Latest / True Crime and Wine Time / S6 E25 _ The Tragedy of Dr. Chris Dawson - Part 1 _ True Crime & Wine Time Podcast

Transcript

S6 E25 _ The Tragedy of Dr. Chris Dawson - Part 1 _ True Crime & Wine Time Podcast · True Crime and Wine Time

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to True Crime and one Time. I'm Terry and
0:04
Speaker 1: I'm Mama. Tonight we are uncorking the truth why one
0:09
Speaker 1: of the darkest crimes and breaking it down together with
0:12
Speaker 1: you one case, one conversation, and one or maybe two
0:17
Speaker 1: glasses of wine. It's taking a job. It's time to
0:20
Speaker 1: get comfortable and double check those rocks before we just started.
0:24
Speaker 1: So let's take a sip and dive in. Well, hello, everybody,
0:50
Speaker 1: thank you for being here with us. As you see,
0:53
Speaker 1: Alama is not here tonight. She is taking time off
0:58
Speaker 1: because they've had a death than the family and she's
1:01
Speaker 1: taking care of all of those things. So you guys
1:05
Speaker 1: all get to hang out with me tonight. And I
1:09
Speaker 1: see we have Terracia here, Kelly's here, Lady in Gray's here. Oooh,
1:15
Speaker 1: plant hospice. Oh you've made it to a live Yay, guys,
1:21
Speaker 1: welcome very much. I appreciate you guys being here, and
1:28
Speaker 1: I will ask that you all please keep Lama and
1:31
Speaker 1: elbow Feet in your thoughts. It was elbow Feet's sister
1:35
Speaker 1: that passed away unexpectedly and it's a lot to deal
1:41
Speaker 1: with right now, okay, so just keep them all in
1:45
Speaker 1: your thoughts, Okay. And hopefully Loma will be back with
1:49
Speaker 1: this next week. Okay, now, before we begin, if you
1:54
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1:57
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2:35
Speaker 1: And guys, tonight we will be covering the case of
2:40
Speaker 1: doctor Christopher Dawson, and it's a man who committed an
2:45
Speaker 1: act that really no one saw coming. But guys, before
2:52
Speaker 1: we pour tonight's glass and step into all of this,
2:58
Speaker 1: we need to pause because this episode does deal directly
3:02
Speaker 1: and deeply with suicide. And if the subject is too
3:07
Speaker 1: heavy or too close to home for you right now,
3:11
Speaker 1: we completely understand. So please protect your peace, step away,
3:16
Speaker 1: and we will absolutely see you next time. But for
3:20
Speaker 1: those staying, we cannot raise awareness about a shadow if
3:24
Speaker 1: we refuse to look at what's lighting behind it? Okay.
3:31
Speaker 1: So also, guys, if you are experiencing coercive control, isolation,
3:40
Speaker 1: or domestic abuse, help is available at the National Domestic
3:45
Speaker 1: Violence Hotline by calling one eight hundred seventy nine to
3:49
Speaker 1: nine seven two three eight, or you can text start
3:54
Speaker 1: to eight eight seven eight eight one to get all
4:00
Speaker 1: of those triggers out real quick. And guys, tonight, I
4:05
Speaker 1: am drinking good old fashioned HGB sparkling water cranberry flavored. Well,
4:11
Speaker 1: I think it's cranberry raspberry something. Not even going to
4:17
Speaker 1: attempt to drink any alcohol tonight, Okay, not even gonna
4:22
Speaker 1: attempt it. So I hope you guys already this is
4:28
Speaker 1: going to be one of those dark nights. But we're
4:35
Speaker 1: going to get into some interesting things that I'm going
4:38
Speaker 1: to tell you. I am still down some rabbit holes
4:41
Speaker 1: on as well as Amos and Mama. So here we go,
4:47
Speaker 1: because tonight we are stepping into the world of doctor
4:51
Speaker 1: Christopher Dawson, and at first glance, his story looks like
4:56
Speaker 1: a horrific, all too familiar headline of a taking the
5:00
Speaker 1: lives of his own children before turning the weapon on himself.
5:06
Speaker 1: It is a tragedy that leaves us breathless and angry.
5:11
Speaker 1: But if you look past the immediate horror, if you
5:15
Speaker 1: dig beneath the surface of the crime scene tape, you're
5:19
Speaker 1: going to find systemic darkness, a hidden secret that a
5:24
Speaker 1: desperate course of voices within the metal community is beginning
5:29
Speaker 1: to finally bring into the light. Doctors are, by their
5:35
Speaker 1: very own nature, brilliant and complex. The minds attracted to
5:41
Speaker 1: medicine are built to conquer immense chaos, to stare down
5:46
Speaker 1: death daily, and to master the art of control. But
5:52
Speaker 1: that mastery comes with a terrifying byproduct. They are also
5:58
Speaker 1: masters of disguise. Now, let's be honest, we've seen them.
6:04
Speaker 1: The happy doctors, the fun loving, charismatic physicians who crack jokes,
6:10
Speaker 1: reassure anxious patience, and keep the energy high. You know,
6:15
Speaker 1: they just got back from a magical vacation at Disneyland.
6:19
Speaker 1: They've just booked a family crewise, they just gave an
6:23
Speaker 1: optimistic thumbs up to their surgical team after saving a life,
6:29
Speaker 1: and then mere hours later they are gone by their
6:33
Speaker 1: own hand. They are suffering an absolute, suffocating silence, and guys,
6:42
Speaker 1: we learn it turns out they have been for a
6:46
Speaker 1: very long time. High physician suicide rates have been documented
6:56
Speaker 1: since as far back as eighteen fifty eight, Yet more
7:01
Speaker 1: than one hundred and fifty years later, the root causes
7:05
Speaker 1: of the psychological hemorrhaging remain utterly unaddressed. It is a
7:12
Speaker 1: quiet public health crisis hiding in plain sight. Guys, one
7:18
Speaker 1: million Americans lose their doctors to suicide every single year.
7:27
Speaker 1: Think about that, guys. That are staggering numbers. Most doctors
7:34
Speaker 1: have lost a colleague, Some have watched up to eight
7:38
Speaker 1: if their peers vanish over the course of a career,
7:41
Speaker 1: forced to absorb the trauma and keep working with a
7:45
Speaker 1: zero opportunity to grieve. And while the crisis touches every
7:51
Speaker 1: corner of the field, it is heavily weighted in the
7:55
Speaker 1: shadows of brotherhood. For every woman in medicine who dies
8:01
Speaker 1: by suicide, we lose four men. Guys. That is some
8:09
Speaker 1: staggering numbers that we all need to think about. Among them,
8:16
Speaker 1: male antesesiologists sit at the absolute highest risk. Most die
8:23
Speaker 1: by overdose, their bodies discovered in the very hospital call
8:27
Speaker 1: rooms where they worked. In fact, physicians frequently choose to
8:34
Speaker 1: die exactly where they have been wounded. They jump from
8:39
Speaker 1: hospital windows they climb onto clinic rooftops, They shoot or
8:45
Speaker 1: stab themselves in employee parking lots, or are found hanging
8:50
Speaker 1: in the hospital chapels. Doctors have personal lives, but they
8:59
Speaker 1: do not have the time to live them. They face
9:03
Speaker 1: the same human fractures we all do. Divorce, bitter custody, battles, infidelity,
9:11
Speaker 1: the grief of losing their own loved ones. But when
9:15
Speaker 1: you're working over a hundred hours a week, completely immersed
9:20
Speaker 1: in other people's agony, you have zero hours left to
9:25
Speaker 1: process your own. The very dedication required to save others
9:31
Speaker 1: routinely destroys their personal lives, leaving them isolated in a
9:37
Speaker 1: pressure cooker or professional perfection and personal dysfunction. I told
9:46
Speaker 1: you guys, this is going to be heavy tonight. Okay,
9:48
Speaker 1: it's heavy. Statistically, less than one percent of these tragic
9:56
Speaker 1: physicians suicide involves the homicide of their children. It is
10:02
Speaker 1: an exceedingly rare, devastating anomaly. But when we take a
10:08
Speaker 1: look at the few cases where young children were taken,
10:12
Speaker 1: including doctor Chris Dawson, there's a reoccurring brutal thread of
10:18
Speaker 1: having a severe relationship in marital collapse. Tonight, we unraveled
10:27
Speaker 1: the culmination of intense personal failure, encresting professional pressure transformed
10:37
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, guys, my mind just went totally blank
10:42
Speaker 1: thinking about these children's I'm sorry, but we're going to
10:46
Speaker 1: look into how that pressure transform a gifted surgeon's complexity
10:52
Speaker 1: into fatal confusion. How a man dedicated to healing became
10:57
Speaker 1: trapped in a psychological which you're so horrific. He believed
11:02
Speaker 1: the only way out was to end everything. So, guys,
11:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to say, grab your blankie, I've got mine.
11:12
Speaker 1: This is the tragic hidden crisis of doctor Christopher Dawson.
11:21
Speaker 1: And to understand the story, how the story ends, we
11:26
Speaker 1: have to look at where it was supposed to begin.
11:30
Speaker 1: We have to look at North Richland Hills, Texas. If
11:34
Speaker 1: you're looking to build the quintessential American dream, especially in Texas,
11:39
Speaker 1: you'd probably build it here. Okay, guys. It is tucked
11:43
Speaker 1: away in the northwest corner of the Dallas Fort Worth
11:46
Speaker 1: metro Peplex Northland. North Richland Hills is a kind of quiet,
11:53
Speaker 1: sun drench suburb that young families flock to. Guys. I
11:57
Speaker 1: can attest to that. We used to live in the
12:00
Speaker 1: little suburb right next to it. It's the promised Land
12:04
Speaker 1: for parents, a place specifically designed to raise children in
12:09
Speaker 1: a safe, manicured environment, miles away from the frantic, often
12:14
Speaker 1: crimeary grit of the larger American cities. Guys, By all accounts,
12:19
Speaker 1: it's a sanctuary for young families, and when it comes
12:25
Speaker 1: to keeping those kids happy, North Richland Hills doesn't hold back. Guys.
12:31
Speaker 1: It's a wonderland of suburban escapes, okay, because you have
12:37
Speaker 1: the bright colors of the Peppa Pig theme park. Okay,
12:42
Speaker 1: look at that, and the knee on energy of Malibu
12:47
Speaker 1: Jacks and the splashing chaos of the NRH two Family
12:54
Speaker 1: Water Park. Guys, I'm gonna tell you it is like
12:58
Speaker 1: a wonderland in Texas, Okay. And on winter nights, families
13:03
Speaker 1: bundle up to cheer on the lone Star Brahmas hockey team,
13:08
Speaker 1: because guys, it is always hot here, but we do
13:12
Speaker 1: have hockey, Okay. Now, the city boasts over eight hundred
13:18
Speaker 1: acres of lush public parks, a massive, state of the
13:23
Speaker 1: art public library, and a sprawling recreational center. They're are
13:28
Speaker 1: community fall concert where neighbors share lawn chairs, a cocktail,
13:34
Speaker 1: and they have a legendary fourth of July fireworks show
13:39
Speaker 1: that lights up the Texas. Guy. Guys, it is stunning. Guys.
13:44
Speaker 1: It even has its own dedicated medical center campus anchored
13:49
Speaker 1: by a major hospital in detail that must have felt
13:53
Speaker 1: like a professional home to a gifted and up incoming surgeon. Because, guys,
14:01
Speaker 1: it sounds like a perfect place to be a child. Okay,
14:08
Speaker 1: barbecue quing, girl, are you trying to get me to
14:11
Speaker 1: move there? Because you're a tempting me. I loved it
14:14
Speaker 1: when we lived there. They also have a great movie
14:18
Speaker 1: theater called Movie movie House Eatery and Grill or something
14:24
Speaker 1: that we always went to. But guys, it also sounds
14:27
Speaker 1: like safety and all of this, the parks, the schools,
14:31
Speaker 1: the promise of a quiet, successful life must have been
14:35
Speaker 1: incredibly appealing to the Dawson family when they packed up
14:40
Speaker 1: their lives and moved to Texas. They arrived just a
14:44
Speaker 1: few months before December twenty seventeen. They bought into the dream.
14:50
Speaker 1: But as we know in true crime, the most dangerous
14:55
Speaker 1: place of all is often behind a closed front door.
15:00
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, look at this sweet family
15:04
Speaker 1: and the sweet kids. I'm going to warn you. I
15:09
Speaker 1: did put on waterproof mascara because I am expecting to
15:13
Speaker 1: maybe lose it, but I'm going to try not to. Okay,
15:17
Speaker 1: Because to the outside world, the Dawsons weren't just living
15:21
Speaker 1: the American dream, they were the poster family for it. Okay.
15:26
Speaker 1: Both Christopher Dawson thirty six and Rachel Williams thirty nine
15:31
Speaker 1: were Texas born and raised, growing up right down the
15:35
Speaker 1: road in Fort Worth, so they weren't new to Texas.
15:38
Speaker 1: They were college sweetheart era lovers who met fell in
15:43
Speaker 1: hard love. Okay, they fell hard and they tied the
15:46
Speaker 1: knot on September fourth, two thousand and four. They were young,
15:51
Speaker 1: they were ambitious and building a life with a seemingly
15:57
Speaker 1: limitless horizon, and then came the pieces that made their
16:02
Speaker 1: house into a home. On December one, two thousand and eight,
16:08
Speaker 1: the couple welcome their first child, a baby boy named Luke.
16:15
Speaker 1: And guys, that little boy is so freaking adorable. Okay,
16:21
Speaker 1: and listeners, Luke didn't just love life, He loved big.
16:26
Speaker 1: He was completely fearless from the job, hitting milestones early,
16:32
Speaker 1: and kind of daring the world to keep up with him. Okay.
16:36
Speaker 1: He had one of those magical, contagious personalities fueled by
16:40
Speaker 1: a laugh that could clear any room of sadness. Luke
16:45
Speaker 1: did everything at full speed. If there was a sport,
16:49
Speaker 1: he played it, basketball, baseball, and his absolute favorite was soccer.
16:56
Speaker 1: He was the kid who if adventure called, he'd just answer.
17:01
Speaker 1: He would run out the door to meet it. And
17:05
Speaker 1: I love that. He's elms, I mean all boy, Okay, Luke.
17:10
Speaker 1: And four years later, on March twenty second, twenty twelve,
17:14
Speaker 1: the picture perfect frame was complete when a little girl
17:19
Speaker 1: named Aubrey was born into the family and they called
17:22
Speaker 1: her Brie, and I love that. And Brie was all girl.
17:27
Speaker 1: Luke was all boy. Brie was all girl. She loved
17:31
Speaker 1: her baby dolls, She reigned supreme control over her play kitchen,
17:37
Speaker 1: and she spent hours lost in the world of dress
17:40
Speaker 1: up and pretend. I love everything about that. But guys,
17:47
Speaker 1: you also need to make no mistake, because Brie was
17:51
Speaker 1: no pushover. Beneath those bright blue eyes and that effortless,
17:56
Speaker 1: heartbreaking cuteness was a core of fiery termination and pure
18:02
Speaker 1: unadulterated sass. They say she kept everyone on their toes, okay,
18:09
Speaker 1: and that I think is adorable. Okay. I hope somebody
18:14
Speaker 1: would say that about me. Okay, Now, even while they
18:19
Speaker 1: were building this beautiful family, Chris and Rachel were fueled
18:23
Speaker 1: by a relentless drive. They took their education and their
18:27
Speaker 1: careers with life or death seriousness. Rachel poured her heart
18:34
Speaker 1: and hard work into nursing school, eventually finding her calling
18:38
Speaker 1: in one of the most emotionally demanding rooms in any hospital.
18:44
Speaker 1: The nick you as a neonatal intensive care unit nurse.
18:49
Speaker 1: Rachel was a specialized registered nurse providing critical, around the clock,
18:55
Speaker 1: microscopic care to premature and critically ill newborns. That is
19:04
Speaker 1: a saint. That is a saint. It's a job that
19:08
Speaker 1: requires a fierce maternal instinct, steady hands, and immense psychological
19:14
Speaker 1: stamina because you're guarding the fragile line between life and
19:19
Speaker 1: death for the tiniest patients every single shift. And guys,
19:26
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I'm gonna be honest, I couldn't
19:29
Speaker 1: do it. And Chris was chasing an equally equally grueling
19:36
Speaker 1: business degree from Texans Texas Christian University before deciding he
19:41
Speaker 1: wanted to pivot and commit his entire life to the
19:45
Speaker 1: field of medicine. The pivot required everything he had. Chris
19:51
Speaker 1: sacrificed fun he sacrificed free time, and he traded any
19:57
Speaker 1: symbulance of relaxation to earn his medical degree at the
20:02
Speaker 1: University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. But
20:08
Speaker 1: getting the degree was just the beginning, guys, that's not
20:13
Speaker 1: where it ends for doctors. If you've never known a doctor,
20:17
Speaker 1: dated one, been married delan, it's a lot okay. But
20:23
Speaker 1: like I said, that was just the beginning, because from
20:26
Speaker 1: there he took on the absolute crucible of surgical residents,
20:31
Speaker 1: surgical residency, which uprooted the family and took them to Phoenix, Arizona.
20:38
Speaker 1: That's a long way from Texas. While his parents were
20:42
Speaker 1: trapped in the relentless cycle of hospital shifts and residency demands,
20:47
Speaker 1: little young Luke was busy navigating his own world in
20:51
Speaker 1: the desert. Now, Luke was never a massive fan of
20:55
Speaker 1: the rigid discipline of school, but he absolutely loved his
21:00
Speaker 1: three years at Benchmark Elementary in Phoenix. Look at that phase,
21:04
Speaker 1: you know, he looks, He's like, I love this school
21:08
Speaker 1: of my friends. So it was during these Arizona years
21:13
Speaker 1: that Luke made a lifelong ride or die connection with
21:17
Speaker 1: his best friend CJ. They were inseparable, but even with
21:22
Speaker 1: great friends. Luke's heart always belonged to his family. He
21:27
Speaker 1: deeply loved his inner circle and constantly struggled with the
21:31
Speaker 1: physical distance between Phoenix and his grandparents back home. Most
21:37
Speaker 1: of all, he missed has missed his beloved cousins in
21:40
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, and especially his cousin in arms Brady. Behind
21:50
Speaker 1: the brilliant Sorry, Behind the brilliant minds of the surgeon,
21:58
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson had been fighting a quiet, suffocating war with
22:03
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression for years. He worked desperately to claw
22:08
Speaker 1: his way out of the dark, to overcome the noise
22:12
Speaker 1: in his own head. But medical residency it's a meat grinder, guys.
22:19
Speaker 1: He managed to make it to the finish line and
22:22
Speaker 1: complete his training, but he didn't emerge victorious. He emerged
22:29
Speaker 1: deeply damaged and in the need to silence his own mind,
22:34
Speaker 1: he began to self medicate his pain. He felt like
22:40
Speaker 1: hell to pull himself out of the deep black hole
22:43
Speaker 1: he was sinking into. But Chris was trapped in a
22:49
Speaker 1: classic terrifying medical catch twenty two. He was drowning, but
22:56
Speaker 1: he was too terrified to scream for help. In the
23:01
Speaker 1: medical world, seeking professional psychiatric care carries a heavy often
23:07
Speaker 1: devastating stigma. You heard me right, guys. He feared the
23:13
Speaker 1: catastrophic repercussions it would have on his licensing, his reputation,
23:19
Speaker 1: and the career he had sacrificed his entire youth to build.
23:25
Speaker 1: So instead of reaching out, he stayed silent between his
23:31
Speaker 1: ever present anxiety, long work hours, and intense stress. The
23:37
Speaker 1: Chris many knew and love began to fade away. He
23:42
Speaker 1: felt utterly hopeless, worthless, and he felt completely trapped. Guys.
23:52
Speaker 1: That is so heartbreaking. As the internal pressure built, much
24:01
Speaker 1: of the external foundation began to crumble. Chris and Rachel
24:06
Speaker 1: started experiencing extreme, volatile marital problems, an all too common
24:13
Speaker 1: problem when you're married to medicine. The dream was dissolving
24:19
Speaker 1: right in front of them. Yet, even as their relationship
24:24
Speaker 1: turned into a battlefield, there was one absolute truth, and
24:29
Speaker 1: that was that Luke and Brie were fiercely, unconditionally loved
24:34
Speaker 1: above all else. The tragedy wasn't a lack of love,
24:39
Speaker 1: but the overwhelming weight of the darkness surrounding it. When
24:47
Speaker 1: Chris's residency finally wrapped up in the summer of twenty seventeen,
24:53
Speaker 1: the move back to Texas was supposed to be the
24:56
Speaker 1: fresh start they desperately needed. By October, the Dawsons began
25:02
Speaker 1: moving into their new home on the seventy four hundred
25:07
Speaker 1: block of South College Circle in North Richland Hills. Guys,
25:12
Speaker 1: that is such an adorable, cute little house. But even
25:16
Speaker 1: the house itself seemed to mirror their internal chaos because
25:21
Speaker 1: it was under heavy, stressful renovations. Guys, that will put
25:28
Speaker 1: even a person not dealing with everything else into a tizzy. Okay,
25:33
Speaker 1: but because it was, the transition was rocky. They said,
25:38
Speaker 1: it was exhausting, and it was challenging for a family
25:40
Speaker 1: already pushed to their absolute psychological limits. Guys, the thought
25:49
Speaker 1: of renovating a home with double h or any man
25:54
Speaker 1: gives me stress and anxiety and makes me want to
25:58
Speaker 1: run and grab a bottle of wine right now, just saying. Okay,
26:03
Speaker 1: this was supposed to be the triumph homecoming, the moment
26:07
Speaker 1: the brutal sacrifices finally paid off. They were back in
26:11
Speaker 1: the DFW area, close to the grandparents, close to the cousins.
26:16
Speaker 1: They had this house, and they were ready to finally
26:20
Speaker 1: breathe and reap the rewards of the American dream. Guys, Sadly,
26:26
Speaker 1: you cannot outrun a haunted house when the ghosts are
26:31
Speaker 1: living in your own mind. When the family arrived in Texas,
26:39
Speaker 1: Chris had secured a position as a surgeon at Baylor,
26:43
Speaker 1: Scott and White Medical Center in Waxahatchie. But guys, there's
26:49
Speaker 1: a glaring logistical nightmare in this new start. When I
26:54
Speaker 1: first heard this, I went, oh my, because guys walks
26:59
Speaker 1: the Hatchie. He sits about forty five minutes south of
27:02
Speaker 1: North Richland Hills, and it's a dark, lonely drive. Okay,
27:10
Speaker 1: and in Dallas fort work traffic that is easily a brutal,
27:15
Speaker 1: soul crushing hour and a half commute each way unless
27:19
Speaker 1: he's traveling at like two in the morning. So for
27:22
Speaker 1: a man already working surgical hours, completely drained by years
27:28
Speaker 1: of sleep deprivation, severe depression, adding three hours of highway
27:33
Speaker 1: static every day was a recipe for a psychological collapse.
27:40
Speaker 1: That's a crazy, crazy commute. Guys. Imagine you know you've
27:48
Speaker 1: been on your feet, You've done eighteen hour shift, you're tired,
27:53
Speaker 1: drive home, sleep a couple hours, grab coffee to do
27:55
Speaker 1: it over again. That's a lot. Chris officially started his
28:01
Speaker 1: new job on September fourth, twenty seventeen. But the fragile
28:05
Speaker 1: stability didn't last. His employment ended abruptly and quietly on
28:12
Speaker 1: October twentieth, twenty seventeen, just six weeks after it began.
28:18
Speaker 1: Now we don't know the reason why, and guys, I
28:22
Speaker 1: have dug. I have dug. I even made phone calls
28:26
Speaker 1: and tried to find out. Couldn't get anything. But there's
28:30
Speaker 1: several you could probably insert, as you know, reasons why
28:35
Speaker 1: as we moved throughout this whole story. But I want
28:40
Speaker 1: to stop, and let's think about the catastrophic weight of
28:43
Speaker 1: that timing. He had just uprooted his family from Arizona.
28:49
Speaker 1: They had just bought a house on South College Circle
28:53
Speaker 1: that was under stressful and costly renovations, and he was
28:59
Speaker 1: already drowning in anxiety and secretly self medicating. Guys, this
29:05
Speaker 1: is not a good recipe because then to lose your
29:08
Speaker 1: prestigious surgical job after only six weeks. For a perfectionist
29:14
Speaker 1: high achiever like Chris, this wasn't just a career attack, guys,
29:20
Speaker 1: This was a public humiliation. This I mean it was
29:25
Speaker 1: the ultimate confirmation of his deepest, darkest sphere that he
29:30
Speaker 1: was worthless, that he was failing, and that his life
29:34
Speaker 1: was spinning entirely out of his control. The walls weren't
29:39
Speaker 1: just closing anymore, they were collapsing in on him. Yet
29:47
Speaker 1: inside that fractured world, the kids were doing what kids do.
29:53
Speaker 1: They were blooming. That fall, five year old Breeze started
29:57
Speaker 1: kindergarten at snow Heights Elementary, quickly soaking up the world
30:02
Speaker 1: around her like a sponge. She was so incredibly proud
30:07
Speaker 1: of her family. When career day rolled around, Brie was
30:11
Speaker 1: over the moon to stand up in front of her
30:14
Speaker 1: class and participate alongside her mommy. She told everyone she
30:19
Speaker 1: wanted to be a nick you nurse, just like her mom, Rachel,
30:24
Speaker 1: always bursting with curiosity about anything medical involving tiny babies.
30:31
Speaker 1: I bet you she got the little tiny baby bug.
30:34
Speaker 1: And Chris, despite the darkness consuming his mind, found genuine
30:41
Speaker 1: pockets of peace and being a dad. He found happiness
30:45
Speaker 1: in teaching Luke's sports skills and you know, sitting in
30:50
Speaker 1: the stands and watching his fearless nine year old sprint
30:54
Speaker 1: across the soccer field. I'm glad you made it. Back
30:58
Speaker 1: plant hospice and Chris, recognizing anxiety creeping into Luke's life,
31:06
Speaker 1: the same shadow he had fought his whole life, and
31:10
Speaker 1: he actively worked to help his son navigate through it.
31:14
Speaker 1: But that beautiful act of fatherhood carried a heartbreaking double edge.
31:22
Speaker 1: Chris was simultaneously overwhelmed with a terrifying, suffocating thought, what
31:31
Speaker 1: if Luke grows up to be just like me? He
31:36
Speaker 1: viewed his own mind as a curse, and he was
31:40
Speaker 1: terrified he had passed it on. But the love he
31:45
Speaker 1: had for his kids was undeniable. Brie was his absolute
31:50
Speaker 1: little princess. He never wanted to go to bed without
31:53
Speaker 1: a good night kiss and a massive huck from her.
31:57
Speaker 1: Luke and Brie utterly adored their father, and he adored them.
32:04
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson was a highly intelligent surgeon. He was a
32:08
Speaker 1: loving father who had so much left to offer the world,
32:13
Speaker 1: but the sick, unforgiving diseases of depression, anxiety, and addiction
32:20
Speaker 1: warped his reality until he could no longer see a
32:24
Speaker 1: way forward. Neighbors reported that just days before the nightmare unfolded,
32:36
Speaker 1: the Dawson's house looked like any other happy home of
32:39
Speaker 1: the block. They had been out in the front yard
32:42
Speaker 1: decorating for the holidays. A neighbor, Tanner Franklin, would later
32:47
Speaker 1: look at the house and shock and recall those final days, saying,
32:53
Speaker 1: they've been putting up Christmas lights. You come out here
32:57
Speaker 1: and you see them with the dad. They seemed normal, man,
33:04
Speaker 1: they seemed normal. The lights were twinkling, the holidays were coming,
33:09
Speaker 1: and the masks stayed on until the very last second.
33:17
Speaker 1: And up until this point, we've been looking at this
33:20
Speaker 1: from the outside, through the statistics of a broken medical system,
33:25
Speaker 1: the stress of a sudden job laws, and the observations
33:29
Speaker 1: of neighbors. But now we sadly have to look at
33:33
Speaker 1: the reality of December ninth, twenty seventeen, and we are
33:38
Speaker 1: going to do that through the words of the woman
33:40
Speaker 1: who survived it. This is what Rachel wrote about the
33:45
Speaker 1: morning her world shattered. Forever Guys, grab a tissue. On
33:55
Speaker 1: December ninth, twenty seventeen, my world was forever changed. Unknown
34:01
Speaker 1: to me, my husband had purchased a semi automatic shotgun
34:05
Speaker 1: at Cabella's the day before he used it to shoot
34:09
Speaker 1: our nine year old son Luke, our five year old
34:13
Speaker 1: daughter Brie, and then himself. It was a simple no
34:19
Speaker 1: questions asked Aaron to obtain a murder weapon. I knew
34:27
Speaker 1: something was off that morning with him, but as he
34:31
Speaker 1: carried our son into our daughter's room, my alarm bells
34:34
Speaker 1: were going off. I calmly grabbed his hands and asked
34:39
Speaker 1: him to talk to me. He pushed me against the
34:42
Speaker 1: wall out of the room and barred the door shut.
34:47
Speaker 1: Police found that he had used a baseball bat wedged
34:50
Speaker 1: between the door and my daughter's bunk bed. Trying not
34:55
Speaker 1: to scare our kids, I yelled to Luke that we
34:58
Speaker 1: were running late to the five K we were supposed
35:01
Speaker 1: to run together, and that he needed to hurry Immediately.
35:08
Speaker 1: I heard three gunshots and then smelled gunpowder. I knew
35:16
Speaker 1: it was over and my children were dead. My husband
35:22
Speaker 1: was a surgeon, and I knew he would leave no
35:25
Speaker 1: chance of them surviving. But I went to look for
35:29
Speaker 1: a phone to call nine one one because I needed
35:32
Speaker 1: someone there with me. I was in shock and couldn't
35:36
Speaker 1: really process the gravity of what was going on, and
35:40
Speaker 1: never had fear for my own life. As I knew
35:45
Speaker 1: my life my babies were gone. I just wanted to
35:49
Speaker 1: be taken from this situation like it had never happened.
35:56
Speaker 1: Sometime while I was looking for the phone, my husband
36:00
Speaker 1: came out of the room and shot himself in our
36:03
Speaker 1: bedroom Tragically. When I was asked if the kids had
36:08
Speaker 1: a pulse, I went into my daughter's room to check,
36:12
Speaker 1: not remembering that I had just been barred out. I
36:17
Speaker 1: saw what no one, especially a mother should see. My
36:24
Speaker 1: beautiful babies were disfigured, lifeless, and had no pulse. As
36:34
Speaker 1: a nick you nurse, Rachel had spent her entire career
36:37
Speaker 1: checking pulses, reading monitors, and fighting to keep fragile newborn's breathing.
36:45
Speaker 1: But in that horrific, surreal sequence of events, her medical
36:49
Speaker 1: training collided with a mother's absolute worse nightmare. Rachel was
36:58
Speaker 1: left standing in a quiet house on South College Circle,
37:02
Speaker 1: surrounded by Christmas lights on the outside and an unfathomable
37:08
Speaker 1: echoing emptiness on the inside. All Rachel was trapped inside
37:17
Speaker 1: a waking nightmare. The rest of the seventy four hundred
37:20
Speaker 1: block of South College Circle was just waking up to
37:24
Speaker 1: a crisp normal December morning, but the illusion of suburban
37:31
Speaker 1: peace was about to be violently torn apart. Guys, this
37:39
Speaker 1: picture that just Rachel during those early dawn hours. A
37:46
Speaker 1: few neighbors later admitted to hearing noises they described as unsettling.
37:51
Speaker 1: But in a neighborhood this quiet, your brain doesn't leap
37:55
Speaker 1: to murder. You try to dismiss it or rationalize it.
38:01
Speaker 1: No one was remotely prepared for the horror that they
38:04
Speaker 1: would see when they looked out their front windows. Directly
38:10
Speaker 1: across the street lived Hanner Franklin. Around six thirty a m.
38:15
Speaker 1: As he was getting ready for work, the morning stillness
38:18
Speaker 1: was punctured by a sound that made him and his
38:20
Speaker 1: girlfriend freeze. We heard some weird type thing, freder Linklin.
38:27
Speaker 1: Franklin later recalled to local reporters, like a yelp thing.
38:33
Speaker 1: My girlfriend was like, did you hear that? I thought
38:37
Speaker 1: it was an animal or something, But it wasn't an animal. Instead,
38:44
Speaker 1: it was the sound of a mother realizing her entire,
38:48
Speaker 1: entire world had just been obliterated. Down the street another neighborhood,
38:56
Speaker 1: the same devastating sounds caring through the cold morning air.
39:02
Speaker 1: They described hearing Rachel screaming on that dreadful morning, recalling
39:07
Speaker 1: the sheer, raw terror of the sound, saying you could
39:13
Speaker 1: tell something terrible had happened. The next thing the neighbor
39:20
Speaker 1: saw was a parade of red and blue lights cutting through,
39:26
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, cutting through the dawn, parking directly under
39:31
Speaker 1: the half hung Christmas decorations. When the flashing lights finally
39:37
Speaker 1: went still and the investigator stepped inside the home on
39:41
Speaker 1: South College Circle, the true scale of the medical precision
39:45
Speaker 1: Chris Dawson had used became horrifyingly clear. The medical examiner
39:53
Speaker 1: would later confirm the devastating details. Nine year old Luke
39:58
Speaker 1: Dawson had died from gunshot wounds to his head and
40:02
Speaker 1: his torso five year old Breed Dawson had died from
40:06
Speaker 1: a single targeted gunshot wound to her head. After stealing
40:13
Speaker 1: the futures of his children, thirty six year old doctor
40:16
Speaker 1: Christopher Dawson turned the exact same semi automatic shotgun on himself,
40:23
Speaker 1: ending his own life in the master bedroom. Kelly pa
40:31
Speaker 1: I can't imagine either. Can't. As the bodies removed from
40:36
Speaker 1: the home, the North Richland Hills Police Department began a
40:41
Speaker 1: frantic search for a while. They dug through the family's past,
40:46
Speaker 1: looking for a paper trail, a history of police dispatches,
40:51
Speaker 1: or a pattern of physical abuse, but they found absolutely nothing.
40:58
Speaker 1: No reports of domestic violence, no restraining orders or frantic
41:02
Speaker 1: nine one one calls. The weeks leading up to December ninth,
41:09
Speaker 1: police spokesman Kara Katakaru spoke to the media, Visibly shaken
41:16
Speaker 1: by the lack of answers. She stated, there's no history here.
41:22
Speaker 1: We're still trying to figure out why. I grew up
41:25
Speaker 1: in North Richland Hills, and I would call this a
41:28
Speaker 1: pretty quiet neighborhood. The Dawson seemed normal, but in the
41:35
Speaker 1: wake of an unthinkable tragedy, the human mind desperately searches
41:40
Speaker 1: for the pieces of the puzzle it missed. Neighbors in
41:45
Speaker 1: that quiet, manicured Texas suburb would later look back and
41:49
Speaker 1: remember small, unsettling shifts in the wind, But in a
41:56
Speaker 1: neighborhood everyone described as peaceful, No one ever guessed Nightmare
42:02
Speaker 1: was living next door. But as investigators and journalists began
42:09
Speaker 1: to pull out the threads of the Dawsons' lives, friends
42:13
Speaker 1: and new acquaintances of Rachel began to speak out, and
42:18
Speaker 1: the picture they painted of the family dynamics were deeply concerning.
42:24
Speaker 1: The trouble hadn't started in Texas, and had traveled with
42:28
Speaker 1: them from the desert in Arizona. Eryl Berg, a former
42:35
Speaker 1: neighbor from their time in Phoenix, Arizona, came forward to
42:39
Speaker 1: share what she had witnessed. Ariel had met Rachel and
42:42
Speaker 1: the kids through local fitness classes. She told a local
42:46
Speaker 1: news station. I met Rachel at a boot camp class,
42:50
Speaker 1: and she would bring her kids, Luke and Breeze. Sometimes.
42:55
Speaker 1: At first, it was just moms connecting, letting their kids
42:59
Speaker 1: play while they were doubt, but it didn't take long
43:02
Speaker 1: for Ariel to notice a troubling, suffocating pattern in doctor
43:08
Speaker 1: Christopher Dawson's behavior. According to Ariel, Chris wasn't just struggling
43:14
Speaker 1: with his own internal demons, he was actively policing Rachel's world.
43:22
Speaker 1: She stated he was very, very controlling of Rachel, to
43:26
Speaker 1: the extent that after a certain point he no longer
43:30
Speaker 1: allowed her to be friends with us listeners. This is
43:37
Speaker 1: a classic terrifying, red flag and toxic dynamics. It's called isolation. Okay,
43:45
Speaker 1: When the pressure's inside a person becomes too much, they
43:48
Speaker 1: often tried to control every single variable outside of themselves. Okay.
43:56
Speaker 1: For Chris, that meant cutting off Rachel's support systems, shrinking
44:00
Speaker 1: her world into the only thing she could focus on
44:03
Speaker 1: was the storm inside their own house. Barbicue, our lady
44:09
Speaker 1: and Gray says, it seems he was so depressed he
44:12
Speaker 1: thought he was doing a favor by not letting them
44:16
Speaker 1: grow up to have his issues. Yeah. I agree, but
44:22
Speaker 1: even with those red flags Waven and Phoenix, Ariel echoed
44:26
Speaker 1: the sentiment of everyone who ever crossed passed with the Dawsons.
44:32
Speaker 1: The jump from a controlling spouse to a horrific act
44:34
Speaker 1: of violence is a chatism that the I mean, the
44:39
Speaker 1: human brain simply refuses to rationalize. We saw warning signs
44:45
Speaker 1: Ariel added, but I don't think anyone could have guessed
44:49
Speaker 1: that this would have happened. It shocked everyone, and that
44:54
Speaker 1: is the terrifying nature of the master mask. People saw
44:58
Speaker 1: the control, they saw the isolation, but they still saw
45:03
Speaker 1: a father putting up Christmas lights with his kids. They
45:07
Speaker 1: still saw a brilliant surgeon. They didn't know that by December,
45:12
Speaker 1: the isolation was complete, the career was gone, and the
45:18
Speaker 1: countdown had already got Investigators naturally turned their focus to
45:26
Speaker 1: Chris's sudden, abrupt departure from Baylor Scott in my medical
45:31
Speaker 1: center just weeks earlier. They knocked on doors and they
45:35
Speaker 1: sought answers about why a gifted surgeon's employment had terminated
45:41
Speaker 1: after only six weeks. But they hit a wall of
45:45
Speaker 1: corporate silence. That's going to happen. The clinic declined to
45:50
Speaker 1: comment on the specific circumstances surrounding Dawson's departure, choosing instead
45:56
Speaker 1: to issue a standard corporate statement. Thoughts and prayers are
46:01
Speaker 1: with the family and all of those affected by this tragedy. Guys,
46:07
Speaker 1: as someone excuse me, who works in HR, I can
46:13
Speaker 1: see why they wouldn't give that information. So not only HR,
46:18
Speaker 1: but in a hospital with a lot of hippos stuff,
46:21
Speaker 1: and this is a doctor. I have some suspicions if
46:24
Speaker 1: he was self medicating six weeks, did they delay getting
46:30
Speaker 1: drug test results back? Did something happen? You know, we
46:33
Speaker 1: don't know, Like I said, I called and I tried
46:36
Speaker 1: to find out, but they're not talking. And detectives combed
46:42
Speaker 1: through the house, tearing through Chris's office, his vehicle, and
46:48
Speaker 1: they gave his personal electronics a colonosk meek looking for
46:52
Speaker 1: the one thing that might offer closure, a suicide note,
46:57
Speaker 1: some sort of confession or expt a nation, but no
47:02
Speaker 1: note was ever reported. Chris left no final words for
47:06
Speaker 1: the world, only a vacuum of unanswered questions. But as
47:14
Speaker 1: the investigation deepened into his medical history, the ultimate truth
47:19
Speaker 1: finally surfaced. Christopher Dawson had suffered from severe crippling depression
47:25
Speaker 1: his entire adult life. He was a man drowning and
47:30
Speaker 1: plain sight, but he was utterly reluctant to get professional
47:35
Speaker 1: help because he feared, above all else that the paper
47:40
Speaker 1: trail of a mental health diagnosis would permanently destroy his career.
47:47
Speaker 1: And Guys, once again, if you know, if you are
47:52
Speaker 1: someone you know as struggling with mental health, depression or
47:55
Speaker 1: thoughts of self harm, please reach out, call or tech
48:00
Speaker 1: the Suicide and Crisis Line Lifeline at nine eight eight
48:04
Speaker 1: nine eight eight or text home to seven four one
48:08
Speaker 1: seven four one for the Crisis tax Line. And guys,
48:13
Speaker 1: if you are experiencing coercive control, isolation, or domestic abuse,
48:20
Speaker 1: help is available at the National Domestic Violence Hotline by
48:25
Speaker 1: calling one eight hundred seven nine to nine safe or
48:30
Speaker 1: one eight hundred seven nine to nine seven two three three,
48:35
Speaker 1: or tecting texting start to eight eight seven eight eight. Guys,
48:44
Speaker 1: that's it for tonight, but next week we're going to
48:51
Speaker 1: find out. So what is a doctor actually supposed to
48:57
Speaker 1: do when they are drowning? What are they supposed to
49:01
Speaker 1: do when the substance abuse or the mental health issues
49:06
Speaker 1: become too heavy to carry alone? Where do they go? Surely,
49:11
Speaker 1: in a civilized society, we must have a safe net
49:15
Speaker 1: in place to catch the very people who catch us
49:18
Speaker 1: when we fall. What if I told you that we do?
49:25
Speaker 1: But it is not at all what it seems. Next
49:30
Speaker 1: week we pull back the corporate curtains on a historic
49:35
Speaker 1: Bombshelt class action lawsuit filed against the Washington Physicians Health
49:40
Speaker 1: Program and the University of Washington. And guys, and what
49:46
Speaker 1: we find inside this file isn't a safety net at all.
49:50
Speaker 1: It is a terrifying profit driven machine. Guys, I'm still
49:57
Speaker 1: down rabbit holes. Okay, we look at the case of
50:01
Speaker 1: doctor Timmy Angelia, a bright, driven orthopedic surgical resident who
50:08
Speaker 1: was referred to the program simply for being late to work. Yes, guys,
50:17
Speaker 1: a referral that led to a devastating career ending diagnosis
50:23
Speaker 1: of early onset dementia, a diagnosis that actually belonged to
50:29
Speaker 1: a completely different patient. It wasn't even this doctor who
50:35
Speaker 1: had dementia. And when he pointed out the clerical error,
50:40
Speaker 1: the system doubled down. Yes, Okay, they doubled down. It's horrific,
50:50
Speaker 1: and we'll uncover the heartbreaking erasure of doctor Derinda Gray,
50:55
Speaker 1: who was a star obgi N resident, a celebrated university's
51:02
Speaker 1: change manker, who reached out to her program for a
51:06
Speaker 1: brief two week mental health break after experiencing suicidal ideation. Okay,
51:13
Speaker 1: she reached out, and instead of a lifeline, her life's
51:18
Speaker 1: work was being held hostage over a fraudulent three hundred
51:22
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars administrative bill, guys, which resulted in her
51:28
Speaker 1: being terminated from medicine. Yes, guys, Yeah, we're gonna unravel
51:38
Speaker 1: the five step corporate pipeline designed to trap, drain, and
51:45
Speaker 1: silence the brightest minds in medicine, and maybe we will
51:49
Speaker 1: finally understand why doctor Chris Dawson was too terrified to
51:56
Speaker 1: scream for help. The mask comes up off next week
52:00
Speaker 1: in part to the tragedy of doctor Chris Dawson, and guys,
52:06
Speaker 1: I will be drinking. Get your glasses ready, because I
52:12
Speaker 1: believe this man was felled and it's a lot of
52:16
Speaker 1: rabbit holes. Okay, now find us wherever you get your podcasts.
52:22
Speaker 1: If you're listening to this podcast, you can listen to
52:25
Speaker 1: the live recordings of this episode and many more over
52:29
Speaker 1: on our YouTube channel, True Crime and Wine Time, Plus
52:31
Speaker 1: you get to see all the cool visuals. If you
52:34
Speaker 1: don't want to, just listen to our voice. Okay, Now
52:38
Speaker 1: before we go, If you like what you've heard tonight,
52:42
Speaker 1: be sure to follow our socials and subscribe to our
52:45
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. It's free, okay. And guess what, if you're
52:49
Speaker 1: listening to our pod, please download give us a rating
52:52
Speaker 1: because all of that helps us get our channel out there.
52:57
Speaker 1: And now on the podcast apps, you can join our
53:01
Speaker 1: family membership over there. Forget what it's called. Off the
53:04
Speaker 1: top of my head, it's like two dollars. I believe
53:07
Speaker 1: you get it all commercial free because we don't put
53:10
Speaker 1: the commercials in they do. Okay, guys, thank you for
53:15
Speaker 1: joining me. Tonight was rough, and next week's rough, and
53:19
Speaker 1: it's gonna piss you off. I'm already getting so flustered
53:24
Speaker 1: right now. I'm glad I'm not drinking wine. Okay, because
53:28
Speaker 1: next week on True Crime and Mind Time, we're going
53:31
Speaker 1: to get into part two of the story about doctor Dawson.
53:38
Speaker 1: And you're also going to want to have your tissues ready, okay,
53:41
Speaker 1: because it gets even worse. So thank you guys all
53:45
Speaker 1: for joining me. Hopefully Lama will be back next week.
53:50
Speaker 1: Please remember to keep Lama and elbow Feet in your thoughts,
53:54
Speaker 1: and if you're on the discord, feel free to reach
53:57
Speaker 1: out and say hello to them already. Guys, Take care,
54:02
Speaker 1: stay safe, be aware. Okay, be aware, and if you
54:08
Speaker 1: know someone or you yourself are struggling with bad thoughts,
54:12
Speaker 1: there is help out there. Okay, reach out, Okay, reach out. Bye, guys,