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