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Speaker 3: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 3: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 3: written about them Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK
Speaker 3: every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 3: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 3: your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. The officer responding to a nine to one
Speaker 5: one call at one of Houston's hippiest high rises expected
Speaker 5: the worst. After all, domestic violent situations can be unpredictable,
Speaker 5: but nothing could have prepared him for what he found.
Speaker 5: A beautiful woman drenched in blood, an older man lying
Speaker 5: dead on the floor, and a cobalt blue swayed stiletto
Speaker 5: with tufts of white hair stuck to its five and
Speaker 5: a half inch heel. With her stunning looks, magnetic personality
Speaker 5: and erratic behavior, Anna Trigillo had a notorious reputation on
Speaker 5: the downtown Houston scene. He spoke often of occult powers,
Speaker 5: though few knew how deeply she believed such boasts. Stephan
Speaker 5: Anderson was a gentle soul, a sweetish transplant with a
Speaker 5: good career and trusted friends who was desperate to find
Speaker 5: someone special. Theirs is a story of obsession, madness, and
Speaker 5: tragedy because once Stefan fell hard, head over heels for Anna,
Speaker 5: he was under her control and he didn't have a
Speaker 5: chance in hell. The book they were featuring this seven
Speaker 5: is Possessed, the infamous text Stiletto Murder. With my special guest,
Speaker 5: journalist and author Katherine Casey. Welcome back to the program,
Speaker 5: and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview.
Speaker 5: Catherine Casey, thank.
Speaker 4: You for inviting me. Dan happy to be here.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much. You've uncovered another wild, wild tale.
Speaker 5: I'm sure the audience will appreciate this incredible story and
Speaker 5: a very very colorful killer to say the least. Now,
Speaker 5: what brought you to write about this case in particular?
Speaker 5: How did you come to be this story to be
Speaker 5: important to you and to write Possessed? Tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about that.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I covered Texas quite a bit and
Speaker 4: this is in my hometown. It's in Houston, and I
Speaker 4: was actually in London when the story broke, but it
Speaker 4: was all over the international media. The BBC latched onto it.
Speaker 4: It's just such a bizarre tale. I mean, it's something
Speaker 4: we see in movies, you know, a man being beaten
Speaker 4: to death by a woman with stiletto heel, but not
Speaker 4: in real life. Stiletto's are kind of like the ultimate
Speaker 4: symbol of female sexuality. So it just seems such an
Speaker 4: odd thing to have happened. And I was attracted by
Speaker 4: the story of the victim. He was a brilliant man,
Speaker 4: a scientist, and he seemed a very unlikely person who've
Speaker 4: gotten into this situation.
Speaker 5: Now, let's talk about this character, Stefan Anderson. You say
Speaker 5: he was born in Vostoris, a city of one hundred
Speaker 5: and ten thousand in Sweden, and Sweden being a small
Speaker 5: country of about ten million. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about Now you talk about his parents, Irene and Harry,
Speaker 5: and his siblings Marie and Ellie. Tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about Stefan Anderson and the environment that he grew
Speaker 5: up in with his parents in Sweden, before we talk
Speaker 5: about his big transition to America and everything that happened
Speaker 5: as a result.
Speaker 4: Well, actually, Stefan was imprinted as a boy. He grew
Speaker 4: up in a household where there was domestic violence. He
Speaker 4: often talked to his friends about his parents and talked
Speaker 4: about feeling just unable to protect his mother when his
Speaker 4: father would get angry, and about the effect that it
Speaker 4: had on him. So he grew up not wanting to
Speaker 4: not be his father. It was very important to him
Speaker 4: that he wasn't that man, and he always talked about
Speaker 4: how he would never be able to hit a woman.
Speaker 5: Now this right away, he's recognized as a very bright child.
Speaker 5: And tell us what you say that his father worked
Speaker 5: for the railroad, but Stefan experienced this bullying in his childhood.
Speaker 5: So tell us a little bit more about his experience
Speaker 5: with his father and that relationship and what Stefan came
Speaker 5: to remember as terms of his behavior from his father.
Speaker 4: Well, Steffan was awfully disappointed at times that his father
Speaker 4: wasn't proud of him. It was kind of a recurring
Speaker 4: theme throughout Stefan's life. Steffan was, as you mentioned, very
Speaker 4: very bright, and as a young man he was recognized
Speaker 4: as so by his teachers and then by others, and
Speaker 4: he did things. He actually developed a camouflage pattern and
Speaker 4: set it in to the Swedish Army and suggested that
Speaker 4: it could be a good one, and a high ranking
Speaker 4: officer wrote back and was very laudatory about how wonderful
Speaker 4: this was, and you know what a wonderful young man
Speaker 4: he was. And when he showed it to his father,
Speaker 4: his father was angry that he had gotten attention. His
Speaker 4: parents wanted him to just blend in and to live
Speaker 4: as they lived. They were quite upset when he went
Speaker 4: to the university. Or not his mother, but his father was.
Speaker 4: It wasn't something that they saw for him. They thought
Speaker 4: that he was supposed to live the life that his
Speaker 4: dad thought that he was supposed to live the life
Speaker 4: that he had lived.
Speaker 5: Now, also, what you talk about is for our audience,
Speaker 5: not everybody knows about Sweden, but sort of the effect
Speaker 5: of the weather, the long winters and not very well
Speaker 5: of short summers, but sort of the attitude in Sweden.
Speaker 5: And he is this person in nineteen seventy nine, as
Speaker 5: you read, he registers at Uppsala University Pharmacy school. So
Speaker 5: he's taking that natural intelligence and putting it towards which
Speaker 5: seems like his love of chemistry, and moving towards pharmacy.
Speaker 5: Tell us a little bit about Sweden itself and what
Speaker 5: he experienced there before we talk about again why he
Speaker 5: would have moved to America, away from his family, away
Speaker 5: from that life. Tell us a little bit about what
Speaker 5: you write in the book about Sweden.
Speaker 4: Well, Sweden is a beautiful country, lots of green, lots
Speaker 4: of hills, it has the lakes. It's a beautiful place.
Speaker 4: But it's dark much of the winter. There are periods
Speaker 4: during the winter when the daylight is only a couple
Speaker 4: of hours, two or three hours, and that bothered Stefawn.
Speaker 4: It depressed him. He really found that he loved the
Speaker 4: sunshine and that would become kind of a theme throughout
Speaker 4: his life that he wanted to be in warm places
Speaker 4: with bright sun.
Speaker 5: No, he's gotten a lot of offers after he earns
Speaker 5: his master's degree in pharmacy, as you mentioned this, inventions
Speaker 5: or innovations, but he also had a paper published, he
Speaker 5: achieved recognition, was granted patents on we talked about the discoveries,
Speaker 5: and again his father was not proud of his accomplishments,
Speaker 5: and so he had been offered positions from research facilities
Speaker 5: around the world. So tell us about how he decided
Speaker 5: and when he decided, or how about how he decided
Speaker 5: to make this big dramatic move and where did he
Speaker 5: move to?
Speaker 4: Well, because of his love of the sunshine, Stefan decided
Speaker 4: he really wanted to be in a climate with that
Speaker 4: type of atmosphere. And there was a Swedish man who
Speaker 4: was heading up a department in Dallas at one of
Speaker 4: the big research centers there, and he made Steffan an offer,
Speaker 4: and Stefan went to Dallas, looked it over and decided
Speaker 4: to move. Texas has bright sunshine, has a lot of warmth.
Speaker 4: Those were things he appreciated. Andy was moving into an
Speaker 4: atmosphere where he had someone from his country to work for,
Speaker 4: so it was actually kind of a perfect fit for him.
Speaker 4: He loved Dallas. He moved into an apartment there and
Speaker 4: he was often spent a lot of time at the pool.
Speaker 4: He'd sit there and read newspapers and magazines and to
Speaker 4: soak up the Texas sun.
Speaker 5: No, he is a complete person in terms of his business.
Speaker 5: He's very, very successful, but he lacks in certain areas
Speaker 5: and he's meeting people. But what is it about? How
Speaker 5: would you describe as character for the again a brilliant
Speaker 5: a brilliant scientist and a brilliant mind. Socially, what would
Speaker 5: you categorize how would you characterize him as he moves there,
Speaker 5: and tell us a little bit about his character, because
Speaker 5: I think it's important to know what and who Ana
Speaker 5: meets much later on.
Speaker 4: Well, he really had a lot of friends, and they
Speaker 4: would go out in the evenings and they would circulate
Speaker 4: between the bars and the restaurants. But at the same time,
Speaker 4: Steffan was very lonely. He always wanted that special person
Speaker 4: in his life. He often talked about having a family.
Speaker 4: At one point in Dallas, he married and they moved
Speaker 4: to New York together and it was exciting and wonderful,
Speaker 4: but it didn't work out, and he was very disappointed,
Speaker 4: and I don't think he ever really understood why it
Speaker 4: didn't work out. It was one of those marriages where
Speaker 4: they had just rather drifted apart. They were doing other things.
Speaker 4: So he returned to Dallas and to Southwest Medical Center
Speaker 4: where he was working as a research scientist. When he
Speaker 4: came back, he was working on steroids and hormones and
Speaker 4: how they affect women's bodies during pregnancy. It with important work.
Speaker 4: He was looking at how to prevent premature birth.
Speaker 5: No, you say he has relationships one with Jackie for
Speaker 5: four years but they drift apart. He all at that
Speaker 5: time he had wanted a family, and he'd wanted children,
Speaker 5: and it seemed after that you write that this divorce
Speaker 5: really devastated him. So then he he would return to
Speaker 5: Sweden every year, visiting his families and friends. In mid nineties,
Speaker 5: he became a US citizen, and then in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 5: a woman from Sweden, Anika Lindquist, who had been influenced
Speaker 5: to move to the US, began working for him. Now,
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about this relationship because it's
Speaker 5: important because he is still in contact with her later
Speaker 5: when he when he meets Anna, So tell us a
Speaker 5: little bit about this relationship and what it means for Stefan.
Speaker 4: Stefan and Anaka became very close. They became they were
Speaker 4: good co workers together. She kind of filled him out.
Speaker 4: Steffan was great with big ideas and coming up with
Speaker 4: different avenues they could look into, and Anika was born
Speaker 4: nuts and bolts, so she kind of carried it through.
Speaker 4: They really got along very well and we're really good friends.
Speaker 4: And Anka started going out with Steffan's friends in the evenings,
Speaker 4: going to the restaurants and having fun. For a short time,
Speaker 4: a period of months they had a romantic relationship, but
Speaker 4: it didn't work out. Anaka is very outdoorsy. She she
Speaker 4: liked camping and she liked doing She didn't care if
Speaker 4: it was a ninety five degrees, she'd go for a hike.
Speaker 4: And Steffan was the kind of guy who wanted to
Speaker 4: go to the local restaurant on a Sunday afternoon for brunch.
Speaker 4: Their you know, their likes just didn't match, and they
Speaker 4: kind of drifted into the relationship and then drifted out
Speaker 4: out of it, but they remained very, very good friends.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the series of events we talk about,
Speaker 5: you talk about in two thousand and five, this stormy
Speaker 5: relationship between Stefan and his father. His father dies, and
Speaker 5: again it was evident to people that knew him that
Speaker 5: his father never told him he loved him, respected what
Speaker 5: he had done. And yet Stefan still in certain parts
Speaker 5: of his life, is maintaining He's maintaining his work. He's
Speaker 5: doing really good work and love of the science, not
Speaker 5: about ego and not about money. He has good friends.
Speaker 5: And what they did notice at that time, though, is
Speaker 5: that again foreboding of the future. Is Stefan really liked
Speaker 5: high heels and his friends almost and A commented that
Speaker 5: he had a shoe fetish. So tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about how he got in a position in terms
Speaker 5: of meeting Anna through jillill Well.
Speaker 4: He moved to Houston when his grant ran out in
Speaker 4: Dallas and he was hired here at the University of
Speaker 4: Houston to do his research, continue research and also to
Speaker 4: lecture the medical students at the University of Houston. And
Speaker 4: he was doing very well with that. You're right, he
Speaker 4: did love a beautiful woman in high heels. On his
Speaker 4: fiftieth birthday before he moved to Houston, Anka made a
Speaker 4: kind of a poster for him with a lot of
Speaker 4: pictures and there were a lot of pictures of friends,
Speaker 4: and there were pictures of high heel shoes and it
Speaker 4: said shoe fetish in the center of it. This was
Speaker 4: something that appealed to him. So in Houston he moved
Speaker 4: into a building downtown. It's near Herman Park. It's called
Speaker 4: the Park Lane. It's a beautiful condominium, its apartment complex.
Speaker 4: It's a high rise and he got for Stefan. It
Speaker 4: was the ultimate apartment. It had views of the city
Speaker 4: on two sides. It was a small but it had
Speaker 4: huge windows. He had a view of downtown Houston, and
Speaker 4: the sun poured in every morning. He got up and
Speaker 4: he waited for sunrise. It was just a remarkable place
Speaker 4: for him. He really fell in love with his apartment
Speaker 4: and with Houston.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about him being a full professor, he's
Speaker 5: making a little bit less money again, he's doing everything
Speaker 5: for his career. But he said to his friend Stand
Speaker 5: at his stand Rich's wedding, he said, I'm really looking
Speaker 5: for my match. He had taken dancing lessons. He's fell
Speaker 5: in love with salsa dancing, and he had said to
Speaker 5: Stand that he wanted to look for a a Latino
Speaker 5: woman to slso dance with him and to teach them Spanish.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the park lane, and let's talk
Speaker 5: about Anna Turgillo and how she comes to be anywhere
Speaker 5: near a place like this. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about We'll have to go back to who Anna Turgillo is.
Speaker 5: So tell us about Anna Trugillo in her early life,
Speaker 5: how she grew up.
Speaker 4: Well, Anna came in with an immigrant family. Her parents
Speaker 4: brought her over. They were living in the States in
Speaker 4: Arizona before she was born. She was actually born in Mexico,
Speaker 4: but they quickly brought her back over the border, and
Speaker 4: her family didn't have a lot of money. She was
Speaker 4: raised for quite a while by a single mom. She
Speaker 4: had three other siblings. Her mom married a man with
Speaker 4: four other children, and Anna spent much of her childhood
Speaker 4: helping to care for her siblings. She was a very
Speaker 4: responsible young girl, very fashionable young girl. She was well liked.
Speaker 4: She was always very pretty. And she moved to Houston,
Speaker 4: to well to Waco actually outside Dallas, with her parents,
Speaker 4: and there got married. She had a couple of daughters,
Speaker 4: and that marriage didn't last and she ended up married
Speaker 4: to another man and he moved her to Houston and
Speaker 4: they were living in a beautiful white brick house in
Speaker 4: a very very nice subdivision about thirty minutes outside of Houston.
Speaker 4: And Anna decided she'd had a really good job working
Speaker 4: for Coca Cola. I had done very very well with it,
Speaker 4: and she quit and she decided she wanted to open
Speaker 4: up her own business and become a messuse. Her husband
Speaker 4: supported that opened a studio for did Allie could to
Speaker 4: get her going. But quickly after Anna opened a studio
Speaker 4: in downtown Houston, she started changing and she would become
Speaker 4: she was drinking more, she was partying at night, and
Speaker 4: that marriage fell apart. She left her daughters, who took
Speaker 4: off to stay with their grandparents, and she ended up
Speaker 4: living for a while off what she got from that
Speaker 4: second divorce in Houston, and she also became very interested
Speaker 4: in the occult. She was living in an apartment for
Speaker 4: a while in the Rice Hotel here in Houston, which
Speaker 4: is always on the list of haunted places here in
Speaker 4: the city. And Anna started using her Ouiji board in
Speaker 4: the Rice Hotel late at night, and her life kind
Speaker 4: of spiraled out of control. Dan, It's one of those
Speaker 4: sad instances where someone over a short period of time
Speaker 4: really kind of loses their life. And she started drinking heavily.
Speaker 4: She was smoking this herbal pot. She got some dwiyes,
Speaker 4: things that had never happened to her in her previous life.
Speaker 4: I mean, here she was. She was in her forties,
Speaker 4: and she had gone from being a suburban mom and
Speaker 4: wife and a successful businesswoman to be forced to fond
Speaker 4: met her. She was going from man to man who
Speaker 4: was supporting her, and at different times she was actually
Speaker 4: homeless and would just show up at a friend's house
Speaker 4: looking for a bed for the night. In the fall
Speaker 4: of twenty twelve, she was living in the Park Lane.
Speaker 4: She had met a man and he was on one
Speaker 4: of the high floors and she had moved in and
Speaker 4: that relationship had gone on for a few months, and
Speaker 4: he was entertaining her as all the men did, taking
Speaker 4: her different places at night and in the lobby. One
Speaker 4: day her path crossed with Stefan's. They talked, and after
Speaker 4: that they decided to go out for lunch and then dinner,
Speaker 4: and within a very short period of time, I believe
Speaker 4: it was a matter of a week or two, she
Speaker 4: had moved into his apartment.
Speaker 5: Now he knew a certain amount from just initially because
Speaker 5: she was living with someone else in that building. So
Speaker 5: as friends asked his rationalization was what what was his
Speaker 5: normalization of this in terms of going from one man
Speaker 5: to another in the building? What did he have to say?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, he said that some of his friends
Speaker 4: were very concerned about Anna. They you know, they said, well,
Speaker 4: who is this Ana Truio woman, and why, you know,
Speaker 4: why why did it break up with the man she
Speaker 4: was living with in the building, And he said, well,
Speaker 4: it was an amicable thing. They just they decided to
Speaker 4: part ways. He didn't seem concerned about that. And Anna
Speaker 4: can be very, very charming. People were really bowled over
Speaker 4: by her. She'd made a lot of friends in her
Speaker 4: short time in Houston, and she attracted men. She was
Speaker 4: very sexual. In the clubs downtown, she would dance and
Speaker 4: hand out flowers to the men. She would give them roses.
Speaker 4: There was just something very compelling about her. So I'm
Speaker 4: sure that Stefan saw this beautiful woman, this beautiful latina, dressed,
Speaker 4: you know, very sexily and wearing those stiletto heels, that
Speaker 4: she loved that he and I'm sure he was just
Speaker 4: entranced by her in the beginning.
Speaker 5: Now, what we didn't talk about a little bit, and
Speaker 5: we just want to go backwards just a bit, is
Speaker 5: because there's a few things in Anna's background that would
Speaker 5: have scarred her in terms of the rape, In terms
Speaker 5: of seeing someone hang them or helping stop someone from
Speaker 5: committing suicide and then that person's sexually assaulting them. This
Speaker 5: must have made a big impression and affected her. Just
Speaker 5: tell us a little bit about some of the things
Speaker 5: that she experienced when she was younger that would factor
Speaker 5: in much later.
Speaker 4: Well, She'd had some rough experiences with her first husband.
Speaker 4: When that marriage broke up, she claimed that at one
Speaker 4: point he had sexually assaulted her. Somebody in her family
Speaker 4: told me that they had talked her out of pressing
Speaker 4: charges against him at the time. I really think that Dan,
Speaker 4: that's true. I think that did impact the way she
Speaker 4: saw men in the future. And then she also had
Speaker 4: an altercation with a man who was living in the
Speaker 4: Rice Hotel at one point, and they told the story
Speaker 4: very differently. She claimed that he had hit her in
Speaker 4: the head with a candlestick. He claimed that she had
Speaker 4: hit him, and that when he woke up after he'd
Speaker 4: been knocked out, she was sitting in the hallway staring
Speaker 4: at him, and she just walked over him and walked
Speaker 4: out of the apartment. She was doing unusual things at
Speaker 4: the Rice Hotel. And yes, some of it I do
Speaker 4: believe probably did stem from her childhood. I think a
Speaker 4: lot of her moving to downtown Houston and becoming very
Speaker 4: entranced in the whole bar club scene down there came
Speaker 4: from feeling as if she'd been deprived of her childhood
Speaker 4: because she had spent so much of her time taking
Speaker 4: care of her siblings when she was young.
Speaker 5: And yes, And you talk about too that at some
Speaker 5: point she says, I just want to have fun. I
Speaker 5: don't want to be a wife a mother anymore. And
Speaker 5: that's what she did. She abandoned her children, like you said,
Speaker 5: just like her father did.
Speaker 4: It's very true. She took off and left them and
Speaker 4: they ended up. The younger one I ended up in
Speaker 4: Waco with the grandparents. The older one was graduating from
Speaker 4: high school at that time. So it's just really a
Speaker 4: story about someone who tried to reclaim what they'd lost
Speaker 4: as a child, and it had turned out to be
Speaker 4: a very bad decision.
Speaker 5: Now you talk about the faithful meeting of these two
Speaker 5: and immediately, because of the circumstances of his life, have
Speaker 5: failed relationships. He still wants to get married. He quits
Speaker 5: drinking for a while, he tries to improve himself. Other
Speaker 5: times he's doesn't seem to know that you have to
Speaker 5: have other things together. He's kind of cheap in certain areas,
Speaker 5: and again, all of these things change. He tries to
Speaker 5: adapt to still to fulfill his dream. He's in America.
Speaker 5: He loves that he's got friends. He wants to have
Speaker 5: this life that he came to America for, and he
Speaker 5: sees that in this vivacious what he sees is an
Speaker 5: upbeat and gorgeous, sexy woman in high heels. So tell
Speaker 5: us how their early relationship progresses, and what does, if anything,
Speaker 5: Stephan Anderson see about Anna Turgillo that might make him weary.
Speaker 4: Well, in the beginning, they were really happy. I believe
Speaker 4: that he very much loved her. Actually, I think he
Speaker 4: loved her pretty much throughout the relationship. But in the
Speaker 4: beginning it was this really exciting, wonderful relationship with a younger, vivacious,
Speaker 4: beautiful woman. And he began telling his friends all about
Speaker 4: her and about how exciting she was and what they
Speaker 4: were doing. And his friends were happy for him. They
Speaker 4: were concerned that they were happy for him. That they'd
Speaker 4: call up and he'd say, oh, Anna and I did this,
Speaker 4: and Ana and I did that, And they were out
Speaker 4: most nights of the week. Steffon did have a drinking problem.
Speaker 4: He'd had one for quite a while. He'd gone into
Speaker 4: rehab at one point and for a while, as you said,
Speaker 4: didn't drink, but then started drinking again. So they ended
Speaker 4: up in the bars, in the restaurants, and he ended
Speaker 4: up taking her to his favorite place, which was a
Speaker 4: during the day, which was a little clubhouse restaurant near
Speaker 4: Herman Park golf course. Here in Houston is a very
Speaker 4: pretty setting, and people started noticing that there were odd
Speaker 4: things happening. The first real sign was that he called
Speaker 4: down to the desk at the Park Lane one night
Speaker 4: and said that his house, his apartment, was flooding and
Speaker 4: he couldn't turn the water off. When they got upstairs.
Speaker 4: When the handyman got upstairs to help him, it turned
Speaker 4: out that Anna had cut the line going into the
Speaker 4: ice maker, and she sat and laughed while they tried
Speaker 4: to turn it off, and she said she had cut
Speaker 4: it because it was talking to her, that there was
Speaker 4: some kind of an entity or something in it. And
Speaker 4: then things started to happen at the golf course and
Speaker 4: in the bars. Before Steffan had met her, she had
Speaker 4: acted out in the bars in Houston. She did things
Speaker 4: like she slapped a busboy one night when he tried
Speaker 4: to tell her that she had left something on the table.
Speaker 4: And there were just different instances where she had acted
Speaker 4: out with different people, but it started happening with Steffan.
Speaker 4: One day she yelled at a group of men who
Speaker 4: were playing cards and at the golf course restaurant, and
Speaker 4: she took their cards and shoved them off the table
Speaker 4: and they scattered all over the floor. On another occasion,
Speaker 4: she was in there with Steffan and he was very embarrassed.
Speaker 4: There was a man waiting for Anna at the door,
Speaker 4: and she started shouting at him and saying, he'll give
Speaker 4: me what you can't, and she walked out and left.
Speaker 4: It became clear I think that Steffan was in love
Speaker 4: with Anna, and Anna wanted somebody to take care of
Speaker 4: her and support her and pay for her lifestyle.
Speaker 5: Yes, you talk about you have access to This incredible
Speaker 5: friend is Teresa Monteya. And Teresa Montee observes things and
Speaker 5: does get caught up in her charms as well, in
Speaker 5: that even despite the warnings and the red flags from
Speaker 5: her behavior wise, he still remains her friend and puts
Speaker 5: herself out there for her friend. So we will talk
Speaker 5: about Teresa Montea and we're just going to stop for
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Speaker 5: When last left off, Catherine, we're talking about Teresa Monteya,
Speaker 5: a close friend. I mean you talked about her in
Speaker 5: the clubs and her behavior, but also the most bizarre
Speaker 5: behavior out of this is this voodoo doll that she
Speaker 5: has and often is in the clubs with this voodoo doll.
Speaker 5: So tell us a little bit more about Teresa Monteya,
Speaker 5: their relationship and what Teresa Monteya knew from being a
Speaker 5: close friend of anatridial.
Speaker 4: Well, Teresa Monteya is actually not this woman's real name,
Speaker 4: but she kind of hooked up with Anna when Anna
Speaker 4: first got to Houston, to downtown Houston, and they started
Speaker 4: partying together, and she was there dancing with Anna on
Speaker 4: at the clubs when Anna was handing out the roses,
Speaker 4: and she started seeing unusual things. Anna would put curses
Speaker 4: on people. She would walk up to people in the
Speaker 4: bars and take a little bit of their hair if
Speaker 4: she was angry with them, to bring home to put
Speaker 4: a curse on. And yes, she had a voodoo doll.
Speaker 4: She carried it with her. She had a tucked inside
Speaker 4: of her broad times, usually inside of her brawl once
Speaker 4: while in her purse, and in the clubs when she
Speaker 4: got angry with someone, she'd walk up and she would
Speaker 4: start rubbing it on them. It was just such an
Speaker 4: odd thing. She showed up in Waco with that doll,
Speaker 4: and her relatives up there became very, very concerned about
Speaker 4: what was going on. She one night or one afternoon
Speaker 4: was that with Theresa Monteo, and they were downtown at
Speaker 4: one of the parking lots and there was a Hispanic
Speaker 4: man manning the booth and her car got towed. Onna's
Speaker 4: car was towed. When she came out and her car
Speaker 4: was gone, she grabbed him, pulled him by the hair
Speaker 4: and started cursing him and cursing his family, and he
Speaker 4: ran and got the car back for her. She got
Speaker 4: picked up for drunk driving one night and was in
Speaker 4: the back of the squad car and started cursing at
Speaker 4: the officer, a man who had tried to help her
Speaker 4: earlier in the evening by getting her a cab so
Speaker 4: that he wouldn't have to arrest her for public intoxication,
Speaker 4: and she started yelling at him and cursing his family.
Speaker 4: So she started doing odd things. Dan It was remember
Speaker 4: at the end of twenty twelve when everybody was talking
Speaker 4: about the Mayan calendar and how it could be the
Speaker 4: end of the world, while Anna was convinced it was
Speaker 4: going to be the end of the world and she
Speaker 4: was going to end up living in down in Mexico
Speaker 4: like her relatives had out in the rural areas, and
Speaker 4: she started drawing in books and was she called it
Speaker 4: her art, and she was making swirly pictures and she'd
Speaker 4: write little snatches of words, and some of it was
Speaker 4: very strange, very strange.
Speaker 5: Now right away, this relationship between Stefan and Anna, he
Speaker 5: is progressing very very quickly, despite some of his friends saying, hey,
Speaker 5: slow down, it's interesting too, you write. One day he
Speaker 5: bought her a couple purses and spent some money on her,
Speaker 5: lavishing her with gifts, about a fifteen hundred there's so
Speaker 5: much he liked stilettos and her as well, a fifteen
Speaker 5: hundred dollars pair of Christian level team hills. Again I'll
Speaker 5: probably mangle that, but again very expensive high heels. They
Speaker 5: were very serious about high heels. I think when you
Speaker 5: talk to spending fifteen hundred dollars for a pair.
Speaker 4: Of shoes, now they're Christian Lubitans. There are those fancy
Speaker 4: shoes with the red soles that do you see the
Speaker 4: celebrities wearing. And he did. But he was really spoiling
Speaker 4: her in a lot of ways. And this was something
Speaker 4: that I think he probably did want to buy for her.
Speaker 4: She said later that she made him return them because
Speaker 4: it was too much money, and I think he probably did.
Speaker 4: They probably, you know, they probably thought it over. But
Speaker 4: he was very much in love with her in the beginning,
Speaker 4: and then things just started to happen. And there was
Speaker 4: one night Anna Anaka. He emailed Anaka at like two
Speaker 4: in the morning. She was unusual for Stefan because, as
Speaker 4: I said, he usually went to bed and wanted to
Speaker 4: get up early to see the sunrise because he loved
Speaker 4: the sunrises so much. And Anaka emailed back and said,
Speaker 4: what are you doing up at two am? And he
Speaker 4: emailed back and said voodoo. And she thought that he
Speaker 4: was kidding, but probably not. Anna did rituals where she
Speaker 4: would draw pentagrams on the floor and put candles on
Speaker 4: the corners, and she would sit her in chance. So
Speaker 4: that may have been going on at two o'clock that morning.
Speaker 5: Now you also talk about the idea of she He
Speaker 5: sends her to Mexico to visit her family in Guadalajara,
Speaker 5: and meanwhile, while she's gone, the manager at the park
Speaker 5: Lane says, I'd like to speak with you, and so
Speaker 5: what do they talk about in terms of Anna's behavior?
Speaker 4: This was really Mexico. This was really the first time
Speaker 4: anyone talked this way to Stefan, but it would not
Speaker 4: be the last. The manager at the park Lane talked
Speaker 4: to him about the incidents that they were having with
Speaker 4: Anna in the building, things like making strange comments to
Speaker 4: a young boy in the elevator and flirting with some
Speaker 4: of the men who worked on the grounds and just
Speaker 4: things like that. And then what had happened with the refrigerator.
Speaker 4: This is after she cut the water line into the icemaker.
Speaker 4: And the manager said, well, I'm taking my manager off
Speaker 4: hat off and putting my friend had on, and I
Speaker 4: think you need to get away from this woman as
Speaker 4: fast as you can. And Stefan said, but she doesn't
Speaker 4: have any place to go. And the woman warned him again,
Speaker 4: and he said, I'll try to kind of separate, but
Speaker 4: she doesn't have any place to go. Steffan had a
Speaker 4: very big heart and he did care about Anna. And
Speaker 4: as many times as people would say to him, Steffan,
Speaker 4: this is not a good relationsship for you, he just
Speaker 4: couldn't seem to separate himself.
Speaker 5: What were the things other than people giving him the device?
Speaker 5: But what was the What were the first things that
Speaker 5: he saw in terms of this the voodoo or the
Speaker 5: spells or the we'll just chuck it up to mental illness.
Speaker 5: What are the Some of the first things that he
Speaker 5: saw that even he couldn't deny that were awry.
Speaker 4: Well, he started seeing her having arguments with people, and
Speaker 4: she would say strange things to people, things that were
Speaker 4: socially unacceptable. Like one of the friends, this couple they
Speaker 4: were together, the husband and wife, and while they were
Speaker 4: sitting there on us said oh, you could do better
Speaker 4: than her to the husband with his wife sitting right
Speaker 4: next to him. And there were just odd things like that,
Speaker 4: and there were arguments, and then he mentioned to one
Speaker 4: of his friends that she liked to get rough, and
Speaker 4: the friend thought that he meant that it was during sex,
Speaker 4: and that maybe Stefan found it exciting. But then Stefan
Speaker 4: started talking about her coming up behind him and putting
Speaker 4: her hands around his neck and things like that. She
Speaker 4: started and then he talked about her being so strong. Now,
Speaker 4: Steffan liked athletic people, so in the beginning that probably
Speaker 4: appealed him, but at a certain point he started to
Speaker 4: get afraid.
Speaker 5: You talk about him seeing this mounting evidence that this
Speaker 5: woman was not the person that he would have liked
Speaker 5: her to begin to become, but not so many months
Speaker 5: later he does ask Anna to leave his apartment. And
Speaker 5: you say he had an order rescinding his permission to
Speaker 5: allow her to enter. Well, tell us Despite that, what
Speaker 5: Stephan and Anna continued to do.
Speaker 4: Well. He kept trying to get her out of the apartment.
Speaker 4: It was within I think a month or so after
Speaker 4: she moved in once the first time, he actually filed
Speaker 4: multiple orders to get to keep her from getting in,
Speaker 4: but she always seemed to find a way in. And
Speaker 4: then when he did get her out, she would follow him.
Speaker 4: She began following him to different bars and things. And
Speaker 4: Stefan was a creature of habit. He had a group
Speaker 4: of friends. They went to certain places. Anna started chewing
Speaker 4: up at those places. I think it was March or
Speaker 4: so of twenty thirteen. He was in a restaurant called
Speaker 4: Bodega's and he was there with another U of H professor,
Speaker 4: and they were at a table having lunch and Anna
Speaker 4: walked in looking happy to see him walked over at
Speaker 4: the time he had kicked her out of the apartment.
Speaker 4: She walked over and went and leaned in toward him
Speaker 4: as if she were going to give him a kiss
Speaker 4: on the cheek, but she bit him and when she
Speaker 4: pulled away, he was bleeding and he started to scream,
Speaker 4: and she just smiled and walked out. At that day,
Speaker 4: Stefan sat with his friend, and his friend said, you
Speaker 4: have to get away from this woman. And Stefan said,
Speaker 4: I know, I do, I know I do, but I
Speaker 4: don't know how to do it. I don't know how
Speaker 4: to get away. She just keeps showing up. At times,
Speaker 4: she would show up at the restaurants and his friends.
Speaker 4: Would you know, he'd ask his friends to hide him,
Speaker 4: to not tell Anna that he was there. He was
Speaker 4: afraid of her.
Speaker 5: So how does the progress her into twenty and thirteen?
Speaker 5: This is sort of a back and forth. She moves out,
Speaker 5: but they're seeing each other. She convinces him that she'd
Speaker 5: be back together. So there's quite a bit of a
Speaker 5: back and forth despite what he believes he should do,
Speaker 5: doesn't he well.
Speaker 4: There is, I mean, it got to the point where
Speaker 4: he told one friend that she had put a knife
Speaker 4: up to his throat. Finally, after what you've described is
Speaker 4: back and forth, he finally does kick her out and
Speaker 4: in May of twenty thirteen. She's living with another man
Speaker 4: and a woman in an apartment not too far away.
Speaker 4: But she's still showing up and he's still buying her drinks,
Speaker 4: but he's not letting her in the apartment. One night,
Speaker 4: it was his birthday actually, I think his fifty ninth birthday.
Speaker 4: That with Anna and one of Hona's friends, and they
Speaker 4: were at a bar called fifty to fifteen in Houston,
Speaker 4: and Anna was up flirting with other men and Stefan
Speaker 4: was sitting back, not at all upset about it. I
Speaker 4: think he had just come to it, except that this
Speaker 4: was Anna. And he told the other woman Anna's friend.
Speaker 4: He said, I love Anna, he said, but I can't
Speaker 4: have her with me. I'm afraid of her.
Speaker 5: Now. Tell us about the events that lead up to
Speaker 5: and her behavior up to the faithful event itself. How
Speaker 5: do things progress with this back and forth? He seems
Speaker 5: to obviously know that this is wrong. It's not going
Speaker 5: to work out. He's tried it, He's heard from everybody
Speaker 5: their input on how we should stay away from her,
Speaker 5: and why he's noticing these things that can only be
Speaker 5: chalked up to mental illness, even despite she thinks she
Speaker 5: has these powers. So tell us about the further move
Speaker 5: towards what eventually happens.
Speaker 4: Well, in May of twenty thirteen, she's living with James
Speaker 4: Wells and another woman that he lives with, and they're
Speaker 4: allowing James is allowing her to stay there out of friendship,
Speaker 4: basically in their apartment, and then Anna starts doing strange
Speaker 4: things there. She's holding her ritual, she's running out during
Speaker 4: the day in the hot Houston sun and doing sun worshiping,
Speaker 4: and she shows up. She's over at Herman Park. She's
Speaker 4: shown up at Herman Park when Stafon's here one afternoon.
Speaker 4: This is around Memorial Day in twenty thirteen, and she
Speaker 4: stays there with him for the afternoon and he buys
Speaker 4: her some wine. Well, he won't take her home with him,
Speaker 4: so James Wells comes to get her and he brings
Speaker 4: her back to the apartment and he's sitting in the
Speaker 4: chair and she's been acting up a little bit, but
Speaker 4: he's kind of been ignoring it, and she walks over
Speaker 4: and she bites James in the head and he starts
Speaker 4: to They have an argument. He leaves, and the other
Speaker 4: woman and Anna get into a fight, and Anna is
Speaker 4: very badly beaten up with a stick. As the woman
Speaker 4: is trying to keep Anna from hitting her. James Wells
Speaker 4: comes back and tells Anna that she has to leave.
Speaker 4: Anna called all of her friends. She called around trying
Speaker 4: to find a place to stay. No one would take
Speaker 4: her in. She showed up over at the park Lane
Speaker 4: and Stefan saw all of the bruises. She had horrible
Speaker 4: bruises on her body, on her face. She was just
Speaker 4: very badly beaten, and he hakes her in. He took
Speaker 4: her to the emergency room the next day and they
Speaker 4: looked rover and gave her some painkillers and did some
Speaker 4: things for her, and he lets her stay in the
Speaker 4: house for in his apartment again, with the understanding it'll
Speaker 4: be a short period of time and she'll have to
Speaker 4: move back to Waco, so she stays there. Things seem
Speaker 4: to be all right, she starts to get better. They
Speaker 4: go back to the apartment James Wells's apartment to pick
Speaker 4: up an as things, and while Anna is there, she
Speaker 4: puts some coins in James's hand and says, put it
Speaker 4: on in your cabinet or something very bad is going
Speaker 4: to happen, and he looks at her like, well, sure
Speaker 4: you know, and he doesn't do it, He just throws
Speaker 4: the coins on the counter when he comes in. She
Speaker 4: goes back to the park Lane and gets cleaned up,
Speaker 4: and that night is supposed to be leaving. Someone's supposed
Speaker 4: to be picking her up to take her to Waco,
Speaker 4: but a call comes in and they say they can't
Speaker 4: fit her in the car, so somebody else is supposed
Speaker 4: to pick her up the next morning. So Steffan has
Speaker 4: one last night with Ana Trujio before she's supposed to
Speaker 4: move out.
Speaker 5: The next thing anyone knows, there's a phone call to police.
Speaker 5: Tell us what that phone call contained. Who is it from?
Speaker 4: That phone call was from Anna and they had been
Speaker 4: out to a bar that night, and she was very
Speaker 4: drunk and she was sobbing into the phone so bad
Speaker 4: that the nine to one one operator couldn't understand her.
Speaker 4: And she said that she needed help, that she'd been attacked,
Speaker 4: and she said that Stefan had attacked her, and then
Speaker 4: in the next bra she said, he's dying. He's dying.
Speaker 4: Send someone to help. He's dying. And the nine one
Speaker 4: one operator didn't quite understand because Anna had gone from
Speaker 4: saying that she was the victim to saying that there
Speaker 4: was somebody there who was dying. They sent over the
Speaker 4: police and they ordered an you know, they ordered an
Speaker 4: ambulance over to the park lane. So it was shortly
Speaker 4: after two o'clock in the morning, well, no, three thirty
Speaker 4: in the morning that the paramedics showed up at the
Speaker 4: park Lane.
Speaker 5: Now what's her condition, and of course what is Stefan's condition?
Speaker 5: What do they find? And of course the smoking gun
Speaker 5: as it were, the shoe tell us about what they find.
Speaker 4: Well, the police officer shows up at the door and
Speaker 4: knocks on the door. Hear her sobbing inside, and she
Speaker 4: opens the door and she is covered in blood. It's
Speaker 4: on her face or arms or hands, her neck. She's
Speaker 4: wearing a black top, but I'm sure it was on
Speaker 4: the top. She had on jeans and the jeans are
Speaker 4: saturated with blood. So his immediate assumption is that she's
Speaker 4: been hurt, and he asks her, are you okay? And
Speaker 4: she says yes, and then she lets him inside and
Speaker 4: he looks down the hallway and there's Stefan lying on
Speaker 4: his back, his body on his back. There's a pool
Speaker 4: of drying, coagulated blood near his head, and all three
Speaker 4: of the walls surrounding him are spattered with blood.
Speaker 5: And what about the shoe?
Speaker 4: The shoe was just above Steffan's head, lying on the carpet,
Speaker 4: and there were tufts of his white hair on the heel,
Speaker 4: and it had blood all over it too. The officer said,
Speaker 4: how did this happen? What did you use? You know?
Speaker 4: And she pointed at the shoe.
Speaker 5: In questioning what was her What did she say were
Speaker 5: the turn of events that led to this? What was
Speaker 5: her version of the story.
Speaker 4: She claimed that he had become angry with her because
Speaker 4: somebody at the bar that night, a man had shown
Speaker 4: an interest in her and bought her a drink, and
Speaker 4: that they argued when that chefan was angry at back
Speaker 4: in the apartment because she was leaving for Waco the
Speaker 4: next day, that he didn't want her to go, and
Speaker 4: that he became abusive and attacked her. The problem was
Speaker 4: that there were no signs that he had attained at her.
Speaker 4: She he had just a couple of strands of her
Speaker 4: dark hair in his hand, but there were tufts of
Speaker 4: his white hair on the couch there. You know it
Speaker 4: was it was It was an extremely bloody scene.
Speaker 5: Now what behavior do the police notice and be besides
Speaker 5: somebody that they believe is the you know, the main
Speaker 5: suspect in this murder. But do they notice or see
Speaker 5: any odd behavior over and beyond someone just trying to
Speaker 5: avoid capture.
Speaker 4: Well, she's she still is, you know, quite intoxicated. At
Speaker 4: that point, they bring her downtown to Houston p D
Speaker 4: headquarters and they put her in an interview room, and
Speaker 4: then they two of the detectives came in to try
Speaker 4: to interview her. She spent I honestly forget how many
Speaker 4: hours talking, none of it about Stefan. She told him
Speaker 4: that at the scene that he was her fiance and
Speaker 4: that she loved him, but during that interview she barely
Speaker 4: mentioned his name. She started talking about all the men
Speaker 4: in her life who she blamed for different things, from
Speaker 4: her father to her first husband to the man she'd
Speaker 4: had the altercation within the Rice Hotel. She just couldn't
Speaker 4: seem to focus, and she talked about having powers. She
Speaker 4: talked about how she could heal people and all of
Speaker 4: these amazing things she could do. They asked her at
Speaker 4: one point, have you ever been diagnosed with a mental illness?
Speaker 4: And she said no, And they asked her if she
Speaker 4: was on any type of medication for anything, and she
Speaker 4: said no, which she wasn't. It was just this really
Speaker 4: bizarre conversation and she kept talking. When she did get
Speaker 4: around talking to talking about Stefan, she repeated what she
Speaker 4: had on the scene, which was that this is this
Speaker 4: had happened when she tried to defend herself, and she
Speaker 4: said that he was the abusive one.
Speaker 5: Now, despite what she says, and they experienced homicide people,
Speaker 5: what forensically could they determine despite her you know, far
Speaker 5: fat story, what forensically could they conclude?
Speaker 4: Well, in this case, Dan, the most telling thing was
Speaker 4: the blood spatter. It started out. They thought the fight
Speaker 4: started out on the couch in the living room, and
Speaker 4: that was because there they found toughts of Stefan's hair.
Speaker 4: She grabbed his hair, pulled it out, and it was
Speaker 4: it was on this black leather cut. Then there was
Speaker 4: another spot of blood that was a round spot, so
Speaker 4: it had fallen while he was still standing, and that
Speaker 4: was on the way to the hall, so it appeared
Speaker 4: he was trying to run away from her while at
Speaker 4: that point he's bleeding, so she's already hitting him, and
Speaker 4: then the blood spatter goes down. It started about there's
Speaker 4: a smudge, and it started about four feet up and
Speaker 4: it just it starts to come down farther and farther
Speaker 4: and farther, until the majority of the blood spatter was
Speaker 4: actually between two and three feet from the floor. So
Speaker 4: the blood spatter expert looked at it and the only
Speaker 4: conclusion he could draw was that she was probably straddling
Speaker 4: Stefan's chest keeping him from getting up while she was
Speaker 4: hitting him with the heel while he was on the floor,
Speaker 4: and that's why the blood spatter was so low to
Speaker 4: the ground. So low to the floor.
Speaker 5: So how do police progress? You write about the questioning?
Speaker 5: Of course, now she has to get someone to defend her.
Speaker 5: What does she how is she represented and how does
Speaker 5: she react to that representation.
Speaker 4: Well, her story made such international headlines and it was
Speaker 4: huge news throughout Texas. I know, it made all the
Speaker 4: New York and California newspapers. I mean, it really got
Speaker 4: a lot of as they say in the business play.
Speaker 4: So one of the attorneys here in town, Jim Carroll,
Speaker 4: took it on. I'm sorry, Jack Carroll, and he did
Speaker 4: it pro bono. The other thing is Jack believed Anna.
Speaker 4: He believed her story that Stefan had been the aggressive
Speaker 4: one and she was simply defending herself. He thought in
Speaker 4: the beginning that the domestic violence activists here in the
Speaker 4: city would back him and that there would be a
Speaker 4: lot of sympathy for her. The story came out and
Speaker 4: as they learned more about on a truio, that didn't happen.
Speaker 4: So he ended up putting a lot of time and
Speaker 4: a lot of effort into this case, basically out of
Speaker 4: his own pocket. He got her out of He convinced
Speaker 4: her family to pull together money for bail, and she
Speaker 4: was released and her mother got an apartment here in
Speaker 4: Houston so she could work with Carol on the defense.
Speaker 4: And he said at times she would if he crossed her.
Speaker 4: He could see how angry she would become.
Speaker 5: Right, And you just mentioned you talk about this captivation,
Speaker 5: that this story captivated the media and captivated obviously the readers.
Speaker 5: What was one of the biggest things that happened at
Speaker 5: trial itself?
Speaker 4: Oh, well, there were some amazing things that happened in
Speaker 4: that trial. One of them was when they pulled out
Speaker 4: the stiletto heel and showed it to the jurors and
Speaker 4: you could still see Steffans there on it. There was
Speaker 4: just kind of a gasp in the courtroom. Another thing
Speaker 4: was that John Jordan, the prosecutor, at one point brought
Speaker 4: in a dummy I think was actually a CPR dummy
Speaker 4: that they laid on a table to represent Staffawn, and
Speaker 4: the blood spatter expert placed Jordan in the position that
Speaker 4: on a tree heel must have been in when she
Speaker 4: was hitting him, and then he showed how over and
Speaker 4: over and over again she must have hit him. As
Speaker 4: I remember, there were twenty five to thirty different strikes
Speaker 4: and more because some of them were right on top
Speaker 4: of each other. The pictures, the autopsy pictures, I mean,
Speaker 4: Stefan was really bludgeoned, you know, with that heel, and
Speaker 4: there were a lot of big and then there was
Speaker 4: the fight. At one point Jack Carroll stood in for
Speaker 4: Steffan and had Anna show how Steffan had gone after
Speaker 4: her to play it out for the jurors, and she
Speaker 4: became quite animated. And then when the prosecutors got up
Speaker 4: and Sarah Michelson was the other second chair on the case,
Speaker 4: and they showed that what Anna had depicted couldn't have
Speaker 4: happened because she had said that Stefan had her arms down,
Speaker 4: that she was being pinned down. Well, if that were true,
Speaker 4: she wouldn't have been able to hit him with the shoe.
Speaker 5: What was her behavior? What would you categorize her behavior
Speaker 5: throughout the trail?
Speaker 4: You know, Jack Carroll told me that he had told
Speaker 4: Anna that he expected to win the case. And she
Speaker 4: appeared really fairly kind of unconcerned throughout most of the trial.
Speaker 4: And at one point they were showing the bar that
Speaker 4: they were in the last night was fifty to fifteen,
Speaker 4: the same bar where they'd had his birthday celebration. And
Speaker 4: at one point they played the video from fifty to fifteen,
Speaker 4: and you can see you could see Stefan coming and
Speaker 4: trying to get Anna to leave the bar, and she's
Speaker 4: in a stewel at the bar, talking to a man
Speaker 4: and dancing and having a grand time. Well, when I
Speaker 4: looked over at Anna in the courtroom, she was jumping
Speaker 4: kind of dancing around in her chair, and she had
Speaker 4: a big smile on her face, and it was as
Speaker 4: if she was enjoying seeing herself on the video.
Speaker 5: How did the defense and the prosecution use this voodoo
Speaker 5: and her art box and all of these things that
Speaker 5: she believed were giving her powers or enabled her to
Speaker 5: have powers. How did they use that in the trial?
Speaker 4: And it didn't come in that much. The prosecutor decided
Speaker 4: to keep most of it out there. There were just
Speaker 4: a few things that came in. On the night that
Speaker 4: Stefan was murdered. When they opened up Anna's purse, they
Speaker 4: found a tarot book in there with explanations of tarot cards,
Speaker 4: and the page that that book was open to was
Speaker 4: the death card that got into the trial. They brought
Speaker 4: that in. It was just such a strange thing. And
Speaker 4: then there were these letters and notes and poems and things.
Speaker 4: She called them her art. She had done what she
Speaker 4: called an art installation on Stefan's glass coffee table, and
Speaker 4: that consisted of twigs and things that she had brought
Speaker 4: in from the outside along with her notes. Those notes
Speaker 4: I had described earlier, with the concentric circles and the
Speaker 4: little snatches of writing, and some of those were just,
Speaker 4: you know, you go back, it's hard to you look
Speaker 4: at them. It's hard not to think that there was
Speaker 4: something going on in her mind when she wrote them,
Speaker 4: which was the morning before he died, you know, twenty
Speaker 4: four hours earlier. There were things like, you know, when
Speaker 4: you can't see anymore. I don't have them right in
Speaker 4: front of me, so I can't exactly remember, but just
Speaker 4: these strange, really odd notes. And when I look through them,
Speaker 4: I got some others from someone. It was as if
Speaker 4: she was trying to conjure up the spirits. She was
Speaker 4: asking spirits to appear.
Speaker 5: What you do, including your book is, which is rare
Speaker 5: these days, is all of these photos from the trial itself.
Speaker 5: All the people that were on the stand were part
Speaker 5: of this trial, which was extensive too. It really was
Speaker 5: a big trial, wasn't it.
Speaker 4: It was an amazing trial. And you know, the cameras
Speaker 4: were in there during opening and closing arguments and then
Speaker 4: they were allowed to take pictures through the door. And
Speaker 4: the Houston Chronicle was the pool photographer. So the photos
Speaker 4: from the trial are the pool photos that the Houston
Speaker 4: Chronicle took, and the photographer did just an amazing job
Speaker 4: on them. They're really great photos. There are some in
Speaker 4: there of Ana when she's on the stand that are
Speaker 4: just amazing. The photographer's name is Brett Kuhmer with the
Speaker 4: Houston Chronicle.
Speaker 5: Now, again very unusual for for a defense team to
Speaker 5: put their client up on the stand. Some people have
Speaker 5: described it's this last desperate move of a desperate defense,
Speaker 5: but sometimes it's effective. We have seen some cases in
Speaker 5: the past. So what was it like, what was she
Speaker 5: how did she testify? What tell us about that?
Speaker 4: It was a lot like the interview with the police.
Speaker 4: It started out of Chris with her own attorney, asking questions,
Speaker 4: and he had worked with her to try to get
Speaker 4: her to focus, but she kept going back to all
Speaker 4: these previous relationships, and she kept wandering and she couldn't
Speaker 4: keep a train of thought going very well. And then,
Speaker 4: as I said, there was this kind of pantomime fight
Speaker 4: where this demonstration where they were trying to show what
Speaker 4: the argument, the escalation of the argument and the fight
Speaker 4: with Stefani been like that night when the prosecutors took over,
Speaker 4: it was just really this amazing, you know, discourse where
Speaker 4: they would go back and forth and and you know,
Speaker 4: she would say these things that there was just no
Speaker 4: there was no foundation for you know, she kept trying
Speaker 4: to pin it on Steffan, and you know, Dan, in
Speaker 4: some cases, there's always the there's always kind of the
Speaker 4: feeling that when the woman strikes out like that that
Speaker 4: the man has done something that brought this on. But
Speaker 4: Steffan was truly this gentle soul, and when they autopsied them,
Speaker 4: they didn't find a single aggressive wound on his on
Speaker 4: his body or any sign of aggression. She had no
Speaker 4: open wounds from him going after or she had no
Speaker 4: signs that he had he had attacked her. And one
Speaker 4: of the biggest problems is that she was saying this
Speaker 4: about a man who had no documented history of violence,
Speaker 4: so it was just totally out of character. They were
Speaker 4: kind of I think, I say this in the book
Speaker 4: like a perfect storm, because there's this woman who had
Speaker 4: become progressively more violence and acted out more, and there
Speaker 4: was this man who really could not defend himself. He
Speaker 4: just did not have it in him. After growing up
Speaker 4: in a household where his mother had been abused, he
Speaker 4: just didn't have it in him to strike back at
Speaker 4: a woman. So he died without ever trying to defend himself.
Speaker 5: You're right too that the tragic part of this too
Speaker 5: is the accusations. Again, luckily they weren't successful in rendering
Speaker 5: on innocent, but the accusations were made. The statements to
Speaker 5: categorize Stefan, this gentleman, as anything other than that really
Speaker 5: upset his friend Anika and other people in that were
Speaker 5: observant in this. So that was the kind of thing
Speaker 5: that was part of the sad part of this is
Speaker 5: that some of this stuff sort of seemed to stick
Speaker 5: and the media enjoyed at least exploring it despite having
Speaker 5: any base to it.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it was almost as if she had
Speaker 4: murdered him and then she had tried to destroy his
Speaker 4: reputation afterward. You know, it's like a second attack. And yes,
Speaker 4: his friends were very upset about it. After Stefan died
Speaker 4: after the murder, within a couple of days, it had
Speaker 4: hit the Houston papers and a lot of the papers
Speaker 4: throughout the country that she called nine one one and
Speaker 4: said that, you know, there was domestic violence going on
Speaker 4: and that she'd been attacked by Stefan. So when his
Speaker 4: friends aw that, a lot of them reached out to
Speaker 4: the prosecutor's office here in Houston and explained to them
Speaker 4: that that was not Stefan and he never would have
Speaker 4: done that. And then, of course, as I mentioned, when
Speaker 4: I got the autopsy results that confirmed it, because there
Speaker 4: was just no sign.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's incredible, the story where she's charming or trying
Speaker 5: to be charming, right, to the very end despite this
Speaker 5: these delusions that she has, and again, very interesting that
Speaker 5: this lawyer would take on this case believing she was innocent.
Speaker 5: I find that hard to believe because you would have
Speaker 5: to ignore all this other evidence. But it seemed that
Speaker 5: though the charms that this woman was capable of, she
Speaker 5: was using that right to this very end in this trial.
Speaker 4: Even well, you know, I think on a true here,
Speaker 4: I had grown up believing that she could get away
Speaker 4: with pretty much anything, you know that, And I don't
Speaker 4: know that there was any mental illness. There might have been.
Speaker 4: I think the alcohol. I think there's there have been
Speaker 4: a lot of studies now on that herbal marijuana. I
Speaker 4: think in the UK they call it spice. Here down
Speaker 4: here they were calling it cush. I don't know what
Speaker 4: it's called throughout the country. I don't know if that's
Speaker 4: but there have been a lot of studies on that,
Speaker 4: and now they've exchanged very drastically over a short period
Speaker 4: of time, became a different person. And a lot of
Speaker 4: these studies are finding that it causes paranoia and that
Speaker 4: people become very aggressive with it. So I think a
Speaker 4: lot of things kind of played into this. I'm more
Speaker 4: inclined to think that actually it was the drugs and
Speaker 4: the alcohol than any actual mental illness on honest part,
Speaker 4: because when she was sober, which in the end wasn't
Speaker 4: as often, she still could be the old Anna at times.
Speaker 4: And once she got into the jail and dried out,
Speaker 4: her friend Teresa Montoya went over there to talk to
Speaker 4: her and she said it was like the old Anna
Speaker 4: was back.
Speaker 5: Wow. Yeah, she really you talk about in a short
Speaker 5: period of time, in less than three years, she goes
Speaker 5: from this vivacious, ambitious massuse with a thriving business to
Speaker 5: homeless in two and a half years. So something did
Speaker 5: dramatically happen. You can't just chalk it up to the
Speaker 5: culmination of all the past and then suddenly but a
Speaker 5: very very interesting woman and that you very vividly described
Speaker 5: in this with the voodoo and the going out with
Speaker 5: the black guys, young guys, but and just blatantly realizing
Speaker 5: or telling people that the white guys, the older white
Speaker 5: guy is going to pay. And so it's a fascinating tale.
Speaker 5: And I want to thank you very much Katherine for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about Possessed, your latest Thank you
Speaker 5: very much. It's been fascinating for those people that might
Speaker 5: want to look up your other work. Do you have
Speaker 5: a Facebook page? Do you do the tell us how
Speaker 5: people might contact you or find out more about your work?
Speaker 4: Oh? Well, I'm really easy to find. My website is
Speaker 4: Katherine Kasey dot com. It's k A t h r
Speaker 4: y n c A s e Y. I am on Facebook.
Speaker 4: I'm easy to find there. Unfortunately I'm all filled up
Speaker 4: with friends, but they can follow me. We have some
Speaker 4: pretty interesting discussions on there about cases in the news,
Speaker 4: and I put up pictures in my dog Nelson, which
Speaker 4: is always fun. So I'm always happy to meet new people.
Speaker 4: But I appreciate it Dan very much. Thank you for
Speaker 4: inviting me to be on the program.
Speaker 5: Well, it's always my pleasure, Catherine. Then, thank you very much,
Speaker 5: and I know I will be talking to you soon
Speaker 5: because you're a busy and prolific writer, and we'll be
Speaker 5: talking to you again with your next great work. Thank
Speaker 5: you very much for this, Catherine, and that you have
Speaker 5: a great.
Speaker 4: Evening YouTube, Dan, Thank you, Bye.
Speaker 5: Good night.
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