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Kathy Page Pt. One · The Path Went Chilly

0:32
Welcome back to The Path Went Chili. I'm Robin, I'm Jules, and
0:36
I'm Ashley. Let's dive right into this week's case. May fourteenth, nineteen
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ninety one, Vider, Texas, thirty four year old Kathy Page is found
0:47
dead inside her car after an apparent crash into a drainage ditch well. The
0:52
scene resembles an accident. The evidence shows that Kathy was strangled to death and
0:56
the crash was staged since Kathy's marriage to her strange husband, Steve Page,
1:00
was falling apart and there were a number of suspicious actions on his part.
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Kathy's family believed that Steve was responsible for murdering her, but the authorities do
1:10
not believe there's enough evidence to file charges and the case remains unsolved. After
1:15
that The Path Went Chile. So today we are covering a case which has
1:21
been featured on such true crime shows as Unsolved Mysteries and Coal Justice, the
1:25
nineteen ninety one murder of Cathy Page. However, this story has garnered some
1:30
additional notoriety over the past several years because it was the apparent inspiration for the
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critically acclaimed film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Released in twenty seventeen.
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Three Billboards stars Francis mcdormant as a woman from a small fictional town whose teenage
1:47
daughter is raped and murdered, and since the local police are unable to make
1:51
any progress in the investigation, mcdorman's character expresses her frustration by renting out a
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trio of roadside billboards which contained the messages quote raped while dying, how come
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Chief Willoughby still no arrests endote. The film was written and directed by Martin
2:07
McDonough, who claimed he got the idea for his story during a bus trip
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through the United States during the nineteen nineties as he passed by a series of
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billboards in which a murder victim's family expressed her dissatisfaction with the investigation. While
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McDonough was unable to recall the exact case mentioned on these billboards, it seems
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very likely that they were in reference to the murder of Kathy Page, a
2:30
wife and mother who was killed in the small town of Vider, Texas,
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during a failed attempt to stage her death to look like a car accident.
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Now, aside from the basic premise about the billboards, the plot and characters
2:42
in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, are completely fictional and have nothing to
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do with this case. In the film, no one seems to have any
2:50
idea who committed the murder. But the biggest source of frustration for the family
2:53
of Kathy Page is that they are confident that the perpetrator was her estranged husband,
2:59
Steve paye Age, and believe he was never charged with the crime because
3:02
the local authorities watched the investigation and they have been protecting him. Regardless of
3:07
whether Steve Page is guilty or innocent of this crime. This is a very
3:10
tragic story which has caused a lot of hurt and dissension between two families,
3:15
and it's still up in the air whether there will ever be a conclusive resolution.
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I already feel so much pain for both families, honestly, because you
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have this couple who at one point was happy and they were in love enough
3:30
to get married, and then you have this quote accident where the families quite
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convinced that the husband actually murders their daughter, and instead of feeling like they
3:40
get help and support and assistance from the local police, they're faced with this
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reality that there's really nothing else that's going to be done for their daughter.
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To bring about justice. And when you think about it, the husband also
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has a family too, and that was their daughter in law at one point.
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The suspected killer was Kathy's husband, and that's another family son in law
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at one point, and so there were these really tight relationships and connections that
4:08
fell apart during the estrangement. But both families are left struggling with one family
4:14
thinking their sons being falsely accused of murder and another family thinking their former son
4:17
in law killed their baby. And it's devastating to feel like possibly the police
4:24
didn't either do a thorough enough investigation or didn't have proper communication to tell the
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family where they truly were in that investigation. And as we're going to talk
4:34
about later on in these episodes, the people who have suffered the most in
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this whole affair are Stephen Kathy's two daughters because they've been caught in the middle
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of this drama between two families, and they've also lost their mother and experienced
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a lot of tragedy. I also wondered to either of you seeing three billboards
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outside Ebbing, Missouri. It's excellent. It is. Yes, I'll talk
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more about it later on in these episodes. But it was kind of cool
4:57
to find out that this case inspired it. Have you seen it, Ash,
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I don't think I've seen it, but now I'm going to have to
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add it to my mess watch list, and I'm running out of great things
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to watch, so this will be at the top of it. Our story
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begins in nineteen ninety one Invider, Texas, a small town of around eleven
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thousand people located in Orange County, and our central figure is thirty four year
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old Lucille Catherine Page, who goes by the name Kathy. Originally born in
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Hollandale, Mississippi, to parents James and Dorothy Fulton. Kathy also had two
5:30
brothers and three sisters. She was originally born in Hollandale, Mississippi, before
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she eventually relocated to Texas. At this point, she's currently living Invider with
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her two daughters, twelve year old Aaron and seven year old Monica. Their
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house is located on a dead end street next to inter State ten, and
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Cathy works as a waitress at the Hofbrow restaurant in the nearby city of Beaumont.
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She originally married her husband, Steve Page, in nineteen seventy eight while
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she was pregnant with Aaron, but their relationship has not been in a good
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place in a long time. After they got into a heated argument, Kathy
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asked Steve for a separation, and he agreed to move out of their home
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into an apartment. In spite of this, Steve maintained that they continued to
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remain cordial and friendly with each other, as he believed that Kathy was simply
6:17
going through a phase in which she needed to find herself, but was willing
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to work things out with him. However, Kathy's family believed the marriage had
6:25
no chance of being saved and said that Kathy was planning to divorce Steve sometime
6:30
in the near future. On the evening of May thirteenth, only one day
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after Steve spent his first night at his new apartment, he was contacted by
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Kathy, who asked if he would babysit their two daughters. Cathy told Steve
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that she wanted to go out to a bar in Beaumont with a friend of
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hers named Charlotte Baringen Morgan, so Steve agreed to return to the house to
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watch over the kids. Steve claimed that he last saw Kathy between eleven fifteen
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and eleven thirty pm before he went to sleep a short time later, but
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sometime over the next five hours, Kathy would wind up dead under very strange
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circumstances. At four twenty am on the morning of May fourteenth, a newspaper
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carrier discovered Kathy's black mercury tracer in a drainage ditch alongside Interstate ten. The
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location was only one hundred and fourteen yards from Kathy's residence, though the vehicle
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appeared to be pointing in the opposite direction. Kathy was lying dead in the
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driver's seat, so the vido of police department were summoned to the scene,
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and at first glance, it appeared that she had been killed in a tragic
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accident. So if her car is facing away from her home, it would
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seem as though when she was leaving around eleven fifteen or eleven thirty, that's
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when that accident would have occurred, which means she would have been sitting there
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for five hours, almost when the police arrived at four twenty, or when
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someone summons the police at four twenty. So that's really scary. One hundred
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and fourteen yard from her house, she made it that far before she has
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this tragic accident. It seems very very suspicious. Well, as we're going
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to talk about, she definitely did not die at around eleven fifteen or eleven
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thirty, because there are other people who can vouch for her whereabouts over the
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next few hours. So that's the biggest hole in the accidents seen so far,
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is that it appears that she did return home at some point, But
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if she got into a crash while she was driving home, wires are car
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facing in the opposite direction, so that would be the first sign that this
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accident may have been staged. So when Detective Sergeant Ray Moseley and another investigator
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went to the Page residence, Steve answered the door wearing nothing but a pair
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of boxer shorts. Mosley asked Steve if he is the husband of Kathy Page
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and whether he knew his wife's whereabouts, but Steve replied that she was not
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home. Before Moseley could inform him about what happened, he noticed that Steve
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appeared to be looking down the street in the direction where Kathy's car had been
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found. After the investigator were invited into the house, Steve was finally notified
9:03
that his wife had been killed, and Mosley noticed Steve go through some radical
9:07
changes in his behavior, as he appeared to start crying and hysterically throwing himself
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on the couch, before his emotions would quickly dissipate and he would go back
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to carrying on a conversation with no signs of tears in his eyes. The
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living room lights were left off the entire time the police were inside the house,
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and even when they asked Steve to turn them on, he never did.
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Mosley also noticed a small pile of clothes on the floor and found it
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odd that Steve never asked to see Kathy or made any attempt to leave and
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visit the accident scene. That is incredibly odd, and the way that he
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reacts with such grander and such dramatic flare, and yet he's not asking the
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specific questions, you know, what happened to her? Where is she?
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Please? Let me see her? Can I go to her? You know?
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Can my girl see her? None of that. He's not really asking
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any of that, and so it's quite odd. Almost seems like he's trying
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to appear as though he's not at all suspecting anything. When he shows up,
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you know, at the door, with his boxers on and then when
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they come in, he's almost alluding them by not turning the lights on and
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things like that. Yes, I could see he'd be in shock, but
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when they say, hey, turn your lights on, why wouldn't he?
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Is he hiding something? Are there scratches on him? Or are those clothes?
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Do they have blood on them? What was it that he didn't want
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to come the lights on for? Could be anything right? What if there
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was a spot of blood on a carpet? What if there had been a
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fuss and maybe something had broken, maybe he had scratches, or maybe he's
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trying to cloak himself in darkness because he feels as though it will be harder
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to gauge whether or not his emotional reactions are genuine, because it seems to
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me personally, and I'm sure to both of you as well. We've seen
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cases like this before. And when you've got a perpetrator or a potential perpetrator
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who doesn't ask more questions about what happened, doesn't want to see their loved
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one, even if it is a wife, that you are the one that's
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saying that she's finding herself and then you're going to work it out, but
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you're not trying to go and see the accident, seeing and going why why,
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and like, how did this happen? Let me see her. Those
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are major red flags, and obviously investigators are clocking that right from the start,
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and especially given the relationship they currently have. Like, yes they're strange,
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Yes they're likely going through a divorce, but they're close enough to where
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they at least know they're going to co parent. They're close enough that she
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could call him late at night and say, hey, can you watch the
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girls for me? And he said, yeah, sure, that's no problem.
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So even for your children's sake, you want to know those questions,
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and for the mother of your children, that's still someone you have a love
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for at this point, you know, it's not like she's taking them kids
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away from him and ruined his career or anything like that. I mean,
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at this point, they're still cooperating with one another. So again, you
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never know how someone's going to react to grief. So I do have to
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say, you know, who knows. It could be his own grief reaction,
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But it does definitely seemed suspicious that he didn't follow police protocol or requests
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to turn the lights on. It's very bizarre that he went from zero to
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kind of three hundred percent, yet wasn't expressing some of the questions you typically
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think he'd ask. And since he recently died, I should mention that One
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of the most infamous examples of this behavior is oj Simpson, who flew to
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Chicago after his ex wife was murdered, and the police called him at his
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hotel to say, I'm sorry to inform you your ex wife has died,
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and he says, oh my god, that's terrible. I'll fly right home.
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And then when the call ended, the detective said, he never asked
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how she died. Don't you find that very suspicious? And that's pretty much
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the same thing with Steve, where he's not asking any questions about what happened
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to his dead wife. It didn't take long for investigators to reach the conclusion
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that Kathy did not actually die in a car crash, and that her so
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called accident had been staged. Even though the drainage ditch was fairly deep,
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there was very little damage to the interior or sterior of the mercury tracer and
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no sign of skid marks anywhere. Kathy's feet were pushed back against the seat
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rather than stretched towards the petals, and even though she was not wearing her
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seatbelt, she remained in a reclined position in the front seat and had not
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been thrown forward. Kathy didn't have any wounds or injuries on her upper or
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lower body, though she did have a laceration on the back of her head,
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as well as a broken nose in a black eye that did not appear
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to be caused by a crash. Even those soft drinks from a fast food
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restaurant were on the floorboard, the impact of the crash had somehow not caused
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them to spill or tip over, and Kathy's purse was sitting upright in the
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passenger seat. The rear view mirror had also been turned in sideways and was
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facing the driver's seat and touching the windshield, so it was theorized that someone
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had accidentally adjusted it while loading Kathy's body into the car. When an autopsy
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was performed later that day, it would reveal that Kathy had significant injuries to
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her neck and her exact manner of death was manual strangulation. Oddly, while
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there were traces of bloodstains on Kathy's skin, undergarments, and inside of her
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clothing. There was no blood on her outer clothing, though the presence of
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a blade of grass on the bottom of her jeans suggested that her body was
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dragged across the ground at some point. It seemed likely that Kathy was murdered
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at another location before the perpetrator cleaned and dressed her dead body. They then
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placed Kathy inside her car and ran it off the road into a ditch to
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give the false impression of a fatal accident. So what are we talking about
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here? Why are we even questioning what happened to Kathy? Because they told
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us what happened to Kathy, The medical examiner says, it's manual strangulation.
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You can see injuries to her body, like the laceration on the back of
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her head, the broken nose in the black eye, Yet it doesn't look
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like she's fallen forward and hit the steering wheel or crashed into the windshield or
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anything like that. The food still standing upright in the floorboard of the car
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is her purse, and her physical body doesn't seem to even be slouched over
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or slumped over from the impact. So I'm angry. I'm starting to think,
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just like the family's thinking, why is there a question mark as to
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what happened. At least look at the facts where she's been dragged into that
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car. She has grass on the bottom of her bottom of her jeans,
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So she has grass on the bottom of her jeans. So them saying clearly
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it's a murder. They told us it's manual strangulation. Who was it?
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Who knows? But I get what the family's saying, How dare you say
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this is an accident. They're telling you that it's not an accident, The
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evidence is telling you it's not an accident, and yet you're telling me years
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and years and years later, the police still claim it's an accident. Actually,
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no, they actually did. They did reclassified as a homicide. I
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mean, the police made a lot of mistakes in the investigation, but at
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least at the very getting here, they did look at the facts and said,
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okay, this is definitely not an accident. I mean, they didn't
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do much a very good job at trying to find the perpetrator. But I
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have seen other cases like this where they go years before changing the classification on
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accidents. So at least they did the right thing right away. Oh good,
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Okay, So I was gonna say I'm already enraged, just like everybody
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else would be looking at this case, because you know you're being told by
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medical professionals it's manual strangulation. There's no way to just say, oh,
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it was a car accident. The autopsy also revealed the presence of seamen in
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Kathy's vagina to indicate that she had sexual intercourse a short time before her death.
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Investigators soon learned that Kathy's story about going out with her friend Charlotte was
16:44
completely false and that she was actually meeting up with a secret boyfriend at the
16:48
Best Western Hotel in Beaumont. This man did not live in the area,
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and it originally met Kathy a few months earlier when he stopped by the Hofbrow
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restaurant while she was working there, and they developed an instant connection. Since
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he usually stated at the Best Western Hotel whenever he passed through Beaumont, he
17:04
made arrangements with Kathy to secretly meet up there. When the boyfriend was questioned
17:08
by police, he admitted that he and Kathy had sex at the hotel on
17:12
the night of her death before she left at around two thirty am. By
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all accounts, this man was very cooperative with the investigation and passed a polygraph,
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so he was cleared as a suspect. One of the oddest details of
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Kathy's death is that when she was found inside her car, she was not
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wearing makeup, socks, or any of her jewelry, including her watch,
17:33
ear rings, and wedding ring. The boyfriend confirmed that when he last saw
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Kathy at the hotel, she was dressed in the same clothes she was wearing
17:41
at the time of her death, but he was also certain that she was
17:44
still wearing her makeup and jewelry. According to those who knew her, Kathy
17:48
usually only took off her jewelry when she got ready for bed, leading to
17:52
speculation that she had made it home at some point before she was killed.
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Another surprising revelation from Kathy's autopsy is that some of the seamen found in her
18:02
vagina did not have any sperm, which indicated that she had sexual intercourse with
18:06
someone who had undergone a vasectomy. Well, Kathy's boyfriend never had of a
18:11
sect to me, but Steve Page had received one months earlier. When confronted
18:15
about this, Steve claimed that when he first arrived at the house that night,
18:18
Kathy stepped out of the shower while wearing a towel, and they decided
18:22
to have sex on the carpet in the living room before she left. However,
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Kathy's family had a hard time believing this story, as prior to moving
18:30
out, Steve had been sleeping on the couch and there did not appear to
18:33
be any intimacy left in the relationship. It seemed unlikely to them that Kathy
18:38
would agree to have sexed with Steve right before going out to meet up with
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another man. None of that makes sense. I just don't buy it.
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You have Kathy who has told people were clearly going to get a divorce.
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She's going out to meet with this boyfriend, which is possibly one of the
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reasons she's pretty confident in a divorce, like, I still got it.
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There's someone to try me. I have a good time with him, and
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I don't feel the same stress and upset that I feel when I'm around my
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ex husband or my husband who I'm estranged from. And if you think about
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this, she's asked him to watch the kids, so the kids are close
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by, sleeping let's say in another room or something like that, and his
19:18
account is like they had this hot I can't even control myself kind of sex
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on the floor, Okay, as grown people, I'm just telling you,
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my back hurts too much for that. I'm not having sex on the living
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room floor, and I'm surely not doing that while my kids are in the
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house. Like, you have to be more discreet even if they're sleeping,
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so they don't have that kind of relationship where it's this hot steam. I
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can't even make it into the bedroom to have sex with you. It doesn't
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make any sense. It makes more sense that she gets home and she's getting
19:47
ready for bed, and he's either figured out that she was out with this
19:51
man or she says something like, look, I'm interested in someone else,
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I'm not interested in you, and he is enraged, feeling betrayed, feeling
20:00
emasculated, things like that, and he hurts her. Remember she has a
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laceration on the back of her head, her eyes are bruised. She also
20:08
has a broken nose. So it's more likely that he beat her, hurt
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her, killed her, and raped her because she wasn't interested in him anymore
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and he wasn't going to allow somebody else to have his wife. It's almost
20:22
like he wanted to stake his claim one last time by raping her and then
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killing her and just ending her life like that. But I'm with you,
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I don't think that in any world is it possible that this man that she
20:36
seems to be happy to be rid of, she's told all of her friends
20:38
and family. No, this divorce is happening like it's going through, and
20:42
she's met a guy she's got an instinct connection with and they're meeting up to
20:48
have this exciting night that's going to be I'm sure filled with passion. The
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last thing that she's going to be thinking about doing is having sex with her
20:56
ex husband while the kids are there. It just doesn't even sound believable.
21:00
It sounds like he's trying to come up with a reason why his semen is
21:04
inside her. Yeah, and he probably wasn't counting on that because they probably
21:08
would have assumed that all the semen belonged to the boyfriend until they noticed that
21:12
some of it was missing sperm and that the boyfriend didn't have a vasectomy.
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So Steve realized, oh, I have to come up with a cover story
21:18
to explain this, and this was the best he could dream up. But
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of course no one believed it because knowing the circumstances of their relationship, there
21:26
was no way they were having sex on the living room floor that night.
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The Fulton family would notice a number of suspicious actions on Steve's part following Kathy's
21:36
death, though Steve and his own family would later dispute that a lot of
21:40
these things even took place. According to Kathy's parents, James and Dorothy Fulton,
21:45
Steve bwonned their residence that morning to inform them about what happened. The
21:48
Fulton said they immediately went over to the Page residence and when they arrived,
21:53
they saw Steve walking around the living room wiping his hands with a bathcloth while
21:59
dressed in red shorts and a white T shirt, and he appeared to have
22:02
a scratch on his nose. Shortly thereafter, Dorothy said she noticed Steve doing
22:07
laundry and washing clothes. There had been contradictory accounts from different witnesses who were
22:11
at the residence that morning who have either confirmed or denied that they heard the
22:17
washing machine running, though most of the people who denied it were members of
22:21
Steve's family. According to Kathy's sister Jan Kelly, when she visited the residence,
22:26
Steve made a comment that Kathy had gone out drinking and was probably drunk
22:30
or taking valium when she crashed her car into the ditch, even though the
22:34
toxicology report would show no traces of any alcohol in her system. Kathy did
22:40
use valium, but Steve alleged on a few occasions that Kathy was also using
22:45
cocaine, though he later acknowledged that these allegations were untrue and that he'd simply
22:49
made the mistake of repeating rumors that he'd heard about Kathy's drug use. I
22:55
love how his immediate response is like victim blameing and and accounting and making excuses
23:02
for how and why the accident happened. I don't know, it just seems
23:04
like, you know, immediately when someone passes away, you don't really think
23:07
about all those things. You're not sitting there going like, oh man,
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I know he was abused in drugs and drunk and flew into that ditch and
23:15
these kinds of things. I might ask that, like I might say,
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do you guys think it's possible she was drinking and driving? Do you guys
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think it's possible that she ingested something or took medication that made her really sleepy?
23:27
But to start spreading rumors and sharing definitive kind of character attacks on her
23:33
seems really bizarre. It's okay to say what caused the accident and just you
23:38
know, hypothesize like what could have happened, But it almost seems like he's
23:42
trying to make sure everyone looks at Kathy's bad behavior, which isn't even truthful
23:48
in this scenario, and doesn't look his direction. It's very bizarre. He
23:52
has that scratch on his nose. It's very bizarre. He's washing clothes.
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I tend to side with the people who aren't trying to protect him, which
24:00
would be Kathy's family. It's possible they misheard something, but usually I mean,
24:06
if you think you heard the washing machine running, I guarantee you the
24:08
morning your daughter died, you'd say why was laundry important today? Like?
24:14
Why are you doing laundry right now? We're trying to help two babies deal
24:17
with the death of their mom. I'm trying to help you deal with her
24:19
death. Why are we doing the household chores right now? Oh? I've
24:25
seen so many cases like this where someone who is not known for doing laundry
24:29
at all suddenly feels compelled to do it. After their spouse goes missing or
24:33
is murdered, they just suddenly feel this need to clean their clothing, even
24:36
though that's completely at a character for them, so it seems awfully convenient.
24:41
The day after Kathy's death, one of her other sisters, Sherry Vallentine,
24:45
visited the house and said she noticed a very strong smell and saw oscillating fans
24:49
being used to dry out the carpet. Steve claimed he was cleaning the carpet
24:53
after spilling some fish breeze on it, and said the spill occurred on the
24:56
very same spot where he and Kathy had s on the evening of May the
25:00
thirteenth. There has been a lot of dispute from different witnesses about the details
25:06
of when Steve supposedly cleaned the carpet, as his daughter Aaron, and one
25:10
of Steve's sisters have always claimed they personally witnessed him spilled the grease, but
25:14
this incident did not actually occur until after Kathy's funeral. Oddly, Steve told
25:18
multiple members of the Fulton family that he did not want the police coming over
25:22
to his house because they might find blood on the carpet at a spot where
25:26
Kathy had previously shaved her legs. He said he did not trust the police,
25:32
believing they had previously planted evidence on some of his friends. When Steve
25:36
was interviewed by Detective Moseley at the police station, he even repeated the same
25:41
statement about not wanting the police at his house because he feared they might find
25:45
something to incriminate him. The police also told Steve that they wanted to form
25:48
an autopsy on Kathy, but he told them that he didn't want anyone quote
25:52
unquote cutting into her, so James Fulton was the one who officially authorized this.
26:00
He seemed to indicate that Cathy was manually strangled by a left handed person,
26:03
and there would be contradictory accounts about whether Steve was left handed. Steve
26:08
and his family maintained that he was right handed, even though members of the
26:11
Faulton family and other witnesses claimed they had seen and performed tasks with his left
26:15
hand. He could also be ambidextrius, where he can use both hands to
26:19
do task pretty equally. He might default to his right hand, but doesn't
26:23
mean he can't do things with his left hand, and maybe since his right
26:27
hand's stronger, he's holding Kathy down with that one, and he's using his
26:30
left hand, which he's very capable of doing, to injure her as well.
26:36
Man, this is really frustrating. You talk about a husband who supposedly
26:40
cares so much for this woman, he wants to be at least apparent with
26:45
her, but also he believes here getting back together, and then all of
26:48
a sudden he's like, not in this house, police aren't coming in here.
26:51
Remember that one time she cut her legs shaving. Right here on this
26:55
carpet is where she was bleeding, and it's right where we had sex,
26:59
and it's right where I spilled this fish grease. Very bizarre that he's trying
27:03
to cover up and hide the home in general, that he's drawing attention to
27:08
himself, whether he knows it or not, by having that carpet cleaned again
27:12
the day after she dies. Day of her death, he's doing laundry and
27:18
trying to talk about how she probably was drunk or overdose on something. And
27:22
the second day he has fans oscillating all around a really strong smell where he's
27:27
cleaning this carpet because he was cooking fish that he's spilled there. And that
27:33
story doesn't even check out, because even the people that are his alibi witnesses
27:37
for that say, oh, yeah, it happened at the day of her
27:40
funeral, which clearly was not two days after her death. Question, so
27:45
where was this spot that he was claiming that he spilled the fish grease?
27:49
Was it even in the kitchen? Uh? No, it was on the
27:52
carpet, like in the living room, Like why would it be there?
27:55
Why why would you have fish grease in the living room. I don't understand
27:59
you walking around the pan or a that of fish grease. And when you
28:02
shave your legs and you cut your legs jewels, do you sit there and
28:04
like with blood dripping down your legs, You're like, let's go hang out
28:07
in the living room with this. You sit in a bathroom or you at
28:10
least get to the kitchen and put a band aid on. You're not like,
28:12
no problem, guys, I'm just dripping blood down my legs to the
28:15
carpet and I'm just gonna sit here with it. And who shaves their legs
28:18
in the living room over carpet? Anyways, it doesn't even make sense.
28:22
Well, believe it or not, this is not the first case we've covered
28:26
in which someone has used as it as an excuse. You might remember a
28:29
couple of years ago we did an episode about the murderer of Lulukor Shane,
28:33
and that was another one where they found blood in her apartment and the suspects
28:36
said, oh, yeah, she was shaving her legs there that night.
28:38
It's very convenient that women like to shave their legs in the living room shortly
28:41
before they get murdered. It seems to be a common theme. And with
28:45
twelve year old kids driving sex in the living room floor, it's just our
28:48
bags can't do it. We just can't. The Fultons also noticed some suspicious
28:52
behavior from one of Steve's best friends. A private investigator named Roger Howell told
29:00
the family that he needed to take photographs of Kathy's body in order to help
29:03
Steve, and asked to view the body at the funeral, though they could
29:07
not understand why. During a visit to the Page residence, Sherry claimed she
29:12
saw Roger enter the bathroom with Steve while carrying a manila envelope. When they
29:17
walked out, Sherry noticed that the envelope was bulky and made a metallic sound
29:22
when it moved. While Stephen Roger later claimed the envelope was actually a bag
29:26
of candy. The Fultons have always suspected that it contained Kathy's watch, as
29:32
Steve needed to get rid of it since it would have proved Kathy arrived home
29:36
and took it off before she was killed. One of Kathy's coworkers at the
29:40
Hofbrow restaurant also claimed that Roger phoned her on the morning of May fourteenth to
29:45
inform her about what happened to Kathy, but he specifically stated that she'd been
29:49
strangled to death, even though the autopsy that determined the manner of death would
29:55
not be performed until hours later. Wow, what kind of can you need
30:00
to bring in a manila bag just to just to ask people? But okay,
30:04
backing up, this is what they're preparing the body two days, three
30:10
days after she dies, and Steve has felt it necessary to reach out to
30:15
his best friend, Roger Howell, who's a private investigator, to do things
30:19
to help him. What is he helping you with? As far as you
30:23
know right now, she was in a car accident. So what are you
30:27
calling a private investigator for now? If you're telling me three or four months
30:32
later, the police haven't left you alone, that you're being called in every
30:36
week question that they keep asking you to take polygraph tests, they keep lying
30:40
to you about information that you know is not true. Yeah, do you
30:42
get an attorney? Do you get a private investigator? Sure, my gosh,
30:45
sure, But before her body's even buried, before you even know the
30:52
cause of death, you're going to have this private investigator or working on your
30:56
behalf to quote help you. There's no help right now, just be here
30:59
in present with because my wife's dead. And of course a more standing thing
31:03
is that Roger knew about the strangulation before the police even dead, So you
31:07
get the impression that Steve had to tell him a secret. So yeah,
31:11
so where's Roger and all this? Does he get questioned by the police later
31:15
in the investigation? I'm not entirely sure. I mean, he seems to
31:19
be the wild card here where it really sounds like he had knowledge about what
31:23
actually happened. But he has never really been questioned or interrogated, even though
31:27
he may actually be an accessory to murder. Nor would he tell the truth
31:32
though, because it's clear he's going to help Steve do whatever he wants,
31:36
in fact, possibly even getting rid of a watch as eminence. Do we
31:40
know anything about the phone records between the two of them, especially on the
31:44
evening or like May thirteenth and May fourteenth. That's a good question because phone
31:49
records do play a good, big role in this case, because we know
31:52
about some phone calls that took place during the early evening hours. But I
31:56
think that if they found a record that Steve had phone er around the time
32:00
that his wife was killed, I think we would have heard about it.
32:04
So who knows. Maybe Roger came over to his house or something and he
32:07
told him in person. So there just is in a paper trail or an
32:09
electronic trail, or maybe he was smart enough to drive to a payphone,
32:14
because there was lots of payphones back then. That is true, Yes,
32:17
darn't many now, So crooks are out of luck if they want to make
32:20
a secret phone call. So Kathy's friend Charlotte confirmed that on the night of
32:25
her death, Kathy had phoned her to let her know that she was planning
32:29
to secretly meet up with her boyfriend at a hotel. Kathy told Charlotte that
32:34
Steve might attempt to check up on her, so she asked Charlotte to cover
32:37
for by not answering the phone in case Steve called well. Charlotte told police
32:42
that she received a call at two thirty am that morning, and when she
32:45
answered it, the caller immediately hung up, leading her to suspect it was
32:49
Steve. Charlotte did receive a call from Steve sometime between five point thirty and
32:53
six am, where he informed her that Kathy had not yet come home,
32:58
so Charlotte told him they had out together before they parted ways hours earlier.
33:02
There has been some dispute about when this second phone call actually took place,
33:07
as Steve would keep changing his story about what time he made the call,
33:10
providing such differing times as two thirty, three thirty, and four thirty.
33:15
While this has never been corroborated, Sherry Valentine claimed that she heard from Steve's
33:20
sister in law that after Kathy left for the night, Steve found a pair
33:23
of phone numbers Kathy had scrawled down in a notebook next to the phone.
33:28
The first number was Charlotte's phone number and the second was for the Best Western
33:31
Hotel in Beaumont. Kathy's family theorized that after Steve called Charlotte's number and discovered
33:37
she was still at home. He decided to call the second number, and
33:42
after learning it was for a hotel, he became convinced that Cathy was with
33:45
another man. When Kathy arrived home later that morning, Steve may have confronted
33:50
her about this, and things escalated to the point where he raped Kathy and
33:53
strangled her to death before staging the fake accident scene. That's exactly what happened.
34:00
Yeah, yes, you have that right where Charlotte is already prepped.
34:05
She knows, Hey, my husband's clearly gonna call. I'm using you as
34:07
my alibi. Can you just not answer the phone tonight so that he knows
34:12
we're out together? While at two thirty in the morning, if you weren't
34:15
going out, that's kind of startling to get a phone call. And when
34:19
he hears her voice, he goes, well, well, well, well
34:22
she's not out with my wife. Calls that other number and it's a hotel.
34:27
He does exactly what you just said, Robin. He realizes she's at
34:30
a hotel with somebody, and when she comes home, you know, there's
34:36
a confrontation there. I wouldn't be shocked if she said something like I'm done
34:39
with you. I found someone who makes me happy. You get over yourself.
34:44
I'm not getting back with you. And like we talked about earlier,
34:47
that feeling of lack of control, the feeling that you're being emasculated because you
34:53
didn't keep your prize and you didn't get to keep your girl, all of
34:59
that would lead to a rage that I think could have resulted in the injuries
35:02
you see to poor Kathy. She has the bruises, she has the broken
35:07
nose, she has a laceration on the back of her head, and she's
35:12
been manually strangled. That seems like someone who's acting out of pure rage.
35:15
And then to think that he would also sexually assault her and rape her.
35:21
Oh, I mean, it fits exactly the scenario you just described. Of
35:25
course, Steve denied any involvement in Kathy's death. When the case was featured
35:30
on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries which aired in April of nineteen ninety eight,
35:36
Steve agreed to be interviewed, and he offered his own theory about who killed
35:39
Kathy. Steve claimed that he had received a number of phone threats in which
35:44
he was warned that the same thing in which happened to Kathy could also happen
35:49
to him. He said that a member of a prominent Italian family who were
35:52
involved in the Quote Beaumont mafia, was responsible for Kathy's death, and the
35:59
Vita Policeice Department when were attempting to frame him for the crime and refusing to
36:02
investigate other leads for their part. The Fulton family believed that the viter PD
36:08
and the Orange County District Attorney's Office were covering for Steve and did not want
36:13
to arrest him as a number of the investigating officers, including Detective Ray Mosley,
36:19
knew him personally and Steve's parents were reportedly friends with the chief of police.
36:23
The viter PD did make a number of mistakes in the investigation, as
36:28
they took pictures of Kathy's so called car crash with no film inside the camera,
36:32
so there were no actual photos of the crime scene to be entered into
36:36
evidence. For unknown reasons, the District Attorney's office refused to grant the police
36:40
a warrant to search the Page residents until years after Kathy's death took place,
36:45
and the search failed to uncover any evidence. During this time period, the
36:51
Fulton family noticed that whenever they placed flowers on Kathy's grave. They would always
36:55
return to find them vandalized and thrown away, so they became con vince that
37:00
Steve was responsible. When the Fultons hired a private investigator to follow Steve around,
37:05
he managed to videotape him in the act of kicking a set of flowers
37:08
off Kathy's gravesite. So Steve was subsequently indicted on the charge of desecreating a
37:14
grave and received a sentence of probation. Steve eventually moved he of state and
37:19
took his two daughters, Aaron and Monica, to Tennessee to live with his
37:22
sister. What a real winner, you know. I mean, I don't
37:25
care how frustrated you are. You don't go to someone's gravesite and kick the
37:30
flowers off of her grave. That's just I don't know, disgusting is not
37:35
a good enough word for it. But what really bothers me is is fact
37:37
that they don't get a search warrant for years after Kathy's death to search the
37:44
home. The reality is there was a declaration that she was manually strangled,
37:49
and it clearly she did not die in this car accident. Therefore, you
37:54
have a right to go to the place where you know she was recently,
37:59
which is her own home. Why they weren't able to look through that house,
38:04
and why they wouldn't make that a priority even if Steve wasn't one of
38:07
the people at the top of their list. I want to see what could
38:10
have happened in the last hours of her life. I want to see even
38:14
when she was getting ready. Could we find something like those phone numbers?
38:16
Would he find something like in her diary that says I'm worried because this person's
38:21
harassing me. They didn't get to go look for any of that stuff because
38:24
it would be years later. Why wouldn't they search the page home and the
38:30
Best Western. You've got two men who admittedly have their semen inside of her.
38:35
One of the perpetrators is likely one of those two men, and the
38:38
boyfriend has basically been eliminated because of his polygraph. But still you would search
38:44
that Best Western hotel room just in case he was able to pass it while
38:47
he was still guilty. But it just seems odd that nobody would ground to
38:52
warrant, especially since he said that the last time he saw her she had
38:58
on her jewelry, and then when her body was found, she had all
39:01
that stuff taken off, like her makeup and her jewelry, which is something
39:05
she only did right before bed, so it seems like she likely did go
39:08
home. So I just can't understand why they wouldn't grant that search warrant.
39:14
Yeah, if they had done it right away, they might have found the
39:15
watch before Roger was able to take it out and put it in the envelope,
39:20
and that would have been concrete evidence that Kathy had made it home and
39:23
could have potentially led to an arrest. And if they got that warrant,
39:28
they might have been able to get some clothes that may or may not have
39:30
had blood or bodily fluids on them, maybe some sheets, and that spot
39:36
on the ground where the quote unquote fish grease was that they had sex or
39:40
she might have cut her leg with a razor. They would have had access
39:44
to that, but since they waited for years, he had all the time
39:46
in the world to clean it up. So Ashley, after hearing Steve's comments
39:51
string his interview, have you changed your mind? Do you now believe it
39:53
was the Beaumont mafia? Totally? I feel really sorry for him that he's
39:58
under suspicion and he was such a great, you mean loving husband and father
40:00
that he kicked the flowers off her grave. It was just a stress,
40:05
that's all. Yeah. Absolutely, it's a hotbed for mafia activity. Beaumont,
40:08
Texas. Since a grand jury declined to indict Steve with Kathy's murder,
40:15
James Fulton became very frustrated with the lack of progress in the investigation. So
40:20
you were surmonded by placing hand paided signs alongside Interstate ten, which shared such
40:24
messages as quote, bider PD botched up the case waiting for confession. This
40:30
could happen to you end quote. As the years went on, James decided
40:34
to publicly express his frustration by renting a series of billboards along the interstate containing
40:39
statements like quote, this is Orange County, city of Bider Here you get
40:44
by with brutally murdering a woman end quote. A wrongful death suit would be
40:49
filed against Steve on behalf of James and Dorothy Fulton, and one of Kathy's
40:52
sisters, Diane Daegel, who was acting as the official guardian for Kathy's daughter
40:58
Monica, since she was still a minor at that time. The Fultons wanted
41:01
to prevent Steve from collecting Kathy's life insurance, and the case would go through
41:06
a pair of mistrials in civil court, which featured many pieces of conflicting testimony
41:10
from the Fulton and Page families. While Kathy's sister Sherry testified that Steve was
41:15
controlling, jealous, and abusive and would often grab or push Kathy during arguments,
41:22
Steve and his family denied this, and their daughter Aaron testified that she
41:25
never personally witnessed anything like this. However, during the third trial in October
41:30
of nineteen ninety nine, the Fultons finally won a civil judgment against Steve,
41:36
as the jury awarded them a total of two hundred thousand dollars in damages and
41:38
life insurance, with one hundred and fifty thousand dollars going to the Fultons and
41:44
the other fifty thousand going to Monica. So I'm assuming he didn't get life
41:47
insurance of any kind, right, Like they got everything plus the damages exactly,
41:54
Like that was part of the total, the damages and the life insurance
41:58
that he was trying to get, Okay, So there had to be enough
42:00
where this civil court, Remember it's a different burden of proof. You have
42:05
to prove in a civil court. But it's really sad that his kids are
42:09
being called into this. They're having to sit there and when their mother's deceased,
42:14
their suspect suspicion on their father that he killed their mother. Now they're
42:19
having to recount was my dad abusive or not? I mean, just the
42:22
trauma of that is hard and trying to think about, like, Okay,
42:28
my parents fuss, but was the abusive. I just feel really sad for
42:31
both the kids who are trying to defend the only parent they have left,
42:35
you know, even if they're wrong in this situation, And my heart is
42:39
breaking for her family who's saying pay attention please. We're literally going to any
42:45
links possible, even making hand pain and signs and putting on the side of
42:49
the road saying, well, someone listened to us. And finally the civil
42:52
case did get someone to listen to them. But no amount of money is
42:54
going to bring any kind of feeling of justice to the family. It simply
42:59
says at least Steve didn't get that too right, at least he didn't benefit
43:04
from that as well as her being deceased. But Monica got some of the
43:07
money, which is the miner at the time. I'm sure Aaron was taken
43:12
care of as well in certain ways by the family, but oh, it
43:16
just what a heartbreaking reality that those kids had to go through. Yeah,
43:21
we're going to go into more detail about this in our next episode because Aaron
43:24
in recent years has published a blog talking about all the trauma this whole situation
43:29
has caused for her, and she has some pretty tough feelings not only against
43:32
her father but from her mother's side of the family as well. And it's
43:37
sad. People talk about kids and you know, like they'lding on a documentary
43:40
and they'll be defending the living parent or trying to understand what happened, but
43:44
they're not. They almost seem naive. But I sit back and I think
43:47
that's all they have left. And if that house of cards falls too,
43:52
if they really come to the conclusion that their dad killed their mother and he's
43:55
this abusive man, like I can't have a relationship with him anymore either.
43:59
I two parents, So I do understand the psychology and the default to trying
44:05
to say, like, is there a way to explain this away or to
44:07
make it where my dad's not responsible? And I think the older those kids
44:12
get. The more that you know, the naive mind starts to kind of
44:16
fade and some of those realities would come to pass. It's very, very
44:21
sad. Why do you guys think that Monica got fifty thousand but Aaron wasn't
44:27
awarded any I'm I think she was a miner. Well, Monica was a
44:31
miner, and let me just double check. I want to see how old
44:35
Aaron was. So Aaron was twelve at the time of her death, so
44:38
she would have been nineteen at the civil trials, so she wouldn't have been
44:43
a miner at that time. But it could be because I think she was
44:45
on Steve's side, like she seemed to be testifying on his behalf saying that
44:49
I never personally witnessed any abuse or controlling behavior from him. So maybe that's
44:53
why she didn't get any of the insurance money. That's unfortunate, though,
44:58
because the reality is she is still a child who has been traumatized by this
45:02
situation and everything that Ashley said rings true. For somebody to be able to
45:09
actually absorb that information and go, oh, yes, there is a strong
45:14
likelihood or probability that my father is the one that killed my mother I think
45:17
that you're going to fight tooth and nail on a subconscious level to prevent yourself
45:23
from believing that right. You're going to distance yourself as much as you can
45:29
from that, because the reality you have to confront is, do I write
45:32
off my father? Do I not have a relationship with him? You've already
45:36
lost your mother. Do you really want to face a reality in which your
45:40
father is guilty of murdering your mother and then you have to make a choice
45:45
to cut him out of your life or not. I think it's easier to
45:47
go no, he didn't do it. You double down, And I mean,
45:51
I'm going to use this example, not that I think necessarily one way
45:54
or the other that Michael Peterson is guilty or not. But the staircase,
45:59
all the kids there, except for Kathleen's biological daughter, all supported Michael wholeheartedly,
46:06
even though Kathleen had been in their life for a very long time.
46:08
I think just the idea of him going away it was just to be able
46:13
to grasp that is just too much for the psyche of a young child to
46:17
be able to grasp. But also for an adult child. No one wants
46:22
to believe that. And same with his family. Look, they're all coming
46:25
to his rescue, saying the washer was not running, it was not on
46:29
while we were there. They're trying to defend him too. I think even
46:32
if you had a gut feeling that your son was responsible, you would want
46:37
to do anything but look that in the eye. You would want to explain
46:42
in a way any way possible. And even when you talk about the children,
46:46
you know, like the case of Gabriel Fernandez, where days before he's
46:51
killed by this mother who's been abusing him for years, he's holding up a
46:55
sign that says Happy Mother's Day, and he writes her a letter about what
46:59
an amazing mother she is to him. And so I really do think our
47:04
brains tried to turn off the reality that the people that are supposed to love
47:07
us the most, and the people who are supposed to protect us and are
47:10
going to be in our life forever, that they could be anything but good.
47:14
And I could see a scenario where the family is like, we know
47:19
that he didn't do it. They've told themselves this, but we need to
47:22
create a scenario where the police are going to believe that there's a strong likelihood
47:27
that he wasn't cleaning up potential evidence from a crime scene, thereby saying no,
47:32
the washer and the dryer weren't running, and being okay with potentially fabricating
47:38
something like that because they're telling themselves they know that he's innocent. They're just
47:44
helping show the police what they already know themselves to be true. Now that
47:49
Stevid lost a wrongful death lawsuit, and as attempts to appeal the verdicts were
47:53
unsuccessful, James Fulton felt more confident about publicly accusing him of Kathy's murder on
47:59
his billboards. He soon erected a new one, which featured a photo of
48:04
Steve's face and the words quote invited. He got by with murder. Found
48:08
responsible for wife's death in civil court, Appeals court, upheld conviction, pleaded
48:14
guilty of desecrating her grave, criminal case, no arrests end quote. In
48:20
twenty twelve, James posted yet another new billboard, featuring both Steve and Cathy's
48:24
photos in it. Read quote, Steve Page brutally murdered his wife in nineteen
48:30
ninety one. Viter PD does not want to solve this case. I believe
48:35
they took a bribe. The Attorney General should investigate James Fulton her father end
48:40
quote. A billboard was also put up in the park Invider with the message
48:45
quote Vider's garbage dump park security provided by the local police department. I believe
48:52
my daughter was being raped while she was strangled to death in nineteen ninety one.
48:55
The Viter police department would not accept outside help and the case is never
49:00
been solved. I believe the police department did not want to solve this case.
49:04
Will you be the next unsolved murder? Predators love parks? The Lighter
49:08
police department did not solve my daughter's murder. Will be assisting you with any
49:13
complaints or problems with this so called park. James Fulton end quote, Wow,
49:20
yeah, oh, okay, James. I mean everyone deserves a daddy
49:25
like James. I'm kind of surprised he would go to this kind of links.
49:32
I'd be scared of something like a libel or slander kind of case coming
49:36
against my family and keeping this in court and things like that. But he
49:39
wants it in the public eye, and I understand that he wants to say.
49:44
You might be looking away, you might think this is done, but
49:45
it's not until you convict someone of my daughter's murder, and until you look
49:50
at the evidence. Ye know, you're a father who's hearing that your daughter
49:53
who's deceased had semen inside of her that has no sperm. So you know
50:00
fat your son in law had sex or force himself on your daughter, but
50:05
for her death or shortly after her death. And you know that your daughter
50:09
had no intention of sleeping with her a strange husband. And so the ultimate
50:15
conclusion you come to is that he raped her that night and he killed her.
50:19
And so if that's what you're thinking as a father, there's all this
50:22
evidence that was overlooked. There wasn't even film in the camera when you were
50:27
taking pictures of the crime scene. You never looked into their house, and
50:30
you haven't listened to a word we've said about the way he's treated her.
50:35
He's angry. He's angry that his daughter's body was taken advantage of. He's
50:39
angry that she was killed and stolen from them. He's angry his grandbabies are
50:44
still in his custody. And don't think their dad's guilty. I mean,
50:47
he's angry about all of this. And so it is ballsy and bold and
50:52
spicy, but wow, everyone deserves a daddy like him. Well, sadly,
50:59
Dorothy fall And died in October of two thousand and seven at the age
51:01
of seventy three, and another terrible tragedy would take place just over three years
51:06
later, when Steve and Cathy's youngest daughter, Monica, passed away at the
51:09
age of twenty seven in March of twenty eleven. Monica reportedly lived a very
51:15
troubled life following her mother's death and succumbed to a drug overdose, which some
51:20
people have suspected was a suicide. The investigation remained quiet for several years until
51:25
the highly acclaimed movie Three Billboards Outside Eving, Missouri, received a white theatrical
51:30
release in November of twenty seventeen. Once media outlets started picking up on the
51:36
fact that the movie's premise appeared to be inspired by Kathy Page's murder, interest
51:40
in the case was rejuvenated. Fider Police Chief Rod Carroll, who had only
51:45
been in office for less than a year at this point, agreed to reopen
51:49
the investigation, and the Texas Department of Public Safety offered a six thousand dollars
51:53
reward for new information. Okay, that's amazing that they knew. Have some
51:59
new blood and other department. They're saying, let's look at this case again.
52:02
But how many years had it been since her actual murder? Sixteen sixteen
52:08
years? Yeah, and when you ask a cold case detective to go pick
52:13
up this case file, it seems logically it's very easy to tell that Steve's
52:19
responsible. But if I have to prove in the court of law beyond a
52:22
reasonable doubt, they botched the investigation to a point where what evidence do you
52:29
want me to prove that with? Just the semen, because it's that he
52:31
said, she said, and she's not here to defend herself. So if
52:36
I don't have any evidence sixteen years later, unless someone comes forward with a
52:40
confession or some kind of evidence that they've been saving, like possibly the watch
52:45
that was handed to the private investigator, how would they do anything with that
52:50
case at this point. In October of twenty eighteen, the case would be
52:53
featured on an episode of the Oxygen true crime series col Justice, hosted by
52:59
a former Harris County prosecutor, Kelly Siegler. The episode was titled The Case
53:04
Behind the Billboards and featured Segler and her team of investigators taking a fresh look
53:08
at the case alongside local law enforcement. The biggest new development was when they
53:15
spoke to an eye witness who told them that during the early morning hours of
53:17
May fourteenth, nineteen ninety one, he had been driving down Interstate ten and
53:23
saw Steve Page, whom he knew personally, walking away from the spot where
53:28
Kathy's car had crashed. However, the witness elected not to come forward at
53:31
that time because he was a married man who'd been with his mistress that night
53:36
and he did not want his family finding out about the affair. At the
53:39
end of the Cold Justice episode, Sealer and her team would submit all the
53:44
new evidence they had uncovered, including the eyewitness statement, to the Orange County
53:47
District Attorney's office, but they did not believe the evidence was sufficient enough to
53:52
file charges against anyone for Kathy's murder. In June of twenty twenty one,
53:58
Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas raised their reward for information to fifty thousand dollars,
54:04
which is the largest reward they've ever offered in an unsolved cold case. At
54:08
the time of this recording, James Fulton is over ninety years old and claims
54:13
that the billboards he's put up accusing Steve Page of his daughter's murder will remain
54:17
there until he either dies or there's a conviction. Steve is currently living in
54:22
the Houston area, but after more than thirty years, the murder of Kathy
54:27
Page continues to remain unsolved. So I guess you could say the path went
54:32
chili. Okay. So when you go back to this idea that there's an
54:37
eyewitness who comes forward and says I saw him leaving the scene of a quote
54:42
crash this evening, but I was having an affair at the time didn't want
54:45
to come forward and tell them that I was out with a mistress and saw
54:49
this man. Normally i'd say, eh, you know, it's an eyewitness,
54:52
it is what it is. But it's not. This is a friend
54:55
or a very well known acquaintance to Steve who knows owes him. And so
55:00
in that case, when you're talking about seeing somebody one hundred and fourteen yards
55:07
from their house and you know that person on a personal level, and you're
55:14
out doing something bad, so in your head you're going, oh my,
55:17
that's odd, but I can't say anything because I'm doing something that I don't
55:21
want anyone to know about. It really does make me think that his account
55:24
would most likely be truthful. I believe him, and this is just a
55:30
reminder like when you look at a situation where a lack of integrity in personal
55:35
relationships can have serious ramifications. Because if he would have come forward at the
55:40
time and pointed the finger at Steve Page, who's a strong likelihood that the
55:45
Vider police would have had to have moved on a search warrant. Oh absolutely,
55:51
like if he had done it at the time, this case might have
55:52
been solved. But I can kind of understand the reluctance since they're only learning
55:57
his story like seventeen years after the fact, and thinking we can't take Steve
56:00
to trial based on his testimony because it took so long for him to come
56:05
forward. But they did interview him on the Cold Justice episode, and even
56:07
though he kept his identity secret, he pretty much acknowledged that, Yeah,
56:10
my marriage ended a long time ago, so it really doesn't matter now if
56:15
they found out I was having an affair. But yeah, you almost want
56:17
to strangle him though, thinking that, man, if you had not kept
56:21
quiet for so long, then this case might have been solid by now.
56:24
So I think this would be a good time to bring an end to Part
56:27
one. But join us next week as we present part two of our series
56:30
about the murder of Cathy Page. Robin, do you want to tell us
56:36
a little bit about the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold
56:38
Patreon has been around for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus
56:44
features like early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign
56:49
thank you cards to anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you
56:52
join our five dollars tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
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which I talk about cases with which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's
57:01
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57:09
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57:15
download an audio file and then boot up the original Unsalved Mysteries episode on Amazon
57:20
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57:24
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases featured in this episode.
57:29
And incidentally, the very first episode that I did a commentary track over was
57:34
the episode featuring this case. So if you want to download a commentary track
57:37
in which I make more smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure
57:42
to join Tier three. So I want to let you know a little bit
57:45
about the Jewels and nashty patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The
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Path Went Chili. We've got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always
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over an hour, so they're not very many, but they're just too short
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58:00
so check out those patreons will link them in the show notes. So I
58:02
want to thank you all for listening, and any chance you have to share
58:06
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58:09
it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You
58:14
can reach us on Twitter at the Pathwink. So until next time, be
58:16
sure to bundle up because cold trails and Chili pass call for warm clothing.
58:22
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy