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Kathy Page Pt. Two · The Path Went Chilly

0:31
Welcome back to the Path Went Chili for part two of our series about the
0:35
murder of Kathy Page. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up on
0:39
what we talked about in our previous episode. Well, Kathy and her husband,
0:43
Steve Page lived in the town of Bider, Texas. They had two
0:46
daughters, but their marriage was falling apart, so much so that Kathy had
0:50
asked Steve to move out of the house into an apartment. But one night
0:53
she needed to go out and couldn't get a babysitter, so she asked Steve
0:56
to come by the house and watch over the children, and she claims she
1:00
was going out with her best friend, but it turned out that she had
1:02
actually started an affair with another man and they went to a hotel to have
1:06
sex that night. During the early morning hours, Kathy's car was discovered crashed
1:11
into a ditch, and even though it was supposed to look like an accident,
1:14
there were so much discrepancies to suggest that the accident was staged, and
1:18
it turned out that her exact cause of death was strangulation, and there were
1:22
a number of suspicious actions from Steve to make them think that he might have
1:26
been responsible. They found traces of semen inside Kathy's vagina to suggest she had
1:30
sex that night, but it turned out that some of the semen did not
1:34
have sperm, meaning that she had sex with someone who had a visectomy,
1:38
And since the man she saw did not have his vasectomy and Steve did,
1:42
he got questioned and he said that before she went out on her date that
1:46
night, they decided to have sex on the living room floor, which,
1:49
needless to say, Kathy's family did not believe. The boyfriend was thoroughly questioned,
1:53
he was very cooperative of the investigation, and he was pretty much ruled
1:57
out as a suspect. But everyone believed that Steve was responsible and that when
2:01
Kathy had come home that he may have gone into a range because he figured
2:06
out that she had gone out with another man and he proceeded to rape her
2:09
or strangle her to death and then stage the car crash to make it look
2:13
like she was killed in an accident. As the years have gone on,
2:16
Kathy's family have put up billboards all over town directly accusing Steve of killing Kathy.
2:22
But no matter what, it does not seem like the police think there's
2:25
enough evidence to foul charges and of course, the reason this case has garnered
2:30
a lot of notoriety in recent years is because it was an indirect inspiration on
2:34
the acclaimed movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And that's what I'm going
2:38
to talk about right now. And I think it's safe to say that it's
2:42
a sign you're a big unsolved mysteries geek when you go to see Three Billboards
2:46
Outside Ebbing, Missouri in a theater and you start thinking to yourself, this
2:50
plot kind of reminds me of the Kathy Page case. And then sure enough,
2:53
months after the film's release, you learn that the whole storyline involving the
2:58
billboards was likely in sp hired by that case, and it actually wound up
3:01
getting Kathy's murder more publicity than it received in years. Like we mentioned in
3:07
our last episode, the film's writer, director Martin McDonough, has never been
3:10
able to confirm with one hundred percent certainty that the billboards he saw during his
3:15
bus trip through the US were for the Kathy Page case, as this occurred
3:19
many years before the movie was made, but McDonough did state that he saw
3:23
them in Texas, and as far as anyone can tell, there are no
3:27
other documented cases in which a murder victim's family have put up billboards like that.
3:31
Now, I see dozens of new movies every year, and I picked
3:36
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to be my favorite film of twenty seventeen,
3:40
as it deserved all of the critical acclaim it received. It earned a total
3:45
of seven Academy Award nominations, with Francis McDermott and Sam Rockwell taking home the
3:51
Oscars for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. One thing I particularly
3:57
loved about the film is that it often completely defied the audience's expectations. On
4:01
the basis of the original trailer, I assumed this was going to be the
4:05
story of a heroic, inspirational mother seeking justice for her daughter's murder and battling
4:11
a corrupt, incompetent small town police department. But it's a lot more complex
4:15
than that, and the film is populated by three dimensional characters, none of
4:19
whom are completely good or bad. Well, you can certainly identify with Francis
4:25
mcdorman's crusade to find her daughter's killer, her character is hardly a saint,
4:30
as she is portrayed as a very flawed individual whose personal life was already in
4:33
a major shambles before she even lost her daughter. And it's also possible that
4:39
Kathy Page's murder is a lot more complex than it appears on the surface.
4:44
Well, you definitely do have the crusader when you look at Kathy's dad,
4:46
who's the one responsible for putting up the billboards. He's ninety years old at
4:51
the time of the recording of this podcast, and he said the billboards are
4:56
staying up until this case is solved or until I die. And he's still
5:00
fighting at age ninety to make sure his daughter's voice is heard after her death
5:04
and that someone's paying attention to her case. It's absolutely heart breaking and it's
5:11
so moving at the same time. So I can't wait to go watch this
5:14
film now that you guys have shared that with me. I can't believe that
5:16
the billboards have been up for all these years. Yeah, Like James has
5:20
said that those are not coming down until I die or Steve is either arrested
5:26
or convicted. So I think it's kind of good karma that he's been able
5:29
to live into his nineties because they're giving him every opportunity to hopefully witness his
5:33
daughter's murder. Get solved. James has lost a lot too, not only
5:39
to lose his daughter, but to lose his granddaughter Monica at such a young
5:43
age, and also to lose his wife Dorothy. I'm sure it's a major
5:46
thing that he's clinging on too. On the basis of how the story was
5:50
portrayed on Unsolved Mysteries and Quoll Justice, it's easy to assume that this is
5:56
a pretty cut and dried, straightforward case of a woman being murdered by her
6:00
estranged husband while her family fights for justice and becomes incredibly frustrated when no arrest
6:05
is made, and that very well may be true. But what makes us
6:11
look at this case in a different light is a blog which has been published
6:15
by Kathy and Steve Page's oldest daughter, Aaron. The blog is titled a
6:18
Billboard in Texas and it was originally started in January of twenty twelve, and
6:25
over the years, Aaron has made a number of posts in which she is
6:28
alleged that the Fultons are not the close, tight knit family that they have
6:31
betrayed themselves to be. Aaron claims that she and her sister became completely estranged
6:36
from the Fultons and she is particularly resentful against their patriarch, James Fulton,
6:43
whom she says she will always refer to as mister Fulton rather than Grandpa.
6:46
In fact, she's accused James and other members of the family of some terrible
6:50
things, alleging that James sexually abused Kathy. Aaron says as prompted her mother
6:57
to run away from home while she was a teenager, and that Kathy was
7:00
completely estranged from her family until a few years before her death. Aaron also
7:05
claimed that Kathy's sister Sherry once left a fake anonymous bomb threat note on her
7:10
school bus, and Aaron even testified about this at the civil trials. Now
7:15
we should make it clear that we've never seen any other corroborating sources to back
7:19
Aaron's allegations about James Fulton. But over ten years ago, Robin visited the
7:25
Unsolved Mysteries wikia page for this case and discovered that someone had vandalized it,
7:30
accusing James of sexually abusing and possibly even killing his own daughter, and stating
7:34
that James paid Unsolved Mysteries to feature Kathy's case and presented it in a slanted
7:40
light to point the finger at Steve Paige. While we won't deny that Unsolved
7:44
Mysteries sometimes resented their segments in a slanted fashion, but we've never heard any
7:49
documented examples of someone associating with one of these cases paying the show to do
7:55
this again. I have no idea if there is any truth to these horrible
7:59
allegations about James Fulton, and we've never seen them mentioned anywhere outside of Aaron's
8:03
blog. But it just goes to show that Kathy's death has caused a lot
8:07
of hurt and resentment among the pages of Fulton's. Let me start by saying,
8:13
you can say anything about anyone and make it as public as you want,
8:16
and there's really no repercussions, even if that information is false to go
8:22
after them. And so it's sad when you look at this blog post that
8:26
she's doing and she's talking about the Fulton's skeletons in their closet, because remember
8:31
she was what twelve at the time? Yep, that's correct, that's right.
8:37
Okay, So she's twelve and mister Fulton in her eyes is the big
8:41
bad wolf who is accusing her father of murder, and her father is her
8:48
hero. That's her safe space, that's the man who raised her. That's
8:52
the man who helped her survive her brother's death. So you got to remember
8:56
what she really knows about quote Miss faulton her grandfather is likely what she's been
9:03
told by her father all of his family, who despised these people, and
9:09
they've purposely or subconsciously been manipulated to stay away from these people. And so
9:16
I think that you have to look at the historical trauma and the anger of
9:22
the people who raised her towards the Fulton family. She doesn't know them,
9:26
my daughter right now, if you talk to her when she's forty and she
9:30
never saw my family again, she would only know them through what everyone else
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told her about them. And so like for me, she only knows her
9:37
daddy and his you know, legacy, because I talk about him all the
9:41
time. She doesn't remember that stuff. And so I can slant that however
9:46
I want. And here I think that family has so much rache to the
9:50
Fulton family. The last thing they wanted was those babies to have any connection
9:54
with them, and so they were raised thinking they're evil, we're good,
9:58
and look they're trying to take your daddy away from from you. I would
10:01
hate them too, if Aaron had heard this directly from her mother, which
10:05
I really doubt she did at the age of twelve. Why would you share
10:07
that with a twelve year old if she was eighteen, absolutely I would see
10:13
that would be something that you might share, or it may be something that
10:16
you would have hinted at because you would be very watchful of your daughter around
10:22
your father. If there had been sexual abuse in the past, or if
10:26
maybe she'd heard it from her aunt, from Kathy's sister, then I could
10:31
understand that that information may be more credible and I would put more give more
10:35
weight to it. But you're right, Ashley. Where else is she going
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to hear this information? Likely in many stories that are going to be provided
10:43
by the Page family. Whether or not they did it on purpose, I
10:46
would say that there might be a motivation to do so. Who knows who
10:52
was the one who planted this idea in her head, but it seems that
10:56
the likely source is the Page family, and I have zero doubt that Steve
11:01
or someone else from his family was the one who vandalized that Unsolved the Mysteries
11:05
Wikia page where they set all that terrible stuff about James and said that he
11:09
paid off unsolved mysteries, and that it was slanted to point the finger at
11:13
Steve. And that's the thing about Wikia page is anyone can edit them at
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any time, though thankfully these allegations are gone now. Erin also says that
11:22
the Fultons were so focused on getting revenge on Steve and pushing their own agenda
11:26
that they never considered how much pain they would cause her and her sister Monica
11:31
by posting billboards which accused their father of murdering their mother. This is probably
11:35
just a coincidence, but a similar type of thing actually happens in Three Billboards
11:39
outside Ebbing, Missouri, where Francis mcdorman's surviving teh son becomes angry at his
11:45
mother's decision to put up the billboards without giving much consideration how the drama surrounding
11:50
the ordeal might affect him. Aaron has accused the Fultons of spreading misinformation about
11:56
the case in order to implicate Steve, and she would even go so far
11:58
as to during her testimony at the civil trials. For instance, Aaron claims
12:03
that the Fultons have greatly exaggerated a number of their claims about such things as
12:09
Steve renting out a carpet cleaner after Kathy's death, as she believed her family
12:13
already owned this carpet cleaner beforehand. In spite of their allegations about Steve being
12:18
physically and verbally abusive towards Kathy, Aaron testified that she never personally witnessed this.
12:24
In our last episode, we mentioned that when blood was found in the
12:28
living room carpet, Steve tried to say this came from Kathy's shaving her legs.
12:33
While that might sound ridiculous, Aaron did confirm that she had seen her
12:37
mother shaving her legs in the living room in the past. I'm shaking my
12:41
head from personal experiences, I know, when children are put in really stressful
12:46
situations like a divorce or a custody battle or stuff like that, it is
12:50
very possible for a parent in a very short amount of time to convince them
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of what reality is when it's so far from what's really going on in the
12:58
circumstance. So when people want to manipulate and get children on their quote side,
13:05
they can convince them that whatever's coming out of their mouth is true,
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right, like they tell them so many times, like don't you remember this?
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Happening. Don't you remember when this happened? And they'll get up there
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and tell it like they saw it with their own eyes and believe it because
13:20
the person who loves them is telling them that that's what happened, Like,
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don't you remember do you remember seeing mommy do that? On multiple occasions?
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Hey, don't you remember your mom used to do this? And when you
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tell me that that's true facts, I expect my parent to tell me the
13:33
truth, and so I never questioned. I more would question my own remembrance
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of that event. And in time, when I hear multiple times, I
13:41
can reiterate it as if I saw it with my own eyes, and they
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believe it. So Unfortunately, Aaron was twelve when all this was going on,
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and she's testifying years later. I've seen it happen in weeks where a
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child can tell a scenario that never happened as if they lived through it.
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Oh, I don't know. To me, those kids were put in a
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very unfair situation emotionally and lost their mother, and I really believe they lost
14:07
the true essence of who their father was in that time too. Oh yeah,
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We've seen this in a number of other cases where children are coerced into
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saying things which they believe in their minds are true but are probably not.
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And we had a discussion our last episode how it seems very unlikely that a
14:24
woman would willingly decide to shave her legs in the middle of the living room.
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Didn't It didn't happen. I honestly think those poor babies were manipulated to
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quote recall the truth when they were just being manipulated to say a story that
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helped their father. In case you're wondering, Erin and Monica always maintained that
14:43
they went to sleep on the night Kathy died and woke up at eight am
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the following morning without hearing or seeing anything unusual, even though it's been alleged
14:52
to Kathy's murder took place inside the house while they were there. Now,
14:56
because Erin was only twelve years old when these events took place, you could
15:00
easily assume that her father fed her a lot of lies as she was growing
15:03
up, a brainwasher into believing that the Fultons were bad people. But Aarin
15:07
openly denied this on one of her blog posts, as she always does not
15:11
defend or speak highly of Steve. Here's an interesting quote from her post.
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I believe James Fulton and Steve Paige have more in common than they would both
15:20
care to admit. They both mistreated their children, and they both lost a
15:24
daughter. To me, this billboard is not about my mother. It's about
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two stubborn, selfish men with too much guilt to carry. James Fulton gets
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to pretend he's avenging his daughter's death, and Steve Page gets to pretend that
15:37
he's some sort of victim. The billboard is a crutch for them both.
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End quote. It seems like after Steve moved Aarin and Monica to Tennessee to
15:46
live with his sister, he lost all interest in raising his children, and
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Aaron says they are now completely estranged and no longer have a relationship. She's
15:54
never flat out said that she believes Steve is guilty, but once stated during
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a December twenty eighteen article in the Houston Chronicle, quote, I don't want
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it to be my dad. I don't want my dad to have killed my
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mom. What I want is the truth. End quote. Here's what manipulative,
16:11
evil parents do. They take their children and they use them as ponds
16:15
and tools to get what they want out of life, and when they're no
16:18
longer helpful to that task or they become a threat to their narrative and story,
16:25
they want nothing to do with them anymore. Like when the kids starts
16:26
to stand up and say, hey, that doesn't seem true, that I'm
16:30
questioning what you said, and you know there's any kind of pushback, and
16:33
they don't just go with the flow. Then you see that estrangement. And
16:37
the older she gets, you know that certain things start to click in her
16:41
mind. She reads about her mom's case and she starts to say, there's
16:45
a chance everything my father said, everything that I've done to defend my family
16:49
is a lie. Yet she can't prove it's a lie. So now she's
16:53
left questioning every decision she makes, everything she remembers. I could see where
16:57
a lot of resentment comes towards her dad. He didn't need her anymore once
17:02
he had moved away, started a new life. She becomes more of a
17:06
burden and a liability. And so why would he want to be a present
17:10
father and really active in their lives. I don't know. It's really sad.
17:15
I can see where her kind of anger and resembment and bitterness towards everyone
17:19
around her is present because if she can't trust her dad and she lost her
17:26
mother and she doesn't know if she can have any kind of relationship with her
17:30
mother's family, then who can she trust. She has that guard up around
17:33
her heart where she almost has to block everyone out because no one who's been
17:37
close to her either survives or is there to really protect her. So I
17:41
think she's a very frustrated human being with reason. She's been through a lot,
17:48
and now I think she's getting to the age where she's breaking things down
17:52
and saying I can't love either side of this issue because I don't know what
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to believe. Yeah, it's unclear what she thinks about Steve's side of the
18:02
family, because we know that she doesn't love her father anymore, But she
18:07
was raised by Steve's sisters, so maybe she still feels some like love towards
18:11
them. And if the pages gave her all this information saying that the Fultons
18:15
were bad people and very manipulative, then that's the side of the story that
18:18
she probably believes, even though she does not necessarily think her father is innocent.
18:26
So we mentioned in our last episode that Monica died of a drug overdose
18:29
when she was only twenty seven years old, and it's been rumored that her
18:33
death was a suicide. During the aff war mentioned Houston Chronicle article, Aaron
18:37
made a cryptic statement about how when Monica passed away, she began to see
18:41
her father for who he really was at Monica's memorial service. I'm certainly not
18:45
going to accuse Aarin of posting any lies or false information on her blog,
18:49
because I'm sure she sincerely believes a lot of the stuff she has shared,
18:53
regardless of whether or not it's true. Aarin has experienced way too much trauma
18:57
for one person to hand in their lifetime, as not only she lost her
19:02
mother and seeing her father get accused of killing her, but she has also
19:06
lost her only sister at a young age. In the Cold Justice episode,
19:10
there's a scene where Kelly Siegler gathers the entire Fulton family together for a meeting
19:15
to discuss the case, and when they mentioned Monica's death, James becomes so
19:18
emotional that he is no longer able to speak and has to leave the room.
19:22
Well, the way Aaron tells it, neither James nor anyone else from
19:26
his family seemed to care much about her and Monica following Kathy's death, so
19:30
she believed her grandfather's emotional breakdown on camera was all for show. Regardless of
19:37
whether or not that's true. Aaron did not make an appearance at all on
19:40
the Cold Justice episode, but her blog provides a sharp contrast to how the
19:44
Fulton family have been portrayed in the media and on true crime shows about this
19:48
case. You know, Aaron's saying it from her perspective. She was isolated
19:55
immediately from the Fulton family. She was told those people are evil, and
19:59
I think the Fulton's realized very quickly we've lost them and they're in the clutches
20:03
of this abusive man who killed our daughter, and for their own peace of
20:10
mind, I think they have to place barriers up. It is a grief
20:14
in and of itself to say I've lost a connection with someone who's still alive,
20:17
but I can't have a relationship with them. They've either been manipulated and
20:22
taken out of my life, they've been relocated and I don't have access to
20:26
them. Whatever it is. There comes a time when people you love with
20:29
all your heart, you say it's not healthy to try to think about the
20:33
idea that I could have a relationship with her because she's so far gone from
20:37
me, He's not going to let me have access to her. They keep
20:41
manipulating them and telling them where the problem. They're in the hands of someone
20:45
who killed her their mother, Like, how much more am I going to
20:48
be able to reach out to my grandbabies. I think at some point they
20:52
had to grieve that loss too, and say, if we're going to have
20:55
any kind of healing then trauma recovery, we have to grieve three deaths and
21:00
almost four that our son in law also is completely gone. We have to
21:06
grieve all of that, and then we have to figure out how do you
21:08
pick those pieces up and move forward. Aaron's a kid and doesn't understand that.
21:11
But if Aaron grows up and ever experiences heartbreak in her life and has
21:17
to make a decision do I continue to have my heartbreak on a daily basis
21:21
to try to think about having a relationship with someone who is off limits or
21:25
unhealthy for me to have a relationship with. I mean, I have a
21:27
lot of empathy for the Fultons. I think at some point they had to
21:30
say, our grand babies are no longer going to be accessible to us.
21:34
It is just such a sad situation and we'll probably never know the full truth
21:37
about what has gone on between them, But we do know that James Fulton
21:41
will eventually pass away, and we know that he has been the major advocate
21:45
for Kathy, so I do kind of hope that when he is gone that
21:49
Aaron will kind of still pick up the raids and help keep her mother's case
21:53
in the spotlight. However, even if Aaron's allegations about the Fultons spreading line
22:00
in misinformation to implicate her father are correct, that doesn't change the fact that
22:04
there is still plenty of evidence which looks very damning for Steve, and it's
22:10
really hard to come up with an alternate scenario that doesn't involve him being complicit
22:14
in Kathy's death. Well, Steve has never been charged with Kathy's murder.
22:18
The Fultons did manage to win a wrongful death lawsuit against him, though the
22:22
burden of proof for a jury in a civil trial is much lower than a
22:26
criminal trial. Steve is also charged and convicted of desecrating Kathy's grave, which
22:32
was backed up by videotape evidence, and while Steve said that he did this
22:36
out of frustration and anger of being falsely accused by the Fultons. It still
22:40
doesn't look good for him. It's interesting how in all the older photographs of
22:45
Steve from when he was married to Kathy, he's clean shaven, but when
22:48
he was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries and Cold Justice, he had a beard.
22:52
Aaron's blog hints that this may have been intentional, as Steve decided to grow
22:57
the beard to disguise himself in response to having his photo plastered all over billboards
23:02
accusing him of murder. On the col Justice episode, Steve is interviewed at
23:07
his home by a pair of investigators, but the whole scene is very bizarre,
23:11
as Steve comes out to speak with them inside their car while he's shirtless
23:15
and barefoot and dressed in nothing more than a pair of shorts. It's an
23:18
amusing parallel to when the Vider Police Department first showed up at the Page residents
23:23
to inform Steve of Kathy's death, as he answered the door wearing nothing but
23:27
a pair of boxer shorts and did not bother to put on any other clothing
23:32
while the police were there. It's an insignificant detail in the Grand scheme of
23:36
things, but apparently Steve feels quite comfortable being questioned by the police while he's
23:41
shirtless and wearing shorts. I think it's it's just bizarre. I mean,
23:45
when you think about like I'm going to court or I'm getting a question by
23:48
the police or things like that, you'd at least when I have your clothes
23:51
on. You know, if they asked you to turn the light on so
23:53
they can see your face, you'd probably turn the light on so they could
23:56
look at you. He is a very bizarre character, for sure, and
24:00
very nonchalant, like yes, I guess if you're innocent, you would say,
24:03
like, well, who cares. I'm not getting all fancied up or
24:07
trying to hide anything, So why am I going to change who I am?
24:10
But I don't know. When I think about the police knocking on the
24:12
door, I'd be like, one second, please, and I please go
24:15
put a shirt on so I can sit and talk to you gentlemen. You
24:18
know, just a different kind of behavior than I would expect from most people.
24:26
So before we talk more about the case against Steve, we do have
24:29
to explore other scenarios which involve Kathy being killed by another individual and the only
24:33
one which would seem to make sense would be her falling victim to the secret
24:37
boyfriend she was having an affair with. Now, this boyfriend's name has never
24:41
been released publicly, and for many years there was virtually no information out there
24:45
about him at all, other than the fact that he was very cooperative with
24:49
investigators, passed a polygraph, and was not considered to be a suspect.
24:53
However, the boyfriend did agree to be interviewed on camera during the Cold Justice
24:57
episode, though as was blurred to conceal his identity. Before I watched this,
25:03
I didn't know any details about the nature of his relationship with Kathy,
25:07
but it sounds like he was not from the area and was just passing through
25:10
Beaumont when he met Kathy while eating at the restaurant where she worked. When
25:15
he returned to Beaumont on the evening of May the thirteenth, nineteen ninety one,
25:18
he was staying at the Best Western Hotel and wanted Kathy to meet him
25:22
there, which is why she arranged for Steve to babysit their kids. Given
25:26
that she asked Steve for a separation and he had just moved out of the
25:30
house into a new apartment. It obviously was an ideal for Kathy to ask
25:33
Steve to come back there, but it sounds like her decision to meet up
25:37
with her boyfriend was a last minute thing and she just could not find anyone
25:41
else who could babysit for I never thought the boyfriend was a viable suspect to
25:45
begin with, but finding out that he didn't even live in the area makes
25:49
it less likely that he could have killed Kathy. Why would he go to
25:53
the trouble of driving over ten miles from Beaumont to vide her to stage a
25:57
fake car accident just over one hundred yards from Kathy's residence, Since he obviously
26:03
would have had to use Kathy's vehicle to get there, what would he have
26:06
used his transportation to drive back to Beaumont. In fact, given his unfamiliarity
26:11
with the area, would the boyfriend have even known where Kathy's house was to
26:15
begin with? This guy was already cleared by investigators, so I think we
26:19
can safely say that he had no involvement in Kathy's death. But if Steve
26:22
found out about their secret rendezvous at the hotel that night, then you can
26:26
understand why things might have escalated into murder after she returned home. And remember
26:33
he had made that phone call to the girlfriend she was supposedly going out with
26:36
that night, and the girlfriend answers the phone at two thirty, and so
26:40
he knows that Kathy's not out with her. The next phone number he dials
26:45
is a phone number to the hotel, and you know that he's not stupid.
26:48
He realizes that she is with somebody else and there has to be a
26:53
confrontation when she gets home. Yes, he's living in a different apartment,
26:57
but this is his wife, and he's told people he's getting back with her.
27:03
This is clearly a night where she comes home and she says, no,
27:06
you're not. I'm happy. I'm with somebody who doesn't make me feel
27:10
anxious and it respects me and that I want to be with. So I'm
27:12
never getting back with you. And so for me, it's very very clear
27:17
the boyfriend had nothing to do with it, and that it's a husband who
27:19
seems disgruntled and embarrassed that he didn't get things the way he wanted them.
27:26
Who was it? Robin that he was it Kathy's sister that said in arguments
27:30
he would push her sometimes and was violent. Yes, yes, and I
27:36
know that to Aaron has denied that that she never saw anything physical from him.
27:40
But I mean it's possible that they had these arguments and Aaron was just
27:42
not around to witness them. I mean a lot of parents who have very
27:48
tumultuous relationships will bust and fight when their children are in their rooms. They're
27:53
not going to do it in front of their minor children. So the fact
27:56
that Aaron didn't see this firsthand to personally doesn't mean that it didn't happen.
28:02
Bingo, yep. It's always hey, honey, can you come talk to
28:04
me real quick? And then you get the better and your bos like listen
28:08
here, you know what I mean. Like, if you do try to
28:11
hide your kids, you hide your issues from your children. They don't need
28:15
to see that. You never need to be putting your hands on each other.
28:18
But even when we have a disagreement or we're frustrated with the way something
28:21
happened at the house, we're not fussing about it in front of each other.
28:23
I'm like, hey, can we talk for a second, And he's
28:26
like, oh lord, have mercy. Here it comes and we argue or
28:30
disagree behind closed doors because our kids sure don't need to see their parents having
28:36
an issue. That's just they don't need it. They have enough issues going
28:38
on in their own little lives. As far as any other alternate suspects,
28:44
well, I know that during his Unsolved Mysteries interview, Steve implied that Kathy
28:48
was killed by someone affiliated with the so called Beaumont Mafia, and I can
28:52
safely say that's one of the most laughable statements in the history of the show.
28:57
If you do a Google search on the frame Beaumont Mafia, most of
29:02
the matches you're going to find are sources about this case which mentioned Steve's comment.
29:07
So this leads me to suspect that no such thing exists, as Beaumont,
29:10
Texas does not exactly strike me as a place that would be a hotbed
29:15
for mob activity. I know Steve claimed that he received a bunch of threatening
29:18
phone calls from people who were supposedly involved in Kathy's death, but Aaron actually
29:23
brought up a solid point to counter this in her blog posts. As far
29:27
as Aaron remembers, during the entire time she lived at her family's house in
29:32
Fighter, the door was never locked. If her father was receiving threatening phone
29:36
calls and thought the mafia was after him, why wouldn't he have taken steps
29:41
to ensure the house was always locked or added extra security measures to protect himself
29:45
and his family. And really, if the Mafia really wanted to kill someone
29:49
in order to send a message, I don't believe that they would do so
29:53
by attempting to stage a fake car accident. If the Mafia did want to
29:57
stage an accident, they probably would have done a far less sloppy job.
30:03
And can you tell me what Steve was involved with? It would make the
30:04
mafia want to come after him. That's a good question to ask Steve.
30:08
It is, yes, exactly like And how would Kathy had become involved in
30:11
at the Beaumont Mafi as well? This is the thing with Kathy's death scene.
30:17
It was just so poorly staged that it didn't fool the police for a
30:21
second, and you get the impression that it was done by someone who panicked
30:23
and didn't have much idea what they were doing. Kathy's boyfriend confirmed that she
30:29
left the motel in Beaumont at two thirty am, and it takes between ten
30:33
to fifteen minutes to drive Divide her since the car was discovered at four twenty
30:37
am. There obviously wasn't a great deal of time for someone to kill Kathy
30:41
and stage the crime without thinking everything through. And really, since the car
30:45
was found only one hundred and fourteen yards from the Page residence, it would
30:49
have been easy for Steve to drive the car to that spot with Kathy's body
30:53
inside and run it into the drainage ditch before walking back home. For years,
30:59
it was assumed that no eye witnesses saw Steve do this. But the
31:02
big piece of new evidence that emerged during the filming of the Cold Justice episode
31:07
was the man who came forward and claimed that he passed by the car in
31:10
the ditch that morning and saw Steve leaving the scene. This guy claimed he
31:15
knew Steve personally and recognized him, but because he was with his mistress at
31:18
the time, he did not want to tell the authorities about what he saw
31:22
for fear that his wife would find out he was cheating on them. Now,
31:26
obviously, given that this guy waited over two decades to share this information,
31:30
you can understand the credibility issues. The Cold Justice team did manage to
31:36
track down his mistress, and while she confirmed being with him that night.
31:38
She was apparently asleep inside his car when he drove past the crime scene,
31:42
so she had no memory of seeing anything. But the team also spoke to
31:47
the witness's brother, who confirmed that he heard him share this story about witnessing
31:52
Steve walk away from the drainage ditch years earlier. So at the very least,
31:56
it does not sound like this witness just decided to come forward because of
32:00
all the newfound attentions surrounding the case, due to the three billboards outside at
32:04
being Missouri comparison, But it also sounds like his statement was not strong enough
32:08
evidence to finally convince the district attorney to file murder charges against Steve. I
32:15
think there's fear of what the defense attorneys would say at this point. They
32:17
would talk about his character of having an affair, that he waited so long
32:22
they'd bring in evidence by when his identification being wrong. How do you build
32:27
a case just on that. But I do understand why he wouldn't come forward.
32:31
He knew Steve so for his eyewitness identification. He called it a question
32:36
that's much more common when it's a stranger sighting or in the midst of a
32:40
traumatic situation. You're trying to make an identification. But this is this guy
32:45
that's having an affair. He's happy as can be on his way home,
32:47
and he's looking around and he says, oh, that's Steve leaving the accident.
32:52
This accident. Huh okay. I can't say anything because my wife's going
32:57
to find out. And then years later he is separated from his wife and
33:00
feels like he can come forward and say something. It is tragic that he
33:05
waited so long, but I understand. I can see where he didn't want
33:08
to ruin his family with something he might have witnessed and might have seen.
33:15
And in hindsight, you look, had he come forward, this case would
33:17
have unfolded much much differently, And unlike some other eyewitness sightings like this is
33:22
very distinct. It's not like a witness trying to recall having seen a random
33:27
person in a random public place. Like if you see someone you know emerging
33:30
from a drainage ditch at three o'clock in the morning next to a down car,
33:35
that's going to be very memorable, no matter what the circumstances. So
33:38
I can see why that remained in his head for many years. And I
33:42
do not believe he was mistaken, and it's very memorable that he was having
33:45
an affair that night coming home. It's an odd scenario for him too,
33:50
like trying to hide and keep track of his own lines, and so for
33:53
me that day in the night would stick out in his mind as well.
33:58
Of course, it's probably likemented in there because he knows what he saw and
34:04
tying it to the affair. He doesn't want that smoke. He doesn't want
34:07
his wife finding out about the affair. And I mean, I don't know
34:10
what the situation was and what lie he told, why he was able to
34:14
be driving around with his mistress at all hours, and why he couldn't just
34:17
say he was alone in the car and fabricate some story there, but it
34:22
obviously is something that weighed heavily upon him. And I mean, I will
34:25
at least say that we've got to give him credit for coming forward all of
34:29
those years later. It's just so frustrating that at the time, his desire
34:35
to keep the secret superseded his desire to intervene in this investigation in a positive
34:40
way that might have resulted in this case being solved and at the very least
34:45
a search warrant being issued in the Page House. Another unique character in this
34:50
whole saga is Steve's close friend Roger Howell, who seemed to keep inserting himself
34:54
into the investigation in the days following Kathy's death and was not exactly cooperative when
35:00
investigators attempted to interview him. On the Cold Justice episode. It's been alleged
35:06
that Roger helped Steve cover up the crime, as we have a story from
35:09
Sherry Valentine that she saw Roger exiting the bathroom at the Page Resident scaring a
35:15
manila envelope which might have contained Kathy's missing watch, and we also have the
35:21
claim from one of Kathy's coworkers that Roger told her that Kathy had been strangled
35:24
to death before her autopsy was even performed. Since Roger should not have known
35:30
this information at the time, this seems to imply that Steve could have told
35:35
Roger about what he did. The missing watch has always been the subject of
35:38
a lot of debate, because when he was initially questioned by police, Steve
35:44
told them that he'd been looking in the jewelry box and noticed that Kathy's watch
35:47
was gone, even though she was not wearing it at the time she was
35:51
found. If the theory is true that Kathy managed to arrive back home and
35:55
took off her watch before she was killed, then it obviously would have been
36:00
in Steve's best interest to get rid of it. If Steve killed Kathy in
36:04
the heat of the moment and had to stage her accidency in relatively quickly,
36:08
then her missing jewelry is probably one of the details he just didn't even think
36:13
of at the time, because I'm sure there were a million things going through
36:15
his head. Now, theoretically, if Kathy was killed by an outside party,
36:21
you could push forward the theory that the perpetrator might have decided to steal
36:24
her jewelry. But you can't really explain away Kathy's lack of makeup. Her
36:29
boyfriend verified that Kathy was still wearing it when she left the hotel. And
36:34
I don't see some killer going to the trouble of wiping the makeup off her
36:37
face. No, he didn't, because Kathy wiped her makeup off of her
36:42
face when she got home from the hotel, and she got a shower,
36:45
and she thought that her husband was sleeping on the couch, and I believe
36:52
she came in, she got a shower, she was getting ready for bed
36:55
and he confronted her saying, or at least wiped her face, do you
37:00
know what I mean? And he could front her and said, so where
37:01
worried? And I what hotel were you at? Who were you meaning at
37:05
that hotel? And she got angry and basically said, I don't owe you
37:08
an explanation of anything. We're getting a divorce, and he snapped. Another
37:14
red flag is that there was evidence Kathy had been hit in the face and
37:16
she had a laceration on the back of her head. Yet blood was only
37:21
found on her undergarments and the inside of her clothing, but not the outside.
37:24
So this does suggest that she was not wearing this clothing at the time
37:29
she was murdered, and the killer decided to redress her body after she was
37:32
dead. If Kathy was on clothed when she was killed, then this opens
37:37
up the disturbing possibility that she was raped by her own husband before she was
37:40
strangled. It was bad luck for Steve that he had undergone a vasectomy months
37:45
earlier, because otherwise the investigators likely would have assumed that the seaman found in
37:50
her vagina was the result of sex with her boyfriend. But since the other
37:53
guy never had a vasectomy. Steve had to provide a story about him and
37:58
Kathy having consensual sex with each other before she left on her date, though
38:02
as far as I can tell, he did not share this until after the
38:06
autopsy report revealed there was no sperm in some of the seamen. Obviously,
38:12
it seems very unlikely that a woman who was reportedly on the verge of divorcing
38:15
her husband would agree to have sex with him, but I will acknowledge that
38:20
not every couple who is in a fractured relationship will handle things the same way,
38:23
as some might continue to have sex even if they are not getting along
38:28
on a personal level. But in this particular case, Kathy had just asked
38:32
Eve for a separation and wanted him to move out of the house, and
38:36
given that he had supposedly been sleeping on the couch, it sounds like they
38:39
had not been intimate with each other in quite some time. And I seriously
38:44
doubt that Kathy would agree to have sex with Steve right before she was planning
38:47
to meet another man for sex. No, I don't see that at all.
38:52
I think Kathy was done with him. She was desperate for someone to
38:54
watch the kids that night, and she assumed, well, whatever, he's
38:58
just going to be sleeping on the couch. When I get home, I
39:00
can run upstairs and get a shower and go to bed, and he'll be
39:02
gone in the morning and we can just I can keep doing whatever I want
39:06
and move forward with this divorce, and Steve had other plans. During his
39:10
Unsolved Mysteries interview, James Fulton presented a theory about Kathy's death which sounds fairly
39:16
plausible. Kathy's friend Charlotte corroborated that she received a phone call at around two
39:22
thirty am, which was an immediate hang up, and she figured it was
39:24
probably Steve. If Steve learned that Kathy had been lying about seeing Charlotte that
39:30
night and then called the phone number for the Best Western hotel in Beaumont,
39:34
he would have put two and two together and figured out that Kathy was seeing
39:37
another man. But it's possible that Steve fell asleep before Kathy arrived home,
39:43
which is why she had time to remove her makeup, jewelry, socks,
39:46
and some of her clothing to get ready for bed. However, once Steve
39:50
woke up, he likedly confronted Kathy about where she'd been and this could have
39:54
led to a heated confrontation in which he raped, beat and strangled her to
39:59
death. I'm not sure if Steve originally planned on killing Kathy that night or
40:04
if the whole thing was just a crime and passion, but he had to
40:07
improvise quickly, which is why he cleaned and redressed Kathy's body and staged that
40:12
they car accident. It's interesting how Steve refused to turn the lights on when
40:16
the police came to visit him at the house later that morning, which may
40:21
have been because he did not yet have the opportunity to clean up all the
40:23
incriminating evidence of foul play, such as blood on the carpet. Steve probably
40:29
figured he would have a lot more time to cover his tracks, but the
40:31
newspaper carrier discovered Kathy's car before daylight hit. Yeah, when he wouldn't turn
40:37
the lights on, I feel like he knew there's a spot on the floor
40:40
that they cannot see. There could have been even a pilot clothes that he
40:45
needed to watch, because remember the washing machines running a little bit later in
40:47
the day. I believe he knew if I turned these lights on, there
40:52
he's something that incriminates me. Maybe that cut on his nose he was hoping
40:57
to hide as well, because remember they saw him with a cut on his
41:00
nose. They could have been caused by Kathy fighting packs, So he knew,
41:05
don't turn those lights on and try to act as upset as possible when
41:08
he found out how she had passed away. But unfortunately, too many things
41:13
are writing into this case to say he knew all along because he's the one
41:15
who did it. And also the fact that later that morning he's using like
41:19
oscillating fans to clean the carpet and then throwing clothing in the laundry. It's
41:22
like, yeah, I found out that my wife was killed in an accident,
41:25
So now's a good time to catch up on the housework. Deep clean.
41:30
We're going to deep clean the house. Yeah, it's crazy. It's
41:34
been established that Steve phone Charlotte sometime that morning and told her Kathy had not
41:38
arrived home, but he kept changing his story about the exact time he phoned
41:42
her. He originally said the call took place between five point thirty and six
41:46
am, and that the police showed up to inform him about what happened a
41:50
short time later. However, Steve then started turning the clock back and claimed
41:54
the call took place at earlier times, such as two thirty, three thirty,
41:59
and four thirty. It's possible that Steve intentionally staged the phone call to
42:04
Charlotte in order to come across as the concerned husband who had no idea where
42:08
his wife was. But if he made the call after the police already told
42:13
him about Kathy's death, that would be pretty damning. It's unclear if phone
42:17
records were checked, but I'm guessing not yet. I get the feeling that
42:21
Steve may have decided to change the time he made the call because he was
42:24
paranoid about this discrepancy being uncovered. Even the fact that he's changing it five
42:30
different times when he's telling them stories. Two thirty and six am are two
42:35
very very different things. He did call it two thirty, I believe,
42:37
and that's when he knew she was at that hotel and he's waiting for her
42:42
to come home. And so I think he was on the truth that he
42:45
called it two thirty, But he also might have called it five thirty or
42:47
six to say he was concerned, and then backtracked and says, oh my
42:52
gosh, they're going to know I called it too thirty, So I'll just
42:54
say two thirty now and say that I was concerned about her, but no,
42:59
he was trying to find out information and to really stalk her whereabouts so
43:02
he could have a reason to explode when she got home. If you look
43:07
at the timeline in all the known facts, and even discount a lot of
43:10
the details which are under dispute, such as Steve doing laundry and cleaning the
43:15
carpet, the scenario presented by James Fulton makes complete sense. However, the
43:20
big question is if there's enough evidence here to charge Steve with murder, bring
43:24
him to trial, and convince it jury to find him guilty beyond a reasonable
43:29
bout Well. Unfortunately, the case has been hampered by a number of mistakes
43:32
in the investigation, such as the Vider Police Department taking pictures of the crime
43:37
scene without any film in the camera. Needless to say, I'm not sure
43:43
there have been many murder trials in which actual photos of murder scenes could not
43:46
be admitted into evidence. It's pretty ridiculous that the Orange County District Attorney's office
43:52
would not grant the viter PD a search warrant for the Page residence until years
43:57
after the crime took place. As you know, Oh, they were never
44:00
going to find anything after all that time. I know, the Fulton family
44:05
have accused the local authorities of orchestrating a cover up for Steve. But even
44:08
though the police undoubtedly made a number of mistakes, they've always maintained that their
44:13
investigation was hampered by the District Attorney's office. Indeed, whatever problems might have
44:19
existed within the Bider Police Department during the nineteen nineties, it does seem like
44:23
the current police chief, Fraud Carroll, is passionate about solving this case.
44:29
After Kelly Siegler and her Coal Justice investigative team submitted their new case against Steve
44:34
Page to Orange County District Attorney John Kimbro a few years ago, he still
44:38
felt that the evidence was insufficient to charge him with murder. However, Siegler,
44:44
who obviously has a lot of evidence experienced with this sort of thing,
44:47
has said this might be the strongest case that she's ever seen against the suspect,
44:52
which has never been brought to trial. So Kimbro intentionally So is Kimbro
44:57
intentionally stonewalling the investigation or is he just very reluctant to prosecute a case which
45:02
he's not entirely certain he can win. It's hard to say, but it's
45:07
worth reiterating that Steve Page has already lost a wrongful death lawsuit in civil court,
45:12
and there's already a fairly strong, circumstantial case against him. So it
45:15
makes you wonder what new evidence will be required to provide the final push to
45:21
charge him. Well, you got to remember too, they never searched their
45:23
home in those days following the murder. They knew it was a murder,
45:29
but they didn't have film in the camera at the car scene. But the
45:32
crime scene was really in the house where he murdered her. I think that's
45:37
what he was cleaning up the day that the family came over to greet and
45:40
comfort the rest of the family, So they didn't take pictures of the inside
45:45
of the house. They did no search of the inside of the house.
45:47
And then they also didn't have any documentation of the car itself in those kind
45:52
of pieces of evidence that were documented as being concerning for the quote car crash.
45:58
So it was a which is botched from the very beginning. I think
46:01
that when you add the eyewitness who came forward years later. Maybe they're hoping
46:07
that one other thing can come forward, maybe the friend would turn on him,
46:09
the guy who's the private investigator. But man, are they stonewalling?
46:15
I don't know. I think once you try someone and you aren't quite sure
46:20
you have enough evidence to prove ninety nine point nine nine nine percent that he's
46:22
guilty, I could be really costing the family the justice they've been wanting.
46:29
And if I had just waited, would I get more this case? It's
46:31
hard to say, because looking back, you needed the more at the original
46:36
crime scene and you just didn't get it. And what's also frustrating is that,
46:39
unlike other cold cases, you can't get a conviction with DNA here because
46:45
Steve's DNA is in Kathy, it matches the semen in her vagina. But
46:50
he flat out said he had consensual sex with her, and even though that's
46:52
probably not true, they can't exactly disprove that. So yeah, it's really
46:57
frustrating when you have these cases where you know you can't use physical evidence to
47:00
get a conviction, so you're hoping for something like an additional witness coming forward
47:06
to finally be able to feel comfortable pressing charges, you know, and had
47:09
they searched the house, what if they had found a journal where she's recording
47:13
things like he discussed me he hasn't touched me intimately in six years. I
47:19
you know, I'm so grateful to finally know what it feels like to be
47:22
touched by another man, and blah blah blah. I would never want him
47:25
to be my lover again. Like, there could have been so many things
47:28
that they could have found to even disprove that if she was trying to document
47:34
any of that, if they had been asking friends about their sexual relationship,
47:37
And it's just really frustrating because, like you said, they didn't do what
47:43
was needed at the time, and you just simply can't go back and recreate
47:46
that evidence. I wonder if during the autopsy they checked under the nails for
47:52
skin cells or DNA, because we heard that he had a scratch on his
47:58
nose, and that means there's a potential that there could have been DNA under
48:01
her fingernails. And I think given the fact that there weren't scratches on the
48:06
back in a place where you could say, okay, rough sex, maybe
48:09
she scratched my back, but no, one's going to like scratch your face
48:13
typically during rough sex. That would be really atypical, so it would be
48:17
harder to explain that a way in a consensual manner. Yeah, I haven't
48:22
heard anything about DNA being found on her fingernails, but it's also possible he
48:25
never even check because this was a small town police department and this was nineteen
48:30
ninety one, when DNA profiling was still in its infancy, so it's possible
48:34
they never even thought of that. All that being said, after serving eight
48:38
terms in office, John Kimbro finally decided to retire as Orange County District Attorney
48:44
just a few weeks before we recorded this episode, So maybe his replacement,
48:49
Chrispin Walker, will feel differently about filing murder charges. Regardless of whether Steve
48:53
is innocent or guilty of this crime, what's indisputable is that Kathy's death has
48:59
caused a lot of pain and hurt for a lot of people, and I
49:01
don't think anyone has suffered more than her daughter, Aaron, who has lost
49:06
her mother, father, sister, and pretty much the entire side of her
49:09
maternal family. I'm sure the release of Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri,
49:15
has been both a blessing and a curse for Kathy's brief family and friends.
49:20
Even though it helped generate a lot of new publicity for this case, it
49:22
must feel like it's all for nought if it doesn't lead to a resolution and
49:27
justice for Kathy. The way the investigation has been handled, you get the
49:30
sense that it will take yet another person coming forward with key information before we
49:36
finally see and arrest. Remember, Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas is offering a
49:40
fifty thousand dollars reward, So if you happen to know anything about the unsolved
49:45
murder of Kathy Page, please contact their tip line at four oh nine eight
49:50
three three tips. That's four oh nine eight three three eight four seven seven.
49:55
Jules Askedley any final thoughts on this case. This is one of those
50:00
cases where I think, above many others we've talked about, there's not a
50:04
single winner here. Every single person in this case has suffered tremendously beyond just
50:12
the loss of Kathy, which was enough to have to handle this on its
50:15
face. But you have two families who are immediately divided, and you have
50:22
children who are thrust into the middle of this investigation. To need to defend
50:28
the only parent that they have left their father. As they get older,
50:31
that trauma becomes so overwhelming one of them loses their life to addiction and possible
50:37
suicide. Aaron clearly is struggling with realization that she isn't sure what's true and
50:44
what's not. That she has expresses a truthfulness in her mind of that she
50:51
has a terrible side of the family with the Fultons, which I think is
50:55
much fed to her to manipulate her away from them. That she also is
51:00
old enough to start to question that my dad didn't treat us right after my
51:04
mother's death. What if he also didn't treat her right? What if some
51:08
of the things he told me was a lie? And so she's really questioning
51:13
the real world around her, like who can I trust? Can I even
51:16
trust my own recollection. I can't even trust my father, I can't trust
51:21
my mother's whole side of the family. So I've completely lost a connection to
51:24
her. And then you have the parents, who you know Mom passed away
51:30
without knowing what happened to her daughter or not seeing justice in that case.
51:34
Dad's ninety and still fighting. Maybe that's why he lived so long, because
51:38
he said I refuse to go anywhere until I see justice here. And he's
51:43
ninety years old, still fighting. But it's just sad, and there is
51:46
an empathy and a sadness for Steve's family too, who like the kids.
51:53
The last thing I can do is also lose my son. Right now,
51:58
I'm and my brother and whoever else is related to him. Right I have
52:00
to believe that he's innocent and that he has nothing to do with this,
52:04
and now I have to create a narrative of innocence around him and stake my
52:07
life on that. So it's really sad for everyone. It's one of those
52:13
cases that's maddening because if we talk about it, it's just like Casey Anthony
52:16
or OJ Simpson. It's like, yeah, we know they did it,
52:21
but can I prove that in a court of law. You see in those
52:23
cases there was plenty of evidence and the jury said not guilty because their burden
52:28
of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. There's a lot of fear bringing this
52:32
case to trial. What if we get it wrong and we miss that one
52:36
piece of evidence that could have sent him to prison. So I just don't
52:39
think they're going to go forward with it. It's really sad. I wish
52:44
they could go back in time and collect the evidence they needed, because the
52:46
story's very clear. It's just you have to prove it to a jury and
52:51
not just tell them a really good story. I agree. I think moving
52:55
forward, if he's still alive, Roger Howell would be a really good person
53:00
to lean on. I don't know if he's ever had any criminal charges or
53:04
ever had any brushes with the law that would put him in a position that
53:08
he would be more inclined to share this information, but I would think a
53:12
lot of things in his life have changed. I don't know if him and
53:15
Steve are still close, but if you were involved in the cover up or
53:20
there was some kind of conspiracy between the two of you, his overall fear
53:24
of jail time may supersede any sort of guilt that he may feel for playing
53:30
a part, even if it's just after the fact, in the cleanup or
53:35
the cover up of Kathy's death, because I think that he is the key
53:39
that he knows what happened here, and given that we don't have the forensic
53:45
evidence that we're going to need, like Robin At addressed with the semen found
53:49
in Kathy's vagina, even though we know that it's stee that it is likely
53:53
Steve's because of the vasectomy and you know the sperms not having heads, so
54:00
we know that, but we don't think that there's any other physical evidence like
54:04
the DNA mentioned Potentially, if it was under the fingernails and he had a
54:07
scratch on his face, then that could be interesting evidence to now include,
54:12
but it seems unlikely that we have that because we've heard nothing of it,
54:15
and it's just so sad. I really feel for Aaron specifically here. I
54:21
mean losing your sister, losing your mother, having your father basically dump you
54:25
with family members and abandon you, and then having to live with either the
54:31
belief real or not whether these stories were just given to her by the Page
54:37
family, the James Fulton was a very bad man that did very bad things
54:42
to her mother, and that they don't care about her and Monica after her
54:46
mother had died, which we don't know how much truth is there and how
54:51
much has been fed to her by the family, And I think that is
54:53
such a hard position to be in to not really know what of your memories
54:59
are true and are false, because you've had these adults around you who are
55:02
supposed to be responsible in giving you accurate information, but you don't know how
55:07
many of them are manipulating the truth to serve their own narratives. So my
55:12
heart really breaks for Aaron here. Yeah, I think it's safe to say
55:17
that this is one of the least mysterious cases that we covered on The Pathwent
55:21
Chile because we know what happened. I really cannot cream up any possible scenario
55:25
that does not involve Steve Page killing Caffy Page. I remember watching it at
55:30
Unsolved Mysteries back in the day and it kind of faded from the spotlight for
55:34
a while. But then three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri came out and even
55:38
though it was kind of unintentional where we talked about how Martin McDonough wasn't even
55:43
certain that this was the case that inspired him to write this movie, but
55:46
it seems very likely that it is, and people started referring to this as
55:51
the Billboards case, and that's why it was featured on an episode of Cold
55:53
Justice, and that's why there was another push to submit evidence to the DA
55:59
to file murder charges. But it still hasn't happened yet. We've now reached
56:02
like the thirty three year mark, and this case is still officially unsolved,
56:07
and it's very frustrating. But like we talked about, the person we feel
56:10
the most sorry for is Aaron because she not only has lost her mother and
56:15
and become a strange from her father and lost her sister, but she is
56:19
now estranged from her maternal side of the family for things that we're not entirely
56:23
sure if they're true, if James Fulton and the rest of the family have
56:29
done some bad things, or if this has all been fed to her by
56:31
her father's side of the family. And I mean, regardless of whether or
56:36
not the Fultons did anything bad, they have done a great job of keeping
56:39
this case in the spotlight and putting up these billboards and ensuring that Kathy is
56:44
not forgotten. And who knows, Like Jules just talked about, maybe the
56:47
key will be this other guy, Roger, who could have helped Steve cover
56:52
out the murder. Maybe one of these days he'll develop a conscience and come
56:55
forward and reveal what actually happened here, because it's going to be really difficult
57:00
to find that one additional piece of evidence that will finally make them feel comfortable
57:06
filing charges. But then again, we just mentioned that there is a new
57:09
younger district attorney who's just been appointed to this position, and maybe she'll feel
57:14
differently. Maybe she'll decide to arrest Eve and take them to trial with the
57:17
evidence they had. Only only time will tell, and hopefully one of these
57:22
days we'll be able to do an update episode and mention that this case is
57:25
finally solved. Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit about
57:30
the Trail Went Cold Patreon? Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around
57:34
for three years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like early ad
57:38
free episodes, and I also send out stickers and sign thank you cards to
57:43
anyone who signs up with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
57:46
tier Tier two. We also offer monthly bonus episodes in which I talk about
57:52
cases which are not featured on the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're
57:55
exclusive to Patreon, and if you join our highest tier two you're free the
58:00
ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is a audio commentary track
58:05
over classic episodes of unsolved mysteries, where you can download an audio file and
58:09
then boot up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube and play
58:15
it with my audio commentary playing in the background, where I just provide trivia
58:20
and factoids about the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
58:23
first episode that I did a commentary track over was the episode featuring this case.
58:29
So if you want to download a commentary track in which I make more
58:31
smart ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.
58:37
So I want to let you know a little bit about the Jeweles and Nashty
58:38
patreons. So there's early ad free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've
58:44
got our Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
58:46
they're not very mini, but they're just too short to turn into a series,
58:50
and we're really enjoying doing those, so we hope you'll check out those
58:53
patreons. We'll link them in the show notes. So I want to thank
58:57
you all for listening, and any chance you have to share r us on
59:00
social media with a friend or to rate and review is greatly appreciated. You
59:04
can email us at The Pathwentchili at gmail dot com. You can reach us
59:07
on Twitter at the pathwink. So until next time, be sure to bundle
59:12
up, because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing. Music by
59:15
Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy