Speaker 1: Hi Pathway, Chili listeners, Jewels here. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of a life update, and
Speaker 1: I've been holding off on doing this because the circumstances
Speaker 1: and situation is so incredibly traumatic. But in the last
Speaker 1: couple of months, my life blew up and I have
Speaker 1: a hard time even explaining all the details. It's very
Speaker 1: complex and it's very nuanced. But my husband took his
Speaker 1: own life, and the circumstances were not so cut and dry.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just a mental health episode. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of deception involved and a big mess was left
Speaker 1: for me, and so there's a lot of complex emotions attached,
Speaker 1: and I do have a story to tell about it.
Speaker 1: It won't be now, it will be later when I
Speaker 1: have some more perspective, and then I will share more
Speaker 1: of the details and more of what I've gone through.
Speaker 1: But I've had to move as a result. My whole
Speaker 1: life has changed, and we've really done our best to
Speaker 1: continue to record with Robin and I and Robin has
Speaker 1: been such an incredible support, and Ashley's been a great
Speaker 1: support too. She just hasn't been present with us, but
Speaker 1: we've been in communication and I wanted to let you
Speaker 1: guys know, because I know a lot of you are
Speaker 1: wondering where is Ashley as she's not dealing with what
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with specifically, She's had a lot of deeply
Speaker 1: personal issues that have happened one after the other. There's
Speaker 1: no tension with us, there's no discord between us. We
Speaker 1: as a group of three are We've got this door
Speaker 1: open for Ashley whenever she wants to come back, whenever
Speaker 1: things calm down for her. But as it is right now,
Speaker 1: just expect that it will be Robin and I until
Speaker 1: everything calms down for Ashley, until her life normalizes and
Speaker 1: she has the bandwidth to be able to record these episodes.
Speaker 1: She's got her family to worry about right now and
Speaker 1: to take care of, and that is priority one, and
Speaker 1: we support her in everything that she does. So if
Speaker 1: any of you want to know how you can help
Speaker 1: or anything you can do. One thing that really raises
Speaker 1: my spirits is anytime I read any of your nice reviews.
Speaker 1: I love to hear reviews on the Path Went Chiley,
Speaker 1: And when you guys talk about what you like about
Speaker 1: the show, or what you like about the host or anything,
Speaker 1: that definitely lifts my spirits. So if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a freeway to support us, that would be fantastic. And
Speaker 1: we have an episode on Debbie Race coming up, So
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to my little spiel. And I'm
Speaker 1: sorry it took so long to share these details with
Speaker 1: you guys. It's been two and a half months now,
Speaker 1: but I really needed to get to a place emotionally
Speaker 1: where I was able to share the information without breaking down. So,
Speaker 1: without further ado, here is the episode.
Speaker 2: Welcome to our latest series of episodes from the Path
Speaker 2: Went Chile. So it'll be Jules and I discussing the
Speaker 2: featured case on our next few episodes, where I share
Speaker 2: the details and she will give off her live reaction. So, Jules,
Speaker 2: have you ever heard of the story of Debbie Race.
Speaker 1: I definitely have not heard of this story or this
Speaker 1: case before because I think I would remember the name,
Speaker 1: and my aunt's name is Debbie, so I think it
Speaker 1: would ring a bell.
Speaker 2: Well, this was a final appeal case on Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 2: It's a potential wrongful conviction because the allegations where that
Speaker 2: Debbie Race was murdered by her husband, Larry Race. But
Speaker 2: this is one of those cases where it's not who
Speaker 2: the real killer was, but whether it was actually a
Speaker 2: murderer at all or nothing more than a tragic accident.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a lesser known version of the Staircase
Speaker 2: murder with Kathleen Peterson, because the allegation here is that
Speaker 2: Larry Race took his wife Debbie out on a boating
Speaker 2: ride late at night in freezing cold temperatures before the
Speaker 2: boat developed a leak, and when they found Debbie's body,
Speaker 2: the official cause of death was hypothermia, and he claimed
Speaker 2: that they had tried to escape on a life raft
Speaker 2: but they wound up getting separated before she froze to death.
Speaker 2: But the authorities would find some holes in his stories
Speaker 2: to make them think that this was an elaborate murder
Speaker 2: plot where he deliberately left his wife out there to
Speaker 2: freeze to death and die of hypothermia. So he wound
Speaker 2: up getting convicted a murder, but there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of debate about whether or not this was actually a
Speaker 2: crime or if he was railroaded because his wife died
Speaker 2: under tragic circumstances. And another paralleled with the Staircase murder
Speaker 2: is that Larry Race is not the most likable husband.
Speaker 2: He's much like Michael Peterson, but there is some debate
Speaker 2: about even if he was a bad husband, whether he
Speaker 2: was actually a murderer.
Speaker 1: These are some of my favorite types of cases, the
Speaker 1: ones where it's like the TV show accidents, suicide or murder,
Speaker 1: where there's some type of ambiguity, or there's a potential
Speaker 1: wrongful conviction, or somebody who isn't being looked at who
Speaker 1: should be looked at, because there's a lot of open
Speaker 1: ended elements of these cases, and sometimes there's the opportunity
Speaker 1: to bring justice to a victim or for there to
Speaker 1: be justice administered in a different type of a scenario
Speaker 1: where there's somebody behind bars who shouldn't be there for
Speaker 1: a murder when it was indeed an accident, or somebody
Speaker 1: else committed the murder. So this is a case that
Speaker 1: I'm really interested to hear the details about because I
Speaker 1: was endlessly fascinated by the staircase and all of the
Speaker 1: details there, and regardless of how I felt about Michael Peterson,
Speaker 1: there was not a lot of evidence they didn't have
Speaker 1: the murder weapon, and it seemed like there was a
Speaker 1: potential for alternate scenarios like the owl theory, where there
Speaker 1: was those microscopic owl pin feathers found in Kathleen's hand.
Speaker 1: It was not so cut and dry. So anything where
Speaker 1: there's a lot of interpretation or a lot of analysis
Speaker 1: needed are cases that I find to be the most fascinating,
Speaker 1: And so I'm really interested for you to fill me
Speaker 1: in on all of this ambiguity and what are the
Speaker 1: holes that were in his statement that made the authorities think, oh,
Speaker 1: this could potentially be a murder rather than just a
Speaker 1: tragic accident.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a spoiler alert, there is no owl theory in
Speaker 2: this case, so we won't present that scenario. But this
Speaker 2: is honestly the only case I can think of in
Speaker 2: which a husband has been accused of murdering his wife
Speaker 2: by a hypothermia, because obviously there were no signs of
Speaker 2: foul play on her body to indicate she had been murdered.
Speaker 2: But can you prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a
Speaker 2: husband left his wife out on a lake somewhere in
Speaker 2: freezing cold temperatures to die and think that's strong enough
Speaker 2: evidence to send an in prison for the rest of
Speaker 2: his life.
Speaker 1: It's really difficult too, because you're going to basically be
Speaker 1: tried and convicted on the type of husband that you
Speaker 1: were right, and you're saying that he's not a very
Speaker 1: likable guy. He's obviously done things that make authorities side
Speaker 1: eye him and think that he could potentially have set
Speaker 1: this whole thing up in order to murder his wife.
Speaker 1: And so I'm hoping that you get into the details
Speaker 1: of why they were on the lake in this freezing
Speaker 1: cold temperature. What was the catalyst or the impetus for
Speaker 1: this boat ride. Was this something that was typical or
Speaker 1: is this like an atypical thing that he's just bringing
Speaker 1: her out on the boat. And so they're going, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: why today, why now? And why in these really you know,
Speaker 1: frigid temperatures when if somebody was to go overboard they
Speaker 1: would be at risk. So yeah, I'm I'm sad for this.
Speaker 2: Cool and you're probably gonna I'm gonna say some things
Speaker 2: about Larry Race that are going to roll your eyes,
Speaker 2: So prepare for that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm prepared.
Speaker 2: So the sakes place on May the eleventh, nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: Larry and Debbie Race were both thirty three years old
Speaker 2: at the time. They lived in the town of Hoite Lakes, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: They'd been married for fourteen years and had three daughters,
Speaker 2: and this particular night happened to be their fourteenth wedding anniversary,
Speaker 2: so the couple decided to celebrate the evening by driving
Speaker 2: to Duluth in order to have dinner at the Lakeview Castle,
Speaker 2: a restaurant which overlooked the north shore of Lake Superior,
Speaker 2: and the Races had been experiencing some problems before this,
Speaker 2: as it turned out that Larry's surprise Surprise had issues
Speaker 2: with infidelity and had conducted extramarial affairs with no fewer
Speaker 2: than four different women during the course of their marriage,
Speaker 2: but Larry described this as being a fresh start because
Speaker 2: it was their fourteenyear anniversary, so they were having a
Speaker 2: romantic evening together and Larry said that they were going
Speaker 2: to work things out that particular night. But when he
Speaker 2: was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries many years later, he made
Speaker 2: a very cringe worthy statement where he said, quote, I
Speaker 2: wanted to stop what I was doing, and I was
Speaker 2: thinking this was maybe the chance. You know, I have
Speaker 2: a wonderful woman here. There's nothing wrong with her end quote.
Speaker 2: And there's nothing wrong with her is obviously the most
Speaker 2: romantic statement you can make about your deceased wife.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that just tells me that if he was so
Speaker 1: in love with her, he would have said, I'm madly
Speaker 1: in love with her. This is the woman that I
Speaker 1: want to make it work with. The fact that there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with her is telling us a lot with
Speaker 1: while he's saying very little. And you said it was
Speaker 1: fourteen years that they were together. Yes, that's a really
Speaker 1: long time. They're only thirty three. They've been together since
Speaker 1: they're nineteen years old, so you can imagine that a
Speaker 1: lot of their youth was spent as a couple together.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what Larry may or may not
Speaker 1: have felt like he missed out on. Obviously he felt
Speaker 1: like he missed out on some stuff because he's out
Speaker 1: there conducting extramarital affairs. And I think that at thirty three,
Speaker 1: you're an adult and you should know better, and if
Speaker 1: you don't want to be in a marriage, then you
Speaker 1: should leave. You shouldn't continue to cheat on your wife
Speaker 1: and commit infidelities. The behavior lacks integrity. So I'm beginning
Speaker 1: to understand why authorities would have looked at Larry and
Speaker 1: been like, Okay, he's got all of these other women.
Speaker 1: They've been together for fourteen years. He's saying that there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with her while he's being interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries.
Speaker 1: Not she was a perfect woman. She was loving, she
Speaker 1: was caring, she was smart, she was beautiful, she lit
Speaker 1: up a room. He could have said a myriad of things,
Speaker 1: none of which he said. So, yeah, it's not really
Speaker 1: looking great for Larry thus far. But as we know,
Speaker 1: just because he's a horrible husband doesn't mean we need
Speaker 1: to indict him for murder. You can be guilty of
Speaker 1: being a dirt bag while still not being a murderer.
Speaker 2: And this is all just speculation on my part because
Speaker 2: I don't know much about their children, But I've always wondered,
Speaker 2: since they got married at the age of nineteen if
Speaker 2: this might have been because she was already pregnant at
Speaker 2: that point, and maybe he felt, well, I have to
Speaker 2: marry her because she's having my even though I'm not ready,
Speaker 2: and that's why he spent all this time like cheating
Speaker 2: on or throughout the course of her marriage. And I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people who watch the Unsolved Mystery
Speaker 2: segment look at Larry. They don't think he's particularly attractive
Speaker 2: or charming, so they think, how did this guy manage
Speaker 2: to find four different women to cheat on through the
Speaker 2: course of his marriage.
Speaker 1: It's always a shocker, isn't it when you think, like,
Speaker 1: how somebody who is just completely mid or like so average,
Speaker 1: how do they manage to ensnare all of these women?
Speaker 1: And part of me has to believe that the women
Speaker 1: that are having affairs with him are looking for a
Speaker 1: guy that is somewhat unavailable, because if you want it
Speaker 1: to be, it's like a woman who is attracted to
Speaker 1: a man in prison. And there's some women who have
Speaker 1: hypristophelia where it's a thing where they're attracted to the
Speaker 1: violence of the danger. But in some cases, I think
Speaker 1: when you see like women who are really into church,
Speaker 1: like we just covered, and in a case right where
Speaker 1: two different women you are going for the same guy,
Speaker 1: and it's it's questionable, but you think, like a guy
Speaker 1: that isn't completely available to them because maybe they aren't
Speaker 1: ready or willing to give all of themselves in a relationship,
Speaker 1: and so they choose somebody like Larry knowing that he's
Speaker 1: not going to commit to them. And maybe that's a
Speaker 1: subconscious level, Maybe consciously they're saying, yes, leave your wife.
Speaker 1: But the reality is if he ever actually did. Maybe
Speaker 1: the women wouldn't know what to do with that because
Speaker 1: Larry isn't exactly the dream guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. It makes me wonder if a lot of
Speaker 2: these husbands interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries do have a more
Speaker 2: charming side when they're off camera, but when they get
Speaker 2: in front and speak on national television, they just can't
Speaker 2: help but look like a jerk. After they had their dinner,
Speaker 2: Larry and Debbie went to the Knife River Marina to
Speaker 2: take their boat out on the lake for a romantic cruise.
Speaker 2: Larry was a major boating and diving enthusiasts and he
Speaker 2: had a twenty two foot cabin cruiser known as the
Speaker 2: Jenny Lee, and they were going to go out and
Speaker 2: listen to music and look at the lights from the
Speaker 2: city in the distance. So now I'm going to tell
Speaker 2: Larry's events, and I can't vouch that these are one
Speaker 2: hundred percent true, but I'm going to give you what
Speaker 2: he said happened. He claimed that around nine pm, when
Speaker 2: they were about a mile off shore, the boat started
Speaker 2: to take on water, and when he took off the
Speaker 2: engine cover, he noticed that there was a leak in
Speaker 2: the water jacket. As the result of a bolt coming loose,
Speaker 2: so he decided to turn the engine off and he
Speaker 2: was able to repair the leak, but the problem was
Speaker 2: that the engine would not start again, presumably because it
Speaker 2: had been flooded. So Larry tried to use the bilge
Speaker 2: pump to remove the water because it was now on
Speaker 2: the floor, but it made a loud sucking noise, which
Speaker 2: he claimed made Debbi think that the pump was pulling
Speaker 2: the floor loose, so she started to panic and become
Speaker 2: hysterical because she could not actually swim and had a
Speaker 2: fear of the water, so she pretty much told Larry
Speaker 2: that she needed to leave the boat immediately because there
Speaker 2: had actually been an incident the previous summer where Larry
Speaker 2: had taken the Jenny Lee out on Lake Superior with
Speaker 2: his two daughters and it struck a reef and actually
Speaker 2: sank to the bottom of the lake. But on that occasion,
Speaker 2: Larry he was able to load his two daughters onto
Speaker 2: a life raft and tow them safely to shore. Because
Speaker 2: he put on a wetsuit or a dry suit, and
Speaker 2: because he was a skilled swimmer, he was able to
Speaker 2: rescue them. So he told Debbie that he was going
Speaker 2: to do the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Well, this is interesting. So was this just a complete
Speaker 1: act of God with the Jenny Lee the first time
Speaker 1: and he rescued his daughters, And did Larry then get
Speaker 1: the idea for how he could kill his wife if
Speaker 1: it was a similar situation. She is like afraid of
Speaker 1: the water in what is seeming like a parallel to
Speaker 1: like the Natalie Wood case where she's terrified of drowning.
Speaker 1: This is another incident that's happening on the boat, and
Speaker 1: I'm sure after what happened with the daughters, she probably
Speaker 1: was scared. And I don't know what the temperature would
Speaker 1: have been like, but I do know that on lakes
Speaker 1: in May it can be really frigid. It can take
Speaker 1: intill August for lakes to warm up, and even then
Speaker 1: they can be really cold to swim in. So even
Speaker 1: though it sounds like it should be warm because it's May,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that you could die of hypothermia. Because
Speaker 1: my birthday is in May, and when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I would always go swimming around my birthday in the
Speaker 1: lake and I remember it just being so cold it
Speaker 1: would feel like a polar bear did So I'm really
Speaker 1: interested if he got the idea from this, or if
Speaker 1: these are just two completely separate events and he had
Speaker 1: the misfortune of having two accidents with his boat in
Speaker 1: a pretty small window of time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the authorities would push that theory forward, that the
Speaker 2: incident with his daughter, that he may have used it
Speaker 2: as inspiration if he wanted to kill his wife, feeling
Speaker 2: that well, if I've repaired the boat, if I take
Speaker 2: her out there again and there's more problems, They're just
Speaker 2: going to find it believable that the boat sank on
Speaker 2: its own and had all these problems, and I'll be
Speaker 2: completely in the clear. But at the same time, it
Speaker 2: doesn't really say much for his judgment that he would
Speaker 2: have this incident, this close call with his daughters and
Speaker 2: then try to take out his wife again in the
Speaker 2: same boat, even though she could not swim and had
Speaker 2: more of a fear of water than his daughters did.
Speaker 2: So it's either way, it's not a situation that makes
Speaker 2: him look very good.
Speaker 1: This is almost giving me like the freedom to John
Speaker 1: Paul Farrell, John Paul Russell type of vibes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the whole thing where they stage sinking a
Speaker 2: boat even though they probably just kept the boat hidden
Speaker 2: somewhere and pretended they drowned. So Larry's story is that
Speaker 2: he grabbed a life raft and inflated it will Debbie
Speaker 2: put on a life jacket, and she also placed her purse,
Speaker 2: valuables and Larry's shoes inside a gear bag, and Larry
Speaker 2: then put on a dry suit. And in case you
Speaker 2: they don't know, the key difference between wetsuits and dry
Speaker 2: suits is that wetsuits will absorb a bit of water,
Speaker 2: but dry suits will completely shield your body and prevent
Speaker 2: you from getting any water, which you will definitely need
Speaker 2: on a lake in the middle of the night in
Speaker 2: Minnesota in May, so I can understand when he put
Speaker 2: that on. But because he was a strong swimmer, his
Speaker 2: plan was to jump in the water and pull Debbie
Speaker 2: and the raft ashore all on his because the water's
Speaker 2: temperature was only thirty seven degrees, so they went through
Speaker 2: with this plan, but Larry told Debbie that when they
Speaker 2: were far away from the boat that he started developing
Speaker 2: cramps and he needed to get into the raft with
Speaker 2: her to have a break. But he said that when
Speaker 2: he attempted to climb inside the raft, had trouble supporting
Speaker 2: both of their weights and started taking on waters, so
Speaker 2: Debby once again panicked and told Larry to remain in
Speaker 2: the lake. And since he had not brought along any
Speaker 2: diving gloves, his hands were very cold, so he started
Speaker 2: rubbing them together for warmth, but that caused him to
Speaker 2: lose his grip on the raft and it started drifting
Speaker 2: away from him. But as this was going on, Larry
Speaker 2: said that he saw what appeared to be some lights
Speaker 2: in the distance from a boat, so he yelled at Debbie,
Speaker 2: just stay in the raft and I'm going to swim
Speaker 2: over to the boat and get help, and then we'll
Speaker 2: return and pick you up. But Larry said that when
Speaker 2: he swam back to the lights, he realized that, oh,
Speaker 2: I was actually looking at my own boat, that Jenny Lee,
Speaker 2: I was not actually looking at another boat. So I
Speaker 2: pretty much just wasted a bunch of time and got
Speaker 2: myself back where I started.
Speaker 1: Okay, So part of this is sounding plausible, part of
Speaker 1: it sounding slightly implausible. But again, if it was a
Speaker 1: genuine event where this happened, I could understand where panic
Speaker 1: would start to hit you. And I know how cold
Speaker 1: your hands can get in a scenario where they're in
Speaker 1: cold water, and like the drysuit. Sure that would be
Speaker 1: really helpful, but it's not going to help your hands.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that it could have played out the
Speaker 1: way that Larry's saying. But it's also possible that this
Speaker 1: could be subterfuge.
Speaker 2: Exactly like I can see someone if they're in a
Speaker 2: panic situation in the dark, in the freezing cold, that
Speaker 2: they could see lights and then become disoriented and automatically
Speaker 2: assume it's a different boat even though it's the same
Speaker 2: location they were just at. But people are going to
Speaker 2: react strangely in those type of situations, so I could
Speaker 2: believe that he might have become confused. But once he
Speaker 2: made it back to the boat, he sawt oh, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try the engine again, and sure enough, this
Speaker 2: time it actually wound up starting. So he claimed that
Speaker 2: he fired off some flares to a signal debbie that
Speaker 2: he was going to start searching for. But he said
Speaker 2: that he went around the lake and could not find
Speaker 2: the debbie or the raft anywhere after searching for several hours,
Speaker 2: so he decided to take the boat back to shore
Speaker 2: and he went to a nearby motel to call for help.
Speaker 2: So the Coastcard were notified and went out on the
Speaker 2: Lake Superior. But even though they spent the rest of
Speaker 2: the night searching for Debbie, they had no luck finding
Speaker 2: her or the raft, and it would be several more hours.
Speaker 2: It would not be until four pm on the afternoon
Speaker 2: of May the twelfth, which was nearly twenty four hours
Speaker 2: after they originally went on the lake, when a teenage
Speaker 2: boy wound up finding Debbie's body washed up on shore
Speaker 2: near London Road, which was about seven miles southwest of
Speaker 2: the original search area. She was still wearing her life jacket,
Speaker 2: but they determined that her cause of death was immerged
Speaker 2: in hypothermia. So on the surface, this obviously doesn't look
Speaker 2: like a murder because there are no signs of foul
Speaker 2: play on her body.
Speaker 1: No, but why was she not in the raft?
Speaker 2: Yep, And that's going to be one of the biggest
Speaker 2: in this story is that this raft was never actually found. So,
Speaker 2: as you can imagine, they start finding parts of Larry's
Speaker 2: story to be suspicious.
Speaker 1: Well, that's fair, And like, what kind of raft was
Speaker 1: this supposed to be? Just like a blow up life raft?
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. So at first they thought that Debbie's
Speaker 2: death was nothing more than a tragic accident, but the
Speaker 2: authority started noticing some discrepancies in Larry's story, which I'm
Speaker 2: going to share momentarily. But of course, once they started
Speaker 2: looking into his background, they discovered that he had purchased
Speaker 2: a life insurance policy on Debbi seven months earlier, which
Speaker 2: was worth one hundred and eight thousand dollars. And at
Speaker 2: the time, Larry was also experiencing financial problems because, like
Speaker 2: I said, he had a passion for scuba diving and
Speaker 2: had gone on a bunch of expeditions to search for
Speaker 2: shipwrecks at the bottom of Lake Superior. But because he
Speaker 2: never found anything, the hobby was very costly and it
Speaker 2: wound up putting him into debts. So they started wondering
Speaker 2: if he might have tried to find a way to
Speaker 2: kill his wife in order to collect the insurance money
Speaker 2: in order to pay off his debts. And of course,
Speaker 2: once they started lurking into his background and found out
Speaker 2: that he had conducted a bunch of extramarital affairs, that
Speaker 2: started raising some more red flags, particularly since one of
Speaker 2: these affairs have been going on up until the very
Speaker 2: weekend before Debbie's death. So even though Larry had said
Speaker 2: that he wanted to get a fresh start and put
Speaker 2: an end to all his infidelity. It obviously didn't look
Speaker 2: good that his wife found up dead only a few
Speaker 2: days after he said that he was supposedly ending this affair.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Larry did plan this, at least he
Speaker 1: had the sense to wait over a few months after
Speaker 1: buying a life insurance policy. We see far too often
Speaker 1: when somebody buys one and then like a month later,
Speaker 1: the person is dead. Seven months isn't a huge chunk
Speaker 1: of time. And why would he need one hundred and
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars life insurance policy in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 1: so like, let's just say that would be roughly two
Speaker 1: hundred and sixteen thousand dollars today. Why would he require
Speaker 1: on his wife and at the age of thirty three.
Speaker 1: I know they've got children, and I know that you're
Speaker 1: going to have expenses, but it seems a little bit excessive.
Speaker 1: And it also does seem to be in a pretty
Speaker 1: small window of time. I mean, it could all be
Speaker 1: by chance, but this affair being right up until the
Speaker 1: weekend prior to this, then you're factoring in debts as well.
Speaker 1: It's not really looking good for Larry. And I'm not
Speaker 1: getting a good gut feeling.
Speaker 2: Well, now I'm going to talk about some of the
Speaker 2: discrepancies in his story, which made the police extra suspicious
Speaker 2: because he was such an expert on boating. They thought
Speaker 2: it was very odd and out of character that he
Speaker 2: would decide to abandon the boat so quickly and even
Speaker 2: go into the life raft to begin with, because if
Speaker 2: there was someone who knew how to fix a boat
Speaker 2: that was experiencing mechanical problems, it should have been him.
Speaker 2: So when the police boarded the Jenny Lee and inspected it,
Speaker 2: they did discover a minor leak in the engine and
Speaker 2: a few inches of water in the hull, but they
Speaker 2: found no indication that the boat had been any danger
Speaker 2: of sinking because the bills pump could have easily pumped
Speaker 2: out the remaining water. Well, Larry's rationale for that is that, yes,
Speaker 2: if I had been out on the boat alone, I
Speaker 2: probably wouldn't have gone into the raft. I would have
Speaker 2: been able to handle the situation. But he says he
Speaker 2: was pretty much trying to appease Debbie because she was
Speaker 2: just going into a major panic and pretty much said,
Speaker 2: I have to get off this boat right now. Is
Speaker 2: going to sync, which is why he made the decision
Speaker 2: to put her in the raft and try to drag
Speaker 2: her to shore. So you can interpret this in a
Speaker 2: number of different ways that maybe this sounds kind of
Speaker 2: convenient that he just overreacted like this, But at the
Speaker 2: same time, if your wife is having a panic attack,
Speaker 2: you may do things you ordinarily wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: This is very true. It could go either way, and
Speaker 1: I think it depends on how you want to interpret it,
Speaker 1: and it kind of depends on how you're the vibe
Speaker 1: that you're getting from Larry, right, are you getting a
Speaker 1: vibe from him that there's a potential that this could
Speaker 1: have been an accident? And we don't know as much
Speaker 1: about Debbie as we do about Larry, and more so
Speaker 1: how Larry reacts in this situation. I don't want to
Speaker 1: judge it fully yet, but I am seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of red flags and I'm not judging the behavior that
Speaker 1: he's saying, like you know, the swimming away from the vessel,
Speaker 1: if Debbie was indeed having a panic attack. It's more
Speaker 1: of the fact that we are not finding this life
Speaker 1: raft after the fact, Like what are the chances that
Speaker 1: the boat is going to sink? And then what the
Speaker 1: life raft sinks, or we're to believe that Debbie jumps
Speaker 1: out of the life draft when she seems to be
Speaker 1: very scared of the water because she can't swim. It's
Speaker 1: seeming a little improbable.
Speaker 2: Yes, And we're going to talk about later on how
Speaker 2: Larry would try to come up with an excuse for
Speaker 2: why the life raft wasn't found, which would only dig
Speaker 2: himself a deeper hole and make the authorities more suspicious
Speaker 2: of him. But I'm going to talk now what I
Speaker 2: think is one of the most troubling discrepancies, and it's
Speaker 2: the timeline. Because Larry claimed that he went out on
Speaker 2: the boat sometime after nine pm and that's when they
Speaker 2: started having the problems with the water and the sinking,
Speaker 2: like a short time time later. But the issue is
Speaker 2: that he did not actually call the coastguard for help
Speaker 2: until around two thirty am. So Larry tried to explain
Speaker 2: this large window of time by claiming that after he
Speaker 2: lost the grip on the raft and swam back to
Speaker 2: the Jenny Lee and separate from Debbie, he was so
Speaker 2: exhausted when he climbed on board that he immediately passed
Speaker 2: out and was out for a couple hours before he
Speaker 2: woke up, and that's when he restarted the engine and
Speaker 2: discovered it was working again, and spent some time searching
Speaker 2: around the lake for Debbie before he made it back
Speaker 2: to land and made the phone call. But five and
Speaker 2: a half hours does seem like an awful lot of time,
Speaker 2: and it just seems weird that he would just happen
Speaker 2: to pass out the moment he gets back to the boat,
Speaker 2: and then when he wakes up, the engine would just
Speaker 2: happen to start working again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not really sounding all that likely, and it's
Speaker 1: just like another strike against Larry in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's one of the big things is that
Speaker 2: he would change his story a lot when speaking to
Speaker 2: the authorities, because I'm not even sure he gave this
Speaker 2: story about passing out for all these hours until he
Speaker 2: was told about the discrepancy and the call to the
Speaker 2: Coastguard not coming in until two thirty am, five and
Speaker 2: a half hours after the sinking started. So in his
Speaker 2: original statement, Larry denied having brought any scuba gear on
Speaker 2: board the Jenny Lee until a witness came forward and
Speaker 2: claimed that they had been at the Knife Point Marine
Speaker 2: ad around seven thirty pm that night, and saw Larry
Speaker 2: loading a scuba tank onto the boat shortly before he
Speaker 2: and Debbie went out on the water. So when Larry's
Speaker 2: confronted about this, he changed his story and said that, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: I did bring a scuba tank along with them, and
Speaker 2: it placed it in the life raft with Debbie before
Speaker 2: they left the boat in case they needed it for
Speaker 2: an emergency. So his logic is that the scuba gear
Speaker 2: just disappeared when Debbie fell out of the raft. But
Speaker 2: of course the raft, the scuba tank, and also the
Speaker 2: gear bag containing Debbie's purse and Larry's shoes just could
Speaker 2: not be found, and the coast Guard, even though they
Speaker 2: performed an extensive search for these items, said that, yeah,
Speaker 2: an inflatable life raft is very unlikely to sink to
Speaker 2: the bottom and never be found. So I think if
Speaker 2: it had been in the area, we would have found it,
Speaker 2: and we would have found the scuba gear somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not really looking very good for Larry that
Speaker 1: there were to believe that this inflatable life raft just
Speaker 1: what like disappears. It's not something heavy like metal, where
Speaker 1: you know, if it's it could sink to the bottom,
Speaker 1: it's going to be pretty buoyant even if deflated, I
Speaker 1: would think, and especially when the coast guard is saying
Speaker 1: that like this is incredibly atypical that this would deflate
Speaker 1: and then sink to the bottom, it seems to be
Speaker 1: adding up with Larry. So I'm starting to understand why
Speaker 1: the authorities were looking at him and going ooh, maybe
Speaker 1: he did this to Debbie.
Speaker 2: And now I'm going to talk about the weird discrepancy
Speaker 2: with the life raft, because a raft was found on
Speaker 2: the Jenny Lee, but the issue was is that it
Speaker 2: had five cuts and punctures on it. And according to Larry,
Speaker 2: he always kept two life rafts aboard the boat and
Speaker 2: had at first attempted to inflate this one, but after
Speaker 2: noticing there were some holes in it, he decided to
Speaker 2: inflate the second one, and this was the one that
Speaker 2: Debbie went into when they went into the water. Larry
Speaker 2: initially denied that the raft found on the boat had
Speaker 2: ever been in the lake, but investigators noticed that there
Speaker 2: were several gallons of water in it, so once again
Speaker 2: Larry changed his story and now claimed that he had
Speaker 2: tossed the raft over the side into the lake when
Speaker 2: he discovered there were holes in it. But then when
Speaker 2: he swam back to the Genni Lee, he decided to
Speaker 2: bring it back on board before he passed out. And
Speaker 2: you're giving off a reaction here like, oh, come.
Speaker 1: On, yeah, no you didn't, Larry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody's going to be thinking that if they're going
Speaker 2: to panicked the situation and say that, oh, my raft,
Speaker 2: which is completely useless, I'm going to bring that back
Speaker 2: on board. And the story only opened up another troubling
Speaker 2: discrepancy because the caps on the raft's air chambers were
Speaker 2: securely closed, so in order to have inflated the raft,
Speaker 2: like Larry said, he would have needed to open the
Speaker 2: air chambers, but they thought it was pretty odd that
Speaker 2: he would go to the trouble of closing them again
Speaker 2: before tossing the raft over the side.
Speaker 1: None of this makes sense, like, none of it whatsoever,
Speaker 1: especially the part where he swims back to the Jenny Lee.
Speaker 1: He's freezing, his hands are ice cold. He thinks he
Speaker 1: sees lights, he's swimming towards those lights. He realizes it's
Speaker 1: the Jenny Lee. I'm back where I started. Oh, there's
Speaker 1: the LFE raft. Why don't I toss it back in
Speaker 1: the boat? Like, I don't think that's going to be
Speaker 1: top of mind or a priority. Larry.
Speaker 2: Yes, so I'm thinking maybe that the wheels are spinning
Speaker 2: and the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come
Speaker 2: together here. But that's the exact thing that happened. The
Speaker 2: authorities because they noticed that the five cuts and punctures
Speaker 2: on the raft were all located at the bottom and
Speaker 2: it severed both of the chambers, which made them think
Speaker 2: that these cuts have been made intentionally while the raft
Speaker 2: was already fully inflated. And since they could not find
Speaker 2: this second life raft that Larry said he had anywhere
Speaker 2: on Lake Superior, they began to formulate a theory that yes,
Speaker 2: Larry had taken her out on the raft in the
Speaker 2: middle of Lake Superior, but then went underneath while he
Speaker 2: was in his scuba gear in order to puncture it,
Speaker 2: and then Debbie wound up falling into the water and
Speaker 2: this is why she died of hypothermia. And then, in
Speaker 2: order to have this cover story, Larry brought the punctured
Speaker 2: raft back to the boat with them. But they pretty
Speaker 2: much figured out that this was not an unfortunate series
Speaker 2: of events a tragic accident. They thought this was an
Speaker 2: elaborate murder plot. In which Larry arranged things so that
Speaker 2: his wife would go into the freezing water or die
Speaker 2: of hypothermia and he could pass it off as an accident.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that I'm starting to side with authorities here,
Speaker 1: especially when we're looking at the missing raft. We've got
Speaker 1: missing scuba gear, scuba gear he didn't even talk about.
Speaker 1: We've got this huge chunk of missing time where he
Speaker 1: then adds that he was just like passed out. None
Speaker 1: of this seems to add up. And I'm just not
Speaker 1: believing for a second that what we've got punctures in
Speaker 1: the one life raft that we found on the boat
Speaker 1: on the general le that he supposedly put back in,
Speaker 1: and then there's a whole other life raft that maybe
Speaker 1: there's punctures in that too, or were to believe that
Speaker 1: Debbie vacated the life raft for some reason. I don't
Speaker 1: buy any of it. It sounds so so suspicious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of a thing where the
Speaker 2: authorities are having red flags. But I don't know if
Speaker 2: they've ever like tried a case like this before where
Speaker 2: a husband has murdered his wife through a hypothermia, but
Speaker 2: they thought that they could convince a jury, so in
Speaker 2: April of nineteen eighty three, they presented the case against
Speaker 2: Larry to a grand jury and he was formally indicted
Speaker 2: with first degree murder. So Larry would go on trial
Speaker 2: in October of that year, and the case was presented
Speaker 2: by Saint Louis County attorney John DeSanto, And when he
Speaker 2: was interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries years later, he gave a
Speaker 2: very famous line where he said, quote, I don't think
Speaker 2: this story is appropriate for Unsolved Mysteries because this is
Speaker 2: simply not an unsolved mystery end quote. So I wonder
Speaker 2: if he would say that about our podcasts, saying this
Speaker 2: story is not appropriate for the Path with Chili because
Speaker 2: the path did not go Chili, and quote.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could interpret it like that.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know that John DeSanto. Some Unsolved Mysteries fans
Speaker 2: don't like him because they think he comes across as
Speaker 2: arrogantly when he says that. But when you look at
Speaker 2: like how the trial plays out, he does make a
Speaker 2: lot of valid points and does present a very convincing
Speaker 2: case to the jury. So even if Larry was wrongly convicted,
Speaker 2: you can't really fault DeSanto because I think he legitimately
Speaker 2: believed that Larry was a murderer and was going to
Speaker 2: make sure he had a very solid case before he
Speaker 2: presented it at trial. So the prosecution's theory was that
Speaker 2: Larry had dreamed up a plot to murder his wife
Speaker 2: and make her death look like an accident because he
Speaker 2: wanted to escape an unhappy marriage and cash in on
Speaker 2: Debbie's life insurance policy in order to pay off his debts.
Speaker 2: And they would get testimony from two of the women
Speaker 2: that Larry had conducted affairs with, who said that he
Speaker 2: often complained about his wife a lot, saying that he
Speaker 2: would wind that Debbie was overweight, she spent too much money,
Speaker 2: it was also a bad housekeeper. In fact, shortly before
Speaker 2: Debbie's death, Larry had actually contacted both of these women
Speaker 2: and told them that if they were questioned by police,
Speaker 2: he wanted them to just say that they were nothing
Speaker 2: more than free and that they hadn't had actual affairs.
Speaker 1: Okay, Larry, like, this isn't gonna fly, So it's just
Speaker 1: giving me a little bit of like Scott Peterson energy too,
Speaker 1: where he had the whole affair with Aberfry and tried
Speaker 1: to downplay it. But here we have multiple affairs, and
Speaker 1: it's going right up until basically this happens with Debbie.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't look good for Larry, especially when we're
Speaker 1: factoring in the debt and the life insurance policy and
Speaker 1: his ever changing story. I can understand and appreciate how
Speaker 1: this would be a very difficult case to try, because
Speaker 1: it's hard to prove that somebody's been murdered through hypothermia.
Speaker 1: I think it's more looking at his inconsistent story and
Speaker 1: all of these different variables or stressors in his life
Speaker 1: that could push him towards murdering his wife. I mean,
Speaker 1: love and money. We've got both motivators here. And then
Speaker 1: when we also look at the way that he talked
Speaker 1: about Debbie and that unsolved mysteries inter saying there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with her, that tells us a lot. He's not
Speaker 1: telling us what's right with her. He's just saying there's
Speaker 1: like nothing wrong with her. It's like saying, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: like there's nothing wrong with Brussels sprouts. I just like
Speaker 1: don't like them. You know, it's not something that you're
Speaker 1: when you're speaking warmly about something or someone, you don't
Speaker 1: say there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I have seen other suspected husbands who
Speaker 2: have at least put forward the facade about how much
Speaker 2: they loved that they're missing a murdered wife, and even
Speaker 2: if you don't believe them, at least they're trying and
Speaker 2: saying glowing things. Whereas Larry's like, well, she was okay,
Speaker 2: there was nothing wrong with her. But even though a
Speaker 2: lot of these mistresses of his testified that he constantly
Speaker 2: complained about all the things that were wrong with her.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that Larry's defenders bringing up
Speaker 2: is that this would have been an incredibly difficult murder
Speaker 2: plot to pull off, because swimming out in that freezing
Speaker 2: cold water in the middle of the night to try
Speaker 2: to murder your wife is a huge risk where he
Speaker 2: could have very well wound up of hypothermia himself. But
Speaker 2: the thing that was unique about Larry is that he
Speaker 2: was incredibly passionate about scuba diving, and he dove in
Speaker 2: Lake Superior an average of forty times per year. So
Speaker 2: the prosecution argued that this hobby would have allowed him
Speaker 2: to acquire quite a bit of knowledge of immersion hypothermia
Speaker 2: and try to dream up a way to kill his
Speaker 2: wife in such a fashion without causing any harm to himself.
Speaker 2: So the theory that was presented at trial is that
Speaker 2: Larry took Debbie out onto the lake and tricked her
Speaker 2: into getting in the life raft by telling her that
Speaker 2: the boat was sinking, even though there was nothing really
Speaker 2: seriously wrong with it, but he could push forward this
Speaker 2: scenario that I'm going to drag the raft to shore
Speaker 2: with you in it, because he had done the exact
Speaker 2: same thing with his daughters when the boat legitimately had
Speaker 2: trouble the previous summer. So Larry then put on his
Speaker 2: scuba gear, which he claimed he never brought initially, and
Speaker 2: then dragged Debbie and the raft a great distance away
Speaker 2: from the Jenny Lee before he decided to swim underwater
Speaker 2: and slash the bottom wad the knife, severing the air
Speaker 2: chambers and as a result, the raft wound up the
Speaker 2: plating and Debbie was in the freezing water, where she
Speaker 2: eventually succumbed to hypothermia. So Larry then dragged this to
Speaker 2: flate a raft back to the Jenny Lee and concocted
Speaker 2: a fake story to feed you to the authorities, and
Speaker 2: then he went back to shore and called for help,
Speaker 2: and while this was going on, Larry was wearing a
Speaker 2: dry suit, which would have allowed him to swim in
Speaker 2: this thirty seven degree water for an extended period of
Speaker 2: time without developing hypothermia. So it seems like a clever
Speaker 2: murder plot that you would find in a work of fiction.
Speaker 2: But the problem is is that Larry didn't account for everything,
Speaker 2: and that's why all these holes started emerging in his story.
Speaker 1: I think it is a really clever plot because it's
Speaker 1: hard to prove. But like you said, Larry didn't plan
Speaker 1: everything to the last detail. His knowledge of forensic countermeasures
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two wasn't what it would be for
Speaker 1: somebody today. You can imagine somebody today trying to do
Speaker 1: this and like engaging the help of chat, GPT or
Speaker 1: like yeah, or you know, scouring the insuranet, scouring the
Speaker 1: dark web, reading any type of forensic textbook. What people
Speaker 1: have access to today versus nineteen eighty two is astounding.
Speaker 1: So is it because Larry is just a horrible criminal
Speaker 1: or he isn't that intelligent. I think it's lack of
Speaker 1: access to information and maybe not anticipating the way that
Speaker 1: the investigation would be conducted and the types of questions
Speaker 1: that would be asked, and I think he addressed most
Speaker 1: of the things that he thought would be brought up,
Speaker 1: but he didn't do that great of a job in explaining,
Speaker 1: and he just assumed that they would take his word
Speaker 1: for it. But I also don't think that he thought,
Speaker 1: maybe they're going to dig up all this information about
Speaker 1: the affairs and the debt and the life insurance, and
Speaker 1: they're going to have more questions for me, so I
Speaker 1: better have this like airtight alibi slash story. And I
Speaker 1: think that's where he fumbled. He really didn't get his
Speaker 1: ducks in a row with his story. Because of that,
Speaker 1: he ended up having to evolve and change his story.
Speaker 1: And that is one thing you learn in statement analysis
Speaker 1: about the truth is the truth doesn't change. You can
Speaker 1: ask that same question a myriad of different ways. You
Speaker 1: can ask it ten different ways, and the answer will
Speaker 1: remain the same. The person might say it slightly differently,
Speaker 1: but if you actually look at what they're saying, it
Speaker 1: doesn't evolve and it doesn't change. We're looking at deception
Speaker 1: here with Larry's ever evolving story, and I do not
Speaker 1: think that we can chalk it up to trauma. I
Speaker 1: personally think that he got that inspiration from the boat
Speaker 1: sinking where he rescued his daughters the first time, and
Speaker 1: was like, this is going to be a good strategy.
Speaker 1: I'm going to employ this and I'm going to murder
Speaker 1: my wife.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the problem here is he probably just
Speaker 2: assumed that it would be written off as an accident
Speaker 2: and he'd only have to tell the story once and
Speaker 2: that would be it, because no one would be opening
Speaker 2: a bahamicide investigation. But once the once they opened up
Speaker 2: these discrepancies, that's when he had to change a story
Speaker 2: in order to account for them. And of course they
Speaker 2: put a lot of the emphasis on this raft that
Speaker 2: was found on the Jenny Lee with all the puncture
Speaker 2: marks in it, because obviously he can't say that this
Speaker 2: was the raft that Debbie used when she went out
Speaker 2: on the lake, because how you explain where the cuts
Speaker 2: came from. That about brings an into part one of
Speaker 2: our series about the death of Debbie Race. Join us
Speaker 2: again next week for part two.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, the Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon if you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to
Speaker 2: Patreon and if you join our highest tier tier three,
Speaker 2: the ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer
Speaker 2: is a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
Speaker 3: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 3: free episodes of the Path Went chili. We've got our
Speaker 3: Path Went Chili mini's, which are always over an hour,
Speaker 3: so they're not very many, but they're just too short
Speaker 3: to turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 3: so we hope you'll check out those patreons. We'll link
Speaker 3: them in the show notes.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy