real people right there on screen
6:50
Speaker 1: reenacting those. It was kind of like when I was
6:52
Speaker 1: a kid, I sometimes couldn't figure out that the reenactments
6:55
Speaker 1: were stage. So I'm thinking of myself, why is the
6:57
Speaker 1: cameraman still filming when all these horrible crimes are taking place?
7:02
Speaker 2: Your little kid brain is just like, oh my gosh,
7:05
Speaker 2: why is there a guy they're filming and he's not helping?
7:07
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why is it still unsolved? If they capture the
7:10
Speaker 1: murder right here on camera? Yeah, when you're eight years old,
7:14
Speaker 1: that's how you think.
7:15
Speaker 2: Is this true?
7:16
Speaker 1: Yep? So now I need to talk about Patsy's second
7:19
Speaker 1: ex husband, And what's interesting is that he happens to
7:21
Speaker 1: share the name with an infamous figure and another case
7:25
Speaker 1: that we have covered. Does the name Robert Cox ring
7:27
Speaker 1: a bell to you?
7:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, Robert Cox sounds familiar from.
7:31
Speaker 1: The Springfield three case. He was the guy who was
7:34
Speaker 1: in prison for kidnapping who claims that he knows the
7:36
Speaker 1: truth about what happened to the three missing women, but
7:39
Speaker 1: will not reveal it until after his mother passes away.
7:42
Speaker 1: So it's still up for debate if he was responsible
7:44
Speaker 1: for their disappearances. But rest assured this Robert Cox is
7:47
Speaker 1: not the same Robert Cox from that case.
7:50
Speaker 2: So weird when you get these names and they intersect,
7:53
Speaker 2: and it's like the six degrees of separation with any
7:57
Speaker 2: true crime case. Basically you can connect them all.
8:00
Speaker 1: Yes, but Robert Cox sounds like a fairly common name,
8:02
Speaker 1: so I guess it shouldn't be surprised that he has
8:04
Speaker 1: popped up in two separate cases that are unconnected to
8:08
Speaker 1: each other. But following her divorce from her first husband, Bill,
8:12
Speaker 1: Patsy became involved in a relationship with a man named
8:15
Speaker 1: Robert Cox, who was separated from his first wife and
8:18
Speaker 1: he had a couple children from his first marriage. And
8:21
Speaker 1: even though Patsy felt that Robert was charming at first,
8:24
Speaker 1: he turned into an altogether different person after they got married,
8:28
Speaker 1: as he was verbally abusive towards Patsy and pretty much
8:31
Speaker 1: lived off her money. He also had severe gambling problem,
8:34
Speaker 1: and it got to the point where the IRS planned
8:36
Speaker 1: to seize Patsy's assets in order to pay off Bob's
8:39
Speaker 1: tax debts. And there was pretty much a big turning
8:43
Speaker 1: point when Patsy became acquainted with a counselor who had
8:46
Speaker 1: worked with Robert and his previous wife, And even though
8:49
Speaker 1: this stuff is supposed to be confidential, the counselor flat
8:52
Speaker 1: out told Patsy Robert is a sociopath, so you should
8:55
Speaker 1: get away from him. And that's when they finally decided
8:57
Speaker 1: to divorce in nineteen eighty four after being married for
9:00
Speaker 1: only one year, and Patsy was even forced to obtain
9:04
Speaker 1: a restraining order against Robert because he was following her
9:06
Speaker 1: around and harassing her, and she even said that she
9:09
Speaker 1: saw him parked outside her house on numerous occasions. So obviously,
9:13
Speaker 1: on the surface, this guy looks like a compelling suspect.
9:17
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the guy is a stalker with major financial
9:21
Speaker 2: problems and to the point where Patsy's assets were going
9:25
Speaker 2: to get seized. He sounds horrible. He sounds financially abusive
9:30
Speaker 2: and potentially abusive in other ways. I can't even imagine
9:34
Speaker 2: what it was like for her to be married to him.
9:36
Speaker 2: I'm sure she was so happy to be free of him.
9:39
Speaker 2: I guess that spags the question was she ever truly
9:43
Speaker 2: free of him?
9:44
Speaker 1: And that's what's crazy, is the whole detail about the counselor,
9:47
Speaker 1: because they're supposed to keep this stuff like confidential, and
9:50
Speaker 1: she's flat out saying that, oh, based on my sessions
9:52
Speaker 1: with him and his first wife, you should leave him
9:54
Speaker 1: because he's a sociopath. Like ouch. That must show that
9:57
Speaker 1: he must have been really bad if the counselor was
9:59
Speaker 1: willing to do that.
10:00
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. It's like that scene from Ghosts when
10:02
Speaker 2: Whoopie Goldberg, it's also popular meme is like you in
10:06
Speaker 2: danger girl.
10:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty much what it was like.
10:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And it's like, I'm going to forego my
10:12
Speaker 2: ethical obligation here because it Maybe it was because she
10:15
Speaker 2: felt like he might commit a crime and that her
10:18
Speaker 2: physical wellbeing and emotional wellbeing could be harmed by him,
10:23
Speaker 2: because that's what he was capable of in the past.
10:26
Speaker 2: I think to breach those ethical obligations, you would have
10:30
Speaker 2: to feel like there was a reasonable expectation that harm
10:33
Speaker 2: could be brought to the party that you are then
10:36
Speaker 2: treating or that you're familiar with. I don't think that
10:39
Speaker 2: anybody would enter into disclosure of that information lightly. So
10:43
Speaker 2: I think it speaks to just how scary Robert Cox
10:46
Speaker 2: potentially was.
10:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's probably why the counselor decided to do that. Now,
10:52
Speaker 1: their divorce took place in nineteen eighty four, and Patsy's
10:54
Speaker 1: death took place three years after the fact, but he
10:57
Speaker 1: had recently re entered her life for a very off.
11:00
Speaker 1: Because wax museums are a big part of this story,
11:03
Speaker 1: it turned out that Robert actually owned his own wax
11:06
Speaker 1: museum before he got married to Patsy, because, like I said,
11:09
Speaker 1: they seemed to be insanely popular in Texas during the
11:12
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. And this wax museum wound up being destroyed
11:15
Speaker 1: in a fire in February of nineteen eighty three. But
11:19
Speaker 1: because it wasn't particularly successful and Robert was in financial
11:23
Speaker 1: problems was in financial trouble at the time, the insurance
11:26
Speaker 1: company started believing that he may have started the fire himself.
11:29
Speaker 1: They refused to pay out Robert's claims, so he decided
11:32
Speaker 1: to file suit against them, and at the time of
11:35
Speaker 1: Patsy's death, a civil trial was about to take place
11:37
Speaker 1: over the matter, and Patsy apparently had some pretty incriminating
11:41
Speaker 1: information about financial misdeeds that Robert had committed during their marriage,
11:46
Speaker 1: and she was scheduled to testify against them in the
11:48
Speaker 1: insurance company's case. Robert apparently contacted Patsy on several occasions
11:53
Speaker 1: to convince her de line her testimony, which she refused
11:56
Speaker 1: to do because they left on such bad terms. So
11:59
Speaker 1: she's like, why am I going to help you? And
12:01
Speaker 1: of course, because Patsy wound up dying before she could testify,
12:05
Speaker 1: only ten days before the civil trial began, Robert had
12:08
Speaker 1: a motive for wanting her dead. And Robert did eventually
12:11
Speaker 1: wind up winning the civil trial and was awarded one
12:13
Speaker 1: point three million dollars as it cannot be conclusively proven
12:17
Speaker 1: that he started the fire. But of course the trial
12:19
Speaker 1: may have turned out differently if Patsy had been willing
12:22
Speaker 1: to testify. So, as you can imagine, alarm bells are
12:24
Speaker 1: going off over everyone's head.
12:26
Speaker 2: For Robert, well, it sounds like he's got one million,
12:30
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand reasons to want Patsy dead.
12:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And unlike the other suspects in this case,
12:36
Speaker 1: Robert was not cooperative. He refused to take a polygraph,
12:39
Speaker 1: and Unsow Mysteries invited him to appear on the show
12:43
Speaker 1: to get his side of the story, but he refused
12:45
Speaker 1: to do an interview. So we were spared of Robert
12:48
Speaker 1: doing his best impression of Jewel Kaylor and trying to
12:50
Speaker 1: act like a bereaved husband and possibly saying that he
12:53
Speaker 1: was glad that Patsy was gone. But the one thing
12:56
Speaker 1: which could have gone against Robert was the presence of
12:59
Speaker 1: the two days plates on the tray next to Patsy's bed,
13:02
Speaker 1: Because they're thinking to themselves, Yeah, even if Patsy had
13:06
Speaker 1: like a secret lover was holding an affair and invited
13:09
Speaker 1: him over that night to have an intimate dinner together,
13:12
Speaker 1: there's zero chance that she would have done this with Robert.
13:15
Speaker 1: And they're also thinking, well, could it be possible that
13:18
Speaker 1: Robert broke into her house and poisoned the Nike will
13:20
Speaker 1: and maybe Patsy invited someone over and this guy left
13:24
Speaker 1: before she died, But no one ever came forward to
13:27
Speaker 1: admit that they had been at a residence that night,
13:29
Speaker 1: So they were thinking to themselves, like, could these dinner
13:32
Speaker 1: plates have been a piece of evidence that it wasn't
13:34
Speaker 1: Robert and that perhaps the real poisoner was someone that
13:37
Speaker 1: she was intimate with.
13:39
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a myriad of possibilities. There's still a
13:42
Speaker 2: possibility that she could have invited somebody over. That person
13:46
Speaker 2: came and they had an encounter and then had some food,
13:49
Speaker 2: and then they left and they had absolutely zero to
13:52
Speaker 2: do with the poisoning because we know that that key
13:54
Speaker 2: was stolen, So it doesn't mean that person had to
13:57
Speaker 2: be let in by Patsy. They could to potentially use
14:01
Speaker 2: that spare key at any time. And we also don't
14:04
Speaker 2: know if the bottle that was used is the bottle
14:07
Speaker 2: that she was using regularly and she took with her
14:11
Speaker 2: potentially camping. So it just changes the window by which
14:15
Speaker 2: this could have been done since we don't know the
14:18
Speaker 2: information about that bottle of nikewill, like, did she take
14:21
Speaker 2: a camping, We don't know, And so that really opens
14:24
Speaker 2: it up because we also don't know when that key
14:27
Speaker 2: went missing.
14:28
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, And like even if Patsy did have an
14:30
Speaker 1: intimate evening with someone, that doesn't necessarily rule out Robert
14:34
Speaker 1: from being responsible. And it fits the profile of someone
14:37
Speaker 1: who had intimate knowledge of her personal life because they
14:39
Speaker 1: were married for a year, so he would have known
14:41
Speaker 1: that it was her habit to take nike will before
14:44
Speaker 1: she went to bed. So he's thinking to himself, this
14:46
Speaker 1: is the best way to do it. Just put it
14:48
Speaker 1: in there. She's gonna take it without second thought, and
14:51
Speaker 1: then she will wind up dying of poisoning. And because
14:53
Speaker 1: he's been described as a cruel sociopath, he might be thinking,
14:57
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it in the most cruel way
14:58
Speaker 1: imaginable to ensure that she suffers before she died. So
15:02
Speaker 1: it really does fit his profile.
15:04
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think both Steve and Robert are two men
15:08
Speaker 2: who are bad with finances, and they both make compelling suspects.
15:12
Speaker 2: But Robert Cox, based on past behavior, is in my opinion,
15:16
Speaker 2: the best suspect.
15:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's nothing to indicate that Steve was a violent,
15:21
Speaker 1: abusive person. So even if he had a financial motive
15:24
Speaker 1: to want or gone, it's totally the fact that they
15:27
Speaker 1: made Patsy suffer sounds like something devious that Robert would
15:30
Speaker 1: have done. So two other people who were investigated as
15:34
Speaker 1: potential suspects were Bill and Bonnie Alexander, the couple who
15:37
Speaker 1: boarded Patsy's horses, because the day before her death, she
15:41
Speaker 1: had written them a blank check and then shortly afterwards
15:44
Speaker 1: they filled in the amount for four thousand dollars and
15:47
Speaker 1: wound up cashing it, which was suspicious because the day
15:50
Speaker 1: before her death, a friend who was helping out Patsy
15:53
Speaker 1: with her finances, asked if she had any outstanding checks,
15:56
Speaker 1: and she told her friend that she did not. She
15:58
Speaker 1: never mentioned anything about the check to the Alexanders, which
16:01
Speaker 1: made them wonder if maybe they forged it and were
16:04
Speaker 1: trying to make money from her. And they also discovered
16:07
Speaker 1: that Patsy's horses were also in the Alexander's name, so
16:10
Speaker 1: they were going to inherit the horses following the death.
16:14
Speaker 1: So Bonnie's story was that Patsy gave them the check
16:17
Speaker 1: and told them to add up what she owed them
16:19
Speaker 1: and boarding and contest entry fees, and she also said
16:22
Speaker 1: that the horses were in their names because Patsy did
16:25
Speaker 1: not want Steve to get them in case something happened
16:28
Speaker 1: to her. Patsy's family also started hearing rumors that Bill
16:31
Speaker 1: may have been in love with Patsy and we're having
16:34
Speaker 1: some sort of secret affair and that either he killed
16:37
Speaker 1: Patsy to get the hands on the horses, or maybe
16:40
Speaker 1: a body killed her out of jealousy, because, as you recall,
16:43
Speaker 1: the day after Patsy was killed, her daughter received a
16:46
Speaker 1: phone call from an anonymous woman who said, good, I'm
16:49
Speaker 1: glad she's dead. But they never found any evidence to
16:52
Speaker 1: support that the Alexanders were involved. But they did find
16:55
Speaker 1: out that in the past, strychnine was sometimes used by
16:59
Speaker 1: horse breeders in order to treat their animals, but they
17:01
Speaker 1: couldn't find any evidence that Bill or Bonnie had access
17:05
Speaker 1: to strict nine. So they both took polygraphs and they
17:08
Speaker 1: both passed. So it could be kind of a mix
17:10
Speaker 1: here where the Alexanders were not involved in Patsy's death.
17:14
Speaker 1: But if Bill and Patsy had a secret affair, or
17:17
Speaker 1: maybe Bill was being flirtatious for Patsy that made Bonnie
17:20
Speaker 1: dislike her and she could have been the woman who
17:22
Speaker 1: was responsible for the anonymous phone call.
17:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one hundred percent checks out for me, because
17:28
Speaker 2: you would have to trust these people if you're going
17:30
Speaker 2: to put the horses in their names, because you don't want,
17:33
Speaker 2: you know, your acts to get them like it makes
17:35
Speaker 2: sense but it also would imply there would have to
17:38
Speaker 2: be a great deal of trust, and I would assume that, yes,
17:41
Speaker 2: technically they are in the Alexander's names, but if Patsy
17:45
Speaker 2: was going to pass away, the assumption would be they
17:47
Speaker 2: would go to her children, would it not?
17:49
Speaker 1: Pretty much? Yeah, So it's like, even though like they
17:52
Speaker 1: were in the Alexander's names, I guess because it was
17:54
Speaker 1: part of her state, it would still go to her children.
17:57
Speaker 1: And the Alexanders also weren't going to inherit like millions
18:00
Speaker 1: of dollars. They might get the horses, but they're not
18:02
Speaker 1: going to get anything else, So they didn't really have
18:04
Speaker 1: a strong motive to orchestrate this elaborate murder plot involving
18:08
Speaker 1: Strych nine.
18:09
Speaker 2: And like, I'm sorry for four thousand dollars. If you've
18:12
Speaker 2: got a blank check, four thousand dollars seems like an
18:15
Speaker 2: appropriate amount. Horses are expensive, so things add up quickly,
18:19
Speaker 2: and it might not have been something that crossed her
18:22
Speaker 2: mind when Patsy was asked about if she had any
18:25
Speaker 2: financial debts or anything coming or owed, and then when
18:29
Speaker 2: the Alexanders added it up, it was like, Okay, it's
18:31
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars that doesn't sound like an amount that
18:34
Speaker 2: you're going to murder somebody over. If it was like
18:36
Speaker 2: twenty grand that they put in there, I'd be like, oh,
18:38
Speaker 2: that's a little bit suspicious, But four grand isn't really
18:41
Speaker 2: raising my eyebrow.
18:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that debsiditely sounds like an amount for boarding
18:45
Speaker 1: and contest entry fees, which is what Bonnie said. And
18:48
Speaker 1: they cashed it the day after her death, which was
18:50
Speaker 1: not widespread news yet. So if they were completely innocent,
18:53
Speaker 1: they may have had no idea that Patsy was dead
18:56
Speaker 1: and it was just an unfortunate coincidence that they cashed
18:58
Speaker 1: this check so soon after she died.
19:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I think if you were going to do that,
19:03
Speaker 2: you would almost want to cash it before she died
19:06
Speaker 2: because she wouldn't likely find out about it for you know,
19:09
Speaker 2: a day or two. Because of the banking in the
19:11
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, it wasn't like it is today where you've
19:14
Speaker 2: got alerts come into your phone. So unless she went in,
19:17
Speaker 2: she might not know, and then you've got plausible deniability going, well, yeah,
19:24
Speaker 2: she was alive, she had the freedom to find this
19:26
Speaker 2: out prior to her death. So the fact that they
19:29
Speaker 2: did it, like the day after. That makes them almost
19:32
Speaker 2: look more innocent in my eyes, because it would be
19:34
Speaker 2: looked at as like almost like cartoon villain ish, like yeah,
19:39
Speaker 2: two ham handed.
19:41
Speaker 1: Yeah. I definitely don't believe that the Alexanders were involved
19:43
Speaker 1: in the murder, even though I think Bonnie was the
19:45
Speaker 1: one responsible for the phone call. She maybe just doing
19:48
Speaker 1: that just out of like personal reasons because of a
19:50
Speaker 1: disliked with Patsy, even if they were not complicit in
19:53
Speaker 1: her death. So, believe it or not, wax museums would
19:56
Speaker 1: factor into this story again. And this is when things
19:58
Speaker 1: get really crazy because in September of nineteen eighty eight,
20:03
Speaker 1: just under a year after Patsy's death, one of the
20:05
Speaker 1: family's wax museums in Grand Prairie, Texas, wound up burning down.
20:09
Speaker 1: This is the second wax museum in this story that
20:12
Speaker 1: wounds up burning down, and as a result, Sally wound
20:15
Speaker 1: up receiving a four million dollar insurance payout. So it
20:18
Speaker 1: was initially suspected that the fire might have been electrical,
20:21
Speaker 1: but there was evidence to suggests that it might have
20:24
Speaker 1: been an arson. And then on September the twenty fourth,
20:27
Speaker 1: just over two weeks after the fire took place, a
20:30
Speaker 1: man was seen combing through the debris of the museum,
20:33
Speaker 1: and when he noticed that the police were watching him,
20:35
Speaker 1: he picked up a financial ledger book from the museum's
20:38
Speaker 1: business office and took off running. As he ran away,
20:41
Speaker 1: he tossed this ledger into a nearby bush, so no
20:44
Speaker 1: one knows why he tried to take it to begin with.
20:46
Speaker 1: He wound up getting away in a car, but a
20:48
Speaker 1: police officer wound up taking down the car's license number,
20:51
Speaker 1: and it wound up being traced to a twenty two
20:53
Speaker 1: year old man named Stanley Lester Pointer. This guy was
20:57
Speaker 1: described as a drifter who would hold jobs for Barry
21:00
Speaker 1: brief periods of time before he moved on, and he
21:03
Speaker 1: also had a number of aliases in three different social
21:06
Speaker 1: Security numbers that he would use, so he kind of
21:08
Speaker 1: had a weird background because even though the jobs were
21:11
Speaker 1: low paying, he was able to live what was described
21:13
Speaker 1: as a comfortable lifestyle. And he also had one previous
21:17
Speaker 1: arrest on his record for arson, So people started wondering
21:21
Speaker 1: could he be irresponsible for this fire at Sally's Wax
21:25
Speaker 1: Museum and was he some freelance guy who just got
21:28
Speaker 1: hired to like burn down museums because they started thinking,
21:31
Speaker 1: what if Robert Cox hired this guy to burn down
21:34
Speaker 1: his own museum five years earlier.
21:36
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this wax museum connection is just like
21:41
Speaker 2: it's so intense. Okay, so we were our second wax
21:45
Speaker 2: museum that's burned to the ground, and I've got a
21:47
Speaker 2: wonder with all those wax figurines, does it just become
21:51
Speaker 2: like one giant candle on the floor.
21:53
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking because I've seen the movie House
21:56
Speaker 1: of Wax, the one with Vincent Price, yeah, and the
21:58
Speaker 1: remake with Paris Hilton, and they have lots of scenes
22:00
Speaker 1: where the museums are burning down and then they're melting,
22:03
Speaker 1: and I think there's a big revelation because they would
22:05
Speaker 1: use real people underneath the wax. And then when the
22:08
Speaker 1: fire starts and melts and you realize, oh, those aren't
22:10
Speaker 1: wax statues, those are human beings. So you have this
22:13
Speaker 1: visual of it melting. So I have to assume that
22:16
Speaker 1: the same thing happened in these fires.
22:18
Speaker 2: Have you ever been to a wax museum.
22:20
Speaker 1: I have, Yes, They're usually a lot of fun. They
22:22
Speaker 1: have them in Niagara Falls, And I also love memes
22:25
Speaker 1: sometimes where people will post photos of moll rent wax
22:29
Speaker 1: museums where they use statues of like real life famous persons,
22:33
Speaker 1: but they look nothing like them. So you'll like see
22:35
Speaker 1: photos of like someone like trying to think here someone
22:38
Speaker 1: like Mick Jagger, but he looks like mister Bean because
22:41
Speaker 1: of like such a terrible job.
22:44
Speaker 2: I went to Madame Tussau's in London and they were
22:47
Speaker 2: incredibly lifelike. It was wild the representation with wax, Like
22:53
Speaker 2: how close some of them could get. I mean there
22:55
Speaker 2: was the odd one where like they didn't really capture
22:58
Speaker 2: the essence, but some of them were like bang on.
23:01
Speaker 1: Yes, I've been there as well, and I know that's
23:03
Speaker 1: one of the most high quality wax museums around. And
23:06
Speaker 1: I have to assume that Patsy's were pretty good if
23:08
Speaker 1: she was making like millions of dollars on them. So
23:11
Speaker 1: under normal circumstances, there wouldn't be any reason to believe
23:14
Speaker 1: this wax museum fire had anything to do with Patsy's death.
23:18
Speaker 1: But when this fire made the news, a woman got
23:21
Speaker 1: in touch with police with some interesting information. She claimed
23:25
Speaker 1: that years earlier, in September of nineteen eighty four, a
23:28
Speaker 1: twenty six year old receptionist at one of Patsy's museums
23:32
Speaker 1: named Lorie Anne Williams suddenly went home sick in the
23:35
Speaker 1: middle of her shift, but her illness got so bad
23:38
Speaker 1: that she was taken to the hospital. It was initially
23:41
Speaker 1: believed that she had appendicitis, but when they removed her appendix,
23:44
Speaker 1: they found out that it was perfectly healthy, and she
23:47
Speaker 1: wound up staying in the hospital for eleven days before
23:50
Speaker 1: she suddenly died, and they were never able to determine
23:53
Speaker 1: her cause of death. They just thought it might have
23:55
Speaker 1: been viral pneumonia that she contracted during complications from surgery,
24:00
Speaker 1: because she seemed to be an ordinary, healthy, twenty six
24:03
Speaker 1: year old woman on the surface. But this informant told
24:05
Speaker 1: the police that Laurie may have been the victim of
24:08
Speaker 1: strychnine poisoning, and because Patsy died under similar circumstances three
24:13
Speaker 1: years later, this woman was now thinking that the police
24:16
Speaker 1: should reopen the investigation into Lourie's death.
24:19
Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting connection. Didn't you say that there
24:22
Speaker 2: was only like two deaths that were linked to strychnine
24:25
Speaker 2: in like that certain time period.
24:26
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, like since nineteen fifty, I don't know
24:29
Speaker 1: what the other one was that Robert Stack was referring to.
24:32
Speaker 1: And because they couldn't conclusively determine that Laurie's death was
24:35
Speaker 1: strict nine, it has never been officially classified as one,
24:38
Speaker 1: but at the time in nineteen eighty four, they just
24:40
Speaker 1: thought it was health reasons. But then they realized that
24:43
Speaker 1: she used to work for Patsy at her wax museum,
24:45
Speaker 1: and they both died under similar circumstances. They start thinking,
24:49
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a second look at Lori's death.
24:51
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is feeling very like do you
24:54
Speaker 2: know the actor's Britney Murphy, Yes, and how she died
24:57
Speaker 2: under mysterious circumstances of the pneumonia or whatever, and then
25:01
Speaker 2: six months later her husband died of the exact same
25:04
Speaker 2: cause of death in that home, and then trying to
25:06
Speaker 2: figure out what was the root cause. Why do they
25:08
Speaker 2: both die of the exact same cause of death, and
25:10
Speaker 2: there's all of these conspiracy theories.
25:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's probably the similar type of thing here
25:14
Speaker 1: where Back when Laurie originally died, they're not going to
25:17
Speaker 1: be thinking strychnine poisoning, but because of her connection with Patsy,
25:20
Speaker 1: they wanted to take a second look at it. In
25:23
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Patsy's family decided to hire a very
25:26
Speaker 1: famous Texas based private investigator named William Dear, who looked
25:30
Speaker 1: into Lorient's death and became suspicious and wondered if she
25:33
Speaker 1: may have been poisoned with strychnine as well, and that
25:36
Speaker 1: maybe this was done to scare Patsy because Patsy had
25:39
Speaker 1: stumbled onto something sinister which was taking place at the
25:42
Speaker 1: museum back in nineteen eighty four, even though the police
25:45
Speaker 1: found no evidence of this. Now, I will add the
25:48
Speaker 1: disclaimer that William Dear is quite an infamous individual. He
25:51
Speaker 1: has worked on a lot of cases, but I have
25:53
Speaker 1: personally worked with one family who hired him and has
25:56
Speaker 1: said nothing but bad things to say about him. They
25:58
Speaker 1: pretty much just said he took our money, he spouted
26:01
Speaker 1: a bunch of conspiracy theories, but he didn't actually do
26:03
Speaker 1: anything or uncover any conclusive evidence. And William Dear has
26:07
Speaker 1: also published the book OJ Is Innocent and I Can
26:10
Speaker 1: Prove It, where he claims that Nicole Brown Simpson and
26:14
Speaker 1: Ronald Goldman were actually murdered by OJ's son, Jason Simpson,
26:18
Speaker 1: and that OJ only covered the crime up, He did
26:21
Speaker 1: not actually commit the murders. And I know that he
26:23
Speaker 1: published a book and they did a TV special about it,
26:26
Speaker 1: but most people who followed that case do not really
26:28
Speaker 1: believe it that theory.
26:30
Speaker 2: I've heard of this book and I've heard of him,
26:32
Speaker 2: and I think that it's absolutely egregious to suggest that
26:35
Speaker 2: it was the Sun and not OJ. But okay, you do.
26:38
Speaker 1: You And if you want more credibility issues with William Dear,
26:41
Speaker 1: do you remember the TV special from the nineteen nineties
26:44
Speaker 1: Alien Autopsy. Yes, well, he was interviewed on that and
26:49
Speaker 1: actually did interviews and tried to pass off the autopsy
26:52
Speaker 1: is legitimate, but of course it turned out to be
26:54
Speaker 1: nothing more than a hoax. So it's like, if you're
26:57
Speaker 1: going to hire someone to look into the murder of
26:59
Speaker 1: one of your family men member, I might not hire
27:01
Speaker 1: the investigator who agreed to be interviewed on alien autopsy.
27:05
Speaker 2: Definitely not That lends to the type of credibility that
27:08
Speaker 2: he has, which would be like very little. I feel
27:12
Speaker 2: so terrible for families that have to deal with people
27:15
Speaker 2: like this when they're in a vulnerable situation and somebody
27:19
Speaker 2: will predate on that and they will use it as
27:21
Speaker 2: an opportunity to line their pockets while this poor family
27:25
Speaker 2: has these high hopes and they're really not doing the work.
27:28
Speaker 2: We saw that with the Amuln Bradley case as well.
27:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, Like a lot of grifters like will
27:33
Speaker 1: pretend to be private investigators and say that they're going
27:36
Speaker 1: to uncover answers about what happened to their missing and
27:39
Speaker 1: murdered loved ones, but in actuality they're just taking the
27:41
Speaker 1: money and not leading anywhere. But in spite of Deer's
27:44
Speaker 1: credibility issues, he did manage to successfully lobby for Lorien's
27:49
Speaker 1: body to be exhumed and they did a new autopsy
27:52
Speaker 1: and if toxicological evaluation found no trace of strychnine or
27:56
Speaker 1: arsenic inner system. But deer It says that this wasn't
27:59
Speaker 1: conclude of evidence that Laurie was not murdered because he
28:02
Speaker 1: believed that the poison may have exited her body before
28:04
Speaker 1: her death because she was in the hospital for eleven
28:07
Speaker 1: days following her medical issues, and he believed that intravenous
28:12
Speaker 1: solutions may have taken the strych nine out of her
28:14
Speaker 1: body before she died. They did find minute traces of
28:17
Speaker 1: it in her body, but it was not enough to
28:19
Speaker 1: be harmful. But my issue with that is strychnine is
28:22
Speaker 1: usually like a fast acting poison, Like even though you
28:25
Speaker 1: will suffer for like twenty to thirty minutes, you're not
28:28
Speaker 1: usually going to live for eleven days afterwards. So that's
28:32
Speaker 1: why I have trouble believing that Laurie was poisoned with strychnine,
28:35
Speaker 1: Like there might be another like weird suspicious reason for
28:39
Speaker 1: her death, but I don't think that she actually ingested
28:42
Speaker 1: strick nine.
28:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not aware of how long strychnine will
28:47
Speaker 2: stay in the body tissues and if the body is
28:50
Speaker 2: able to detoxify like through its various pathways something like
28:54
Speaker 2: strychnine over that day, like eleven day period, like it's
28:57
Speaker 2: a pretty protracted period. And then if it was like
29:01
Speaker 2: a death over a day or something like that would
29:04
Speaker 2: make more sense unless the dose was just so small
29:07
Speaker 2: and whomever did this, if it was connected to the
29:11
Speaker 2: Wax Museum, they learned their lesson not to give such
29:15
Speaker 2: a small dose of strychnine and to up the dose,
29:17
Speaker 2: and then that's why Patsy had basically enough to bring
29:20
Speaker 2: down a horse in her nicwell.
29:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they said that she had enough in there
29:24
Speaker 1: to kill at least eight or nine people, So if
29:26
Speaker 1: Laurie was poisoned, it's possible she got a much smaller amount.
29:30
Speaker 1: But on also the fact she got exhumed like five
29:32
Speaker 1: years after her death, so even if she did have
29:35
Speaker 1: like strychnine in her system, it's possible it still wouldn't
29:38
Speaker 1: have been there after all that time. So I don't
29:41
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility of foul play in Laurie's case,
29:44
Speaker 1: but I'm not entirely sure if it's connected to Patsy's.
29:47
Speaker 2: Death, and I think that there's a possibility too if
29:50
Speaker 2: the dose was really small, if the poison caused damage
29:53
Speaker 2: to all the various different organ systems in the body,
29:56
Speaker 2: it could have just hit like the point of critical
29:58
Speaker 2: mass on that you know, day eleven or twelve, and
30:02
Speaker 2: then she may have died because who knows, like her
30:05
Speaker 2: liver gave out, or her kidneys gave out, or her
30:07
Speaker 2: heart or some combination. Maybe it was a vascular issue.
30:11
Speaker 2: I don't know what type of potential damage that poison
30:14
Speaker 2: could have caused throughout all of her systems, but there
30:18
Speaker 2: is a possibility that it could have been cleared out
30:20
Speaker 2: of her system, and then what remained was just the
30:23
Speaker 2: damage to that poison had done.
30:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is certainly possible, but people have never been
30:27
Speaker 1: able to figure out, like if Lori Anne was murdered,
30:30
Speaker 1: like what the motive could have been, because obviously this
30:33
Speaker 1: was three years before Patsy's death, and Dear's theory that
30:36
Speaker 1: they poison Laurie just to scare Patsy doesn't really ring
30:39
Speaker 1: true because like, if she had uncovered something illegal back
30:42
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, why did she tell anyone about it?
30:44
Speaker 1: Why did she just move on with her life for
30:46
Speaker 1: the next three years before she died under suspicious circumstances,
30:50
Speaker 1: And that sounds.
30:51
Speaker 2: Like a big leap to just murder somebody to scare
30:54
Speaker 2: somebody else like that could bring so much suspicion and
30:57
Speaker 2: so much heat onto you. It's a huge risk.
31:00
Speaker 1: And if that was the motive, it obviously didn't work
31:02
Speaker 1: because at the time they just figured it was an
31:04
Speaker 1: unrelated medical issue and they didn't suspect that Laurie had
31:07
Speaker 1: been murdered, so obviously it didn't drive home the message
31:10
Speaker 1: to scare Patsy. But sure enough, only two weeks after
31:14
Speaker 1: this new autopsy was done, they finally found Stanley Pointer, who,
31:18
Speaker 1: as you recall, they had captured his license plate when
31:20
Speaker 1: he was speeding away from the site of the museum fire,
31:23
Speaker 1: but it took like a year to finally track him down,
31:26
Speaker 1: and he was working as a student mortician at the
31:28
Speaker 1: time of his arrest. Because it sounds like he's a
31:31
Speaker 1: guy who would just like move around from job to
31:33
Speaker 1: job until he got a big payout setting fires to
31:35
Speaker 1: wax museums. What a very interesting life he led. But
31:39
Speaker 1: by this point, like Lourie's death and Patsy's death were
31:42
Speaker 1: in the news, so they started looking at Pointer as
31:45
Speaker 1: a potential suspect, and they also questioned him about the
31:48
Speaker 1: museum fire, and he claimed that, yes, I did visit
31:51
Speaker 1: the side of the fire, and I did remove the ledger,
31:54
Speaker 1: but I only thought it was a museum piece. So
31:56
Speaker 1: that's why I threw the ledger away, because I mistakenly
31:59
Speaker 1: thought it was an art fact and then realized they
32:01
Speaker 1: didn't need it. But this didn't really ring true because
32:04
Speaker 1: in order to find this ledger, you had to go
32:06
Speaker 1: past several other artifacts, climb onto a chair, and get
32:09
Speaker 1: the ledger from a shelf. So it seemed very likely
32:12
Speaker 1: that he was trying to get this particular item, but
32:15
Speaker 1: no one could figure out why. And he said that
32:18
Speaker 1: he ran from the police out of fear but did
32:20
Speaker 1: not know that they were still searching for him. And
32:22
Speaker 1: he denied any involvement in the fire or the deaths
32:25
Speaker 1: and said that he had no connection to the museum,
32:28
Speaker 1: And he was given a polygraph test and he claimed
32:31
Speaker 1: that he passed, but the police never confirmed or denied this,
32:34
Speaker 1: and four days later he was released on bond because
32:37
Speaker 1: even though they were able to charge him with minor crimes,
32:39
Speaker 1: they found no evidence that he was behind the arsonary
32:42
Speaker 1: the deaths, so they couldn't hold him indefinitely.
32:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I find his involvement to be such a strange
32:48
Speaker 2: element that it is possible that Robert Cox hired him
32:52
Speaker 2: initially to burn down his wax museum, and that Sally's
32:56
Speaker 2: wax museum. He could have been hired to burn that
32:59
Speaker 2: down as well. Who knows if he was in their
33:02
Speaker 2: circle somehow or somehow connected to somebody that they knew,
33:06
Speaker 2: because I just don't think that there's any way, shape
33:08
Speaker 2: or form, but he just randomly got that ledger and
33:11
Speaker 2: he knew exactly where it was. It's not like it's
33:14
Speaker 2: just this random piece that he just stumbled across, Like
33:18
Speaker 2: you had to know where that was. So somebody that
33:21
Speaker 2: had access to the financial ledger and knew where it
33:24
Speaker 2: was kept would have had to have given explicit instructions.
33:28
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well, And it makes you
33:30
Speaker 1: wonder a pointer like I don't think he would be
33:32
Speaker 1: acting alone. I think that if you wanted to get
33:34
Speaker 1: that ledger, or someone hired him to do it and
33:37
Speaker 1: they were going to try to make a case against
33:39
Speaker 1: him for arson. But this is another suspicious detail. The
33:42
Speaker 1: original fire file from the fire, even though it was
33:45
Speaker 1: put in a locked fire drawer at the Grand Prairie
33:48
Speaker 1: Fire Department and mysteriously wound up going missing even though
33:51
Speaker 1: it was in a locked drawer inside a locked room.
33:54
Speaker 1: So people started wondering was there some sort of conspiracy
33:57
Speaker 1: or cover up to try to like cover up the
33:59
Speaker 1: real reason for this fire. So in the end, the
34:02
Speaker 1: only a charge that the grand jury could file against
34:05
Speaker 1: Proner was criminal trust pass because all they had was
34:08
Speaker 1: evidence that he went onto the sealed off museum site
34:11
Speaker 1: to steal something, but no evidence that he started the fire.
34:14
Speaker 1: So he was convicted on criminal trust pass and I
34:16
Speaker 1: think received a sense of probation before he was released.
34:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's too bad because it seems clear that I
34:22
Speaker 2: don't know if he was connected to any murders or
34:24
Speaker 2: anything like that, but it seems that he's definitely connected
34:27
Speaker 2: to the arson in some capacity, and so was he
34:31
Speaker 2: connected to Cox? Was he connected to Sally and Steve?
34:34
Speaker 2: I mean, when you can't fully dig in to Pointer her,
34:38
Speaker 2: it's really hard to know. But it seems that this
34:41
Speaker 2: was not a coincidence.
34:43
Speaker 1: Well, sure enough, this would not be the end of
34:46
Speaker 1: Stanley Pointer in this story, because in December of nineteen
34:49
Speaker 1: ninety a fire was deliberately set in the bathroom of
34:52
Speaker 1: a church youth center in Austin, Texas, and because Poyter
34:56
Speaker 1: just happened to be living in the area at the time,
34:58
Speaker 1: he wound up being questioned, but he gave investigators a
35:01
Speaker 1: false name before he disappeared, so they issued a warrant
35:05
Speaker 1: for his arrest because they apparently found enough evidence that
35:08
Speaker 1: he was responsible for this fire that they could finally
35:10
Speaker 1: charge him with arson and theft. So he remained a
35:14
Speaker 1: fugitive for the next four months. But in April of
35:16
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, an off duty police officer was directing
35:20
Speaker 1: traffic at an intersection in Dallas when Poyter just happened
35:23
Speaker 1: to drive up next to it, and the officer signaled
35:26
Speaker 1: him to stop the car. Now, at the time, the
35:28
Speaker 1: officer had no idea who he was. He didn't know
35:30
Speaker 1: that this was a wanted fugitive, but it caused Poyter
35:33
Speaker 1: to panic, so he literally hit the accelerator and drove
35:36
Speaker 1: right into the police officer and continued driving with the
35:40
Speaker 1: officer still on his hood. But the officer then pulled
35:43
Speaker 1: out his gun and fired six shots through the windshield
35:46
Speaker 1: while Poyter was driving. This is like a scene in
35:48
Speaker 1: an action movie with someone like firing shots into the
35:51
Speaker 1: driver from the hood, and thankfully, the officer wound up surviving,
35:54
Speaker 1: but Poynter was killed instantly, and when they checked his
35:58
Speaker 1: items from his residence, they found out that he had
36:00
Speaker 1: one way tickets from Mexico to Dallas. So they're wondering
36:03
Speaker 1: what was this guy up to? What was this guy doing,
36:06
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, because he was dead, they were never able
36:09
Speaker 1: to thoroughly question him and find out if he might
36:11
Speaker 1: have had any involvement in the museum fires or any
36:14
Speaker 1: involvement in Lori or Patsy's deaths.
36:17
Speaker 2: Wow, So he dies and leaves his huge mystery in
36:21
Speaker 2: like an Israel Keys type fashion.
36:23
Speaker 1: And it seems like because he would work these freelance
36:26
Speaker 1: jobs where his regular jobs would pay well, but he
36:29
Speaker 1: would seem to have a lot of money, like he
36:31
Speaker 1: would live in like fancy apartments. He apparently had a
36:34
Speaker 1: lakefront property somewhere in Texas, and no one could figure
36:37
Speaker 1: out where this money was coming from, leading to speculation
36:40
Speaker 1: that he was hired to burn down these wax museums.
36:43
Speaker 1: But they also thought if maybe Robert Cox or someone
36:47
Speaker 1: was the perpetrator, could he have hired Pointer to break
36:50
Speaker 1: into Patsy's house and put the Stryck nine in the
36:53
Speaker 1: cold medicine, So it could be a thing where someone
36:55
Speaker 1: else masterminded it. But Pointer was the guy who actually
36:58
Speaker 1: put the poison in the bottle. But unfortunately, because he
37:01
Speaker 1: died before he could be thoroughly questioned about it, they
37:04
Speaker 1: were unable to implicate him or anyone else.
37:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's possible that he could have been a contract
37:10
Speaker 2: killer and a contract arsonist and he just took on
37:13
Speaker 2: these menial jobs as a way to have some kind
37:16
Speaker 2: of cover because it Definitely, something is definitely not lining up.
37:20
Speaker 2: When you're looking at a lake front property and somebody
37:23
Speaker 2: who's essentially described as a drifter who's making what I
37:27
Speaker 2: would assume to be minimum wage or less than minimum wage.
37:31
Speaker 2: There is something else going on and something else at
37:33
Speaker 2: play here.
37:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, but not surprised me. Like it's
37:37
Speaker 1: possible Pointer is just a red herring who has nothing
37:39
Speaker 1: to do with Patsy's death, but the fact that he
37:41
Speaker 1: keeps popping up and having associations with all these people
37:44
Speaker 1: in the story makes me think that he could have
37:47
Speaker 1: been complicit somehow. So obviously we think Robert Cox is
37:50
Speaker 1: the best suspect, but he died in October of twenty
37:53
Speaker 1: twenty one at the age of ninety one without implicating
37:56
Speaker 1: him in this murder, and some of the other people
37:58
Speaker 1: in Patsy's life, like husband Bill Wright and her former
38:02
Speaker 1: boyfriend Leo Fikes, have also passed away. But one other
38:05
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to mention is that if you go
38:07
Speaker 1: to the Unsolved Mysteries profile page for this case and
38:10
Speaker 1: also the Unsolved Mysteries message board at the sitcoms online
38:14
Speaker 1: for him, you'll find a poster there who put up
38:17
Speaker 1: claims that Patsy was having an affair with a coworker
38:20
Speaker 1: at the horse ranch who often used strict nine to
38:23
Speaker 1: poison rats, And they pretty much posted the same thing
38:26
Speaker 1: at both the message board and the profile page, so
38:28
Speaker 1: even though they used different usernames, I'm pretty sure this
38:31
Speaker 1: is the same person. And he also said that this
38:34
Speaker 1: person left town shortly after Patsy's death, but he just
38:37
Speaker 1: doesn't remember this person's name. Now. Of course, we talked
38:41
Speaker 1: about how there was rumors that maybe Patsy was having
38:43
Speaker 1: an affair with Bill Alexander, but the wording of this
38:47
Speaker 1: guy's comments makes me think he was talking about someone else,
38:50
Speaker 1: someone who has never thoroughly investigated that Patsy may have
38:53
Speaker 1: been having an affair with. And theoretically, if this was true,
38:57
Speaker 1: maybe she invited this guy over to her house on
39:00
Speaker 1: the night of her death. This person used the opportunity
39:03
Speaker 1: to put the Strych nine in her cough medicine before
39:05
Speaker 1: leaving the scene and locking the door, and then they
39:07
Speaker 1: were long gone by the time Stevens Sally showed up,
39:10
Speaker 1: and because he fled town, he may never have been
39:13
Speaker 1: thoroughly questioned by law enforcement. And I know this is
39:16
Speaker 1: just like anonymous comments on a message board. But I
39:19
Speaker 1: do find this sphery kind of intriguing that she might
39:21
Speaker 1: have been having in a secret affair with someone who
39:23
Speaker 1: had access to strychnine the horse farm, but because they
39:26
Speaker 1: were never formally questioned, they just never popped up on
39:29
Speaker 1: the radar as a suspect.
39:31
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. But I would just wonder in that
39:35
Speaker 2: case if it was indeed somebody Patsy was having an
39:37
Speaker 2: affair with what would be their motor for poisoning her
39:40
Speaker 2: and then skipping town.
39:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing is that this person never gained
39:44
Speaker 1: anything from her death. So that's why I think like
39:47
Speaker 1: Robert Cox looks like a more likely suspect. Because she died,
39:51
Speaker 1: she couldn't testify against him at the Sable trial, which
39:53
Speaker 1: took place a short time later. Eddie wound up collecting
39:56
Speaker 1: over one million dollars from his arson fire because they
39:59
Speaker 1: couldn't prove that he did it. So I guess it depends.
40:03
Speaker 1: I definitely still think that Robert is the best suspect,
40:06
Speaker 1: but the only thing holding me back is the presence
40:09
Speaker 1: of the dinner plates, Like, I don't know if that's
40:11
Speaker 1: a red herring and suggests that Patsy had someone else
40:14
Speaker 1: at her house that night who maybe used this opportunity
40:17
Speaker 1: to kill her. And if it was just a coincidence,
40:19
Speaker 1: if someone poisoned the Strych nine bottle before this and
40:23
Speaker 1: the guy just happened to leave like before Patsy died,
40:26
Speaker 1: why didn't this person come forward. Was he just worried
40:29
Speaker 1: that he would be accused of a murder, or maybe
40:32
Speaker 1: maybe he was married, Maybe he was in a relationship
40:34
Speaker 1: with someone else and didn't want to admit that he
40:36
Speaker 1: had an affair with Patsy even if he was completely
40:39
Speaker 1: innocent ever murder.
40:41
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking. If the person that she was
40:43
Speaker 2: having an affair with was themselves in a relationship or married,
40:46
Speaker 2: they might not want to touch this with a ten
40:49
Speaker 2: foot pool. They might not want to talk to law
40:51
Speaker 2: enforcement because they don't want to be implicated in any way,
40:54
Speaker 2: and they also don't want to blow up their own relationship.
40:57
Speaker 2: So there can be a lot of motives that have
40:59
Speaker 2: nothing to do like a lot of underlying motives for
41:01
Speaker 2: them holding back that have nothing to do with the
41:03
Speaker 2: fact that this person had anything to do with the crime.
41:06
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think Robert Cox is the
41:08
Speaker 2: very best suspect here. Jeeve is a good suspect because
41:12
Speaker 2: there was something financially to be gained and power within
41:16
Speaker 2: the the Wax Museums to be gained with Patsy's death.
41:20
Speaker 2: But I think based on Robert Cox's behavior and volatility
41:24
Speaker 2: and stalking, he seems like the most likely perpetrator here
41:28
Speaker 2: because we look at his past behavior, he seems like
41:31
Speaker 2: the type of person that might do that. He'd asked
41:33
Speaker 2: Patsy to lie, she said she wasn't going to lie,
41:36
Speaker 2: and then in the end he got one million, three
41:39
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, which, like in today's money, would be double that.
41:42
Speaker 2: So you're looking at well over two million dollars close
41:45
Speaker 2: to three in purchasing power. So I would think that
41:48
Speaker 2: that would be a pretty good motive.
41:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he does seem like someone who would have
41:53
Speaker 1: a DNA devius enough mind to do something like that, because,
41:57
Speaker 1: as we talked about, it's very difficult to have pain
42:00
Speaker 1: strict nine in the nineteen eighties unless you got it
42:02
Speaker 1: on the black market or maybe you stole it from
42:05
Speaker 1: a labisum sort. But he seems like someone who already
42:07
Speaker 1: had a history of shady behavior to brainstorm something like that,
42:11
Speaker 1: thinking that I can put it in her cough medicine
42:13
Speaker 1: like long beforehand, and I will have an airtight alibi
42:16
Speaker 1: placing me away from the scene, and then I will
42:19
Speaker 1: manage to get away with it. And if that is
42:21
Speaker 1: what happened, then it technically was true because he got
42:24
Speaker 1: to live a long life. He lived to the age
42:26
Speaker 1: of ninety one before he died of natural causes, so
42:29
Speaker 1: if he was the perpetrator, he will never be prosecuted
42:31
Speaker 1: for it. So he essentially got away with the perfect crime.
42:34
Speaker 1: But do you think that Stanley Pointer might have been involved,
42:37
Speaker 1: because I'm inclined to think that maybe Steve hired him
42:40
Speaker 1: to burn down the wax museum one year later. But
42:43
Speaker 1: I'm on the fence about whether that's just a coincidence
42:46
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with Patsy's case, or if
42:48
Speaker 1: Pointer might have been hired to break into her house
42:51
Speaker 1: and put the strict nine in her cough medicine.
42:54
Speaker 2: I'm less inclined to believe that, but I do believe
42:57
Speaker 2: that he was hired potentially by Steve to burn down
43:00
Speaker 2: a wax museum because knowing where that financial ledger is,
43:03
Speaker 2: you have to be familiar with somebody who has access
43:06
Speaker 2: to know exactly where that is and to know what
43:08
Speaker 2: to look for. So he had some inside knowledge and
43:12
Speaker 2: I believe that wholeheartedly. But as far as being involved
43:15
Speaker 2: in Patsy's murder, I'm on the fence, but like I'm
43:18
Speaker 2: leaning towards less inclined to believe that he's the person
43:21
Speaker 2: that broke in and spiked the Niqwell.
43:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it would make sense because Robert knew so
43:27
Speaker 1: many intimate details about Patsy's life. She knew she would
43:29
Speaker 1: have taken Nikewell, he may have been able to find
43:32
Speaker 1: out where the spare key was and then used it
43:34
Speaker 1: to enter while she was away and then put it
43:36
Speaker 1: in there. And also the fact that he had his
43:39
Speaker 1: own museum fire that took place years earlier, and Patsy
43:42
Speaker 1: was going to testify against him. So I find it
43:44
Speaker 1: crazy that the whole wax museum fire involving Sally's museum
43:47
Speaker 1: with Stanley Pointer and the wax museum fire involving Robert
43:51
Speaker 1: might be two separate incidents which have nothing to do
43:53
Speaker 1: with each other, which just goes to show if anyone
43:56
Speaker 1: listening out there is running a wax museum right now,
43:58
Speaker 1: watch yourself, because it a apparently is a cutthroat business
44:01
Speaker 1: in which people are killing each other and starting fires
44:04
Speaker 1: to collect insurance money.
44:06
Speaker 2: My god, who would have thought it's like the drug
44:09
Speaker 2: game or something like that, like the wax museum game.
44:12
Speaker 2: There's some kind of nefarious undercurrent. Or were those the
44:16
Speaker 2: horse syndicate?
44:18
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we talked about that on previous thing, where
44:20
Speaker 1: like these mob guys were using a racetrack and like
44:23
Speaker 1: a horse farm as like a cover up for their
44:25
Speaker 1: criminal activities and were able to sustain it for like
44:28
Speaker 1: decades before they were caught. So yeah, Sadly, I'm not
44:32
Speaker 1: sure this one will ever be solved because, like I said,
44:34
Speaker 1: Robert Cox passed away, so even if they were able
44:37
Speaker 1: to uncover incriminating evidence to prove that he did it,
44:39
Speaker 1: he will obviously never be prosecuted for it. And obviously,
44:42
Speaker 1: the people that I feel most badly for are Patsy's children,
44:46
Speaker 1: because they had a great relationship with her, and even
44:48
Speaker 1: though they wound up inheriting her estate, it sounds like
44:51
Speaker 1: they truly love their mother and miss her, and it's
44:54
Speaker 1: sad that they will never see or get justice. So
44:56
Speaker 1: any further thoughts on the murder of Patsy Wright.
44:59
Speaker 2: This was a really interesting case, and I really had
45:02
Speaker 2: no idea that wax museum fires were so common, and
45:06
Speaker 2: you really triggered something when you brought up House of Wax.
45:08
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the original, but I've seen the Paris
45:10
Speaker 2: Hilton version and then I just got creepy flashbacks. So
45:14
Speaker 2: this is a real tragedy, and I do believe that
45:17
Speaker 2: Robert Cox is the best suspect. I think there's a
45:19
Speaker 2: possibility that Steve could have been responsible, but based on
45:24
Speaker 2: what Robert was going through at the time and what
45:27
Speaker 2: he was asking of Patsy, it seems like he had
45:30
Speaker 2: a pretty clear cut and dry motive for wanting her dad.
45:33
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess the way I should conclude this episode
45:36
Speaker 1: is that after this in the Springfield three case, stay
45:38
Speaker 1: clear of people named Robert Cox.
45:41
Speaker 2: Yes, that's fair.
45:43
Speaker 1: So that about brings an end to our series on
45:45
Speaker 1: the Murder of Patsy Wright. Thank you so much for
45:47
Speaker 1: joining us, and we will be back again next week
45:50
Speaker 1: for a series about another case.
45:53
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
45:54
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
45:56
Speaker 2: Uh?
45:56
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
45:59
Speaker 1: years now. We offer these standard bonus features like early
46:03
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Speaker 1: ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer is
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47:01
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47:03
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47:21
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