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Speaker 4: You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
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Speaker 4: week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and
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Speaker 4: host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: Good Evening. Sandra Bridwell was a beguiling Dallas socialite in
Speaker 5: the seventies and early eighties. Her first husband was a
Speaker 5: prominent dentist who has found shot to death in their
Speaker 5: home in nineteen seventy five. The medical examiner ruled his
Speaker 5: death a suicide. Her second husband, Robert Bridwell, developed the
Speaker 5: mansion on Turtle Creek, the first property of Rosewood Hotels
Speaker 5: and Resorts. Shortly after mister Bridwell died of lymphoma. In
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty two, his treating doctor's wife was found shot
Speaker 5: to death in her car at love Field, a few
Speaker 5: hours after giving Sandra a ride to the airport. The
Speaker 5: medical examiner ruled the woman's death a suicide. Three years later,
Speaker 5: Sandra's third husband was found shot to death in his car,
Speaker 5: in which he was last seen driving to meet her.
Speaker 5: The medical examiner ruled his death a homicide, and Sandra
Speaker 5: became the prime suspect, but was never arrested. In nineteen
Speaker 5: eighty seven. Sandra was the subject of a D magazine
Speaker 5: feature titled The Black Widow that suggested she had indeed
Speaker 5: murdered her third husband, as well as her first husband
Speaker 5: and the wife of the prominent cancer doctor who had
Speaker 5: treated mister Bridewell. Author John Leake grew up in Highland Park,
Speaker 5: down the street from Sandra Bridewell, and often visited her
Speaker 5: at her home to play with one of her children.
Speaker 5: He began his multi year investigation in two thousand and
Speaker 5: seven when Sandra was arrested for aggravated identity theft. Assuming
Speaker 5: the guise of a Christian missionary, she ingratiated herself with
Speaker 5: an elderly lady in Southport, North Carolina, near Cape Fear
Speaker 5: to steal the unsuspecting victim's identity and to plunder her
Speaker 5: financial assets. Leake visited Bridewell in pre trial detention and
Speaker 5: began documenting her life and wanderings. He then investigated the
Speaker 5: three gunshot deaths reported in the D magazine feature with
Speaker 5: the assistance a former Los Angeles criminalist Lynn Harrow and
Speaker 5: d former FBI forensic psychologist Greg McCrary. Dallas police photos
Speaker 5: of the first two death scenes display physical evidence that
Speaker 5: they were not suicides, but murders that were staged to
Speaker 5: look like suicides. These murders bear striking similarities to the
Speaker 5: murders of Sandra Bridewell's third husband, and she was the
Speaker 5: last known contact of all three descendants. After serving two
Speaker 5: years in a federal penitentiary for aggravated identity theft, she
Speaker 5: was released in twenty ten and now Rome's free. The
Speaker 5: book that we're featuring this evening is The Meaning of
Speaker 5: Malice on the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland
Speaker 5: Park with my special guest, investigative journalist and author John Leek.
Speaker 5: Good evening, and welcome to the program.
Speaker 6: John Leek, Thanks for having me, Dan, This is great.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, and thank you very much for
Speaker 5: this interview on this extraordinary book.
Speaker 6: I'm delighted and i appreciate your interest in it. It
Speaker 6: is a story I've investigated for many years, so I'm
Speaker 6: thrilled that you're.
Speaker 7: Interested in it.
Speaker 5: Before we start, this extraordinary tale and set in July sixteenth,
Speaker 5: nineteen eighty two, in your first chapter here, tell us
Speaker 5: how you came to be involved in this story, just
Speaker 5: your background and connection to this area and to this story.
Speaker 6: I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas. I had
Speaker 6: the good fortune to grow up in an affluent, independent
Speaker 6: township in the middle of Dallas County.
Speaker 7: It's called Highland Park.
Speaker 6: Highland Park has its own police force and school districts,
Speaker 6: and it's known in Texas as the Bubble. I think
Speaker 6: the idea is that it's shielded from the ills that
Speaker 6: affect the rest of humanity. That's not true, but anyway,
Speaker 6: that's the public perception. It's an affluent place. I was
Speaker 6: born in nineteen seventy and around the year nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 6: I was just a boy, an eight year old. It
Speaker 6: was only something I gradually became aware of. There was
Speaker 6: a lady named Sandra Bridewell, and she and her new husband,
Speaker 6: a very popular, something of a society lion in Dallas.
Speaker 6: His name is Bobby Bridewell.
Speaker 7: They bought a house right.
Speaker 6: Down the street from my childhood home, and in the
Speaker 6: year nineteen eighty three, I became friends with Sandra's second child,
Speaker 6: a girl named Catherine. Katherine and I were the same age.
Speaker 6: We were playmates or classmates at school. I started hanging
Speaker 6: around with Catherine, hanging around at the Bridewell House, and
Speaker 6: through that experience I became acquainted with Sandra Bridewell.
Speaker 7: And to quickly jump forward.
Speaker 6: After I became acquainted with Sandra, she a few years
Speaker 6: later landed on the front cover of our local glossy
Speaker 6: monthly magazine, D Magazine. It's called very popular local magazine
Speaker 6: about events and people in Dallas. There was Sandra, my
Speaker 6: friend's mom and my neighbor, on the front cover of
Speaker 6: a very salacious, sensational story, the title of which was
Speaker 6: The Black Widow and the Although the authors of the
Speaker 6: of the feature did not come out and directly accuser
Speaker 6: has the title of the piece strongly insinuated she was
Speaker 6: under suspicion for committing multiple murders. And so that was
Speaker 6: quite a stunner. When I saw the front cover of
Speaker 6: that D Magazine piece. I read the piece with great
Speaker 6: avid interest, and sure enough it would have seemed, based
Speaker 6: on reading that report, that Sandra was under strong suspicion
Speaker 6: for the gunshot death of her first husband in nineteen
Speaker 6: eight excuse me, nineteen seventy five. Then a friend of
Speaker 6: hers was found shot to death. Sandra was the last
Speaker 6: known contact in eighty two, and then Sandra's third husband
Speaker 6: was found shot to death in nineteen eighty five. She
Speaker 6: was the last known contact of all three. So that
Speaker 6: piece came out in May of nineteen eighty seven, and
Speaker 6: the story has haunted me ever since.
Speaker 5: You say that you got involved in two thousand and seven.
Speaker 5: But in this book you take us to again Lovefield
Speaker 5: Airport in Dallas, July sixteenth, nineteen eighty two. In the
Speaker 5: short term parking lot. There is a blue Mercedes three
Speaker 5: hundred station wagon and the family is there. Tell us
Speaker 5: what happens, what is discovered?
Speaker 6: Hey, Mercedes, Ben's mechanic and his children are along for
Speaker 6: the ride. They're giving his cousin a ride to love
Speaker 6: Field Airport. He remarks to his children, look at that
Speaker 6: beautiful car. Someday I'll save up enough to buy one
Speaker 6: of those, and that prompts the curiosity of his small children.
Speaker 6: They park the car their he the father's pulling luggage
Speaker 6: out of it. The children wander over to the car
Speaker 6: and peer into it, and they see what appears to
Speaker 6: be a young woman who is not moving. Her body
Speaker 6: is slumped all the way across the center console. Her
Speaker 6: upper body is actually lying on the passenger seat of
Speaker 6: the vehicle. One of the children. Says to the father, Daddy,
Speaker 6: there's a lady in this car, and she looks sick.
Speaker 6: He it's very hot at summertime in Dallas, it's ninety
Speaker 6: five degrees. He sees the windows are rolled up, the
Speaker 6: engine's not running. He immediately is alarmed by that thought
Speaker 6: of her having a heat stroke in the car. He
Speaker 6: runs over to the vehicle, peers into the window and
Speaker 6: sees blood running out of her nose and sees what
Speaker 6: through the window what appears to be a small revolver,
Speaker 6: a snubnosed revolver in her right hand. He calls her.
Speaker 6: He runs into the terminal, notifies the terminal security.
Speaker 7: They call the police.
Speaker 6: The police come and they at first glance they perceived
Speaker 6: this woman and her name is Betsy Bagwell. They the police,
Speaker 6: the investigating officers, and a medical examiner field agent. It
Speaker 6: would seem that she's shot herself in the head while
Speaker 6: sitting in the driver's seat, and based on their perception,
Speaker 6: they draw the conclusions she has slumped over onto the
Speaker 6: passenger seat. There is a very cursory investigation of this.
Speaker 6: The homicide detective on the case. He goes from Dallas
Speaker 6: Lovefield Airport to Betsy Bagwell's home which is in smack
Speaker 6: Dab in the middle of Highland Park, which is about
Speaker 6: a fifteen minute drive from love Field, and he goes
Speaker 6: to notify the next of ken, that is the husband
Speaker 6: who was a very prominent oncologist, the prominent cancer doctor
Speaker 6: in Dallas. And what I can tell you now kind
Speaker 6: of leave you with suspenses. The homicide detective perceived when
Speaker 6: he arrived at the Bagwell residence that somehow the husband
Speaker 6: seemed to not be surprised by the news that his
Speaker 6: young wife had just been found shot in her car
Speaker 6: at love Field. The homicide detective makes the deduction that
Speaker 6: the husband must have somehow known, perhaps by way of
Speaker 6: a suicide note, that she was suicidal. That is a
Speaker 6: deduction that the homicide detective makes, which would explain why
Speaker 6: the husband is apparently not surprised by the news of
Speaker 6: his wife's gunshot death. In fact, the plot thickens considerably.
Speaker 6: But one of the things that I examined as I
Speaker 6: got into my investigation is why why didn't the Dallas
Speaker 6: police perceive the suspicious circumstances of this death?
Speaker 7: And they didn't.
Speaker 6: Their initial impression was suicide, and the decedent's husband did
Speaker 6: not really say anything, at least not in a vehement
Speaker 6: way to challenge that perception. I always found that intriguing.
Speaker 6: A very cursory account of Betsy's death was written in
Speaker 6: this d magazine piece.
Speaker 7: But it was very, very.
Speaker 6: Superficial and cursory, and so even at the time, as
Speaker 6: a sixteen year old boy, I was intrigued by that.
Speaker 6: And I think that the death of Betsy Bagwell at
Speaker 6: love Field Airport in nineteen eighty two, I believe it's
Speaker 6: it's the moral and the dramatic heart of this story
Speaker 6: which happened right in my community.
Speaker 5: Yes, let's get to Bobby Bridewell. You say his father
Speaker 5: was a famous oil man, successful oil man, and so
Speaker 5: was Bobby. But Bobby was a fun guy. He was
Speaker 5: a different guy. Friends with musicians, people like James Brown.
Speaker 5: He was a real fun guy. And he was a
Speaker 5: hotel developer and a creative genius according to his friends.
Speaker 5: Tell us who catches his eye in the fall of
Speaker 5: nineteen seventy seven, and what is his circumstances in terms
Speaker 5: of his own personal relationship?
Speaker 6: Why I applaud your recollection of the story. Yeah, Bobby,
Speaker 6: he came from a Tyler, Texas oil family. It's kind
Speaker 6: of an interest worth a brief digression. Tyler is in
Speaker 6: the middle of the East Texas oil field, excuse me,
Speaker 6: one of the great oil fields in American petroleum history. H. L.
Speaker 6: Hunt Herbert Lamar Hunt, at one point was the richest
Speaker 6: man in the world. He made his fortune in the
Speaker 6: East Texas oil patch. Bobby grew up in Tyler. His
Speaker 6: dad was an oil man. His dad's nickname was slant
Speaker 6: hole Billy. His name was William Bridwell, but in petroleum
Speaker 6: circles he's called slant hole Billy. And that's because he
Speaker 6: got caught horizontal drilling into a Texico lease, So slant
Speaker 6: hoole horizontal drilling. In other words, he was he was
Speaker 6: stuck as straw in someone else's milkshake and got caught.
Speaker 6: And so Bobby did not follow his dad's footsteps into
Speaker 6: the oil business. He caught into hotel development and it
Speaker 6: was very good at it. He became friends with Eric
Speaker 6: Hilton and some big money guys that invested in his hotel.
Speaker 6: Richard Pugh of the Sun Oil Trust and Bobby were friends.
Speaker 6: Bobby was also interested in racehorses, and he owned a
Speaker 6: racehorse at Thoroughbred racehorse breeding operation just north of Dallas.
Speaker 6: He had a beautiful Southern bell wife. His first marriage
Speaker 6: was a beautiful Southern bell from Virginia. He caught her
Speaker 6: having an affair with the horse trainer, and that would
Speaker 6: have been in somewhere around nineteen seventy seven. Was very
Speaker 6: despondent about it. It dampened his usually enthusiastic high spirits
Speaker 6: for fun and for life, kind of knocked down his
Speaker 6: ego a bit. And the fall of seventy seven his
Speaker 6: friends were really worried about him, and they thought we
Speaker 6: got to cheer him up. So for his thirty six birthday,
Speaker 6: they invited a young woman. Her name at that time
Speaker 6: was Sandras Stiegel. Sandra's first husband was a guy named
Speaker 6: David Stiegel, a prominent dentist who apparently committed suicide as
Speaker 6: people understood it at the time, committed suicide, shot himself
Speaker 6: in his marital bed in his home, and so thereby
Speaker 6: widowing Sandra. But Sandra was known as a very beautiful, vivacious,
Speaker 6: fun girl. So one of his buddies invited Sander to
Speaker 6: the party to cheer Bobby up, and they set it
Speaker 6: up where she jumped out of a giant birthday cake
Speaker 6: wearing a slinky dress. Bobby was quite charmed. Sandra was
Speaker 6: a very beautiful girl, and quickly was smitten and proposed
Speaker 6: marriage just a few months later. So now Sandra, who
Speaker 6: is a widow just a few years later, is now
Speaker 6: married to Bobby Bridwell, who's probably no exaggeration to say
Speaker 6: he's the most popular guy.
Speaker 7: In Dallas society.
Speaker 6: I mean literally just everybody loves Bobby, and so Sandra
Speaker 6: briefly enjoys a period is something like a Dallas social
Speaker 6: lighte and Bobby was friends with the Hunts and the
Speaker 6: Winds and all of these oil people in Dallas. So
Speaker 6: she's invited to the cattle barons ball in the society,
Speaker 6: you know, charity balls and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: and she cut quite a figure. Unfortunately, Bobby was not
Speaker 6: long for this world. He was diagnosed with lymphoma at
Speaker 6: the end of well, I should say beginning of nineteen eighty,
Speaker 6: and it soon became apparent, I think late eighty maybe
Speaker 6: eighty one, that he was a goner. It was around
Speaker 6: the end of Bobby's life that Sandra, by multiple witness accounts,
Speaker 6: took a fancy in his treating doctor his treating doctor,
Speaker 6: doctor John Bagwell. Like I said, he was a prominent doctor.
Speaker 6: He's probably the go to cancer doctor for Dallas society.
Speaker 6: My grandmother was his patient in nineteen eighty, the same
Speaker 6: year as is Bobby Bridewell, and Sandra took a fancy
Speaker 6: to the doctor. It was about two months after Bobby
Speaker 6: Bridewell's succumb to lymphoma that the doctor's wife, Betsy was
Speaker 6: then found shot to death at love Field.
Speaker 5: Yes, and police make no connection whatsoever between these two things,
Speaker 5: do they.
Speaker 6: Well. Sandra actually showed up at the Bagwell residence on
Speaker 6: the night of bets He's death while the police were
Speaker 6: still there, and she said, I was just dining with
Speaker 6: some friends when doctor Bagwell called me at the restaurant
Speaker 6: and he was frantically looking for Betsy. And he asked
Speaker 6: me if I knew where she was, and I said
Speaker 6: that I did not. I had not seen Betsy since
Speaker 6: about five o'clock this afternoon.
Speaker 7: Betsy.
Speaker 6: This is what Sandra tells the Dallas police. Betsy gave
Speaker 6: me a ride to love Field Airport to rent a car,
Speaker 6: and when we arrived at the airport, I discovered I'd
Speaker 6: forgotten my driver's license, so Betsy gave me a ride
Speaker 6: back to my vehicle that had broken down. And when
Speaker 6: we got back to my vehicle, I thought, you know,
Speaker 6: it wouldn't start earlier, but maybe it will start now.
Speaker 6: I got into my vehicle. To my pleasant surprise, it
Speaker 6: started up. And so I parted company from Betsy at
Speaker 6: five o'clock at the church. Don't know why she would
Speaker 6: then drive back to love Field and enter the parking
Speaker 6: lot and shoot herself, but I don't know. She must
Speaker 6: have been despondent. So the Dallas police sort of take
Speaker 6: notes from Sandra and they don't pursue any kind of
Speaker 6: examination of her. And as I discovered, it's rather strange.
Speaker 6: The doctor's wife, excuse me, the doctor's husband, doctor John Bagwell,
Speaker 6: for whatever reasons.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is my starting point.
Speaker 6: It seems that he is not telling the police to
Speaker 6: take a look at Betsy's last known contact. He doesn't,
Speaker 6: at least not with any vehemence, encourage the police to
Speaker 6: examine sand Or Bridewell, even though by Sandra's own account,
Speaker 6: she was Betsy's last known contact.
Speaker 5: When Detective Coughlin speaks with Sandra, she tells him about
Speaker 5: what Betsy had said regarding suicide.
Speaker 6: What Sandra told Detective Coglin was, I spent the day
Speaker 6: with Betsy. We talked about many themes, and one of
Speaker 6: the things that she wanted to talk to me about
Speaker 6: was the suicide of my first husband. She seemed very
Speaker 6: curious about that, and we want to know about my
Speaker 6: husband's suicide and how he did it and why he
Speaker 6: did it, and so that was one of the things
Speaker 6: we talked about. Sandra also told the police to that
Speaker 6: Betsy seemed despondent. She mentioned a nurse at her husband's
Speaker 6: house hospital that she was concerned about, and so the
Speaker 6: implication that Sandra, or the impression she made on the
Speaker 6: detective was that Betsy was despondent, she had wanted to
Speaker 6: speak expressly with Sandra about suicide. So the police records
Speaker 6: of all of this are rather thin, but it seems
Speaker 6: clear from what Detective Coglin did write in his supplemental
Speaker 6: report and what a medical examiner field agent wrote in
Speaker 6: his that the police detective concluded that Betsy must have
Speaker 6: had something like suicidal ideation and must have committed suicide,
Speaker 6: and that Sandra Bridwell's statement could just be taken at
Speaker 6: face value.
Speaker 5: Tell us about you write about that her daughter was
Speaker 5: pursuing John Bagwell was in terms of trying to convince
Speaker 5: him that they needed a new daddy. And you also
Speaker 5: talk about private eye al Teel, who was hired by
Speaker 5: doctor Bagwell to look into this Sandra's background. So tell
Speaker 5: us about what he does find and yeah, tell us
Speaker 5: what Altel finds.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 6: So what happens is a month after the case is
Speaker 6: closed on Betsy. What I was able to determine, and
Speaker 6: it was not easy. Doctor Bagwell did not want to
Speaker 6: speak to me. He refused to and nor did Betsy's
Speaker 6: closest friends agree to speak to me. Even though I
Speaker 6: have good family connections with these people. They preferred silent.
Speaker 6: So it wasn't wasn't immediate. But what I was able
Speaker 6: to discover is that a month after Betsy's death, doctor
Speaker 6: Bagwell went and had a private meeting with the Dallas
Speaker 6: County medically And you can see from the medical Examiner's
Speaker 6: memo of the conversation it was a discreet and collegial conversation,
Speaker 6: and doctor Bagwell said, you know, the police ruled this
Speaker 6: a suicide, but you know, I'm concerned about the wife
Speaker 6: of a former patient who died of cancer. In spite
Speaker 6: of my best care, and she seems to have a
Speaker 6: profound emotional problem. I don't want her to know that
Speaker 6: I'm trying to learn more about her.
Speaker 7: I am.
Speaker 6: This is doctor Bagwell telling the Medical Examiner. He says,
Speaker 6: I'm contemplating hiring a private investigator to examine this woman.
Speaker 6: And doctor Charles Petty, the Medical Examiner, notes in his memo,
Speaker 6: you know, I told doctor Bagwell, and this is important.
Speaker 6: You know, I can know more be certain of my
Speaker 6: suicide ruling, then he could be certain of a diagnosis
Speaker 6: in his clinical practice. So yes, hire a detective, and
Speaker 6: if you should discover something suspicious about this woman, let
Speaker 6: me know.
Speaker 7: So that's clearly.
Speaker 6: Noted and doctor Charles Petty the Medical Examiner's memo. But
Speaker 6: then only later, and I mean, you know this is
Speaker 6: years and years later, was I able to discover Doctor
Speaker 6: Bagwell did hire a private investigator, a guy named al Teel.
Speaker 6: Altel did look into Sandra, and he did put together
Speaker 6: a pretty good dosier of information, but he didn't give
Speaker 6: it to the medical examiner. It's nowhere in the medical
Speaker 6: Examiner's records. And then there is a trace evidence special
Speaker 6: lists who confirm knowing never received anything further from doctor
Speaker 6: Bagwell or any of the professionals he had working for him.
Speaker 6: So it's this weird doctor Bagwell hired PI. The PI
Speaker 6: generated a dosia of information, but then that wasn't forwarded
Speaker 6: to the medical examiner. So what Tiald discovered is that
Speaker 6: Sandra continued to stalk doctor Bagwell even after the death
Speaker 6: of Betsy. Sandra turned up at his medical offices. She
Speaker 6: cornered him in the parking lot, and yes, she had
Speaker 6: one of her children deliver a sort of childish drawing
Speaker 6: showing the Bagwell family united with the with the Bridewell family,
Speaker 6: and then the sort of child childish scrawled below this
Speaker 6: drawing saying, please take us all to Santa Fe. Marry
Speaker 6: my Mommy, take us all to Santa Fe where he
Speaker 6: had a.
Speaker 7: Vacation home, and we'll all be so happy together.
Speaker 6: That kind of freaked out doctor Bagwell receiving that note
Speaker 6: and with that childish drawing, he believed that Sandra had
Speaker 6: put the child up to it, and he was also
Speaker 6: freaked out about Sandra stalking at his medical offices. However,
Speaker 6: as I discovered from my investigation, and this is a
Speaker 6: very nuanced point, I could find no records of him
Speaker 6: telling the police, the Dallas Police, of divulging this information
Speaker 6: to the Dallas Police at the time the investigation was open.
Speaker 6: He only disclosed these revelations or this information four years later,
Speaker 6: and that's getting into another chapter of this.
Speaker 7: The Oklahoma City.
Speaker 6: Police came to Dallas four years after Betsy's death investigating
Speaker 6: the death of Sandra Bridwell's third husband, whom Sandra met
Speaker 6: two years after Betsy's death. The third husband also turns
Speaker 6: up shot to death in his vehicle in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 6: The Oklahoma City Police come to Dallas because of indications
Speaker 6: that the victim had probably been shot in Dallas and
Speaker 6: his vehicle and his body then driven to Oklahoma City
Speaker 6: and dumped in Oklahoma City. They came to Dallas to
Speaker 6: perform an investigation, and one of the guys who they
Speaker 6: spoke to.
Speaker 7: Was doctor Bagwell. It was only then.
Speaker 6: In an interview with the Oklahoma City Police that he
Speaker 6: divulged this information about san restalking.
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Speaker 5: Now you had mentioned without saying his name, and you
Speaker 5: call this chapter fortuitous encounter with Alan Rayrigg. And you
Speaker 5: say that, you tell this incredible story about him just
Speaker 5: arriving in Dallas the day before he was working at
Speaker 5: this Nowland mortgage company real estate finance corporation, tell us
Speaker 5: about how he met Sandra Bridewell.
Speaker 6: Well, this is really a fortuitous sort of twist of fate.
Speaker 6: So Alan Rairig, a twenty nine year old young man,
Speaker 6: had just arrived in Dallas the day He knew some
Speaker 6: of his work colleagues who lived in Dallas, but he
Speaker 6: knew no one in Highland Park. But a colleague of
Speaker 6: his at the office said, you know, if you don't
Speaker 6: want to live in an apartment building, these people in
Speaker 6: Highland Park, they will sometimes rent apartments above their garage,
Speaker 6: like a garage apartment or a carriage house apartment as
Speaker 6: it was sometimes sort of called in an affected way.
Speaker 6: So you might go looking for a carriage house apartment
Speaker 6: in Highland Park. So Alan, by a cruel twist of fate,
Speaker 6: happens to turn on to Lorraine Avenue, which again I
Speaker 6: lived on the same street, and sees this raven haired
Speaker 6: lady watering her azalea bushes in the front yard and
Speaker 6: he sees this beautiful woman and he just feels drawn
Speaker 6: to her, so he parks his vehicle, gets out, walks
Speaker 6: up to her, says, Hi, I you know, my name's Alan.
Speaker 6: I heard that there are garage apartments. And she turns,
Speaker 6: makes this kind of gaze gazing eye contact with him
Speaker 6: and says, well, you know, please to make your acquaintance.
Speaker 6: I don't know of any garage apartments, but if you
Speaker 6: come back in half an hour, I'll give you a
Speaker 6: tour of the neighborhood. So he's sort of mesmerized by
Speaker 6: this girl and comes back half an hour.
Speaker 7: In the interim, she's freshened up. They go for a ride.
Speaker 6: She tells him that she's a widow, that her husband
Speaker 6: had died of cancer. She's raising three children on her own.
Speaker 6: And a whirlwind romance quickly ensues. And I could I
Speaker 6: can talk about this for a while anyway, I'll pause there.
Speaker 5: Well, you say, that thing seems like a dream for
Speaker 5: this young man. He's just beginning his career, and he
Speaker 5: thinks this woman is not only beautiful and sexy, but
Speaker 5: also very very exciting and also wealthy.
Speaker 7: He believes, Yeah, so no.
Speaker 6: Alan mortgage company did deals with Rosewood, which is the
Speaker 6: real estate development company of Margaret Rose excuse me of
Speaker 6: not Margaret.
Speaker 7: That's her sister. Suddenly her first name is slipping me.
Speaker 6: Missus Rose Hunt is the sort of real estate development company.
Speaker 6: Her first property that she did was the mansion on
Speaker 6: Turtle Creek that Bobby Bridewell developed. He conceived the project
Speaker 6: and missus Hunt financed it. That then became the first
Speaker 6: property of Rosewood Hotels and Rosies Orts, which is now
Speaker 6: really one of the big luxury hotel companies in the world.
Speaker 6: So no, Allan did deals with Rosewood. So all all
Speaker 6: Alan Rerig, who works for Alan Mortgage knows, is that,
Speaker 6: you know, Bobby Bridewell was this lady's husband, and he
Speaker 6: developed the mansion, and boy, he must have been a
Speaker 6: rich guy.
Speaker 7: And Sandra is you know, his widow.
Speaker 6: And she has this beautiful house in Highland Park, and
Speaker 6: so he thinks, correct, you said it just right. You know,
Speaker 6: not only is she a very beautiful and sexy woman,
Speaker 6: she seems to be a lady, a society lady of property.
Speaker 6: Now one of the eerie things about this is, unbeknownst
Speaker 6: to Alan, in fact, she's been totally ostracized in our community.
Speaker 6: After the death of Betsy Bagwell, most people in our
Speaker 6: community became frightened of Sandra. So she's just so persuasive
Speaker 6: and her the way she carries herself. He doesn't really
Speaker 6: stop to think, you know, come to think of it,
Speaker 6: she doesn't really ever seem to be with other people.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, maybe she's got a friend or two,
Speaker 6: but for example, with the exception of two women and
Speaker 6: one man, no one attended their.
Speaker 7: Wedding on Sandra's side. And so it's kind of an
Speaker 7: eerie thing.
Speaker 6: This young fellow who's just arrived, he thinks that he's,
Speaker 6: you know, met a remarkable woman of beauty, sex, appeal,
Speaker 6: and property. Unbeknownst to him, she's the most notorious woman
Speaker 6: in our community.
Speaker 5: She meets Alan's mother, Gloria, and they talk and discuss things,
Speaker 5: and so Sandra says to Gloria that you think it
Speaker 5: might be time for us to have some insurance, some
Speaker 5: life insurance, and Gloria believes, yes, it is time. So
Speaker 5: they had discussed that and then tell us about the pregnancy.
Speaker 6: Well, what I discovered is that in the fall of
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty four, Santra and Alan are having this kind
Speaker 6: of whirlwind romance, and she tells him, I'm pregnant. And
Speaker 6: you know, up till that moment, I mean, they've only
Speaker 6: just met a few months earlier, he seems to just
Speaker 6: be having fun. But in the moment she tells him
Speaker 6: I'm pregnant, you know, suddenly this is a lot more serious.
Speaker 7: And he's kind of an.
Speaker 6: Old fashioned Christian boy from Oklahoma, and so he feels
Speaker 6: he's going to do the right thing. So they may
Speaker 6: very very very quickly. Now, Alan does not tell his
Speaker 6: mom that the marriage was that the wedding ceremony was
Speaker 6: hastened by an apparent pregnancy. He doesn't tell his mom
Speaker 6: that and the baby's not showing at least, everyone thinks
Speaker 6: that it's because it's so early. Everyone later assumed it's
Speaker 6: because it's so early in the term that the baby
Speaker 6: wasn't showing at the wedding. About three weeks after the wedding,
Speaker 6: Sandra tells Alan that she'd miscarried, and it was quite
Speaker 6: a bold pronouncement. She said, I you know, I miscarried
Speaker 6: and there were twins. You know, I miscarried twins. Unbeknownst
Speaker 6: to Alan, Sandra had had a hysterectomy about eight years earlier.
Speaker 6: The pregnancy that she claimed to have had was fraudulent
Speaker 6: that then necessitated telling a second lie, the second lie
Speaker 6: being that she'd miscarried, which.
Speaker 7: Was of course very distressing to him.
Speaker 6: So already at the outset of Sandra's relationship with Alan,
Speaker 6: you see a serious, a grave act of fraud, fraud
Speaker 6: in the inducement to Mary.
Speaker 7: But Alan never knew that.
Speaker 6: He was never made aware of this fraud in the
Speaker 6: inducement to Mary. It was something he never discovered on
Speaker 6: He did agree with Sandra, with his wife Anne, with
Speaker 6: his mom that Sandra had three children from a previous marriage.
Speaker 6: He was working at the real estate the mortgage company.
Speaker 6: He thought it would be a good idea to have
Speaker 6: a life insurance policy, so he purchased one in the
Speaker 6: spring of nineteen eighty five with a two hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty thousand dollars death benefit. The marriage pretty shortly thereafter
Speaker 6: began to founder. The immediate cause of stress was her
Speaker 6: out of control spending. Sandra was a shopaholic, I guess
Speaker 6: you would say, constantly going to Neiman Marcus and other
Speaker 6: department stores and furniture and art and clothes and jewelry.
Speaker 6: And she very quickly racked up very very large consumer debts.
Speaker 6: Alan was just getting started in his career. It was
Speaker 6: very financially distressing. They began to squabble and bicker about money,
Speaker 6: and by November the first, nineteen eighty five, so they've
Speaker 6: not even been married for a year, they separate. And
Speaker 6: they were separated for a month, and then Sandra proposed
Speaker 6: at the beginning of December that they meet. There was
Speaker 6: an immediate bit of business that she wanted to attend to.
Speaker 6: They had some stuff in a storage facility. The precise
Speaker 6: details of that only she now knows. Alan went to
Speaker 6: meet her at the storage warehouse. He was staying with
Speaker 6: his friend at the time of their separation. He told
Speaker 6: his friend, I'm just running out to do an errand
Speaker 6: with Sandra. I'll be back for dinner. And he never
Speaker 6: returned from that appointment. That was the last he was
Speaker 6: ever seen alive. A few days later, his Ford Bronco
Speaker 6: was found park near an empty lot near the Oklahoma
Speaker 6: City Airport and his body was found in it, shot twice,
Speaker 6: once from the right through his torso and then once
Speaker 6: in the back of the head. Sandra quickly became the
Speaker 6: prime suspect for his murder. She remains the prime suspect
Speaker 6: to this day.
Speaker 5: You write later in this book and we'll talk a
Speaker 5: little bit about that and your own investigation into this.
Speaker 5: But they asked her, Sandra, one telling question that seemed
Speaker 5: to not register with the police, regarding the last time
Speaker 5: she saw her husband.
Speaker 6: Yes, an Oklahoma City cold case investigator in the year
Speaker 6: two thousand and seventy, excuse me, two thousand and seven
Speaker 6: told a reporter for the Day Daily, Oklahoma. He said,
Speaker 6: we want to reopen this, this cold case, the murder
Speaker 6: of Norman Alan Rairig, and we want to take another
Speaker 6: look at his widow, Sandra Bridwell, and we have a
Speaker 6: strong investigative lead or a legal grounds for suspecting her.
Speaker 6: And so the cold case investigator tells the journalists for
Speaker 6: the Daily Oakland Homan. On the night that Alan was found,
Speaker 6: a police investigator, apparently from the Dallas Police who received
Speaker 6: the memo from Oklahoma, Hey, we've found this guy. He's
Speaker 6: got Texas plates, the vehicles registered in an address in Dallas,
Speaker 6: So it was a Dallas cop.
Speaker 7: It's not a formal.
Speaker 6: Notification of kN becaut next of ken, which would have
Speaker 6: been done in person, because they haven't yet determined Allan's identity,
Speaker 6: wallet is not found on his body, no ideas found
Speaker 6: on his body. So the first order of business is
Speaker 6: who is this guy? So what the cop does?
Speaker 7: He calls the Rare residence.
Speaker 6: Sandra answers the phone, and he just says, was your
Speaker 6: husband wearing shorts in a navy sweater.
Speaker 7: When you last saw him?
Speaker 6: That's what the dead man in the bronco is wearing
Speaker 6: when they found him, and Sandra says yes, okay. The
Speaker 6: problem with that answer in the affirmative is that Sandra
Speaker 6: had already excuse me, which shortly thereafter, no, she already
Speaker 6: had pardon me. She had already said that Alan didn't
Speaker 6: make it to the appointment at the storage warehouse. So
Speaker 6: if that first assertion he never made it to the
Speaker 6: appointment is true, it raises the question when you were
Speaker 6: asked was he wearing shorts in a navy sweater?
Speaker 7: Why did you answer yes? It's a good question.
Speaker 5: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 5: these messages.
Speaker 3: Lucky Land Casino asking people what's the weirdest place you've gotten?
Speaker 2: Lucky Lucky in line at the Deli, I guess ah
Speaker 2: in my dentist's office more than once.
Speaker 6: Actually, do I have to say?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: You do in the car before my kid's PTA meeting?
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 3: Excuse me? What's the weirdest place you've gotten lucky?
Speaker 6: I never win?
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Speaker 5: Now let's get to the most important part and the
Speaker 5: most fascinating part of this story is how you enter
Speaker 5: into this investigation and how do you undertake to try
Speaker 5: to attempt to do this reinvestigation.
Speaker 6: I was long haunted by that d magazine piece that
Speaker 6: I told you about. It was written by Skip Hollinsworth,
Speaker 6: a very distinguished reporter who went on to have a
Speaker 6: big career, and it always just kind of stuck with me.
Speaker 6: I lived in Vienna, Austria for many years. That's where
Speaker 6: I began my career as a true crime author. My
Speaker 6: first book was about a Viennese serial killer named Jack Luntveger.
Speaker 6: Right at the time I finished the manuscript of my
Speaker 6: first book, I mean I had just sent it to
Speaker 6: the publisher. I get a call from one of my
Speaker 6: mother's friends in Dallas saying Sandra has finally been arrested.
Speaker 6: The long arm of the law is finally caught up
Speaker 6: with her. She was arrested in Southport, North Carolina, in
Speaker 6: March of two thousand and seven for committing multiple acts
Speaker 6: of fraud against an elderly widow. Sandra was assuming the
Speaker 6: alias Camille Bowers and introduced herself to this elderly widow
Speaker 6: as a Christian minister and missionary. She moved in with
Speaker 6: the old lady under the guise of being in between missions.
Speaker 6: She said, I'm scheduled to depart to Africa in a month,
Speaker 6: but in the interim, you know, I could live with you.
Speaker 6: I could help with cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping.
Speaker 6: The elderly widow was lonely and was delighted by this offer.
Speaker 6: So Camille Bowers moves in with the old lady and
Speaker 6: promptly steals her identity, takes out credit cards in her name,
Speaker 6: tries to reroute her social Security benefit and the Social
Speaker 6: Security administration gets onto this. A local sheriff's deputy gets
Speaker 6: onto this. Sandra is arrested for multiple acts of fraud
Speaker 6: against this old lady. I catch wind of this, I
Speaker 6: fly to Riley Durham, I go and I visit Sandra
Speaker 6: in pre trial detention, and she ultimately pled guilty to
Speaker 6: aggravated identity theft, which sounds like a kind of bureaucratic offense,
Speaker 6: but it's actually a grave felony. She served two years
Speaker 6: in a federal penitentiary for aggravated identity theft. And once
Speaker 6: I examined that and saw the same pattern of deception, manipulation,
Speaker 6: and fraud, that's when I decided to go back and
Speaker 6: look at these gunshot deaths. The Oklahoma City Police never
Speaker 6: made a case against Sandra, which is rather mysterious because
Speaker 6: they're the totality of circumstances that Sandra murdered Norman Alan Rarig.
Speaker 6: In my opinion, I believe, based on my evaluation, I
Speaker 6: think would be sufficient to win a conviction if you
Speaker 6: presented the totality of circumstances to a jury.
Speaker 7: In my opinion, I.
Speaker 6: Believe that the.
Speaker 7: Evidence is persuasive.
Speaker 6: Nevertheless, the Oklahoma City Police did not make a case
Speaker 6: and they did not disclose any information to me. So
Speaker 6: I then focused my investigation on Sandra's first husband, who
Speaker 6: purportedly committed suicide in nineteen seventy five, and Betsy Bagwell,
Speaker 6: who purportedly committed suicide in nineteen eighty two. I was
Speaker 6: able to obtain the Dallas police photographs of the death scenes.
Speaker 6: Photographs were taken, and to my surprise, they were preserved.
Speaker 6: They were still in the Records Division archive. I obtained
Speaker 6: those photographs, I showed them to two very imminent forensic
Speaker 6: experts and both agreed, and I think it's quite clear
Speaker 6: there aren't multiple signs displayed in these photographs that both
Speaker 6: husband Won and Betsy Bagwell did not commit suicide. There
Speaker 6: are multiple indications displayed clearly in the photos that another
Speaker 6: person was involved. And so what I concluded it is
Speaker 6: my opinion that the murder of Alan Rerigg was in
Speaker 6: fact the third in a series of three. It began
Speaker 6: with Sandris's first husband, the dentist, then Betsy.
Speaker 7: Bagwell, and then Alan Raig.
Speaker 6: So you have a series of three gunshot deaths, and
Speaker 6: I believe, based on my analysis, that she is responsible
Speaker 6: for all three.
Speaker 5: Just to throw a little something into the mix, there
Speaker 5: is a cousin that they deal with and his name
Speaker 5: is Robert Smith, and Robert Smith ends up dead as well.
Speaker 7: A vehicle.
Speaker 6: Yes, so that was not even The death of Robert
Speaker 6: Smith was not mentioned in the famous d magazine report
Speaker 6: of nineteen eighty seven. I only discovered that after I
Speaker 6: began my investigation. So remember, the third husband's name is
Speaker 6: Alan Raig.
Speaker 7: He's found.
Speaker 6: Sandra falls under suspicion, but she's still the executor of
Speaker 6: Allan's estate. She is primarily interested in the primary asset
Speaker 6: in the estate, which is a two hundred and twenty
Speaker 6: thousand dollars life insurance death benefit. Now remember this is
Speaker 6: nineteen eighty five dollars, so that's actually a pretty large
Speaker 6: sum of money. It's probably pushing about nine hundred thousand
Speaker 6: dollars in today's dollars. So Sandra is trying to make
Speaker 6: the case that these bills that she herself had racked
Speaker 6: up they should be paid with part of the life
Speaker 6: insurance benefit, in that she should receive the rest. Alan's mother,
Speaker 6: who's a major figure in this story, she's probably the
Speaker 6: most redemptive character in the story. She suspects that Sandra
Speaker 6: murdered her son. She petitions the Dallas County probe Court
Speaker 6: to remove Sandra's executor and to replace her as executor
Speaker 6: with Allen's first cousin, Robert Smith, who's also a resident
Speaker 6: of Dallas County. About ten days after Glorious submits her
Speaker 6: petition to the probate court, Robert Smith has found shot
Speaker 6: to death in his vehicle parked in his family garage. Again,
Speaker 6: shot fired from the right shot, almost in the exact
Speaker 6: same way as Allan was shot. It looks kind of
Speaker 6: like a suicide because there's a deer rifle that is
Speaker 6: laying across the bench seat of the station wagon with
Speaker 6: the muzzle pressed to.
Speaker 7: The wound on the right side of Robert's chest.
Speaker 6: I believe that there are also indications in the Robert
Speaker 6: Smith death scene that this too was a staged suicide.
Speaker 6: In other words, someone else shot Robert with the deer
Speaker 6: rifle and staged it to look like a suicide. However,
Speaker 6: the death scene photographs in the Robert Smith case, I
Speaker 6: would characterize them as being more ambiguous.
Speaker 7: I think.
Speaker 6: It's not quite as cut and dried the indications of
Speaker 6: a stage of a homicide stage to look like a suicide,
Speaker 6: and the other thing in Robert Smith's case, I cannot
Speaker 6: establish that Sandra was the last known contact. She was
Speaker 6: the last known contact in.
Speaker 7: The first three.
Speaker 6: My decision was to sort of brack Robert Smith's with
Speaker 6: the question mark, I don't have enough information, to my
Speaker 6: satisfaction to draw a conclusion about that is very strange,
Speaker 6: it's very suspicious, but I think we would need more information.
Speaker 6: Now Robert Smith's widow doesn't want to talk about this,
Speaker 6: so I'm limited in how much I can learn about it.
Speaker 6: That contrast with Sandra's first husband, Betsy Baglin, the third husband.
Speaker 6: She was the last known contact.
Speaker 5: Let's talk about some of the people that were trying
Speaker 5: to assist you other than this incredible woman, Alan Raig's mother,
Speaker 5: Gloria you say now is ninety two years old but
Speaker 5: sharp as attack. And some of the people that were
Speaker 5: responsible in law enforcement and also in the media that
Speaker 5: were supportive of what you were doing and were instrumental
Speaker 5: in giving you valuable information.
Speaker 6: The first really important person is a Dallas crime reporter
Speaker 6: named Glenna Whitley. Now Glenna and I have become very
Speaker 6: close friends. We started off I guess you could characterize
Speaker 6: us as sort of collegial but somewhat competitive, Because Glenna
Speaker 6: had initially thought she'd write a book about this case.
Speaker 7: Now life got in the way.
Speaker 6: She's married, she has children, all kinds of other responsibilities,
Speaker 6: so she didn't do it. She was ultimately gracious enough
Speaker 6: to share her Dosier with me, So hats off and
Speaker 6: special thanks to Glenna for sharing her information. The other
Speaker 6: really important person who's rendered enormous assistance is a criminalist
Speaker 6: named Lynn Harold. She was for over thirty years. She
Speaker 6: worked for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Scientific Services.
Speaker 7: Bureau, that is, the crime Lab.
Speaker 6: Lynn was an expert witness for the prosecution in the
Speaker 6: matter of my first book, this Viennese serial killer. He
Speaker 6: actually got on a plane in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety one and flew to Los Angeles and murdered three
Speaker 6: girls in LA. Lynn was a trace evidence specialist who
Speaker 6: provided very persuasive testimony at Jack's trial. I got to
Speaker 6: know her then she was still working at the crime lab.
Speaker 6: I hung out in LA for a month. I spent
Speaker 6: several days just basically bothering her at the crime lab,
Speaker 6: and Lynn has been very helpful to me ever since.
Speaker 6: Whenever I've looked at some of these cold cases, I've
Speaker 6: looked at over the years she has helped me. Provided
Speaker 6: I'm able to obtain photographs, she's helped me to interpret them.
Speaker 7: So I give a huge.
Speaker 6: Amount of credit to Lynn for helping me with my analysis.
Speaker 6: She's a world class bloodstained pattern analyst. She understands all
Speaker 6: the elements of forensic science, and she was most notably,
Speaker 6: I think in terms of profile, she was the expert
Speaker 6: witness for the defense, excuse me, for the prosecution, or
Speaker 6: she provided expert scientific testimony that was useful for the prosecution.
Speaker 6: In the murder trial of the record producer Phil Specter,
Speaker 6: so Lynn testified that the bloodstained pattern dated mister Specter
Speaker 6: had murdered the victim. Spector claimed that she had committed
Speaker 6: suicide in his home. And it's an interesting twist in
Speaker 6: this story.
Speaker 7: Phil Spector hired.
Speaker 6: As expert witnesses for the defense probably the three most
Speaker 6: prominent forensic pathologists in the country at the time, Vincent
Speaker 6: Demayo Vanner Spitz.
Speaker 7: And Michael Boden.
Speaker 6: So Specter had the dream team of forensic guys, as
Speaker 6: is his witnesses for the defense, but none of these
Speaker 6: guys made a plausible case at all in their argument
Speaker 6: that it was suicide. In fact, they really kind of
Speaker 6: made themselves look ridiculous. That is to say, Lynn was
Speaker 6: the expert witness that it was murder, and Demayo, Spitz,
Speaker 6: and Boden were the experts saying that it was suicide. Ultimately,
Speaker 6: the jury found Lynn's testimony more persuasive than the dream team.
Speaker 6: Phil Spector was convicted of murder. The interesting twist is
Speaker 6: the medical examiner in nineteen seventy five in Dallas County
Speaker 6: who found the manner of death and husband number one
Speaker 6: a suicide was Vincent Demiyo.
Speaker 7: So when I showed Lynn.
Speaker 6: The photographs, she said who was the medical examiner at
Speaker 6: the time, and I discovered it it was it was Demayo,
Speaker 6: who you know she had had this contest with.
Speaker 7: In two thousand and seven.
Speaker 5: Now tell us the status of this case, your investigation,
Speaker 5: and just tell us where you think there should have
Speaker 5: been an intervention by law enforcement. At what point do
Speaker 5: you think then the FBI were involved? So tell us
Speaker 5: your thoughts.
Speaker 6: What I've discovered is that when the medical examiners in
Speaker 6: Dallas County in nineteen seventy five, in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 6: when they ruled the manner of death suicide, the way
Speaker 6: that was treated and perceived by the police in the
Speaker 6: District Attorney's office. They perceived that this was a judgment
Speaker 6: from on high. It was like the scientific expert has spoken,
Speaker 6: has passed the judgment down, and this, you know, is gospel.
Speaker 7: I mean, I'm.
Speaker 6: Speaking of the sensibility at the time. So even after
Speaker 6: Sandra fell under suspicion became the prime suspect for the
Speaker 6: murder of her third husband, no one in law enforcement
Speaker 6: went back and re examined a husband one and Betsy Bagwell.
Speaker 6: The assumption was that the medical examiner ruled suicide and
Speaker 6: therefore they must have been suicide. Law enforcement didn't go
Speaker 6: back and look at those earlier cases.
Speaker 7: Only I have done that.
Speaker 6: But you know, as Lynn Harold and then my other
Speaker 6: forensic consultant, a guy named Breg McCrary, who was a
Speaker 6: forensic psychologist at the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, you he
Speaker 6: agreed with Lynn. The medical examiners just got it wrong.
Speaker 6: I mean, to put it bluntly, they just got it wrong.
Speaker 6: And I'm not even convinced they looked at the death
Speaker 6: scene photos. I think they receive the word it looks
Speaker 6: like a suicide. And in the case oft see Bagwell.
Speaker 6: It looked like a contact gunshot wounded the head, which
Speaker 6: is statistically associated with suicide, and that was enough. So
Speaker 6: what I've argued in my book is for starters, the
Speaker 6: medical examiners need to go back and change the manner
Speaker 6: of death from suicide to homicide, and that should prompt
Speaker 6: a full reinvestigation. I believe the evidence I presented in
Speaker 6: my book is sufficient, but obviously, you know, the competent
Speaker 6: authorities need to look at this on their own in
Speaker 6: terms of when the intervention should have happened. Well, to me,
Speaker 6: that's the intriguing thing about this story. That's the that's
Speaker 6: the great kind of black hole at the heart of it.
Speaker 6: There should have been a much more rigorous examination of
Speaker 6: the gunshot death of Betsy Bagwell in nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 6: There were multiple reasons to suspect Sander Bridewell, but it's
Speaker 6: like the Dallas police just did not get the memo.
Speaker 6: You need to look very carefully at Betsy's last known contact,
Speaker 6: that is the girl she gave a ride to love Field,
Speaker 6: look at her, and the police just didn't do that,
Speaker 6: and they should have. And the thing that I examined
Speaker 6: in my book are some plausible reasons for why they.
Speaker 5: Didn't along with those reasons why law enforcement didn't catch
Speaker 5: the clues. But you do offer something that you say
Speaker 5: that Sandra was a good example of a fem fatale,
Speaker 5: and because the psychopathic personality can't quite explain Sandra Bridewell.
Speaker 7: Well, she has multiple persona.
Speaker 6: She was the stylish housewife, the fabulous cook who regularly
Speaker 6: and religiously attended church on Sunday. She could then become
Speaker 6: extremely seductive with enormous erotic.
Speaker 7: Power and potency.
Speaker 6: And then later in life she became a Christian minister
Speaker 6: and became an expert on the Bible, in the Gospel
Speaker 6: of Christ. So she could move around in these different persona.
Speaker 6: But you know, if you look at Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist.
Speaker 7: I mean, it seems to me. Now I offer the caveat.
Speaker 6: I'm not a trained psychologist, but just based on the
Speaker 6: descriptive categories, it seems to me. I'm not asserting it,
Speaker 6: I'm just saying it seems to me that.
Speaker 7: She checks every single box.
Speaker 6: But you know, and Greg McCrary has stated it seems
Speaker 6: to him with the caveat, based on your account, she
Speaker 6: is an extremely high functioning psychopath. But you know, what
Speaker 6: is a high functioning psychopath. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 6: a mystery in a way.
Speaker 7: Sure, what I can say is she was a great.
Speaker 6: Seducer, and I have multiple documented examples of her seducing
Speaker 6: and blackmailing married men. Now, most of the examples I found,
Speaker 6: she would borrow money, or in one notable case, she
Speaker 6: persuaded a married man to co sign a bank loan.
Speaker 6: She then did not pay back a penny of the loan,
Speaker 6: and when the mayor married man then pressed her for it,
Speaker 6: she said, you know, sorry, you're not remembering this correctly.
Speaker 6: This was a gift and if you've got a problem
Speaker 6: with it, go talk to your wife. That was the
Speaker 6: modus operandi that I found multiple examples of. And so
Speaker 6: it raises the suspicion again the totality of circumstances. She
Speaker 6: somehow blackmailed doctor Bagwell.
Speaker 7: Into not.
Speaker 6: Making a full and candid telling of what was going
Speaker 6: on with her at the time.
Speaker 7: Of Betsy's death.
Speaker 6: He did not, by all records, by all my interview
Speaker 6: with the detective, he did not in nineteen eighty two,
Speaker 6: when the case was open, make a full and candid.
Speaker 7: You know, narrative of what is going on with this woman.
Speaker 6: She was stalking him, and she continued to stalk him
Speaker 6: after Betsy's death. And I can find no indication that
Speaker 6: he divulged this information to the Dallas police.
Speaker 5: It's uh, your book is I've got numerous references and
Speaker 5: anonymous call to Gloria. Other people have stated and said
Speaker 5: to people around that and knew Sandra that she was dangerous.
Speaker 5: They were afraid of her, and men, many men were
Speaker 5: shaking in their boots with what could happen the repercussions
Speaker 5: of being involved with Sandra.
Speaker 6: Yeah, this this this kind of eerie moment where people say,
Speaker 6: you know, when I first met her, I thought she
Speaker 6: was charming.
Speaker 7: She was talented, she was funny, she.
Speaker 6: Was a great cook, she was always beautiful dressed, she
Speaker 6: had a beautiful house. But then, you know, with repeated
Speaker 6: exposure to her, you began to notice that there was
Speaker 6: something weird. It seems sort of manipulative, deceptive. In the
Speaker 6: case of men initially found her immensely charming and seductive,
Speaker 6: they commenced the relationship where her, you know, the tone
Speaker 6: of the relationship could change and she could start, you know,
Speaker 6: suddenly not being just a woman of great fun, but
Speaker 6: a needy woman, woman who needed things from the man,
Speaker 6: needed money, needed a car, needed a house, you know,
Speaker 6: or whatever it was. And if you then displeased her,
Speaker 6: she could then become sort of frightening and the whole
Speaker 6: tone would change. In the case of Betsy Bagwell, well,
Speaker 6: no one in my community believed that she had committed suicide.
Speaker 6: So it's a very strange state of affairs where everyone
Speaker 6: in my tight commits community saying there's no way that
Speaker 6: Betsy committed suicide. You know, what is the medical examiner thinking?
Speaker 6: And yet.
Speaker 7: The Dallas police and.
Speaker 6: The medical examiner are unaware of what everyone in our
Speaker 6: community is saying in private. So it's like there's this
Speaker 6: broken circuit of communication. The perception of Sandra, the fear
Speaker 6: of Sandra in my community is not being conveyed to
Speaker 6: the police and the medical examiner. And you know, so
Speaker 6: the question for me is why not? Where is the
Speaker 6: circuit being broken? And the only thing I can conclude
Speaker 6: is that the circuit breaker was Betsy's husband. He just
Speaker 6: I can't find any indication of a candid statement to
Speaker 6: the Dallas Police at the time. Now, four years later,
Speaker 6: when the Dallas excuse me, when the Oklahoma City Police
Speaker 6: came to Dallas investigating the murder of the third husband.
Speaker 6: He gave a pretty candid interview at that point. Four
Speaker 6: years later. Now, one of the most intriguing things about
Speaker 6: his interview in nineteen eighty six with the Oklahoma City Police,
Speaker 6: I can't find any indication the Oklahoma City Police presented
Speaker 6: that interview transcript.
Speaker 7: To the Dallas Police.
Speaker 6: So again it's like the circuit breaks. There's no limitation
Speaker 6: for the prosecution of murder. The Oklahoma City PD detectives
Speaker 6: could have gone back to the Dallas Police and said, hey,
Speaker 6: do you guys know what this doctor is saying. The
Speaker 6: doctor is telling us, he's saying, I know that Sandra
Speaker 6: was instrumental in Betsy's death. Not I deduce the doctors
Speaker 6: saying I know she did it. So what is going
Speaker 6: on here?
Speaker 7: Why isn't law enforcement looking at this.
Speaker 6: I'm speaking of the death of Betsy Bagwell. So to
Speaker 6: this day, there are elements of mystery in this. But
Speaker 6: what I can say is the death scene photos show
Speaker 6: this was no suicide. So whatever society bullshit is going
Speaker 6: on with Betsy's widow and friends, that the photos tell
Speaker 6: the tale.
Speaker 7: This this was not a suicide. It was a homicide.
Speaker 5: I want to applaud your investigation as well, because you,
Speaker 5: as you write that, it was a very difficult quest
Speaker 5: for information, numerous freedom of information requests, and you employed
Speaker 5: other people to assist you in this and you did
Speaker 5: not get cooperation, especially from Oklahoma Police Department City Police Department.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you very much, John Leak for
Speaker 5: coming on and talking about the Meaning of Malice on
Speaker 5: the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park. For
Speaker 5: those that might want to look at your other true
Speaker 5: crime books and other nonfiction books, could you tell us
Speaker 5: about your website and any social media you do.
Speaker 7: Yes.
Speaker 6: My website is author John Leek. That's author John, last
Speaker 6: name l Eake dot com. I also have a YouTube channel,
Speaker 6: author John Leek. I've just got that up and running
Speaker 6: with a trailer and a documentary about this case. I
Speaker 6: would be most grateful as a working author if people
Speaker 6: would purchase The Meaning of Malice on Amazon. That's the
Speaker 6: Meaning of Malice on Amazon dot com.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much, John Leak, The Meaning of Malice
Speaker 5: on the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much for this interview. It's been a
Speaker 5: pleasure and good night. Thank you, Dan, thank you