Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of our series about the
Speaker 1: murder of Patsy Wright. Let's dive right back into it.
Speaker 1: But even so, they never found any direct evidence that
Speaker 1: Steve and Sally were involved in this, even though Sally
Speaker 1: had been struggling with cancer at the time. I do
Speaker 1: believe that she is still alive today. I haven't found
Speaker 1: any obituary for her, and as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: she remained with Steve, and a lot of people from
Speaker 1: their personal lives were saying that, yeah, I could kind
Speaker 1: of see Steve doing something like this because of his
Speaker 1: financial issues. But they also said that Sally and Patsy
Speaker 1: had a really strong relationship and they don't think she
Speaker 1: would have been capable of being involved in this or
Speaker 1: covering for Steve if he was involved in this. And
Speaker 1: when you look at the series of events, you're thinking
Speaker 1: to yourself, well, if they killed her, then both of
Speaker 1: them would have to be involved. But they just don't
Speaker 1: think that that fits Sally's character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean I could see a
Speaker 2: scenario where Sally could have her suspicions and turn a
Speaker 2: blind eye and maybe even do things to support her husband.
Speaker 2: Because in the end, it's like my sister is deceased now,
Speaker 2: and there's nothing that I can do to bring her back.
Speaker 2: But what I can do is try to preserve my
Speaker 2: lifestyle and preserve my life and not have Steve go
Speaker 2: to prison and not have our name sullied and have
Speaker 2: all the drama and theatrics that goes along with it.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of different motivations that somebody can
Speaker 2: have after the fact, covering up a crime without maybe
Speaker 2: even having direct knowledge, but just having a suspicion of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean she did benefit from it, even
Speaker 1: though she apparently had a close relationship with her sister,
Speaker 1: because she wound up inheriting the six million dollars net
Speaker 1: worth from the two wax museums, so well, they didn't
Speaker 1: consider her to be a suspect. It could be a
Speaker 1: thing where maybe she becomes suspicious about Steve after the fact.
Speaker 1: But she's saying to herself, well, I've got these two
Speaker 1: successful museums. I've now got a lot of money. It's
Speaker 1: solved dollar financial problems. So maybe I'll stay quiet about
Speaker 1: the whole thing in order to avoid ruining our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like don't rock the boat type of a thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure that she was dealing with the grief
Speaker 2: of losing her sister, and then the idea of blowing
Speaker 2: up her life in order to get justice might not
Speaker 2: have been the top priority for her when she may
Speaker 2: have felt like she was getting everything that she wanted. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: she was with somebody that wasn't responsible financially, and she
Speaker 2: was in a much better position now, So if she
Speaker 2: was to go to law enforcement, all that could be
Speaker 2: taken away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I'm thinking that even if she got
Speaker 1: justice for her sister, financially, her life would be completely
Speaker 1: ruined and she might not been wanting to rock the boat.
Speaker 1: So another suspect that they looked at was a man
Speaker 1: named Leo Fikes, as this had been Patsy's last serious
Speaker 1: relationship before she got involved with Larry Todd. I know
Speaker 1: that Patsy started dating Leo after her second marriage came
Speaker 1: to an end, and he was apparently crazy about her
Speaker 1: and wanted to get married, but after going through two
Speaker 1: previous divorces, Patsy said that she was in no hurry
Speaker 1: to get married again, so that pretty much spelled the
Speaker 1: end of the relationship, and Leo started looking like a
Speaker 1: potential suspect because he owned a chemical company, so they
Speaker 1: started thinking, hmm, I wonder if he may have had
Speaker 1: access to Strict nine. But Leo was described as being
Speaker 1: very cooperative with the authorities, and he also passed a
Speaker 1: polygraph and they did look into the chemical company's background
Speaker 1: and find out that they did not use Strict nine
Speaker 1: or have access to it. So they pretty much cleared
Speaker 1: Leo as a suspect and did not believe that he
Speaker 1: had a motive to do this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I mean it's sort of like
Speaker 2: if he was going to use chemical, it would be
Speaker 2: like a chemical of opportunity. I would think something that
Speaker 2: he would have access to at a chemical company, you
Speaker 2: wouldn't go and procure something outside of that because that
Speaker 2: may draw attention to you. So yeah, he's not really
Speaker 2: looking like that grade of a suspect.
Speaker 1: But a crazy side story is that one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that Leo popped up on the radar is because
Speaker 1: someone made an anonymous phone call to the police saying
Speaker 1: you should look at Leo. He was involved in a
Speaker 1: relationship with a woman named Linda Donna, who who was
Speaker 1: murdered in June of nineteen eighty seven, only three months
Speaker 1: before Patsy's death, and Leo said that he'd only dated
Speaker 1: Linda a few times, the relationship was not that serious.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand and five, they finally used
Speaker 1: DNA evidence to link the crime to a serial killer
Speaker 1: named Roger Fain, which proved beyond a shadow of a
Speaker 1: doubt that Leo had nothing to do with it. But
Speaker 1: then you look at the timeline and you're like, this
Speaker 1: poor man, two women that he dated wound up being
Speaker 1: murdered within three months of each other, and he had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with either of the crimes. So talk
Speaker 1: about rotten luck.
Speaker 2: This is some horrible luck. The probability seems so low
Speaker 2: that you would be with one person that's murdered, let
Speaker 2: alone two people, and then it just the probability is
Speaker 2: even lower that it would be within like a three
Speaker 2: month period, And it seems so suspicious when you look
Speaker 2: at it on the surface without delving into the details.
Speaker 2: But when you do, you realize, this poor man is
Speaker 2: just his life is marred with all of this tragedy.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine the impact it must have had.
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, but I don't see Leo being a
Speaker 1: even though this case is technically still Unsolved. I don't
Speaker 1: see Leo being a compelling suspect in that Patsy's case.
Speaker 1: And one other thing I wanted to mention is that
Speaker 1: because this was on the first season of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: this was back during the era when they used a
Speaker 1: lot of the real people associated with the case and
Speaker 1: the reenactments, and the one about Patsy starts out with
Speaker 1: the reenactment of your funeral, and you see a lot
Speaker 1: of the real people like Leo and her two children
Speaker 1: and Sally and Steve playing themselves in the reenactment of
Speaker 1: the funeral, and watching it today, that just seems bob
Speaker 1: because this is one of the most traumatic moments of
Speaker 1: their lives and here they are willing to appear on TV,
Speaker 1: even though they are not actors, to like recreate a
Speaker 1: funeral of someone they loved.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild times back then to think of
Speaker 2: these recreations even being done. To ask family members to
Speaker 2: do that, to relive, like what would have been some
Speaker 2: of the most traumatic and emotionally impactful times of their lives,
Speaker 2: and to share it with viewers at home, that's a
Speaker 2: big ask. Like it's one thing to do in interview,
Speaker 2: but it's a whole other to reenact.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can see why Unsolved Mysteries during their
Speaker 1: later seasons pretty much stopped doing that and they would
Speaker 1: pretty much get actors every single time for the reenactments.
Speaker 1: But if you look at the early seasons, I guess
Speaker 1: it adds a feeling of realism and authenticity to them
Speaker 1: when you see the real people right there on screen
Speaker 1: reenacting those. It was kind of like when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I sometimes couldn't figure out that the reenactments
Speaker 1: were stage. So I'm thinking of myself, why is the
Speaker 1: cameraman still filming when all these horrible crimes are taking place?
Speaker 2: Your little kid brain is just like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: why is there a guy they're filming and he's not helping?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why is it still unsolved? If they capture the
Speaker 1: murder right here on camera? Yeah, when you're eight years old,
Speaker 1: that's how you think.
Speaker 2: Is this true?
Speaker 1: Yep? So now I need to talk about Patsy's second
Speaker 1: ex husband, And what's interesting is that he happens to
Speaker 1: share the name with an infamous figure and another case
Speaker 1: that we have covered. Does the name Robert Cox ring
Speaker 1: a bell to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Robert Cox sounds familiar from.
Speaker 1: The Springfield three case. He was the guy who was
Speaker 1: in prison for kidnapping who claims that he knows the
Speaker 1: truth about what happened to the three missing women, but
Speaker 1: will not reveal it until after his mother passes away.
Speaker 1: So it's still up for debate if he was responsible
Speaker 1: for their disappearances. But rest assured this Robert Cox is
Speaker 1: not the same Robert Cox from that case.
Speaker 2: So weird when you get these names and they intersect,
Speaker 2: and it's like the six degrees of separation with any
Speaker 2: true crime case. Basically you can connect them all.
Speaker 1: Yes, but Robert Cox sounds like a fairly common name,
Speaker 1: so I guess it shouldn't be surprised that he has
Speaker 1: popped up in two separate cases that are unconnected to
Speaker 1: each other. But following her divorce from her first husband, Bill,
Speaker 1: Patsy became involved in a relationship with a man named
Speaker 1: Robert Cox, who was separated from his first wife and
Speaker 1: he had a couple children from his first marriage. And
Speaker 1: even though Patsy felt that Robert was charming at first,
Speaker 1: he turned into an altogether different person after they got married,
Speaker 1: as he was verbally abusive towards Patsy and pretty much
Speaker 1: lived off her money. He also had severe gambling problem,
Speaker 1: and it got to the point where the IRS planned
Speaker 1: to seize Patsy's assets in order to pay off Bob's
Speaker 1: tax debts. And there was pretty much a big turning
Speaker 1: point when Patsy became acquainted with a counselor who had
Speaker 1: worked with Robert and his previous wife, And even though
Speaker 1: this stuff is supposed to be confidential, the counselor flat
Speaker 1: out told Patsy Robert is a sociopath, so you should
Speaker 1: get away from him. And that's when they finally decided
Speaker 1: to divorce in nineteen eighty four after being married for
Speaker 1: only one year, and Patsy was even forced to obtain
Speaker 1: a restraining order against Robert because he was following her
Speaker 1: around and harassing her, and she even said that she
Speaker 1: saw him parked outside her house on numerous occasions. So obviously,
Speaker 1: on the surface, this guy looks like a compelling suspect.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, the guy is a stalker with major financial
Speaker 2: problems and to the point where Patsy's assets were going
Speaker 2: to get seized. He sounds horrible. He sounds financially abusive
Speaker 2: and potentially abusive in other ways. I can't even imagine
Speaker 2: what it was like for her to be married to him.
Speaker 2: I'm sure she was so happy to be free of him.
Speaker 2: I guess that spags the question was she ever truly
Speaker 2: free of him?
Speaker 1: And that's what's crazy, is the whole detail about the counselor,
Speaker 1: because they're supposed to keep this stuff like confidential, and
Speaker 1: she's flat out saying that, oh, based on my sessions
Speaker 1: with him and his first wife, you should leave him
Speaker 1: because he's a sociopath. Like ouch. That must show that
Speaker 1: he must have been really bad if the counselor was
Speaker 1: willing to do that.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. It's like that scene from Ghosts when
Speaker 2: Whoopie Goldberg, it's also popular meme is like you in
Speaker 2: danger girl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty much what it was like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And it's like, I'm going to forego my
Speaker 2: ethical obligation here because it Maybe it was because she
Speaker 2: felt like he might commit a crime and that her
Speaker 2: physical wellbeing and emotional wellbeing could be harmed by him,
Speaker 2: because that's what he was capable of in the past.
Speaker 2: I think to breach those ethical obligations, you would have
Speaker 2: to feel like there was a reasonable expectation that harm
Speaker 2: could be brought to the party that you are then
Speaker 2: treating or that you're familiar with. I don't think that
Speaker 2: anybody would enter into disclosure of that information lightly. So
Speaker 2: I think it speaks to just how scary Robert Cox
Speaker 2: potentially was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's probably why the counselor decided to do that. Now,
Speaker 1: their divorce took place in nineteen eighty four, and Patsy's
Speaker 1: death took place three years after the fact, but he
Speaker 1: had recently re entered her life for a very off.
Speaker 1: Because wax museums are a big part of this story,
Speaker 1: it turned out that Robert actually owned his own wax
Speaker 1: museum before he got married to Patsy, because, like I said,
Speaker 1: they seemed to be insanely popular in Texas during the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties. And this wax museum wound up being destroyed
Speaker 1: in a fire in February of nineteen eighty three. But
Speaker 1: because it wasn't particularly successful and Robert was in financial
Speaker 1: problems was in financial trouble at the time, the insurance
Speaker 1: company started believing that he may have started the fire himself.
Speaker 1: They refused to pay out Robert's claims, so he decided
Speaker 1: to file suit against them, and at the time of
Speaker 1: Patsy's death, a civil trial was about to take place
Speaker 1: over the matter, and Patsy apparently had some pretty incriminating
Speaker 1: information about financial misdeeds that Robert had committed during their marriage,
Speaker 1: and she was scheduled to testify against them in the
Speaker 1: insurance company's case. Robert apparently contacted Patsy on several occasions
Speaker 1: to convince her de line her testimony, which she refused
Speaker 1: to do because they left on such bad terms. So
Speaker 1: she's like, why am I going to help you? And
Speaker 1: of course, because Patsy wound up dying before she could testify,
Speaker 1: only ten days before the civil trial began, Robert had
Speaker 1: a motive for wanting her dead. And Robert did eventually
Speaker 1: wind up winning the civil trial and was awarded one
Speaker 1: point three million dollars as it cannot be conclusively proven
Speaker 1: that he started the fire. But of course the trial
Speaker 1: may have turned out differently if Patsy had been willing
Speaker 1: to testify. So, as you can imagine, alarm bells are
Speaker 1: going off over everyone's head.
Speaker 2: For Robert, well, it sounds like he's got one million,
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand reasons to want Patsy dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And unlike the other suspects in this case,
Speaker 1: Robert was not cooperative. He refused to take a polygraph,
Speaker 1: and Unsow Mysteries invited him to appear on the show
Speaker 1: to get his side of the story, but he refused
Speaker 1: to do an interview. So we were spared of Robert
Speaker 1: doing his best impression of Jewel Kaylor and trying to
Speaker 1: act like a bereaved husband and possibly saying that he
Speaker 1: was glad that Patsy was gone. But the one thing
Speaker 1: which could have gone against Robert was the presence of
Speaker 1: the two days plates on the tray next to Patsy's bed,
Speaker 1: Because they're thinking to themselves, Yeah, even if Patsy had
Speaker 1: like a secret lover was holding an affair and invited
Speaker 1: him over that night to have an intimate dinner together,
Speaker 1: there's zero chance that she would have done this with Robert.
Speaker 1: And they're also thinking, well, could it be possible that
Speaker 1: Robert broke into her house and poisoned the Nike will
Speaker 1: and maybe Patsy invited someone over and this guy left
Speaker 1: before she died, But no one ever came forward to
Speaker 1: admit that they had been at a residence that night,
Speaker 1: So they were thinking to themselves, like, could these dinner
Speaker 1: plates have been a piece of evidence that it wasn't
Speaker 1: Robert and that perhaps the real poisoner was someone that
Speaker 1: she was intimate with.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a myriad of possibilities. There's still a
Speaker 2: possibility that she could have invited somebody over. That person
Speaker 2: came and they had an encounter and then had some food,
Speaker 2: and then they left and they had absolutely zero to
Speaker 2: do with the poisoning because we know that that key
Speaker 2: was stolen, So it doesn't mean that person had to
Speaker 2: be let in by Patsy. They could to potentially use
Speaker 2: that spare key at any time. And we also don't
Speaker 2: know if the bottle that was used is the bottle
Speaker 2: that she was using regularly and she took with her
Speaker 2: potentially camping. So it just changes the window by which
Speaker 2: this could have been done since we don't know the
Speaker 2: information about that bottle of nikewill, like, did she take
Speaker 2: a camping, We don't know, And so that really opens
Speaker 2: it up because we also don't know when that key
Speaker 2: went missing.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, And like even if Patsy did have an
Speaker 1: intimate evening with someone, that doesn't necessarily rule out Robert
Speaker 1: from being responsible. And it fits the profile of someone
Speaker 1: who had intimate knowledge of her personal life because they
Speaker 1: were married for a year, so he would have known
Speaker 1: that it was her habit to take nike will before
Speaker 1: she went to bed. So he's thinking to himself, this
Speaker 1: is the best way to do it. Just put it
Speaker 1: in there. She's gonna take it without second thought, and
Speaker 1: then she will wind up dying of poisoning. And because
Speaker 1: he's been described as a cruel sociopath, he might be thinking,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it in the most cruel way
Speaker 1: imaginable to ensure that she suffers before she died. So
Speaker 1: it really does fit his profile.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think both Steve and Robert are two men
Speaker 2: who are bad with finances, and they both make compelling suspects.
Speaker 2: But Robert Cox, based on past behavior, is in my opinion,
Speaker 2: the best suspect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there's nothing to indicate that Steve was a violent,
Speaker 1: abusive person. So even if he had a financial motive
Speaker 1: to want or gone, it's totally the fact that they
Speaker 1: made Patsy suffer sounds like something devious that Robert would
Speaker 1: have done. So two other people who were investigated as
Speaker 1: potential suspects were Bill and Bonnie Alexander, the couple who
Speaker 1: boarded Patsy's horses, because the day before her death, she
Speaker 1: had written them a blank check and then shortly afterwards
Speaker 1: they filled in the amount for four thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: wound up cashing it, which was suspicious because the day
Speaker 1: before her death, a friend who was helping out Patsy
Speaker 1: with her finances, asked if she had any outstanding checks,
Speaker 1: and she told her friend that she did not. She
Speaker 1: never mentioned anything about the check to the Alexanders, which
Speaker 1: made them wonder if maybe they forged it and were
Speaker 1: trying to make money from her. And they also discovered
Speaker 1: that Patsy's horses were also in the Alexander's name, so
Speaker 1: they were going to inherit the horses following the death.
Speaker 1: So Bonnie's story was that Patsy gave them the check
Speaker 1: and told them to add up what she owed them
Speaker 1: and boarding and contest entry fees, and she also said
Speaker 1: that the horses were in their names because Patsy did
Speaker 1: not want Steve to get them in case something happened
Speaker 1: to her. Patsy's family also started hearing rumors that Bill
Speaker 1: may have been in love with Patsy and we're having
Speaker 1: some sort of secret affair and that either he killed
Speaker 1: Patsy to get the hands on the horses, or maybe
Speaker 1: a body killed her out of jealousy, because, as you recall,
Speaker 1: the day after Patsy was killed, her daughter received a
Speaker 1: phone call from an anonymous woman who said, good, I'm
Speaker 1: glad she's dead. But they never found any evidence to
Speaker 1: support that the Alexanders were involved. But they did find
Speaker 1: out that in the past, strychnine was sometimes used by
Speaker 1: horse breeders in order to treat their animals, but they
Speaker 1: couldn't find any evidence that Bill or Bonnie had access
Speaker 1: to strict nine. So they both took polygraphs and they
Speaker 1: both passed. So it could be kind of a mix
Speaker 1: here where the Alexanders were not involved in Patsy's death.
Speaker 1: But if Bill and Patsy had a secret affair, or
Speaker 1: maybe Bill was being flirtatious for Patsy that made Bonnie
Speaker 1: dislike her and she could have been the woman who
Speaker 1: was responsible for the anonymous phone call.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that one hundred percent checks out for me, because
Speaker 2: you would have to trust these people if you're going
Speaker 2: to put the horses in their names, because you don't want,
Speaker 2: you know, your acts to get them like it makes
Speaker 2: sense but it also would imply there would have to
Speaker 2: be a great deal of trust, and I would assume that, yes,
Speaker 2: technically they are in the Alexander's names, but if Patsy
Speaker 2: was going to pass away, the assumption would be they
Speaker 2: would go to her children, would it not?
Speaker 1: Pretty much? Yeah, So it's like, even though like they
Speaker 1: were in the Alexander's names, I guess because it was
Speaker 1: part of her state, it would still go to her children.
Speaker 1: And the Alexanders also weren't going to inherit like millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. They might get the horses, but they're not
Speaker 1: going to get anything else, So they didn't really have
Speaker 1: a strong motive to orchestrate this elaborate murder plot involving
Speaker 1: Strych nine.
Speaker 2: And like, I'm sorry for four thousand dollars. If you've
Speaker 2: got a blank check, four thousand dollars seems like an
Speaker 2: appropriate amount. Horses are expensive, so things add up quickly,
Speaker 2: and it might not have been something that crossed her
Speaker 2: mind when Patsy was asked about if she had any
Speaker 2: financial debts or anything coming or owed, and then when
Speaker 2: the Alexanders added it up, it was like, Okay, it's
Speaker 2: four thousand dollars that doesn't sound like an amount that
Speaker 2: you're going to murder somebody over. If it was like
Speaker 2: twenty grand that they put in there, I'd be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's a little bit suspicious, But four grand isn't really
Speaker 2: raising my eyebrow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that debsiditely sounds like an amount for boarding
Speaker 1: and contest entry fees, which is what Bonnie said. And
Speaker 1: they cashed it the day after her death, which was
Speaker 1: not widespread news yet. So if they were completely innocent,
Speaker 1: they may have had no idea that Patsy was dead
Speaker 1: and it was just an unfortunate coincidence that they cashed
Speaker 1: this check so soon after she died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I think if you were going to do that,
Speaker 2: you would almost want to cash it before she died
Speaker 2: because she wouldn't likely find out about it for you know,
Speaker 2: a day or two. Because of the banking in the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, it wasn't like it is today where you've
Speaker 2: got alerts come into your phone. So unless she went in,
Speaker 2: she might not know, and then you've got plausible deniability going, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: she was alive, she had the freedom to find this
Speaker 2: out prior to her death. So the fact that they
Speaker 2: did it, like the day after. That makes them almost
Speaker 2: look more innocent in my eyes, because it would be
Speaker 2: looked at as like almost like cartoon villain ish, like yeah,
Speaker 2: two ham handed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I definitely don't believe that the Alexanders were involved
Speaker 1: in the murder, even though I think Bonnie was the
Speaker 1: one responsible for the phone call. She maybe just doing
Speaker 1: that just out of like personal reasons because of a
Speaker 1: disliked with Patsy, even if they were not complicit in
Speaker 1: her death. So, believe it or not, wax museums would
Speaker 1: factor into this story again. And this is when things
Speaker 1: get really crazy because in September of nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: just under a year after Patsy's death, one of the
Speaker 1: family's wax museums in Grand Prairie, Texas, wound up burning down.
Speaker 1: This is the second wax museum in this story that
Speaker 1: wounds up burning down, and as a result, Sally wound
Speaker 1: up receiving a four million dollar insurance payout. So it
Speaker 1: was initially suspected that the fire might have been electrical,
Speaker 1: but there was evidence to suggests that it might have
Speaker 1: been an arson. And then on September the twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: just over two weeks after the fire took place, a
Speaker 1: man was seen combing through the debris of the museum,
Speaker 1: and when he noticed that the police were watching him,
Speaker 1: he picked up a financial ledger book from the museum's
Speaker 1: business office and took off running. As he ran away,
Speaker 1: he tossed this ledger into a nearby bush, so no
Speaker 1: one knows why he tried to take it to begin with.
Speaker 1: He wound up getting away in a car, but a
Speaker 1: police officer wound up taking down the car's license number,
Speaker 1: and it wound up being traced to a twenty two
Speaker 1: year old man named Stanley Lester Pointer. This guy was
Speaker 1: described as a drifter who would hold jobs for Barry
Speaker 1: brief periods of time before he moved on, and he
Speaker 1: also had a number of aliases in three different social
Speaker 1: Security numbers that he would use, so he kind of
Speaker 1: had a weird background because even though the jobs were
Speaker 1: low paying, he was able to live what was described
Speaker 1: as a comfortable lifestyle. And he also had one previous
Speaker 1: arrest on his record for arson, So people started wondering
Speaker 1: could he be irresponsible for this fire at Sally's Wax
Speaker 1: Museum and was he some freelance guy who just got
Speaker 1: hired to like burn down museums because they started thinking,
Speaker 1: what if Robert Cox hired this guy to burn down
Speaker 1: his own museum five years earlier.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this wax museum connection is just like
Speaker 2: it's so intense. Okay, so we were our second wax
Speaker 2: museum that's burned to the ground, and I've got a
Speaker 2: wonder with all those wax figurines, does it just become
Speaker 2: like one giant candle on the floor.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking because I've seen the movie House
Speaker 1: of Wax, the one with Vincent Price, yeah, and the
Speaker 1: remake with Paris Hilton, and they have lots of scenes
Speaker 1: where the museums are burning down and then they're melting,
Speaker 1: and I think there's a big revelation because they would
Speaker 1: use real people underneath the wax. And then when the
Speaker 1: fire starts and melts and you realize, oh, those aren't
Speaker 1: wax statues, those are human beings. So you have this
Speaker 1: visual of it melting. So I have to assume that
Speaker 1: the same thing happened in these fires.
Speaker 2: Have you ever been to a wax museum.
Speaker 1: I have, Yes, They're usually a lot of fun. They
Speaker 1: have them in Niagara Falls, And I also love memes
Speaker 1: sometimes where people will post photos of moll rent wax
Speaker 1: museums where they use statues of like real life famous persons,
Speaker 1: but they look nothing like them. So you'll like see
Speaker 1: photos of like someone like trying to think here someone
Speaker 1: like Mick Jagger, but he looks like mister Bean because
Speaker 1: of like such a terrible job.
Speaker 2: I went to Madame Tussau's in London and they were
Speaker 2: incredibly lifelike. It was wild the representation with wax, Like
Speaker 2: how close some of them could get. I mean there
Speaker 2: was the odd one where like they didn't really capture
Speaker 2: the essence, but some of them were like bang on.
Speaker 1: Yes, I've been there as well, and I know that's
Speaker 1: one of the most high quality wax museums around. And
Speaker 1: I have to assume that Patsy's were pretty good if
Speaker 1: she was making like millions of dollars on them. So
Speaker 1: under normal circumstances, there wouldn't be any reason to believe
Speaker 1: this wax museum fire had anything to do with Patsy's death.
Speaker 1: But when this fire made the news, a woman got
Speaker 1: in touch with police with some interesting information. She claimed
Speaker 1: that years earlier, in September of nineteen eighty four, a
Speaker 1: twenty six year old receptionist at one of Patsy's museums
Speaker 1: named Lorie Anne Williams suddenly went home sick in the
Speaker 1: middle of her shift, but her illness got so bad
Speaker 1: that she was taken to the hospital. It was initially
Speaker 1: believed that she had appendicitis, but when they removed her appendix,
Speaker 1: they found out that it was perfectly healthy, and she
Speaker 1: wound up staying in the hospital for eleven days before
Speaker 1: she suddenly died, and they were never able to determine
Speaker 1: her cause of death. They just thought it might have
Speaker 1: been viral pneumonia that she contracted during complications from surgery,
Speaker 1: because she seemed to be an ordinary, healthy, twenty six
Speaker 1: year old woman on the surface. But this informant told
Speaker 1: the police that Laurie may have been the victim of
Speaker 1: strychnine poisoning, and because Patsy died under similar circumstances three
Speaker 1: years later, this woman was now thinking that the police
Speaker 1: should reopen the investigation into Lourie's death.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's an interesting connection. Didn't you say that there
Speaker 2: was only like two deaths that were linked to strychnine
Speaker 2: in like that certain time period.
Speaker 1: It was, yeah, like since nineteen fifty, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the other one was that Robert Stack was referring to.
Speaker 1: And because they couldn't conclusively determine that Laurie's death was
Speaker 1: strict nine, it has never been officially classified as one,
Speaker 1: but at the time in nineteen eighty four, they just
Speaker 1: thought it was health reasons. But then they realized that
Speaker 1: she used to work for Patsy at her wax museum,
Speaker 1: and they both died under similar circumstances. They start thinking,
Speaker 1: maybe we should take a second look at Lori's death.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, this is feeling very like do you
Speaker 2: know the actor's Britney Murphy, Yes, and how she died
Speaker 2: under mysterious circumstances of the pneumonia or whatever, and then
Speaker 2: six months later her husband died of the exact same
Speaker 2: cause of death in that home, and then trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what was the root cause. Why do they
Speaker 2: both die of the exact same cause of death, and
Speaker 2: there's all of these conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's probably the similar type of thing here
Speaker 1: where Back when Laurie originally died, they're not going to
Speaker 1: be thinking strychnine poisoning, but because of her connection with Patsy,
Speaker 1: they wanted to take a second look at it. In
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine, Patsy's family decided to hire a very
Speaker 1: famous Texas based private investigator named William Dear, who looked
Speaker 1: into Lorient's death and became suspicious and wondered if she
Speaker 1: may have been poisoned with strychnine as well, and that
Speaker 1: maybe this was done to scare Patsy because Patsy had
Speaker 1: stumbled onto something sinister which was taking place at the
Speaker 1: museum back in nineteen eighty four, even though the police
Speaker 1: found no evidence of this. Now, I will add the
Speaker 1: disclaimer that William Dear is quite an infamous individual. He
Speaker 1: has worked on a lot of cases, but I have
Speaker 1: personally worked with one family who hired him and has
Speaker 1: said nothing but bad things to say about him. They
Speaker 1: pretty much just said he took our money, he spouted
Speaker 1: a bunch of conspiracy theories, but he didn't actually do
Speaker 1: anything or uncover any conclusive evidence. And William Dear has
Speaker 1: also published the book OJ Is Innocent and I Can
Speaker 1: Prove It, where he claims that Nicole Brown Simpson and
Speaker 1: Ronald Goldman were actually murdered by OJ's son, Jason Simpson,
Speaker 1: and that OJ only covered the crime up, He did
Speaker 1: not actually commit the murders. And I know that he
Speaker 1: published a book and they did a TV special about it,
Speaker 1: but most people who followed that case do not really
Speaker 1: believe it that theory.
Speaker 2: I've heard of this book and I've heard of him,
Speaker 2: and I think that it's absolutely egregious to suggest that
Speaker 2: it was the Sun and not OJ. But okay, you do.
Speaker 1: You And if you want more credibility issues with William Dear,
Speaker 1: do you remember the TV special from the nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: Alien Autopsy. Yes, well, he was interviewed on that and
Speaker 1: actually did interviews and tried to pass off the autopsy
Speaker 1: is legitimate, but of course it turned out to be
Speaker 1: nothing more than a hoax. So it's like, if you're
Speaker 1: going to hire someone to look into the murder of
Speaker 1: one of your family men member, I might not hire
Speaker 1: the investigator who agreed to be interviewed on alien autopsy.
Speaker 2: Definitely not That lends to the type of credibility that
Speaker 2: he has, which would be like very little. I feel
Speaker 2: so terrible for families that have to deal with people
Speaker 2: like this when they're in a vulnerable situation and somebody
Speaker 2: will predate on that and they will use it as
Speaker 2: an opportunity to line their pockets while this poor family
Speaker 2: has these high hopes and they're really not doing the work.
Speaker 2: We saw that with the Amuln Bradley case as well.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah yeah, Like a lot of grifters like will
Speaker 1: pretend to be private investigators and say that they're going
Speaker 1: to uncover answers about what happened to their missing and
Speaker 1: murdered loved ones, but in actuality they're just taking the
Speaker 1: money and not leading anywhere. But in spite of Deer's
Speaker 1: credibility issues, he did manage to successfully lobby for Lorien's
Speaker 1: body to be exhumed and they did a new autopsy
Speaker 1: and if toxicological evaluation found no trace of strychnine or
Speaker 1: arsenic inner system. But deer It says that this wasn't
Speaker 1: conclude of evidence that Laurie was not murdered because he
Speaker 1: believed that the poison may have exited her body before
Speaker 1: her death because she was in the hospital for eleven
Speaker 1: days following her medical issues, and he believed that intravenous
Speaker 1: solutions may have taken the strych nine out of her
Speaker 1: body before she died. They did find minute traces of
Speaker 1: it in her body, but it was not enough to
Speaker 1: be harmful. But my issue with that is strychnine is
Speaker 1: usually like a fast acting poison, Like even though you
Speaker 1: will suffer for like twenty to thirty minutes, you're not
Speaker 1: usually going to live for eleven days afterwards. So that's
Speaker 1: why I have trouble believing that Laurie was poisoned with strychnine,
Speaker 1: Like there might be another like weird suspicious reason for
Speaker 1: her death, but I don't think that she actually ingested
Speaker 1: strick nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm not aware of how long strychnine will
Speaker 2: stay in the body tissues and if the body is
Speaker 2: able to detoxify like through its various pathways something like
Speaker 2: strychnine over that day, like eleven day period, like it's
Speaker 2: a pretty protracted period. And then if it was like
Speaker 2: a death over a day or something like that would
Speaker 2: make more sense unless the dose was just so small
Speaker 2: and whomever did this, if it was connected to the
Speaker 2: Wax Museum, they learned their lesson not to give such
Speaker 2: a small dose of strychnine and to up the dose,
Speaker 2: and then that's why Patsy had basically enough to bring
Speaker 2: down a horse in her nicwell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they said that she had enough in there
Speaker 1: to kill at least eight or nine people, So if
Speaker 1: Laurie was poisoned, it's possible she got a much smaller amount.
Speaker 1: But on also the fact she got exhumed like five
Speaker 1: years after her death, so even if she did have
Speaker 1: like strychnine in her system, it's possible it still wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been there after all that time. So I don't
Speaker 1: rule out the possibility of foul play in Laurie's case,
Speaker 1: but I'm not entirely sure if it's connected to Patsy's.
Speaker 2: Death, and I think that there's a possibility too if
Speaker 2: the dose was really small, if the poison caused damage
Speaker 2: to all the various different organ systems in the body,
Speaker 2: it could have just hit like the point of critical
Speaker 2: mass on that you know, day eleven or twelve, and
Speaker 2: then she may have died because who knows, like her
Speaker 2: liver gave out, or her kidneys gave out, or her
Speaker 2: heart or some combination. Maybe it was a vascular issue.
Speaker 2: I don't know what type of potential damage that poison
Speaker 2: could have caused throughout all of her systems, but there
Speaker 2: is a possibility that it could have been cleared out
Speaker 2: of her system, and then what remained was just the
Speaker 2: damage to that poison had done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is certainly possible, but people have never been
Speaker 1: able to figure out, like if Lori Anne was murdered,
Speaker 1: like what the motive could have been, because obviously this
Speaker 1: was three years before Patsy's death, and Dear's theory that
Speaker 1: they poison Laurie just to scare Patsy doesn't really ring
Speaker 1: true because like, if she had uncovered something illegal back
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four, why did she tell anyone about it?
Speaker 1: Why did she just move on with her life for
Speaker 1: the next three years before she died under suspicious circumstances,
Speaker 1: And that sounds.
Speaker 2: Like a big leap to just murder somebody to scare
Speaker 2: somebody else like that could bring so much suspicion and
Speaker 2: so much heat onto you. It's a huge risk.
Speaker 1: And if that was the motive, it obviously didn't work
Speaker 1: because at the time they just figured it was an
Speaker 1: unrelated medical issue and they didn't suspect that Laurie had
Speaker 1: been murdered, so obviously it didn't drive home the message
Speaker 1: to scare Patsy. But sure enough, only two weeks after
Speaker 1: this new autopsy was done, they finally found Stanley Pointer, who,
Speaker 1: as you recall, they had captured his license plate when
Speaker 1: he was speeding away from the site of the museum fire,
Speaker 1: but it took like a year to finally track him down,
Speaker 1: and he was working as a student mortician at the
Speaker 1: time of his arrest. Because it sounds like he's a
Speaker 1: guy who would just like move around from job to
Speaker 1: job until he got a big payout setting fires to
Speaker 1: wax museums. What a very interesting life he led. But
Speaker 1: by this point, like Lourie's death and Patsy's death were
Speaker 1: in the news, so they started looking at Pointer as
Speaker 1: a potential suspect, and they also questioned him about the
Speaker 1: museum fire, and he claimed that, yes, I did visit
Speaker 1: the side of the fire, and I did remove the ledger,
Speaker 1: but I only thought it was a museum piece. So
Speaker 1: that's why I threw the ledger away, because I mistakenly
Speaker 1: thought it was an art fact and then realized they
Speaker 1: didn't need it. But this didn't really ring true because
Speaker 1: in order to find this ledger, you had to go
Speaker 1: past several other artifacts, climb onto a chair, and get
Speaker 1: the ledger from a shelf. So it seemed very likely
Speaker 1: that he was trying to get this particular item, but
Speaker 1: no one could figure out why. And he said that
Speaker 1: he ran from the police out of fear but did
Speaker 1: not know that they were still searching for him. And
Speaker 1: he denied any involvement in the fire or the deaths
Speaker 1: and said that he had no connection to the museum,
Speaker 1: And he was given a polygraph test and he claimed
Speaker 1: that he passed, but the police never confirmed or denied this,
Speaker 1: and four days later he was released on bond because
Speaker 1: even though they were able to charge him with minor crimes,
Speaker 1: they found no evidence that he was behind the arsonary
Speaker 1: the deaths, so they couldn't hold him indefinitely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I find his involvement to be such a strange
Speaker 2: element that it is possible that Robert Cox hired him
Speaker 2: initially to burn down his wax museum, and that Sally's
Speaker 2: wax museum. He could have been hired to burn that
Speaker 2: down as well. Who knows if he was in their
Speaker 2: circle somehow or somehow connected to somebody that they knew,
Speaker 2: because I just don't think that there's any way, shape
Speaker 2: or form, but he just randomly got that ledger and
Speaker 2: he knew exactly where it was. It's not like it's
Speaker 2: just this random piece that he just stumbled across, Like
Speaker 2: you had to know where that was. So somebody that
Speaker 2: had access to the financial ledger and knew where it
Speaker 2: was kept would have had to have given explicit instructions.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking as well, And it makes you
Speaker 1: wonder a pointer like I don't think he would be
Speaker 1: acting alone. I think that if you wanted to get
Speaker 1: that ledger, or someone hired him to do it and
Speaker 1: they were going to try to make a case against
Speaker 1: him for arson. But this is another suspicious detail. The
Speaker 1: original fire file from the fire, even though it was
Speaker 1: put in a locked fire drawer at the Grand Prairie
Speaker 1: Fire Department and mysteriously wound up going missing even though
Speaker 1: it was in a locked drawer inside a locked room.
Speaker 1: So people started wondering was there some sort of conspiracy
Speaker 1: or cover up to try to like cover up the
Speaker 1: real reason for this fire. So in the end, the
Speaker 1: only a charge that the grand jury could file against
Speaker 1: Proner was criminal trust pass because all they had was
Speaker 1: evidence that he went onto the sealed off museum site
Speaker 1: to steal something, but no evidence that he started the fire.
Speaker 1: So he was convicted on criminal trust pass and I
Speaker 1: think received a sense of probation before he was released.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's too bad because it seems clear that I
Speaker 2: don't know if he was connected to any murders or
Speaker 2: anything like that, but it seems that he's definitely connected
Speaker 2: to the arson in some capacity, and so was he
Speaker 2: connected to Cox? Was he connected to Sally and Steve?
Speaker 2: I mean, when you can't fully dig in to Pointer her,
Speaker 2: it's really hard to know. But it seems that this
Speaker 2: was not a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Well, sure enough, this would not be the end of
Speaker 1: Stanley Pointer in this story, because in December of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety a fire was deliberately set in the bathroom of
Speaker 1: a church youth center in Austin, Texas, and because Poyter
Speaker 1: just happened to be living in the area at the time,
Speaker 1: he wound up being questioned, but he gave investigators a
Speaker 1: false name before he disappeared, so they issued a warrant
Speaker 1: for his arrest because they apparently found enough evidence that
Speaker 1: he was responsible for this fire that they could finally
Speaker 1: charge him with arson and theft. So he remained a
Speaker 1: fugitive for the next four months. But in April of
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, an off duty police officer was directing
Speaker 1: traffic at an intersection in Dallas when Poyter just happened
Speaker 1: to drive up next to it, and the officer signaled
Speaker 1: him to stop the car. Now, at the time, the
Speaker 1: officer had no idea who he was. He didn't know
Speaker 1: that this was a wanted fugitive, but it caused Poyter
Speaker 1: to panic, so he literally hit the accelerator and drove
Speaker 1: right into the police officer and continued driving with the
Speaker 1: officer still on his hood. But the officer then pulled
Speaker 1: out his gun and fired six shots through the windshield
Speaker 1: while Poyter was driving. This is like a scene in
Speaker 1: an action movie with someone like firing shots into the
Speaker 1: driver from the hood, and thankfully, the officer wound up surviving,
Speaker 1: but Poynter was killed instantly, and when they checked his
Speaker 1: items from his residence, they found out that he had
Speaker 1: one way tickets from Mexico to Dallas. So they're wondering
Speaker 1: what was this guy up to? What was this guy doing,
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, because he was dead, they were never able
Speaker 1: to thoroughly question him and find out if he might
Speaker 1: have had any involvement in the museum fires or any
Speaker 1: involvement in Lori or Patsy's deaths.
Speaker 2: Wow, So he dies and leaves his huge mystery in
Speaker 2: like an Israel Keys type fashion.
Speaker 1: And it seems like because he would work these freelance
Speaker 1: jobs where his regular jobs would pay well, but he
Speaker 1: would seem to have a lot of money, like he
Speaker 1: would live in like fancy apartments. He apparently had a
Speaker 1: lakefront property somewhere in Texas, and no one could figure
Speaker 1: out where this money was coming from, leading to speculation
Speaker 1: that he was hired to burn down these wax museums.
Speaker 1: But they also thought if maybe Robert Cox or someone
Speaker 1: was the perpetrator, could he have hired Pointer to break
Speaker 1: into Patsy's house and put the Stryck nine in the
Speaker 1: cold medicine, So it could be a thing where someone
Speaker 1: else masterminded it. But Pointer was the guy who actually
Speaker 1: put the poison in the bottle. But unfortunately, because he
Speaker 1: died before he could be thoroughly questioned about it, they
Speaker 1: were unable to implicate him or anyone else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's possible that he could have been a contract
Speaker 2: killer and a contract arsonist and he just took on
Speaker 2: these menial jobs as a way to have some kind
Speaker 2: of cover because it Definitely, something is definitely not lining up.
Speaker 2: When you're looking at a lake front property and somebody
Speaker 2: who's essentially described as a drifter who's making what I
Speaker 2: would assume to be minimum wage or less than minimum wage.
Speaker 2: There is something else going on and something else at
Speaker 2: play here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so, but not surprised me. Like it's
Speaker 1: possible Pointer is just a red herring who has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with Patsy's death, but the fact that he
Speaker 1: keeps popping up and having associations with all these people
Speaker 1: in the story makes me think that he could have
Speaker 1: been complicit somehow. So obviously we think Robert Cox is
Speaker 1: the best suspect, but he died in October of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one at the age of ninety one without implicating
Speaker 1: him in this murder, and some of the other people
Speaker 1: in Patsy's life, like husband Bill Wright and her former
Speaker 1: boyfriend Leo Fikes, have also passed away. But one other
Speaker 1: thing I wanted to mention is that if you go
Speaker 1: to the Unsolved Mysteries profile page for this case and
Speaker 1: also the Unsolved Mysteries message board at the sitcoms online
Speaker 1: for him, you'll find a poster there who put up
Speaker 1: claims that Patsy was having an affair with a coworker
Speaker 1: at the horse ranch who often used strict nine to
Speaker 1: poison rats, And they pretty much posted the same thing
Speaker 1: at both the message board and the profile page, so
Speaker 1: even though they used different usernames, I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 1: is the same person. And he also said that this
Speaker 1: person left town shortly after Patsy's death, but he just
Speaker 1: doesn't remember this person's name. Now. Of course, we talked
Speaker 1: about how there was rumors that maybe Patsy was having
Speaker 1: an affair with Bill Alexander, but the wording of this
Speaker 1: guy's comments makes me think he was talking about someone else,
Speaker 1: someone who has never thoroughly investigated that Patsy may have
Speaker 1: been having an affair with. And theoretically, if this was true,
Speaker 1: maybe she invited this guy over to her house on
Speaker 1: the night of her death. This person used the opportunity
Speaker 1: to put the Strych nine in her cough medicine before
Speaker 1: leaving the scene and locking the door, and then they
Speaker 1: were long gone by the time Stevens Sally showed up,
Speaker 1: and because he fled town, he may never have been
Speaker 1: thoroughly questioned by law enforcement. And I know this is
Speaker 1: just like anonymous comments on a message board. But I
Speaker 1: do find this sphery kind of intriguing that she might
Speaker 1: have been having in a secret affair with someone who
Speaker 1: had access to strychnine the horse farm, but because they
Speaker 1: were never formally questioned, they just never popped up on
Speaker 1: the radar as a suspect.
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. But I would just wonder in that
Speaker 2: case if it was indeed somebody Patsy was having an
Speaker 2: affair with what would be their motor for poisoning her
Speaker 2: and then skipping town.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing is that this person never gained
Speaker 1: anything from her death. So that's why I think like
Speaker 1: Robert Cox looks like a more likely suspect. Because she died,
Speaker 1: she couldn't testify against him at the Sable trial, which
Speaker 1: took place a short time later. Eddie wound up collecting
Speaker 1: over one million dollars from his arson fire because they
Speaker 1: couldn't prove that he did it. So I guess it depends.
Speaker 1: I definitely still think that Robert is the best suspect,
Speaker 1: but the only thing holding me back is the presence
Speaker 1: of the dinner plates, Like, I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: a red herring and suggests that Patsy had someone else
Speaker 1: at her house that night who maybe used this opportunity
Speaker 1: to kill her. And if it was just a coincidence,
Speaker 1: if someone poisoned the Strych nine bottle before this and
Speaker 1: the guy just happened to leave like before Patsy died,
Speaker 1: why didn't this person come forward. Was he just worried
Speaker 1: that he would be accused of a murder, or maybe
Speaker 1: maybe he was married, Maybe he was in a relationship
Speaker 1: with someone else and didn't want to admit that he
Speaker 1: had an affair with Patsy even if he was completely
Speaker 1: innocent ever murder.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm thinking. If the person that she was
Speaker 2: having an affair with was themselves in a relationship or married,
Speaker 2: they might not want to touch this with a ten
Speaker 2: foot pool. They might not want to talk to law
Speaker 2: enforcement because they don't want to be implicated in any way,
Speaker 2: and they also don't want to blow up their own relationship.
Speaker 2: So there can be a lot of motives that have
Speaker 2: nothing to do like a lot of underlying motives for
Speaker 2: them holding back that have nothing to do with the
Speaker 2: fact that this person had anything to do with the crime.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think Robert Cox is the
Speaker 2: very best suspect here. Jeeve is a good suspect because
Speaker 2: there was something financially to be gained and power within
Speaker 2: the the Wax Museums to be gained with Patsy's death.
Speaker 2: But I think based on Robert Cox's behavior and volatility
Speaker 2: and stalking, he seems like the most likely perpetrator here
Speaker 2: because we look at his past behavior, he seems like
Speaker 2: the type of person that might do that. He'd asked
Speaker 2: Patsy to lie, she said she wasn't going to lie,
Speaker 2: and then in the end he got one million, three
Speaker 2: hundred thousand, which, like in today's money, would be double that.
Speaker 2: So you're looking at well over two million dollars close
Speaker 2: to three in purchasing power. So I would think that
Speaker 2: that would be a pretty good motive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he does seem like someone who would have
Speaker 1: a DNA devius enough mind to do something like that, because,
Speaker 1: as we talked about, it's very difficult to have pain
Speaker 1: strict nine in the nineteen eighties unless you got it
Speaker 1: on the black market or maybe you stole it from
Speaker 1: a labisum sort. But he seems like someone who already
Speaker 1: had a history of shady behavior to brainstorm something like that,
Speaker 1: thinking that I can put it in her cough medicine
Speaker 1: like long beforehand, and I will have an airtight alibi
Speaker 1: placing me away from the scene, and then I will
Speaker 1: manage to get away with it. And if that is
Speaker 1: what happened, then it technically was true because he got
Speaker 1: to live a long life. He lived to the age
Speaker 1: of ninety one before he died of natural causes, so
Speaker 1: if he was the perpetrator, he will never be prosecuted
Speaker 1: for it. So he essentially got away with the perfect crime.
Speaker 1: But do you think that Stanley Pointer might have been involved,
Speaker 1: because I'm inclined to think that maybe Steve hired him
Speaker 1: to burn down the wax museum one year later. But
Speaker 1: I'm on the fence about whether that's just a coincidence
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with Patsy's case, or if
Speaker 1: Pointer might have been hired to break into her house
Speaker 1: and put the strict nine in her cough medicine.
Speaker 2: I'm less inclined to believe that, but I do believe
Speaker 2: that he was hired potentially by Steve to burn down
Speaker 2: a wax museum because knowing where that financial ledger is,
Speaker 2: you have to be familiar with somebody who has access
Speaker 2: to know exactly where that is and to know what
Speaker 2: to look for. So he had some inside knowledge and
Speaker 2: I believe that wholeheartedly. But as far as being involved
Speaker 2: in Patsy's murder, I'm on the fence, but like I'm
Speaker 2: leaning towards less inclined to believe that he's the person
Speaker 2: that broke in and spiked the Niqwell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it would make sense because Robert knew so
Speaker 1: many intimate details about Patsy's life. She knew she would
Speaker 1: have taken Nikewell, he may have been able to find
Speaker 1: out where the spare key was and then used it
Speaker 1: to enter while she was away and then put it
Speaker 1: in there. And also the fact that he had his
Speaker 1: own museum fire that took place years earlier, and Patsy
Speaker 1: was going to testify against him. So I find it
Speaker 1: crazy that the whole wax museum fire involving Sally's museum
Speaker 1: with Stanley Pointer and the wax museum fire involving Robert
Speaker 1: might be two separate incidents which have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with each other, which just goes to show if anyone
Speaker 1: listening out there is running a wax museum right now,
Speaker 1: watch yourself, because it a apparently is a cutthroat business
Speaker 1: in which people are killing each other and starting fires
Speaker 1: to collect insurance money.
Speaker 2: My god, who would have thought it's like the drug
Speaker 2: game or something like that, like the wax museum game.
Speaker 2: There's some kind of nefarious undercurrent. Or were those the
Speaker 2: horse syndicate?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, we talked about that on previous thing, where
Speaker 1: like these mob guys were using a racetrack and like
Speaker 1: a horse farm as like a cover up for their
Speaker 1: criminal activities and were able to sustain it for like
Speaker 1: decades before they were caught. So yeah, Sadly, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure this one will ever be solved because, like I said,
Speaker 1: Robert Cox passed away, so even if they were able
Speaker 1: to uncover incriminating evidence to prove that he did it,
Speaker 1: he will obviously never be prosecuted for it. And obviously,
Speaker 1: the people that I feel most badly for are Patsy's children,
Speaker 1: because they had a great relationship with her, and even
Speaker 1: though they wound up inheriting her estate, it sounds like
Speaker 1: they truly love their mother and miss her, and it's
Speaker 1: sad that they will never see or get justice. So
Speaker 1: any further thoughts on the murder of Patsy Wright.
Speaker 2: This was a really interesting case, and I really had
Speaker 2: no idea that wax museum fires were so common, and
Speaker 2: you really triggered something when you brought up House of Wax.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the original, but I've seen the Paris
Speaker 2: Hilton version and then I just got creepy flashbacks. So
Speaker 2: this is a real tragedy, and I do believe that
Speaker 2: Robert Cox is the best suspect. I think there's a
Speaker 2: possibility that Steve could have been responsible, but based on
Speaker 2: what Robert was going through at the time and what
Speaker 2: he was asking of Patsy, it seems like he had
Speaker 2: a pretty clear cut and dry motive for wanting her dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess the way I should conclude this episode
Speaker 1: is that after this in the Springfield three case, stay
Speaker 1: clear of people named Robert Cox.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's fair.
Speaker 1: So that about brings an end to our series on
Speaker 1: the Murder of Patsy Wright. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining us, and we will be back again next week
Speaker 1: for a series about another case.
Speaker 3: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 3: about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 1: years now. We offer these standard bonus features like early
Speaker 1: ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers and
Speaker 1: sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up with
Speaker 1: us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars tier
Speaker 1: Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in which
Speaker 1: I talk about cases which are not featured on the
Speaker 1: Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon
Speaker 1: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 1: ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 1: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsolved Mysteries,
Speaker 1: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 1: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 1: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 1: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 1: the cases featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very
Speaker 1: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 1: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 1: download a commentary track in which I make more smart
Speaker 1: ass remarks about Jewel Kaylor, then sure to join Tier three.
Speaker 4: So I want to let you know a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Jules and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
Speaker 4: free episodes of the Path Went chili. We've got our
Speaker 4: Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
Speaker 4: they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
Speaker 4: turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those,
Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
Speaker 3: We'll link them in the show notes.
Speaker 1: So I want to thank you all for listening, and
Speaker 1: any chance you have to share us on social media
Speaker 1: with a friend or to rate and review is greatly
Speaker 1: appreciate it. You can email us at the Pathwentchili at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the Pathwin. So until next time, be sure to bundle
Speaker 1: up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.
Speaker 3: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy