Latest / When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom / Stephanie Kane & The Murder She Couldn't Forget

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Stephanie Kane & The Murder She Couldn't Forget · When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom

0:44
Hey, everybody. In serial killer country.
0:46
My name is Brittany Ransom. And this is when Killers get
0:48
caught a podcast devoted to deep dives into the Killer's.
0:51
We love to learn about and in season three were going to talk
0:54
one-on-one with people who've experienced crime, or been
0:58
deeply affected by the justice system in the United States.
1:01
But don't fret. You're still going to get your
1:02
general deep, dives into who killers were They grew up how
1:06
they killed and how they got caught.
1:08
And before we jump into our first guest, on the podcast, I
1:10
want to say thank you so much to everyone who contacted me over
1:13
the last six months, the fifty thousand listeners, who continue
1:16
to play all of the old podcasts and the people who let me know
1:20
that you love this. I just thank you a lot for
1:22
listening and your passion for my passion to help me to kind of
1:26
get back on my feet and get back to making the podcast.
1:29
Now. This week, A True Crime, we're
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going to be talking about a case from a different angle, Our
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Guest today. Day was just a young woman days
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away from her wedding day when her mother-in-law was brutally,
1:39
murdered the crime haunted, her for decades.
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And so she decided to write a fictional account of the murder
1:45
called quiet time. Quiet time.
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Allowed Stephanie a chance to get the justice for her
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mother-in-law. Betty that just didn't come in
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real life, but she had no idea was that her book would reopen
1:55
the case and throw her under the training wheels of the US
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justice system. So I'd like to introduce you all
2:01
to my guests today, are award-winning author of seven
2:04
crime, novels. Stephanie Cane and today on June
2:07
9th, it's the 50th anniversary of the murder were going to be
2:10
talking about. I want to thank you for coming
2:12
to the podcast. Stephanie.
2:14
Hey, thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
2:17
This is really exciting, but I want to get our listeners up to
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task a really about, let's start with who your mother-in-law
2:25
Betty was like, when we first spoke you told me that she was
2:29
raised in depression-era Kansas Yes.
2:32
Actually she and her. Husband Duane both came from the
2:37
same, little northeastern part of the state of Kansas and they
2:42
knew each other, you know, in high school.
2:44
And anyway, it was, it was a pretty rural area and the two
2:49
families were actually kind of like the Hatfields and The
2:52
McCoys Betty's. Wow, Betty swear, we were the
2:57
organs and they were strict German Catholic week, farming
3:02
family, and the fries. Wayne's family Protestants who
3:08
owned shops in the county seat and the two families.
3:13
By all accounts, had mutual contempt for each.
3:16
Other Betty's, mother kunti had been born in a sod covered
3:22
Dugout in the side of the hill and she raised 10 kids on that
3:27
farm. That she and her husband bought
3:29
at the height of the depression and G.
3:32
Ageism were girls and she organized hurry.
3:35
Eight daughters into cooking and cleaning brigades, and she how
3:39
she raised them with the Mantra, do nothing to shame your seven
3:44
sisters. And I always thought that Betty,
3:46
you know, Betty was special clearly and I thought it was
3:50
because she was the youngest daughter, but it turns out she
3:52
wasn't the youngest at all. She came in the middle of the
3:55
family. And what a special was that she
3:58
was the only blond. Oh yes.
4:02
So that and that caught in. Things, I write because I mean,
4:08
that was a thing that her husband Duane was into.
4:11
Yeah. Right.
4:12
And and Dwayne's mother Lolita, who owned a little gift shop in
4:16
town was very, very cruel. And she after Betty and Dwayne
4:21
hooked up she made Betty's life, hell.
4:24
And but even even before that, she called the Orton's Betty's,
4:29
family, bow honks which is a slur for the Czechoslovakian
4:34
Farmers that That, you know, farmed in the valley.
4:37
And so she she was just she was just horrible to Betty and and
4:42
by all accounts she and Duane her son, her only son were
4:46
inseparable. They were two of a kind.
4:50
So, wait a second here. So we've got a lot going against
4:54
Betty and drain before the be even get begin mom hates this
4:59
new girlfriend. Then we also have the Catholic
5:03
versus Protestant thing, which was a big deal in the past.
5:07
Yes. And we also have City versus
5:10
country one. Right?
5:14
So City versus country. And then we also learned later
5:18
on that in your book that both Dwayne and Betty's families have
5:23
histories of mental illness. Yes, and I think that what
5:26
really bound those families, although they would never ever
5:29
stopped in this, the, what really bound them was the sense
5:33
of Shame over mental illness because Dwayne's father, who ran
5:38
this little automotive shop in the county see was by very
5:42
gentle, man. But he had clinical depression
5:46
and pray Betty. Of course, had bipolar disease.
5:50
And and both families were so ashamed of this, this streak of
5:54
mental illness in their family. That, you know, they never
5:57
talked about it, they never told their children about it, you
6:01
know, Betty's children didn't find out that that she had
6:05
bipolar disease until after she was killed.
6:08
Wow. Well, that's interesting because
6:10
there's a section in your book where you talk about Wayne
6:15
talking to Betty's sister. And he said I should have
6:19
married. You, you were stronger and that
6:21
was after Betty had already gone to seek out.
6:24
Mental Health Care, different places.
6:26
Yes. How did they hide that from the
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kids? Well, they have this thing.
6:30
This is where the title of my novel that opened.
6:33
The Cole case comes from they had this thing, the family that
6:36
they called quiet time and it was with Betty was, you know,
6:42
laying in a dark bedroom. With a cloth over her head and
6:46
the children could not make any noise.
6:49
Wow, okay. And that's so that's where the
6:52
title of my novel cave. Oh wow, that's really
6:56
interesting. So, we've all these things
7:00
happening here, but somehow the two of them decide to get
7:02
married. Yes.
7:04
I think, I think Duane was Betty's night and sharp Shining
7:07
Armor and I think Betty was Duane's physical ideal.
7:12
She was blond, she was very spelled.
7:15
She was very fashionable. She was the perfect wife, except
7:19
she was Except for the fact that she needed her quiet time.
7:24
That's right. And that's at him that only
7:26
surfaced after they were married.
7:29
Wow. So, do we know if Now we move
7:33
forward through time, they obviously have their son, Doug,
7:38
and eventually you and Doug meet and decide that you want to get
7:42
married. And it's almost like history
7:43
repeats itself, because Betty can't stand you.
7:46
That's right. It's exactly like Duane's
7:50
mother. Cheated her.
7:51
Exactly. Except Daddy I have to say,
7:54
Betty was never cruel to me, Betty.
7:56
You know, when I met Betty, I had heard all the Doug
8:00
describers this very vivacious woman.
8:03
And, and when I met her, I was, I was very surprised that she
8:07
was, she was very quiet. She was a lovely Hostess.
8:12
She, you know, obviously put a lot into, you know, her cooking
8:16
and her table and all that she was dressed in a beautiful
8:19
dress. And I just couldn't put her
8:22
together with this vivacious, you know, almost manic person in
8:27
retrospect that, that dog had described.
8:29
And I, you know, so she would, she was not cruel to me when I
8:33
met her at all. She was, she became more distant
8:37
to me, as Doug and I became more serious, right?
8:40
She didn't, she didn't have it in her to be cruel the way
8:43
Lolita was to her. She just disrespected me.
8:48
That was a good thing for, you know, one of the things that you
8:52
mentioned in your book was that Betty got wind of a pretty good,
8:57
guess serious and private decision that you and Doug made
9:02
that upset her greatly because of her religion.
9:05
Yes. That and that was one of the
9:07
very last encounters that we have with her.
9:11
And in fact, but even aside from that she was she was very upset
9:15
that we were living together in sin.
9:17
You know, we were sophomores in college and we lived in an
9:20
apartment together, you know, on The Hill in Boulder which is you
9:23
know, the student section of town and the very last time we
9:27
saw her, she made us promise that we would never let dogs
9:33
younger brother. He was 13 at the time.
9:35
Greg know that? We were living together and we
9:39
made her that. Us, you know because because we
9:42
were trying to make it, you know, we hoped for her approval.
9:47
So she's unhappy about you breaking her religious views.
9:51
Yeah. But you're still going to move
9:53
forward and at this point you and Doug have a karate studio
9:57
that you both run, right? No.
9:59
We act. Doug was actually employed by.
10:01
We met at the karate studio, but it also, okay, okay, it was not
10:04
our the one that he was working at was not our studio but he was
10:08
found that she had because you're both teaching at the
10:11
karate. You meet at the karate studio.
10:15
And you decide you're going to get married.
10:17
Yeah. Is Betty happy about it.
10:21
No, he's not happy about it. And, in fact, we had some
10:25
question as to whether she was going to even attend the wedding
10:29
so that morning that she called, which was not days.
10:33
It was actually two weeks before the wedding was scheduled.
10:37
She actually called our apartment that morning and Doug
10:40
was in the shower, you know, showering before he went to
10:42
teach his karate classes and she called and it was a complete
10:46
shock to me because she had never called Our apartment.
10:50
I didn't realize she had our phone number because, you know,
10:53
the fact that we were living together was so taboo and away,
10:57
I picked up the phone, you know, and it was in and she wanted us
11:01
to get a message to one of his older sisters who were also
11:04
living in Boulder and it was a completely innocuous.
11:08
You know, conversation. It was about 8:30 that morning
11:11
and I was one of the last people to speak to her.
11:14
Wow. But, you know, I were talking
11:16
about June 9th 1973, right? And, you know, because I so
11:21
wanted her approval and acceptance, you know, I wouldn't
11:25
dug out of the shower. So do you know your mom called
11:28
and was like, oh maybe she's coming around, you know, it all.
11:32
Yeah. Now a couple of other weird
11:38
things happen that day and a lot of that has to do with Dwayne.
11:43
Well, yeah. So Next thing that happens is
11:45
Doug, goes down the hill to teach his karate classes and his
11:49
brother Greg was coming up from the fries and about 40 miles
11:55
from Boulder. Okay?
11:57
Lived in a suburb of Denver. So that morning Doug's 13 year
12:03
old brother. Greg was coming up to, he was
12:05
supposed to take the bus from, you know, where they live to
12:09
Boulder. And he was going to take his
12:10
first karate class from his big brother died.
12:14
Dog. So it was a kind of a big day
12:16
for us. Anyways, so after the classes
12:21
but usually I walked down the hill to meet dog, you know, at
12:23
the end of the classes and then we would walk home together and
12:26
this was no different. I went down and I saw, you know,
12:31
it was almost the end of the second class.
12:32
It was like, 130 and I got there and to my surprise, his father
12:37
Duane was sitting on a bench watching the class and, you
12:42
know, I looked at him and It was it was a broiling hot day.
12:46
It was like in the 90s Boulder has brutal son.
12:51
So it was a blazing hot day and he was wearing this long sleeve
12:55
dark shirt with a t-shirt under it and then I saw that he had
12:59
this big bruise on his foreign and so I first I said to him,
13:03
you know, what are you doing here?
13:05
You know, because we weren't expecting him, and Betty had not
13:08
mentioned that he was coming and I should tell you that Dwayne
13:12
was a was an efficiency. The expert.
13:14
He was an engineer at Martin Marietta and okay and his
13:18
children called him, Mister work, the problem and how?
13:22
Wow. Yes.
13:23
So he never did anything spontaneously, you know?
13:26
So a spontaneous 40-mile drive to Boulder was bright.
13:31
I said, well, you know, what are you doing here?
13:33
And he said, Oh, I thought I would come to watch the class
13:38
and show, Greg, your apartment, the little boy.
13:44
And that was the wine after you had promised Betty.
13:47
Yes. Not to show him the apartment.
13:50
Exactly. And then he said, and I thought
13:53
I would find a place for your wedding.
13:55
So dinner and this is like, the first time we had heard anything
13:59
about a wedding rehearsal dinner because also your weddings 10
14:04
days away that would have been handled already.
14:07
Well, yeah. And we didn't even know if there
14:09
were coming. So, you know, about all of it
14:11
was very strange and then I looked, I saw the bruising on
14:13
his forehead and I said, you know, what happened to you and
14:16
he said that he and Betty had been cleaning house that morning
14:20
and he had opened a closet and a lawn chair had fallen on his
14:24
head. Not implausible.
14:27
Yeah, but strange, right? So then the class ends and and
14:31
Doug and Greg come over and say, you know, what are you doing
14:33
here, Dad. Just like, ha ha ha, you know?
14:36
And then when you drive up to our apartment, which I still
14:40
felt really weird about since we had promised Betty and they
14:44
didn't go at first Wayne hands us, this stands dug a six-pack
14:50
of beer, that was warm from sitting in his car and that was
14:55
also really weird because they didn't have that kind of
14:57
relationship where yay. Hey, can you son?
15:00
Let's crack a beer together. And, and the it was 332 beer was
15:05
the only thing Doug could buy legally.
15:08
So his father giving him a six-pack of beer was very weird
15:13
but that later tied into Duane's Alibi, I later Fair.
15:17
Anyway, they go, we go up to the apartment, you know, it's a tiny
15:20
apartment so it takes some like two seconds to look at it and
15:23
Dwayne sits at the edge of Our cat the daybed, in our living
15:27
room with his head in his hands. And then after about 10 or 15
15:31
minutes, he jumps up and says we've got to go.
15:33
We've got to go. So, he takes Greg, you know, and
15:37
they're going to look for some place for our wedding rehearsal
15:42
dinner or something. And and Doug says to me, I
15:45
wonder what happened. I've never seen him behave that
15:49
way. So then we go to we drive to
15:52
Denver Doug and I to buy his first suit, Ever his wedding
15:56
suit at a mall. And then, we come back, and the
15:59
phone is ringing. And somebody saying, you got to
16:02
get home fast, something Terrible's happened and then we
16:06
found out that Daddy, his mother has been killed.
16:12
And the way so you to pick up you head over there.
16:15
Yep. And and and it appear to be a
16:18
burglary gone wrong. Her body was okay bludgeoned to
16:22
death. She was found facedown in her
16:25
garage. There was blood on the ceiling.
16:28
It was very, very beautiful. She'd been hit from behind and
16:31
right near her. Were these two trash barrels and
16:35
they were filled with loot or something that appeared to have
16:39
been taken from the house and what was so About what was in
16:43
the barrels was that they were cheap stuff that you know, like
16:47
cheap appliances. I think there was a Broken
16:50
Stereo turntable. There was a blender from the
16:53
kitchen, you know, and three clocks that have been pulled out
16:57
of the wall, in, from upstairs, bedrooms, and the kitchen and
17:02
okay, and the clot, you know. So first of all, that was very
17:05
weird because no burglar would would steal that kind of stuff.
17:09
You can't fence it. It's worthless.
17:12
You know. So it comes and looks tend to
17:15
Wayne say that he thought the burglary had to do with his gun
17:18
collections. Yes, but no guns were in the
17:22
box. Exactly.
17:23
Nothing of value was in the boxes, but at Bow.
17:26
Wow, there was something of Great Value in these garbage
17:31
cans and that was the three clocks that had been unplugged
17:35
from the wall in various parts of the house and one, you know,
17:41
back then you know These were electric clocks.
17:43
I think two of them were alarm radios or something, but they
17:46
would all been plugged into a wall.
17:48
And when they were unplugged, the times that they were
17:51
unplugged were frozen on the faces of the clocks.
17:56
I was going to ask you about that.
17:57
How interesting the cops like like sort of a GoPro like video
18:04
of where the And when in the house one clock, right?
18:09
One bedroom clock was unplugged at 11:22.
18:12
Another 1123 and another 11:27 so that they had a pretty good
18:18
idea of when the burglar or whoever had staged, the crime
18:24
had been in the house and then the next thing that happens that
18:29
really should have cooked Dwayne was that, you know, the cops are
18:34
going around. They're canvassing, the
18:35
neighborhood has Anybody seen anything and a little boy, who
18:39
is little Greg's thirteen-year-old Greg's?
18:42
Best friend says, well, well, I came to the fry house that
18:46
morning and, you know, I rang the doorbell and Dwayne answered
18:51
the door and the cops that will, you know, they were very
18:53
interested. They said, well, when was that?
18:55
And the kids said 11:35, so, you know, when the burglars are, you
19:03
know, on stealing stuff from the house and The tiny house.
19:07
There's no way you could miss burglars running through the
19:10
house, if you were answering the door.
19:12
So that, so that the cops go to Duane and they say, well, you
19:15
know, this kid says, you were here at 11:35 and and Dwayne
19:21
says, yeah, the kid came to the door but it was, it was like a
19:23
10:30. So they go back to the kid and
19:26
they say Well when was it, you know, how can you prove, you say
19:29
it was 11:35, how can you prove that?
19:32
And the kid says, well, that's easy because I had just finished
19:36
watching Watching the monkeys on TV.
19:38
Ah, ha ha ha. I gotta change the channel for
19:41
my brother to Sherlock Holmes and then I went to Greg's house
19:46
which was like a two-minute walk.
19:47
It was on the next street. And so, you know, the cops say
19:52
thinking, well how do we prove this and they turn to TV guide?
19:56
And of course TV guide says, you know, the monkeys were over at
19:59
11:30 and Sherlock. Holmes came on at 11:35 so they
20:02
had Dwayne answering the door bell.
20:06
And the kids said he had to ring twice, they had Dwayne answering
20:10
the door bell right when burglars were supposedly running
20:15
through his house and killing his wife.
20:19
So he sang of course he's not there.
20:21
Yes. Yes and he concocted this this
20:24
incredibly complex Alibi which you know the crowning event was
20:28
him, driving 40 miles to Boulder, you know.
20:30
To for this surprise visit to the karate studio where nobody
20:34
was expecting him and you know one of the things though on in
20:39
his Alibi he the cops asked him to write out a statement.
20:43
You know tell us where you were you know this morning.
20:47
And one thing he said was that he stopped at Safeway for a can
20:53
of lighter fluid and then he went because he was going to
20:56
have a barbecue later that afternoon and a liquor store for
21:01
a six pack of beer. And I did not know for like the
21:06
next 20 years that that beer that he put in his Alibi was a
21:13
beer that he gave us. And if you are planning a
21:16
barbecue that Move, why wouldn't you buy a couple more pass and
21:20
then why would you give the beer away, you know, right.
21:24
And they never found the lighter fluid and the speculation is
21:28
that on the drive from Duane's House to Boulder.
21:31
There was like, you know, ditches and Fields and stuff
21:34
that he had stopped and had thrown the murder weapon and his
21:37
the clothes that he had been wearing into a ditch and I'm
21:41
fat, I'm on fire zactly because, you know, the clothes that he
21:45
was wearing another other part of his Alibi that morning was
21:49
that he had gone to a Chevron station to check up on his
21:52
wife's car and and plus somebody else had come to the door much
21:55
earlier and seen him and and the clothes that they described him,
21:58
wearing were not the clothes that I saw him in after the
22:03
murder and the clothes that they described wearing were never
22:07
found. So well.
22:11
So this happens and at this point, the police aren't looking
22:15
at you for anything. You're just kind of there.
22:18
Yeah. They're treating you like the,
22:19
the stupid little girlfriend. They didn't even treat me like
22:22
that. I was just invisible to them.
22:25
Was just a girl shacking up with, you know, with Wayne and
22:28
Betty sighs, I guess, you know, because right.
22:33
And the wedding still going to go on.
22:37
I remember, distinctly in the in the book, you talking about this
22:40
wedding photo with Doug and Dwayne, and Doug looks deflated
22:46
and Duane's just as happy as a clam.
22:49
Yeah, well, we put the wedding off for about two months, okay?
22:53
In the interim, Dwayne was indicted for first-degree
22:55
murder. And arrested and out on bail
23:00
before our wedding occur. And there is a, that has to put
23:04
a hamper on everything. Yes.
23:05
But, you know the wedding photo that you Has them standing in
23:10
front of this little Unitarian Church where we were married,
23:13
which was supposed to be a, you know, a big concession to Betty.
23:17
Not that us getting married. And Unitarian Church would have,
23:20
you know, a piece tour but they're standing in front of the
23:24
church and their it's so odd because they're wearing almost
23:26
identical, suits liferay suits, very slim caught and they look
23:32
if you put a, you know, a piece of paper over their heads, you
23:36
could not tell who Is the 49 year old or 48 year old?
23:42
And who is the 19 year old? They looked so much alike,
23:46
physically, and then when you look at their faces, you got
23:50
Dwayne and he's beaming. He's like, God, his whole world
23:54
ahead of him and Doug looks Sullen and angry.
24:00
It's a, it's really a remarkable photo because of the contrast
24:04
between them Now do you feel like at this time like that it's
24:11
going to be all right, you put it off for a couple months and
24:15
you tried to move forward with with your relationship.
24:19
Well there are you know the one person I can find it in back
24:22
then was my mother and you know she was in New York and the day
24:27
that Betty was killed that evening I walked out of the week
24:30
you know we went back to that the house where she was killed.
24:33
In fact we spent the night In that house under the roof.
24:38
What? And in fact Doug's bedroom was
24:40
directly under the garage, so very, very weird.
24:45
But anyway, I walked to a pay phone and I called my mother and
24:48
said, Mom, you know, please come out here and she came out and,
24:53
you know, a couple of days later and and we talked and I told her
24:56
what I had observed and then I was afraid, I just had this
25:00
sense that somehow our wedding and all the tension around.
25:04
It had been a cow Catalyst a trigger for what happened and my
25:10
mother. My mother told me.
25:13
She said, you know, you've got a choice here, if you're going to
25:15
marry Doug, you know, you have to be 100% behind him, you know,
25:21
besought. First of all, you don't know
25:23
what you saw. You know.
25:25
It's probably you know it's nothing you're not that
25:27
important. You know that's exactly what she
25:30
said and then she said and you have to make a choice if you're
25:35
going To have a life with Doug, you're going to have to, you
25:38
know, forget what you saw, not say anything about it because
25:42
you don't know anything anyway, and, and move forward, and I
25:46
miss ition, I made so, you know, a lot of it, I think was this
25:50
very naive kind of adolescent hope that.
25:54
You know, if we just put it behind us, it would truly be
25:58
behind us that we could go forward into, you know, a
26:01
Wonderful Life and marriage and, and, and all of that.
26:05
And They would be fine, you know?
26:07
And then it also played along into what was happening in the
26:11
fry family, which is that, nobody would know.
26:14
That was very much an attitude of you're either with us or
26:17
you're against us. Mmm, rally behind their father,
26:22
you know, they were all Witnesses in front of the grand
26:24
jury that indicted him for first-degree murder in 1973.
26:28
And then tagged just rekt, you know, they just rallied behind
26:32
him and, you know, it was taboo to talk about.
26:35
About it. So we didn't talk about and then
26:41
then at what happened to this you know his trial was set for
26:45
right around Thanksgiving of 1973 and white for the trial.
26:50
We got a phone call from him saying the charges had been
26:52
dropped. Wow.
26:55
Well we didn't really know why we didn't even know what the
26:58
evidence was against him in the first place.
27:01
So some he within a year, he had remarried a woman who was a very
27:07
close family, friend and neighbor.
27:09
Who's Has been also worked at Martin Marietta with Dwayne as
27:13
an engineer. And she, she divorced her
27:16
husband and, and she, and Duane all of a sudden, got married.
27:19
And they move, and, you know, she's a weird one.
27:22
Because she didn't originally have blond hair or things like
27:27
that, but after she marries Dwayne, she starts yes,
27:30
mimicking. His now, dad ex-wife, I think he
27:35
impose that on. I think what happened is
27:38
psychologically. Or psychodynamic Lee is that
27:42
Dwayne thought he was marrying, the woman of his dreams and she
27:48
turned out to have a mental illness, but she was his
27:51
physical ideal and the woman, he married was this very nice from
27:56
my perspective woman named Barbara, and she was Betty's
28:02
complete physical and stylistic opposite.
28:05
She's very Dowdy. She was kind of dumpy It was not
28:10
for lack of trying, you know, but she had heavy glasses.
28:13
She had dark hair. She was kind of mousey, and she
28:16
was nothing like Betty and she's not giving the the Barbie Vibes.
28:21
No, not at all. And then I found out, you know,
28:26
years later in the cold case, I was talking to somebody who knew
28:31
what Barb and Duane's life had ended up as 40 your, you know
28:36
what it was like, to be married to Dwayne after that and and
28:40
this woman was shocked when I described the way Barb looked
28:43
back in 1973 because by then, Barb was a slim stylish blond
28:50
with X wearing expensive pants suits, and hmm.
28:54
I think Duane basically remade her into Betty, but Betty
29:00
without the mental illness. You know, he wanted a woman, he
29:03
could Dominate and and recreate into into, you know, him the
29:08
image of his of his Mate. And that's when you're too poor.
29:13
Barbara Barr Barb? Yeah, well, I found out that her
29:17
life was one of being intensely controlled by him.
29:22
He chose, they ended up in Florida and he chose, you know,
29:27
he shed an approved circle of friends approved by him that she
29:32
could associate with and she just kept him, he kept her under
29:37
tight control and this is jumping way ahead.
29:39
But In the Cole case, after the Cold Case was over and I could
29:43
interview, the detectives, I said, who had gone to interview
29:48
Duane. You know, once the coal case was
29:52
activated, they did a surprise visit to all of the children
29:56
were all living in different states and to Dwayne in Florida.
30:01
And when they, I said to them. Well, you know, what's your most
30:04
enduring memory of the interview of Dwayne in Florida, and 2005,
30:09
and they said two things. One of them said that when Barb
30:12
answered the door and they said, you know, we're cold-case
30:15
detectives from Arapahoe County and Colorado, she clapped her
30:20
hands and she said, oh, you finally found out, who did it
30:24
another word. She believed in him.
30:27
And then the other cops, most enduring memory was that when
30:31
they went into Duane's House in Florida, he sat them at this
30:35
sort of dining room table, and there was like, an open
30:40
Breakfast bar right next to the dining room where you could look
30:44
from the dining room table into the kitchen and bar was in the
30:48
kitchen with a local Florida cop that they had brought with them.
30:52
And, you know, because I wanted to separate our from Dwayne and
30:56
she was just in the kitchen and Dwayne situated himself at the
31:00
end of the table. So that he could watch Barb
31:04
during the entire interview with the Cole case cops, and they
31:09
say, Right. He never took his eyes off Barb
31:13
the entire time. That's the kind of control.
31:18
He was exerting over. So she paid a high price, you
31:21
know, to be remade as the ideal woman.
31:26
Hmm. Now we'll dial it back a little
31:30
bit, one of the things that I think was really poignant, and I
31:34
don't know if this was something that your ex-husband would go to
31:37
think about. But you said at that wedding
31:42
dinner, it was that I was a red lion.
31:45
Oh, Dwayne goes off on this tangent about all the things he
31:52
didn't like about Betty. Okay, so this is this is what
31:56
happens. So in between the time he was
31:59
after he was arrested and released on bail, he calls us
32:04
up. This is we had postponed her
32:06
wedding. So this is the time he was
32:08
arrested and the time of the wedding.
32:10
That's um okay. Calls us up.
32:13
And he says, oh, I'd like to take you out to dinner and talk
32:18
about some memories of Betty that Doug, you know, may not
32:23
remember and Read it as this. You know, I want to take you to
32:27
dinner and talk with Doug, about these wonderful memories of his
32:31
mother, you know. So we get to the restaurant.
32:34
And first of all, I noticed that he had already removed his
32:37
wedding ring, and then he just starts in this tirade about how
32:44
miserable his life was with, Betty that she was mentally ill
32:49
that he had all the job opportunities he had given up
32:52
because he had to take care of her and The Capper was that she
32:57
had. There were four fry kids, Doug
33:00
had two older sisters in this little brother Greg, he said
33:04
that Betty had had tricked him into conceiving, dog, and his
33:13
younger brother. And that if it was up to Dwayne,
33:16
they would never have been born. Oh my God.
33:21
So this was, this was his sharing memories of Betty.
33:25
D with his son, who had just lost his mother, right?
33:28
And we're talking weeks have gone by.
33:30
I'm sure I've lost a parent and it's not something you get over
33:35
quickly. I'm sure Doug is just depressed
33:39
at this point and this happens I think he was he was so shocked
33:46
that he really shut down. I mean, you just completely shut
33:50
down and and you know, I just remember thinking, you know,
33:54
this is my men. Quality back then, as you know
33:57
by then I just turned 20. I think that was still 19.
34:01
Yeah. I was about three or four months
34:02
older than him. And I just I was thinking, you
34:04
know, all I could think about was well, Doug ever smile again.
34:08
Oh, will you ever laugh again? You know, will he ever be happy
34:13
again? Yeah, and and so that's what we
34:16
were trying to preserve, you know, going forward.
34:20
So it's some sort of sense that we can get through this, we can
34:23
get past this and then we can have this Has life that we
34:25
always hoped we would have together.
34:28
But, you know, nothing ever works out that one know it does,
34:31
and that's where I was moving to next.
34:34
So Doug has his own karate studio.
34:38
Now, at this point and you actually decide that you don't
34:41
want to do that anymore. Well, this is our okay future.
34:46
Yes, this is jumping ahead. A few years.
34:48
We finish college graduated. We started our own karate
34:53
school, and then, Doug wanted to apply to medical school and I
35:01
didn't want to run the karate school alone.
35:03
So I applied to law school. So we got into professional
35:07
school and we sold our, the karate studio.
35:11
And, you know, we were moving to the life.
35:14
We always hoped, we would have we thought.
35:17
So, when does it change? Well, it changed pretty quick,
35:21
because I think it was in the second year or maybe was a
35:26
third-year. Yeah, it was a third-year law.
35:28
School is three years medical schools for years.
35:30
So okay. It was Doug's third year my last
35:34
year and we would are the vacations that overlap because
35:39
he was on quarters. And I was on some Semesters.
35:42
This was like the only vacation that overlapped and each year we
35:45
would drive to New York to visit my phone or fly there and and
35:51
that year we went and dug said to me, one of his older sisters
35:55
Lynn was living because the family had just completely
35:58
scattered after Betty was killed and he was, you know, who least
36:04
they just all went to different parts of the country and his
36:07
closest sister in age had become a nurse.
36:11
Some, she was living in Philadelphia.
36:13
And so, when we got to New York, Doug said to me, you know, I
36:16
think I'd like to see Lin I think I'd like to talk to her
36:20
about what happened in our family.
36:24
This is like, the first time he had brought it up to me.
36:26
So he took, we got there and he took a bus to Bill if she would
36:30
doubts. I think she lived in New Jersey,
36:32
but it was very close to Philadelphia.
36:34
Okay, we're, yeah. And he took the bus and then he
36:38
comes back a few hours later and he was like, Like he was like
36:41
shell-shocked and I said, well, what happened, you know, what
36:45
did Lynn say? And he said that Lynn said that
36:49
she could not believe he had ever questioned, whether their
36:52
father had killed their mother, because he's so, obviously had
36:58
and that just completely rocked, ugh.
37:02
And when we came back to Boulder where we were living, you know,
37:06
he still had a little time left before classes started and he He
37:11
went out one night for a job. This is like the winter was cold
37:15
and snowy, and he didn't come back, and then a couple of hours
37:18
later and, you know, the our doorbell rings.
37:21
And there's this stranger like carrying dug up the front walk
37:25
he's covered with vomit and like unable to walk on his own.
37:29
And what had happened was he had taken every pill in the house,
37:33
like, ask G, everything and, and run off to a drainage ditch and
37:39
laid down to die. Die.
37:41
And then some Lads you've been woken up by some kids throwing
37:45
snowballs at and he staggered onto the road and a motorist had
37:49
brought him home. So he, you know, we put him in a
37:53
hospital and he was seeing a psychiatrist.
37:57
He took the next semester off from medical school because he
38:00
couldn't function. He came with me to my Law School
38:03
classes in my after-school job and then one day he said he was
38:07
seeing a psychiatrist and then one day he said to me, you know,
38:10
I'm feeling Little better. I don't think I have to go to
38:12
school with you today. Oh no, you know, and so I come
38:17
home from my job, you know, in the evening and there's, you
38:20
know, a note on the table saying staff, I took all of our savings
38:25
out of our bank account. I've want to Florida what talk
38:30
to my dad. So the next thing that happens
38:33
is I get to sort of frantic phone call from Dwayne saying,
38:37
you know, don't talk to Barb and he said he was coming.
38:40
Come down here. Do I have to be here when he
38:43
comes? And I said, well, drain, you
38:46
know, he's having a very hard time.
38:47
He's going down there to talk to you and Dwayne said, well, I've
38:51
got a business trip. I, you know, and so when you get
38:54
Doug gets down and then there's like silence.
38:57
I can't reach any of them for the like the next couple of
38:59
days. Oh, so you're probably worried,
39:01
he's even alive. Yes, yes.
39:04
And then then my mother of all people from Brooklyn calls me
39:09
and says do No, the dog is in a psychiatric facility in
39:14
Pennsylvania. And I said, no, you know what
39:16
happened? And she said that Doug called
39:18
her. And she and my father, were
39:20
taking the train out there to visit him and see him and
39:23
everything. And and what had happened was
39:25
that Doug got down there. Wayne had taken his business
39:29
trip, left dog with Barb and Doug had made a suicide attempt,
39:35
Dwayne had come back and and flown Doug to, I think it was
39:40
the See of Pennsylvania Medical Center with the medical school
39:45
and they had a psychiatric facility and he had like dump
39:48
Doug on them and said, he's a medical student.
39:52
I have good insurance, you know, take him out and then my mother
39:58
and my mother said, you know, can I give your phone number to
40:01
his psychiatrist? I said of course, so that night
40:04
they called me. They didn't had not even
40:06
realized I was married. And by this time we had been
40:08
married like, eight or nine. Earth, you know?
40:12
That's and they said, can you tell us?
40:15
You know, what's wrong with dog? And I said well what did Duane
40:19
tell you and they said that Dwayne had told them that Doug
40:24
or suffering from this delusion that somehow Dwayne had played a
40:29
role in Dogs. Mother's unfortunate death.
40:34
Wow, Duane was indicted by a grand jury for First-degree
40:41
murder of his wife. That, that an illusion.
40:45
Yeah. And you know what I thought
40:47
about this so many times since and you know what it's like out
40:51
here in Colorado. Every year some kid gets
40:54
separated from his parents in the mountains.
40:57
Right? You know, that's loss and it's
40:59
like, like Dwayne. And, of course, the parents,
41:02
always tell the cops. That's the last place we saw
41:04
him. Go in that direction.
41:06
This was like, Dwayne saying, oh, go in the other direction.
41:11
Okay. Oh and anyway after that Doug
41:14
was came back to Boulder. We put him in a psychiatric
41:20
hospital and he was there for a couple few months and then it
41:25
came out but he was a different person and in the it and brain
41:28
came up to visit him and they had some kind of altercation at
41:32
that hospital and ducks like told Duane you're not.
41:37
Don't ever come back here again. Don't Kyle And my mother came to
41:41
visit him and she told me she had some kind of connection with
41:44
Doug. They had an emotional connection
41:47
and she said to me, dog is very, very angry.
41:54
And he wouldn't participate in group therapy or anything.
41:57
But eventually, he got stable enough that he returned to
42:01
medical school. He was able to graduate with
42:03
this class. That's good.
42:05
You know then we thought finally, this is behind us.
42:09
And then, you know, he came home and he said, I don't want to be
42:13
married to you anymore, and he basically dumped me.
42:18
Wow, you got divorced. And then we had almost no
42:22
contact for like, the next, mon fact we had no contact after
42:28
that, you know, I haven't had a conversation with dog since the
42:32
last time I saw him, which was in probably 1982, and that was
42:38
it. The whole thing was over and I
42:41
was left with this feeling that somehow our wedding had been the
42:45
Catalyst for his mother's murder that juicing because there's a
42:50
quote from the book True Crime Redux that stuck out to me and
42:54
you said more than a witness but less than an active participant.
42:58
I was a bit actor whose role in the crime shape, my life.
43:03
Can you explain more about how the shapes your life from this
43:07
point forward? Well it haunted me you know and
43:11
I was after Doug and I divorced I was alone for 10 years.
43:16
I mean I was working as a lawyer, you know and the more
43:19
work they could throw at me the better because I didn't want to
43:22
have a life. Nobody that I worked with knew
43:25
anything about what had happened.
43:28
You know they didn't really know anything about my past and I
43:31
didn't want them to know and I just you know I work all day and
43:34
at night I would you know I would I would run through the
43:38
day of Betty's murder in my head every night to try to fall
43:42
asleep because something told me that I did not want to forget
43:46
those details, you know, the way drape.
43:49
Wayne was dressed the bruise on his forehead.
43:51
All those strange things and it just it tortured me.
43:56
And then after that, you know, 9 or 10 years, I met my wonderful,
44:01
second husband, John, and I, he asked me, you know, what had
44:06
happened, and I told him and He said, well, why do they drop the
44:10
charges against Wayne? It seems like, you know, they
44:13
had a pretty strong case. I mean I didn't even know then
44:16
about the clocks or anything. All I had were my observations
44:20
that day and he said, why do they drop to the case?
44:24
And I said, you know, I have no idea, you know, nobody talked
44:27
about it and that started me researching it and it sent me to
44:31
the courthouse, the Arapahoe County courthouse and I ordered
44:35
the old case File that it was very thin.
44:39
File, but it did have the grand jury testimony attached to one
44:43
of the defense motions of the lead.
44:45
Cop who investigated the case in 1973 and that's how I found out
44:50
about the kid coming to the door and the clocks and all this
44:55
other stuff that I had had no idea of and to kind of get it
45:00
out of me. I decided to, you know, just sit
45:04
down and try to write about it. And my first draft of what would
45:08
become Our time which was that you know, fictionalized mystery
45:13
that reopen, the cold case that I wrote it in like 10
45:20
alternating first-person voices. What sister-in-law thing you
45:24
know what did this guy? See what was it like, might it
45:28
have been like for this person because I just wanted to get a
45:31
larger perspective than the stuff I had been like mulling
45:35
over in my head and that was the beginning of getting it out of
45:38
Me and then, you know, at a certain point, you know, I
45:41
realized that I knew nothing about writing fiction.
45:44
And so I started to learn. I got books, and I tried to
45:47
apply the lessons to that manuscript and it eventually
45:51
became a completely fictional fictionalized version.
45:56
What had happened? And I adopted my second
45:59
husband's last name as my pen name because I didn't want it to
46:02
be connected to the Frye case, right?
46:05
Phantom published it. And I told them, you know what?
46:09
Origin was and they and it had to go through their legal
46:12
department and they made me make dozens and dozens of changes so
46:15
nobody could ever recognize it. They made me move the timeline
46:19
up ten years they made which played Havoc with the plot.
46:22
They maybe take any reference to Colorado out of it.
46:27
So, Colorado was an unnamed state, north of New Mexico.
46:34
You know, Boulder became Stanley and Denver became a widow Mercy.
46:38
Something. And and and you know the karate
46:41
studio became a hockey rink and you know all these changes and
46:46
it came out like right like a week or two after 9/11.
46:50
So the book had a very, very short shelf life, right?
46:54
Because immediately the whole world was talking about National
46:59
tragedy, right? So you know, I, you know, I just
47:03
put it behind me and I have this contract with Bantam and then I
47:06
got another one with Scribner and you I was writing legal
47:09
Thrillers and the last thing I was thinking about was the fry
47:13
family and then you know in just one of these strange twists of
47:17
Fate. One of the places that I had
47:20
actually been interviewed and there were very few was this
47:24
local radio TV station, that was like publicly funded and they
47:29
did author interviews and they lost their funding, you know,
47:33
very early on. So they would replay all of
47:36
these old author interviews like a midnight.
47:38
Night and they replayed my interview about quiet time.
47:43
And one of the people who saw it like late at night was Duane's
47:49
younger sister. Then was 78 years old and she
47:55
recognized me and she went out and bought quiet time and in a
47:59
crisis of conscience, she came forward with information that
48:03
Dwayne had confessed to their mother Lolita.
48:08
Fool to Betty. And you know that open the cold
48:13
case and and the confession is it turns out you know, the
48:17
wedding was a trigger. I mean the confession said that
48:21
Betty had just gone you know went into hysterics and wouldn't
48:25
stop crying. And it was a, you know, the
48:27
wedding and and he just he just beat her to death.
48:34
Now, there is something they'll with the audience doesn't know
48:37
is that we we Fast forward a little bit and now it's 2005.
48:42
And this case is wide open. I mean you cock in the in True
48:47
Crime Redux about how the feds trying to get all of the fried
48:51
children to talk to them independently, at the same time.
48:54
They did a lot of really elaborate stuff to try and get
48:57
more information about this cold case.
49:00
But what happens is well one The defense.
49:10
Besides that everything you have ever written up to.
49:14
This point is evidence, that's right.
49:18
And this is how it happened. Um, there's this because I
49:23
became a key, witness, hmm. And I became a key witness
49:26
because I had seen Wayne that day, right?
49:29
And nobody who were interviewed me before.
49:31
So, when the Cole case cops contacted me, I didn't even
49:34
think twice about cooperating I was happy to cooperate.
49:37
Okay. And I told them everything I
49:39
remembered about the day, And then I sat down with the defense
49:42
lawyers and told them everything.
49:43
I remember about that day, okay? So the defense lawyers had to
49:47
concoct a so-called narrative and the narrative that they
49:52
concocted was that somehow I and Duane's sister Sherry had, you
50:00
know, conspired to Gin up a false confession so that I could
50:06
sell books. Wow, okay.
50:10
Achilles because you know I haven't seen Sheree in 30 years,
50:14
you know, it was it was crazy. And anyway so I became a Target
50:19
and quiet time became a Target because their theory was that
50:23
quiet time was actually not fiction.
50:26
It was actually fact. And that every draft I had done
50:30
of quiet time was a separate factual statement that they
50:34
could use to cross-examine me and and say that I was a liar
50:40
about out what I remember because oh graph.
50:42
I've said this. And that's a factual statement,
50:45
a draft 7 said, this and that's different and and were you
50:48
lying, then or are you lying now and it's ridiculous because all
50:51
of those drafts were fiction, you know?
50:55
So anyway, but that became the defense Theory and they
50:57
subpoenaed all my drafts and notes of poor little quiet time
51:01
and put quiet, I'm on trial and we ended up.
51:05
I had a very good lawyer of my own and he ended up Seeing the
51:11
subpoena for all of the drafts and your your attorney was is is
51:18
kind of considered to be a big deal in Colorado.
51:23
Then he defend the the Ramsey family.
51:27
Yes, and he's a great lawyer. He also represented Hunter, S
51:32
Thompson, you know, the writer. He's a big as a very
51:35
intellectual really, really deep thinking.
51:39
Wonderful lawyer. Yeah.
51:40
And but we had to have an expert.
51:42
Witness who was a literature Professor educate the port on
51:46
the difference between fiction and nonfiction.
51:50
You know? Because of the truth is that all
51:52
fiction originates to some extent.
51:54
In fact, right? And and in the writers
51:58
experience and you turn it into fiction because what else are
52:01
you writing about? But something in your background
52:04
in some way know and so, you know, we had to have this very
52:09
effective. Literature Professor explained
52:12
to the court that just because something originated in fact,
52:18
you know, doesn't make it, you know, nonfiction, you know,
52:21
fiction is distinct from fact. And anyway, so the judge
52:24
suppressed that, but but for all those years, you know, I
52:27
completely stopped writing because I was afraid that they
52:30
would subpoena every single thing that I wrote and use it
52:34
against me. I mean, that was the size of the
52:36
Target on my back and the other person had a Target on her back
52:38
was poor Sherry. Who is like, you know, almost 80
52:42
years old and she had had the guts to come forward with her
52:46
brother's confession and they just, you know, they just
52:49
brutalized her on the stand, you know?
52:52
But she held up really, really well.
52:55
But, you know, it was, it was a horrific experience for and and
52:58
in the course of it, she completely lost her relationship
53:02
with with her, you know, nephews and nieces because they wouldn't
53:05
speak to her again because she had betrayed Dwayne And she, you
53:11
know, II after the Cold Case was over.
53:13
I interviewed her. She was in a assisted living
53:17
home. Not with dementia, but with
53:18
congestive heart failure. Okay.
53:20
And I never liked my last, I think my last conversation with
53:23
her what she said she asked me. Is he still alive?
53:27
She was so afraid of Dwayne. Even that late in her life.
53:33
She was afraid of her brother. Wow.
53:36
And I came to learn that, you know, she had certain
53:38
experiences with him. Earlier in life that gave her a
53:42
good reason to be afraid of him. One of the things I kind of
53:48
would like you to speak on because I think a lot of people
53:52
don't have this experience but both you and Sherry endured this
53:59
for quite some time just being the the punching bag of the
54:05
courtroom and you said they dragged her through the mud
54:10
through, you know, her depositions and things.
54:12
But what about you have that feel for you to have them?
54:16
Them them bring up every little awful thing or minor memory that
54:20
you had from 1973. One thing that was really
54:25
painful for me was that they kept hammering me on Why didn't
54:30
I come forward with what I knew in 1973 and they even called it
54:36
a duty to come forward. And finally the judge corrected
54:39
them and said she had no duty to come forward.
54:43
You know, the cops had a duty to interview her you know she
54:47
didn't have a duty to come forward and but you know that
54:50
just really, you know, it played into all of my sense of guilt
54:54
about you know what I had known when I had shut my eyes too.
54:59
You know, this this really adolescent but very tender hope
55:03
that things could be fine. If I just kept my mouth shut,
55:07
you know, and it was really all the basis for my guilt in the
55:11
whole thing and they very skillfully playing on that.
55:15
And, you know, being a lawyer, it was an excruciating
55:19
experience for me to be a witness because I understood the
55:21
Playbook, you know, I understood what they were trying to do to
55:24
me, but I also knew that I had a duty to testify truthfully.
55:29
Even if it reflected badly on me.
55:31
Hmm. When you're constantly doing
55:34
when you're in that situation and you know what they're
55:36
trying, they're trying to push your buttons, you know?
55:39
And you are angry that your that you've been attacked this way.
55:43
You know. You just you just have to I
55:46
guess I called upon my discipline you know of having
55:51
practice law to just remind myself, you're just a witness.
55:54
You're not an advocate, you're not here to, you know, defend
55:58
yourself. You're just Just here to testify
56:01
as truthfully as you possibly can, to what you remember.
56:04
You know. And then they other thing is
56:06
they would, they would torture you about your memories?
56:09
Like, oh, well, you're the only one who saw that bruise on
56:12
Duane's head. And then when I, you know, after
56:14
the Cold Case was over, that bruise was all over the file.
56:17
I wasn't the only person who saw it but you know, when they
56:21
attack you that way or are you sure you saw it?
56:23
Nobody else notice that, wow, lying or not.
56:27
So it plays all kinds of Games with your head and God maybe I
56:31
remembered, I remember this, right?
56:33
And I make this up, you just all those mind games and and it's
56:37
very, very difficult but you know I my husband was a great
56:41
support to me. We had a I had a wonderful
56:44
wonderful lawyer, you know. And but for those years I just I
56:47
just basically shut down and I just kept, you know, look at
56:50
this, very narrow path of what my role was and stick to it and
56:55
you are still working to, right? Well, I was, I well I had I
57:00
stopped practicing law. Okay?
57:02
And, and I stopped writing books because I did I didn't.
57:06
So I didn't have any Outlet. Yeah, nothing.
57:09
You can focus on work like you did the last time and you
57:12
couldn't write which is something you've been doing.
57:14
Now for years that had helped you are two escapes were gone
57:18
those A block. Act.
57:21
That's so sad. Hellish.
57:26
Now we get to court, you know, they ask you, you know, how do
57:31
you know your memories? Okay, what would make sure
57:33
memory stick, you know? But you're in that, this, the
57:37
trial is happening, will not side tryouts all the pre-trial
57:40
work happening and when they're asking you questions, Dwayne
57:45
stands up and yells liar. Yes.
57:50
Like how do you feel in that moment?
57:53
You know, it. I was just so focused on not
57:59
looking at him. I was focused on looking at the
58:02
da when she was questioning me. And it's interesting, you know,
58:06
when he screamed liar at me, you know what?
58:09
I had just testified to what app.
58:12
Well, Betty, and Duane had been planning to go on a cruise that
58:15
fall of 1973 and Dwayne ended, or maybe it was the following
58:20
winter, but we knew about it, they had planned it well in
58:23
advance after she was killed. Old.
58:26
He wanted to take Barb on the cruise with him friends that
58:33
they were going with said, they didn't think that was a good
58:36
idea now, it feels kind of creepy.
58:40
Well, I think what that did was my testifying to that and I only
58:45
knew it secondhand, you know, but I remembered that and I
58:50
think that humiliated him because it reflected on how his
58:56
friends looked it. And that's what was unbearable
59:01
to him coming out in the courtroom.
59:05
So that's when he jumped up and half Rose from Seton and I
59:10
wasn't even sure what happened and I looked at the transcript
59:13
later and you know the I mean if he that's what happened that was
59:17
the exact context and the judge had to admonish him and
59:20
admonishes lawyer and say, you know, control your client.
59:23
I'm not going to put up with that.
59:26
Tap, that kind of outburst. So you know, I was sort of numb
59:31
at the moment because I was you know, trying to, you know,
59:35
testify as honestly as I couldn't be careful about my
59:38
words and not overreach. So you know this is like
59:42
happening like almost in a parallel universe you know in
59:46
this town, this small courtroom. But the case doesn't actually go
59:53
anywhere that you wanted to go. Well, it got mild up the
59:58
playbook for the defense in a cold case is always to run the
1:00:02
clock and hope that Witnesses died.
1:00:05
And that's indeed what happened because these cold the Cold Case
1:00:08
pretrial hearings, you know, which included the grand jury
1:00:12
and, you know, all of these hearings on motions to dismiss.
1:00:16
And I mean, they threw everything they could against
1:00:19
the wall and predictably Witnesses, did die.
1:00:23
Wow. And then it came with him off,
1:00:25
right to the The point of the trial and a new judge was all of
1:00:29
a sudden assigned to the case, who had no background in it.
1:00:32
Because in that county, they would rotate judges off the
1:00:35
case, okay? And the da who had handled it
1:00:39
from the grand jury on, had to leave the case to try a death
1:00:44
penalty case. Oh, so there's a new DEA.
1:00:47
There was a new judge. The only people who had
1:00:50
institutional memory of, like, how Sheree had testified, how
1:00:54
she withstood Adonis. And all of that was the defense
1:00:58
and they just started rearguing everything and this new judge.
1:01:03
So, finally, the issue came up. The only real legal issue in the
1:01:08
pre-trial stuff was the admissibility of Lolita's
1:01:12
confession. I mean, of of Dwayne confessing
1:01:16
to Lolita and then Lolita telling Sherry about it, right?
1:01:20
And I don't want to get too much into the Weeds about the legal
1:01:22
stuff, but the defense argued that that was hearsay upon
1:01:25
hearsay. Say.
1:01:27
And so that had to that was the judge ruled that it was hearsay.
1:01:32
And then the, the prosecution appealed, that first to the
1:01:35
court of the state court of appeals, then to the Colorado
1:01:38
Supreme Court and it went back down to the state court of
1:01:41
appeals. And by the time I got back to
1:01:43
the trial court, you know, most of the Witnesses were dead.
1:01:47
I mean, Sheree was in a nursing home, you know, other Witnesses
1:01:51
had actually died and, you know, the the frankly, the process
1:01:56
Secutor has had no stomach to take it further so the so the
1:02:00
case was just dropped and but you know the good news was that
1:02:05
I was finally able to get a hold of all the records.
1:02:08
I mean, official records request and I got all of the records
1:02:11
from 1973 and 2005 and for the first time I saw what all the
1:02:18
evidence was and and that became you know, the basis for writing
1:02:23
my book True Crime Redux. And one of the things that we
1:02:28
talked about in our pre-interview that I thought was
1:02:30
really beautiful, was you said that Howard Morton helped you
1:02:35
realize that you had a right to care that even though Betty
1:02:40
wasn't your mom and she didn't really like you and you weren't
1:02:43
with her son anymore. It was okay that you felt such a
1:02:47
connection to this case. And you wanted to tell the
1:02:52
story, Yes, no Howard Morton II interviewed a few sort of
1:03:00
forensic. Experts as I was pulling
1:03:04
together true-crime Redux and one of them was this guy named
1:03:07
Howard Morton, who had founded this advocacy group for the
1:03:13
families of Cold Case, victims called Pho Vamp families of
1:03:16
homicide, victims and missing persons.
1:03:19
And the reason I contacted him was because oddly, he, what?
1:03:24
Happened. When Sherry came forward, with
1:03:26
the confession was she called Betty's closest.
1:03:30
Sister a woman named Jean Brickell.
1:03:33
And in Brickell contacted Howard Morton because Mort one of the
1:03:38
things that Morton did was he would contact and his group.
1:03:42
They would contact the families of coal case victims and say,
1:03:46
would you like us to try to get these cases real and they had
1:03:50
contacted Dwayne's kids who had no interest in real thing.
1:03:54
Case. They also contacted Betty's
1:03:57
family. And so, so Jean had happened to
1:04:01
have Morton's name and he was the one she gave the confession
1:04:04
to and Morton was the intermediary who brought it to
1:04:07
the cold-case cops. So when I was writing the book I
1:04:10
thought I had to talk to this Howard more than, you know, and
1:04:13
I had like no expectations that he would even talk to me.
1:04:17
I found him LinkedIn and and you know, to I didn't even belong to
1:04:21
LinkedIn and and I compose two. Page letter explaining who I was
1:04:26
and then I got in the LinkedIn thing and they give you like,
1:04:28
forty character, haha, I just introduce myself, and to my
1:04:33
shock. He got back to me like, within
1:04:36
an hour by email. He knew who I was.
1:04:39
He had read quiet time. Wow, he wanted to talk and he
1:04:45
said, we got on the phone and we talked for hours.
1:04:49
And first of all, he told me, you know, very touching story
1:04:51
about why. He and his wife had founded,
1:04:53
photo of, It was because their eldest son guy had been murdered
1:04:57
in Arizona in 1986. Stang and murder was never
1:05:02
solved and so he founded this advocacy group and we just had a
1:05:07
really, really long conversation.
1:05:10
And one thing I asked him was, you know, what are the families
1:05:13
of Cold Case victims looking for, you know, I was asking this
1:05:17
is a reporter not thinking how it might affect me.
1:05:22
And he said, I said earlier, are they looking for Justice, you
1:05:25
know, are they looking for vengeance?
1:05:26
Are they looking for Retribution?
1:05:28
He said, nope, we're not looking for that and he was speaking for
1:05:31
himself his wife. But also for most of the people
1:05:34
he had were, which were hundreds of families.
1:05:36
I said, so, you know, what are they looking for?
1:05:39
And he said, they're looking for something much simpler, which is
1:05:42
just to know what happened because you know what happened?
1:05:48
You can't move on. And at that point and then I
1:05:51
realized that he was describing, why?
1:05:54
I have not been able to move on because until I knew that, you
1:06:00
know, for sure that that Dwayne had killed her and what the
1:06:03
circumstances had been. I just I was stuck in a limbo of
1:06:07
blaming myself and you know where I've come out on the other
1:06:11
end of all this is, yes. You know, the wedding did play a
1:06:14
role I was, in some sense, a catalyst, but I was a piece of a
1:06:19
much bigger picture of what was going on in that family.
1:06:24
And what was going on between Duane and Betty.
1:06:27
And I now see myself in the person.
1:06:29
What my mother said, you know, you're not that important was
1:06:33
actually true. It was true.
1:06:35
Not true. But it had more truth than not.
1:06:38
And, you know, you get to see the bigger picture and then you
1:06:43
can accept what your role was because you understand that it
1:06:47
was just a piece of something much larger that you had no
1:06:50
control. And so it's, so he gave that to
1:06:53
me and And as you said, I mean, he validated me because I always
1:06:58
felt a little guilty. You know, being obsessed about
1:07:00
this, not being able to get it out of my head, you know?
1:07:03
Am I ghoulish? Am I you know what's wrong with
1:07:06
me? That I can't get this out of my
1:07:07
head you know? And he validated my right to
1:07:11
care. And and that was tremendous for
1:07:14
me and that, that more than anything else, he helped me move
1:07:17
on from the story and just a little, you know, side thing
1:07:22
since you and I had the pre-interview and the book is
1:07:25
come out. I've gotten two emails that have
1:07:28
made the whole thing worth it. The first from Jean Brickell,
1:07:32
son, read. That was bad, Moses.
1:07:35
Sister and egged me on behalf of his family for writing the book
1:07:41
because now, they know, No, what happened?
1:07:43
He thanked me for providing answers.
1:07:46
They had been looking for for 50 years.
1:07:49
Yes, the other email I got just like last week was from Barb the
1:07:56
second wife's grants away. Yes.
1:08:01
And he thanked me for writing the book because I think, you
1:08:05
know, not only did it give him answers but it resurrected his
1:08:10
grandmother in a way. Way that dignified her, right?
1:08:16
So those things have just, you know, no matter what else
1:08:20
happens, if the book sells doesn't sell, it doesn't matter
1:08:23
me because that just matters much more than anything in this
1:08:28
life. So interesting that ties into
1:08:30
really the last kind of question I had for you and I think I know
1:08:35
what you're going to say our because we did talk about this a
1:08:37
little bit, but we're at the 50th Anniversary.
1:08:40
You know, do you feel satisfied with everything?
1:08:44
Especially now that you've helped give members of the
1:08:50
family, some clarity, some some You know, closure, I'm, I not
1:08:57
just feel satisfied. I feel like I can set my pen
1:09:02
down because the story that drove me to write in the first
1:09:06
place, was this story and quiet time, emerged from that, that
1:09:11
was the first book I ever wrote. And it and True Crime Redux
1:09:16
bookends that and I feel like my purpose as a writer and as a, in
1:09:22
some sense, as a human being In fulfilled because I've provided
1:09:27
these answers not just for me, but for other people who were
1:09:32
also stuck in a limbo when these cases never, you know, went to
1:09:38
to, you know, the full extent of the justices.
1:09:42
So I feel I feel fulfilled in a very personal, emotional sense,
1:09:47
and in, and in the sense of a writer too.
1:09:50
And how do we feel about the way?
1:09:54
that Dwayne, Decided to leave things.
1:10:00
Well, I will spoil a bit of the ending Dwayne ended up
1:10:05
committing suicide. And what immediately happened
1:10:10
before. What what he did was he blew his
1:10:13
brains out with a shotgun on almost the 40th anniversary of
1:10:19
the murder of his wife. You know his wife is bludgeoned
1:10:23
to death, she was beaten in the head and Duane blew his brains
1:10:28
out. So there's an interesting sort
1:10:30
of you know, parallel there. Hmm.
1:10:34
But the reason you know, when I told Gene, I found out from a
1:10:39
family friend of borrowers who contacted me and said, what
1:10:44
never met, you know. Did you know that Duane fry
1:10:46
committed suicide? And I know, you know, and, and
1:10:49
so I call the cold-case cops and they gave me an introduction.
1:10:53
To the detective who had responded to the suicide scene,
1:10:57
which was at their fancy house off a golf course in a gated
1:11:01
community in Florida. And he said that Dwayne had left
1:11:05
a suicide note, but he had never mentioned.
1:11:07
Betty. Oh, not a thing about Betty and
1:11:11
no remorse. And what had happened before he
1:11:16
did. This was that barb had started
1:11:21
suffering from dementia and she had been put in an assisted
1:11:25
living facility. So he was alone, he was alone.
1:11:29
He no longer had the wife, who would clap her hands and say,
1:11:33
oh, you finally found who did it.
1:11:36
He no longer A person to dominate who in turn was
1:11:41
completely dependent on and controlled by him.
1:11:45
He no longer had her adored the adoring face of his idealized
1:11:49
woman staring back at him every day, he didn't have that.
1:11:53
So when he looked in the mirror, all he saw was himself and I
1:11:58
think that's why he killed himself because he mentioned
1:12:01
Barb in the suicide note but not Betty and I think, you know,
1:12:05
once he had you know, one of Of the I think as far as I
1:12:09
understand understand his psychology, you know, he had to
1:12:14
have this idealized wife that he controlled and when he lost
1:12:18
control of her, as he lost control of Betty through her
1:12:21
mental illness, he had to destroy her.
1:12:24
But then he had to, he had to get another one, and he
1:12:27
controlled Barb, he remade her into bed, he's kind of physical
1:12:31
and stylistic ideal, and he completely dominated and
1:12:36
controlled her. With Barb left him through
1:12:40
illness, he couldn't handle being alone.
1:12:44
Wow, he couldn't here alone in the world without one person who
1:12:48
believed in him smiling back and clapping her hands.
1:12:54
So I to me, you know, I mean, people said oh, well you know,
1:12:57
suicide is an evasion of justice, but to me it was a
1:13:01
perfect ending of his hideous, violent life.
1:13:08
It's just that it was it was it was a perfect ending for me.
1:13:16
So I think that brings our general interview to a close.
1:13:21
I liked your book, I was very happy when people reached out to
1:13:26
me to do this interview with you.
1:13:28
I like I said after, we had our first conversation, I was like,
1:13:31
oh, this is gonna go great. But how can people reach you?
1:13:35
If they would like to learn more about you buy more books from
1:13:39
you obviously, True Crime Redux came out a few weeks ago Yes,
1:13:45
and it's available everywhere. Books can be purchased, yes, but
1:13:51
I have a website called writer cane.com That's with came with
1:13:56
akka any and I've got a Facebook page at author, Stephanie Cane,
1:14:02
and there you go, unfortunately, you know, so if you if you email
1:14:07
me like, like those two wonderful guys did through my
1:14:10
website, I will respond to you and I love to Communicate.
1:14:16
You know, I think your story is it was long, the path.
1:14:21
It took you to get to your sense of satisfaction but it's awesome
1:14:26
that it happened and I hope that Well honestly, I hope as we move
1:14:33
forward. As a country to, we could find a
1:14:36
way to be a little bit kinder to the people who are trying to do
1:14:39
the right thing which is what you were trying to do, you were
1:14:43
offering up everything you could remember to try and give closure
1:14:48
for this case. It didn't work out the way that
1:14:51
you would have wanted. But at least people know,
1:14:54
through Reading True Crime Redux what really happened?
1:14:57
And well, I think we all kind of came to the conclusion that
1:15:01
Dwayne did it. Yeah, well there's a lot to be
1:15:04
said for the truth, you know, however much it might hurt.
1:15:08
Well, thank you so much for spending this time with me and
1:15:12
being a part of my first interview in season 3 of the
1:15:15
podcast. Stephanie, thanks a million for
1:15:18
having me. Brittany, I had a wonderful time
1:15:21
and say anybody listening, let me know how you felt.
1:15:26
I will pass comments on to Stephanie.
1:15:28
You can also do email her directly if you like her story
1:15:31
and would like to talk with her. Her about her experiences here
1:15:37
and we're looking forward to seeing what you write.
1:15:41
Now that you are separate from the case of Betty fry have a
1:15:46
good weekend, everybody.