Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
Speaker 1: of our series about the unexplained death of Colonel Phillips Shoe. Robin,
Speaker 1: do you want to catch everwing up when we talked
Speaker 1: about in our previous episode.
Speaker 2: Well, a central figure is fifty four year old Colonel
Speaker 2: Phillip Schoe, who works as a staff psychiatrist for the
Speaker 2: United States Air Force. He's living in Kendall County, Texas
Speaker 2: and working at a base in San Antonio, And this
Speaker 2: is April two thousand and three, and he is getting
Speaker 2: ready to retire with his wife Tracy. They've already brought
Speaker 2: a new house in Alabama and are planning a new life.
Speaker 2: But one day, when Phil left to go to work,
Speaker 2: he wound up any bad car accident and was killed.
Speaker 2: And they discovered a lot of strange details. He had
Speaker 2: duct tape around his wrists and his feet, he had
Speaker 2: a large gash in his chest, and most creepily enough,
Speaker 2: both of his nipples have been removed. And there was
Speaker 2: a window of about two and a half hours between
Speaker 2: when he left home before he got into his fatal crash,
Speaker 2: and his wife and many other people believed that someone
Speaker 2: abducted him and tortured him, but he managed to make
Speaker 2: an escape and by sheer coincidence, he crashed his car
Speaker 2: and was killed. But surprisingly, the authorities ruled that he
Speaker 2: had committed a very elaborate suicide and mutilated himself before
Speaker 2: he intentionally crashed his car. There were very divisive opinions
Speaker 2: on it, but the police and the Air Force refused
Speaker 2: to change the suicide ruling, and as far as possible theories,
Speaker 2: they looked into Philip's ex wife, who had a lucrative
Speaker 2: insurance policy out on him, which meant that she would
Speaker 2: be paid a lot of money in the event of
Speaker 2: his death. They finally took the matter to court and
Speaker 2: she pled the Fifth Amendment to every question, so there's
Speaker 2: still a lot of mysterious details about whether or not
Speaker 2: she could have been responsible. And even though a judge
Speaker 2: at a civil trial said that he believed that Colonel
Speaker 2: Shoe's death was a homicide, the authorities have still refused
Speaker 2: to change it and remains a suicide ruling to this day.
Speaker 2: But we have differing accounts from doctor Vincent de Mayo,
Speaker 2: who believed that it was a suicide, whereas doctor ciro
Speaker 2: Weck believed it was a homicide. And the more you
Speaker 2: look at each theory, the more you realize that no
Speaker 2: one theory makes one hundred percent complete sense. So that's
Speaker 2: why we've got a lot to talk about on both
Speaker 2: of our episodes. And like I said, what adds to
Speaker 2: the controversy of this case is that two of the
Speaker 2: world's most famous forensic pathologists have performed or overseen autopsies
Speaker 2: on Colonel Shoe and reached different conclusions. Like I just said,
Speaker 2: doctor Vincent de Mayo believes his death was a suicide
Speaker 2: and doctor Curo Weck believes he was the victim of
Speaker 2: foul play. Even though both men are very famous figures
Speaker 2: in their field, that's not to say that either of
Speaker 2: them is infallible. And I've always reached the most logical conclusion.
Speaker 2: So your opinion on this case might depend on whether
Speaker 2: you find de Mayo or Weck to be a more
Speaker 2: credible source, and if the differing opinions from both these
Speaker 2: men wasn't enough, there's also the finding from Kendall County
Speaker 2: Court of Law Judge Bill Palmer that Colonel Hue was
Speaker 2: the victim of a homicide. I mean, I know that
Speaker 2: Tracy Hue took that as a victory of sorts. But
Speaker 2: the issue is that Judge Palmer made the statement during
Speaker 2: a civil trial, which was based around determining whether or
Speaker 2: not an insurance company should be held liable for not
Speaker 2: canceling the policy that Phil's ex wife, Nancy had on them.
Speaker 2: The trial had nothing to do with figuring out if
Speaker 2: Phil's death was a suicide or homicide, but Judge Palmer
Speaker 2: took it upon himself to make that statement. Regardless of
Speaker 2: whether or not you believe he was right, it does
Speaker 2: not sound like he had the full legal authority to
Speaker 2: change the official ruling, which is why Phil's death is
Speaker 2: still listed on the record as a suicide. Well, I
Speaker 2: think the one thing we can all agree on is
Speaker 2: that even if it was a suicide, the original investigation
Speaker 2: was botched in a huge way and there are just
Speaker 2: too many discrepancies which have never been adequately accounted for.
Speaker 3: This is one of those where you really do feel
Speaker 3: for his family, where they're struggling with the actual definition
Speaker 3: of how he died right the cause of death for them.
Speaker 3: You have this man who had plans he was getting
Speaker 3: ready to move with his wife. He was actually going
Speaker 3: to start a fellowship and do some more psychiatry work
Speaker 3: down in Alabama, where he was going, and so this
Speaker 3: idea that he left in seemingly normal spirits that day
Speaker 3: and ended up deceased in such a bizarre fashion. The family,
Speaker 3: I think, not really understanding how it could be a
Speaker 3: suicide would add so much to the grief and trauma
Speaker 3: that they're experiencing. And the support you get when your
Speaker 3: loved one is a victim of let's say, homicide or
Speaker 3: an accident, versus some judgment that society gives you. When
Speaker 3: your loved one complete suicide, I think you have that
Speaker 3: to add to the situation too. So his poor family's
Speaker 3: begging for answers, saying, this doesn't fit our loved one's personality,
Speaker 3: his life course, any of the things that were going
Speaker 3: on at the time. How could you rule this as suicide?
Speaker 3: Like you said, Robin, Let's say it was one of
Speaker 3: these just elaborate, bizarre suicides. We've seen them before. I
Speaker 3: think the fact that the police didn't break down the
Speaker 3: crime scene and didn't look through that car as carefully
Speaker 3: as they could have, and they made that assumption from
Speaker 3: the start really hurt not only the case but the
Speaker 3: family as well.
Speaker 1: I see a lot of parallels here with the Cindy
Speaker 1: James case because I can't remember where you both fell
Speaker 1: on it, but personally, I do believe that she was
Speaker 1: being stalked in harassed. But I do think that it's
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty, maybe even sixty forty for me, that
Speaker 1: she chose to end her own life and it was
Speaker 1: just in very bizarre circumstances, and the police just didn't
Speaker 1: investigate the crime scene properly, so we really won't know
Speaker 1: either way. But I think it was this threat of
Speaker 1: violence or the terror that was just so palpable in
Speaker 1: her life because of this person who was stalking her.
Speaker 1: And we also had the psychiatrist ex doctor Roy makepeace
Speaker 1: on the periphery there, and there was an odd relationship
Speaker 1: dynamic there. But I think that it's a possibility here
Speaker 1: that his ex wife and that feeling that he may
Speaker 1: be killed could have contributed to the situation at hand
Speaker 1: if it was indeed a suicide, But I'm not one
Speaker 1: hundred percent sold on that. Do you guys think that
Speaker 1: there's similarities between the two cases.
Speaker 2: I think so because I have the same thoughts on
Speaker 2: Cindy James as you did, where I do believe she
Speaker 2: probably staged some of her harassment, but I don't think
Speaker 2: it would have been physically possible for her to stage
Speaker 2: all of it over the course of six and a
Speaker 2: half years without being caught. So I don't think she
Speaker 2: faced some stocking ha harassment at least at the beginning,
Speaker 2: and it probably caused some sort of mental breakdown. And
Speaker 2: as we're going to talk about, there's kind of a
Speaker 2: similar thing going on here in Phil's case, because he
Speaker 2: had received an anonymous letter four years before his death
Speaker 2: warning him that his ex wife is going to try
Speaker 2: to kill him to cash herou on the insurance policy,
Speaker 2: and he had a hard time getting the authorities to
Speaker 2: believe him. He was living with a lot of paranoia
Speaker 2: and anxiety, so you could think that maybe that contributed
Speaker 2: to a possible mental breakdown in a possible suicide. But
Speaker 2: you have to think that there's something real here that
Speaker 2: he probably should have had a good reasons to be
Speaker 2: scared for his life.
Speaker 1: It's no secret that Tracy personally believes that Nancy Shu
Speaker 1: Timpson was responsible for Phil's death because she was hoping
Speaker 1: to cash in on his insurance policies. Since Nancy was
Speaker 1: a bored certified sex therapist who studied the practice of
Speaker 1: sado masochism. Tracy thought that she might have been capable
Speaker 1: of torturing Phil and performing such gruesome acts as slicing
Speaker 1: off his nipples. When Tracy was interviewed on the forty
Speaker 1: eight Hours episode by correspondent Troy Roberts, he has to
Speaker 1: fill ever an interest in sato masochism or a fetish
Speaker 1: for pain in which he could experience sexual pleasure through
Speaker 1: self mutilation. Tracy responded by saying, quote, No, he did not,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting that you would ask that question, because
Speaker 1: you were actually the first person out of the entire
Speaker 1: five year timeframe that has ever asked me that question,
Speaker 1: and I do believe it is an appropriate question to ask.
Speaker 1: End quote. Indeed, I suppose an alternate theory is that
Speaker 1: Phil's death might not have been a suicide, but rather
Speaker 1: the results of an odd sato masochistic sex game gone wrong,
Speaker 1: which led him to being killed in a fatal car crash.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't sound like there was anything found in
Speaker 1: Phil's background to suggest that he had some sort of
Speaker 1: double life or any dark secrets. I know. Doctor Demeyo
Speaker 1: believed that scratch abrasions found around the gash on Phil's
Speaker 1: chest were consistent with hesitation wounds, as if he had
Speaker 1: to work up the will to cut himself, but it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that there were no signs of hesitation marks
Speaker 1: around the cuts on Phil's mutilated nipples. If Phil really
Speaker 1: did inflict all those wounds on himself, it may have
Speaker 1: been the results of some sort of mental breakdown. Looking
Speaker 1: through Phil's psychological autopsy report, it seems like all of
Speaker 1: the issues with depression, paranoia, and anxiety began in May
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, after he received that anonymous typewritten letter
Speaker 1: which warned that Nancy and her husband Donald were planning
Speaker 1: to have Phil killed in order to cash in on
Speaker 1: his life insurance. If the letter was legitimate and Nancy
Speaker 1: and Donald were responsible for Phil's death, you might be
Speaker 1: wondering why it took them four years to actually go
Speaker 1: through with it. But let's not forget that after Phil
Speaker 1: received the letter, he contacted Nancy in order to confront
Speaker 1: her about it, so she may have felt that killing
Speaker 1: him a short time later would arouse too much suspicion
Speaker 1: and decided to hold off on her plan. I still
Speaker 1: find it a bit surprising that Nancy was allowed to
Speaker 1: retain these life insurance policies as part of their divorce settlement,
Speaker 1: because well, it might be a bit unsettling to know
Speaker 1: that an expouse whom you're no longer on good terms
Speaker 1: with stands to gain one million from your death.
Speaker 3: It's really interesting. I mean, you do see settlements like
Speaker 3: that where someone says, listen, I was married to you
Speaker 3: for so long, and I'm going to benefit from kind
Speaker 3: of that investment in you when you're deceased, right, we're
Speaker 3: going I'm going to retain that. So that's not completely
Speaker 3: crazy abnormal, but my goodness, wouldn't it cause some anxiety
Speaker 3: when you're not on good terms with that spouse anymore
Speaker 3: and there's threats to your life. What I find interesting
Speaker 3: is that Phil is getting help. He's getting psychological support.
Speaker 3: He himself is a psychiatrist, so he is very well
Speaker 3: aware of his own mental fortitude, i'd assume, and he's
Speaker 3: asking for assistance with the anxiety and depression and paranoia.
Speaker 3: When you talk about the sado masochism, I feel like,
Speaker 3: what the heck would happen if you had a secret life.
Speaker 3: Your wife says, no, you're not interested in that, which
Speaker 3: I would find it very bizarre. You would never approach
Speaker 3: her with like this fantasy, right and tell her. But
Speaker 3: let's say he did hide that life. If he came
Speaker 3: home with missing nipples and or any other kind of
Speaker 3: major injuries on his own body, it would cause incredible
Speaker 3: kind of I don't know distress between the couple, right, like,
Speaker 3: what were you doing? I didn't know this about you?
Speaker 3: So I just don't see him doing that as part
Speaker 3: of a sexual fantasy unless it was ultimately going to
Speaker 3: lead into his suicide, because you can't go home with
Speaker 3: missing nipples and your wife, not now.
Speaker 1: And wouldn't he have scars too?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, like from other incidences where he came
Speaker 3: home to her and it wasn't severe.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've heard nothing to indicate that there were situations
Speaker 2: like that where he came home with unexplained scars or
Speaker 2: injuries that made Tracy ask, what is that?
Speaker 1: And are we supposed to believe that he's going to
Speaker 1: get up at six am to go and have some
Speaker 1: sado masochistic sex game that somehow goes awry before he's
Speaker 1: set to go to work, when we know this is
Speaker 1: preudibly atypical for him. He doesn't usually leave this early.
Speaker 1: It just seems like something that would be done after dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I'm not a morning person, but I can't
Speaker 2: imagine doing that at between six and seven am.
Speaker 3: No, No, I didn't think about the fact that I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: you're gonna hurt me and I'm gonna put my work
Speaker 3: clothes on and go to work like that. It just
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: And is he meeting like a partner in some way
Speaker 1: or is this someone whom he's paying for this? And
Speaker 1: would those people be operating at like six am? It
Speaker 1: just it all seems very odd.
Speaker 2: Now, those who believe that Phil's death was a suicide
Speaker 2: hold the position that he fabricated the anonymous letter himself,
Speaker 2: and I have to acknowledge that there are definitely some
Speaker 2: things about it which seem really off. The writer starts
Speaker 2: off by saying, quote, I'm writing because I remember you
Speaker 2: with such a kind and caring doctor. So this would
Speaker 2: imply that they personally knew Phil or cross paths with
Speaker 2: them in the past. But here is the exact wording
Speaker 2: of the next line, quote A friend of mine who
Speaker 2: worked with Don your ex wife's husband, told me some
Speaker 2: scary things. I don't know Don or your ex wife.
Speaker 2: Myself sorry, I don't even know her name end quote. Okay,
Speaker 2: we don't know where exactly the writer was from, but
Speaker 2: I'm assuming it would be Florida since that's where Nancy
Speaker 2: and Donald were living at the time. Colonel Shue was
Speaker 2: stationed at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida years earlier,
Speaker 2: so it's not implausible that the writer could have originally
Speaker 2: met him there. But I find it very strange that
Speaker 2: this person seemed to know enough about Phil's background that
Speaker 2: they managed to dig up his address in Texas and
Speaker 2: also knew the first name of his ex wife's current husband,
Speaker 2: yet they don't know his ex wife's actual name. The
Speaker 2: writer seems to be passing along thirdhand information that they
Speaker 2: heard from a friend of theirs, but wouldn't this friend
Speaker 2: had been able to tell them Nancy's name. The phrase
Speaker 2: my friend is used a lot in this letter, with
Speaker 2: sentences like quote, my friend told me they wish you
Speaker 2: were dead so they could collect life insurance. I don't
Speaker 2: understand why they would have life insurance on you, but
Speaker 2: that's what my friend told me me. My friend thinks
Speaker 2: they may actually be planning something end quote. Well, if
Speaker 2: this friend actually exists and they overheard someone discussing a
Speaker 2: murder plot. It's surprising that they never went to the
Speaker 2: authorities or came forward to corroborate the writer's story. Even
Speaker 2: if Phil did not fabricate this letter, I still feel
Speaker 2: the writer may have been fudging certain details or not
Speaker 2: telling the whole story.
Speaker 3: I don't know when you get this letter. I don't
Speaker 3: think Phil wrote it himself. I really don't. I think
Speaker 3: that's incredibly bizarre, and he wouldn't have been having this
Speaker 3: kind of four year mental health break in the position
Speaker 3: that he's in. I just think he was too accomplished
Speaker 3: in his career, and I think he was showing incredible
Speaker 3: growth and stability and peace as he's making a transition
Speaker 3: in life. So I just don't see him fabricating this
Speaker 3: letter four years earlier, calling his ex wife who doesn't
Speaker 3: get along with and begging her to please drop these
Speaker 3: policies because he's scared for his life. So I think
Speaker 3: that can be ruled out. When you are talking about
Speaker 3: somebody who would overhear a new husband talking about trying
Speaker 3: to kill Phil, I definitely am in your boat, Robin.
Speaker 3: When you say he doesn't know the ex wife's name,
Speaker 3: There's just no way like he'd be saying Nancy and
Speaker 3: I need this done. Nancy wants this done. Nancy has
Speaker 3: an insurance policy on him. Her name would be used
Speaker 3: in this conversation as to why you need him killed? Right,
Speaker 3: And how would you even know he's linked to Nancy
Speaker 3: unless her name had been used? So I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's just really interesting when you say did he write it?
Speaker 3: I don't think so at all. But whoever did write it?
Speaker 3: Like you said, is this a fabrication? Is it something
Speaker 3: just to scare him? Or is it truly someone trying
Speaker 3: to get him help, And maybe they themselves hurt it
Speaker 3: and are trying not to be that directly tied to
Speaker 3: the case.
Speaker 2: I mean, if we're making parallels to the Cidey James case,
Speaker 2: I guess another possibility is it could have been someone
Speaker 2: trying to gaslight Phil and make him paranoid, like for
Speaker 2: all we know, maybe it was Nancy herself. Maybe she
Speaker 2: had no intention of killing him, but I just wanted
Speaker 2: to write him these threatening letters to make them all
Speaker 2: paranoid and give him a lot of anxiety or something
Speaker 2: for her own personal petty reasons. But yeah, I do
Speaker 2: believe that Phil was not the one who wrote the letter,
Speaker 2: But I do think that whoever did write it was
Speaker 2: not telling the whole story and maybe was either trying
Speaker 2: to scare him or something, or was trying to give
Speaker 2: details about the so called murder plot without revealing too
Speaker 2: much information to give away their own identity.
Speaker 1: So if you read Phil's psychological autopsy report, it details
Speaker 1: a number of incidents in which he exhibited strange behavior
Speaker 1: in the year and a half following the receipt of
Speaker 1: that letter. The incidents could be the result of the
Speaker 1: threat on Phil's life having a negative impact on his
Speaker 1: mental health, or alternatively, he was already suffering from serious
Speaker 1: mental health issues beforehand and that's what caused him to
Speaker 1: fabricate the letter. In June of nineteen ninety nine, only
Speaker 1: one month after the letter arrived, Phil reported another strange
Speaker 1: incident in which he was working in the library at
Speaker 1: the University of Texas at San Antonio and went to
Speaker 1: use the washroom, but when he returned to the table
Speaker 1: that he discovered that his laptop had been stolen. While
Speaker 1: the story goes that sometime later that month, Phil's laptop
Speaker 1: was returned as he suddenly discovered it on the hood
Speaker 1: of his car, alongside a note which stated that if
Speaker 1: he reported anything to the police, others would die. Phil
Speaker 1: also claimed that the hard drive of his laptop had
Speaker 1: been white clean. At the time, Phil was a student
Speaker 1: at the Residency in Aerospace Medicine and was working on
Speaker 1: his thesis for a master's degree in public health. He
Speaker 1: told the program director that his only copy of his
Speaker 1: thesis had been on the laptop and was erased when
Speaker 1: the hard drive was white clean. In spite of this,
Speaker 1: Phil eventually did complete his thesis and earned his master's degree.
Speaker 1: But another unusual incident took place in October two thousand
Speaker 1: when he took the Aerospace Medicine Board exam and scored
Speaker 1: a zero. Since the exam was all multiple choice questions,
Speaker 1: the statistical odds of Phil Geht seeing every single answer
Speaker 1: incorrectly seem astronomical. So it appeared that Phil made a
Speaker 1: calculated choice to intentionally get every question wrong for unknown reasons.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Okay, so there's no way that they
Speaker 3: could have been graded incorrectly.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like, they just said that Phil's a
Speaker 2: smart guy, he should know the answers of these questions.
Speaker 2: So they just found it very odd that he managed
Speaker 2: to get every question wrong, so it almost seemed like
Speaker 2: it was some sort of act of self sabotage.
Speaker 3: That's really bizarre. I could see something like that happening,
Speaker 3: but it almost seems like they ran the wrong key,
Speaker 3: you know, like he had form A and they ran
Speaker 3: form E as the answer key and he missed all
Speaker 3: those questions. That would be incredibly bizarre. You have someone
Speaker 3: who is seeking out new licenses and new expertise. He remember,
Speaker 3: he's had a whole career of this, and he's adding
Speaker 3: these kind of degrees to his repertoire. Why would he
Speaker 3: be doing that if he wanted to sabotage himself. Just
Speaker 3: stay stable at what you're doing and don't pursue things.
Speaker 1: I think that could speak to some mental health issues
Speaker 1: that could have been there that precipitated all of these
Speaker 1: strange events that led to his death. And personally, I
Speaker 1: can't discount the possibility. I just think it's possible that
Speaker 1: he may have written that letter himself given these behaviors.
Speaker 2: It's true when you kind of see his other behavior
Speaker 2: during the time period, like it all seems very bizarre,
Speaker 2: like the whole thing about the laptop being stolen and
Speaker 2: then returned with the hard drive white clean really does
Speaker 2: not ring true. So and when you see the timing
Speaker 2: of that compared to when he received the letter, it
Speaker 2: does sound like maybe he was just staging a lot
Speaker 2: of stuff for reasons known only hit him. And if
Speaker 2: that wasn't enough. In July of two thousand, Phil found
Speaker 2: himself being detained by police after an odd incident on
Speaker 2: a flight from White Plains, New York, to Chicago, as
Speaker 2: he supposedly got out of his seat while the seat
Speaker 2: belt light was on and slapped a flight attendant on
Speaker 2: the back when she asked him to sit back down.
Speaker 2: Later claimed that he simply lost his balance because of
Speaker 2: some turbulence and brushed the flight attendant with his arm,
Speaker 2: so it was not an intentional slap. After a month's
Speaker 2: long investigation, Phil was never formally charged with any crime,
Speaker 2: but during this time period he declined orders from the
Speaker 2: Air Force to command a squadron. He said that he
Speaker 2: wanted to legally clear his name before he accepted a
Speaker 2: command position, as he did not want to embarrass the
Speaker 2: Air Force if he wound up facing any illegal trouble.
Speaker 2: All of these strange events took place while Phil was
Speaker 2: battling depression and anxiety, which seemed to be brought on
Speaker 2: by his paranoia that his ex wife was planning to
Speaker 2: kill him. In fact, the incident from the airplane and
Speaker 2: Phil flunking the exam almost came across as if they
Speaker 2: were deliberate acts of self sabotage for his career. There
Speaker 2: was definitely a lot of skepticism over Phil's claims that
Speaker 2: someone stole his laptop and returned it to him with
Speaker 2: a threatening note and had the hard drive completely white clean.
Speaker 2: Even though he did report the initial theft of campus security,
Speaker 2: he never informed them about the lapps return with the note.
Speaker 2: In fact, he never even told Tracy his laptop was
Speaker 2: stolen to begin with, though this may have been because
Speaker 2: he didn't want her to worry. Even if you believe
Speaker 2: that Nancy and Donald Timpson recupable in Phil's death, I'm
Speaker 2: not sure they would go to the trouble of traveling
Speaker 2: to Texas just to steal and erase his laptop. For
Speaker 2: all we know, the whole thing could have been an
Speaker 2: attempt at self sabotage on Phil's part in order to
Speaker 2: fabricate a cover story for how his master's thesis was
Speaker 2: quote unquote lost the psychological autopsy report mentions these examples
Speaker 2: of strange behavior in order to plant the seeds that
Speaker 2: Phil was not in a sound state of mind and
Speaker 2: would have been capable of mutilating himself before staging in
Speaker 2: elaborate suicide. But it's worth reiterating that the incidents took
Speaker 2: place in nineteen ninety nine in two thousand and since
Speaker 2: Phil died in two thousand and three, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how much bearing they have on what ultimately happened.
Speaker 3: Well, when you look at this too, when you talk
Speaker 3: about the thesis being lost, if he was struggling in school,
Speaker 3: which would be surprising for intellectual purposes, but maybe not
Speaker 3: if he was struggling with mental health purposes. If he
Speaker 3: was struggling to get that thesis completed and had deadlines
Speaker 3: with his advisor and was supposed to be having these
Speaker 3: benchmarks met and he wasn't able to meet them. If
Speaker 3: your laptop gets stolen and the only copy of your
Speaker 3: thesis is gone, then you by yourself some time and
Speaker 3: an excuse to have sympathy from your advisor. You know
Speaker 3: this maybe extension of deadlines and things like that. So
Speaker 3: that is a possibility for why your quote you know
Speaker 3: thesis would be stolen, so that is possible. I wonder
Speaker 3: if you look at that four year gap again, just
Speaker 3: like if Nancy was gonna kill him, and you have
Speaker 3: this four year gap, that actually kind of makes sense
Speaker 3: because the authorities were or she was notified that he
Speaker 3: was scared of her. But when you look at him
Speaker 3: struggling four years earlier and then then he completes suicide
Speaker 3: four years later, it's hard to link those events. Someone
Speaker 3: can have an episode four years earlier and that doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that four years later they're going to be in
Speaker 3: this kind of crazy state. I think it would be
Speaker 3: hard to use those as evidence of suicidality.
Speaker 1: Four years later, he might be better at masking the
Speaker 1: behavior or managing his behavior in a way that others
Speaker 1: aren't concerned. I'm not saying that he absolutely did this
Speaker 1: to himself at all, but I think that there is
Speaker 1: a pretty decent possibility just given these past behaviors. They're
Speaker 1: really really odd. And it's not the fact that he
Speaker 1: lied to his professors that I think is strange. It's
Speaker 1: the type of lie that he told, with the threatening
Speaker 1: note and the paranoia and it being you know, returned
Speaker 1: after the hard drive was wiped, Like, I just think,
Speaker 1: why would you even mention that it was returned in
Speaker 1: any capacity? Why would you just say that it was lost.
Speaker 1: It's just adding those strange details to me seems a
Speaker 1: little bit concerning. And then when we couple all of
Speaker 1: these events together, it does start to paint a picture.
Speaker 1: And yeah, the last event was in two thousand. He
Speaker 1: did die in two thousand and three, so there is
Speaker 1: a three year gap. But I think given his advanced
Speaker 1: education that he has attained at this point and the
Speaker 1: level which he's operating, he may just be better at
Speaker 1: modulating his emotions and being able to manage his behaviors
Speaker 1: in a way that isn't concerning for others.
Speaker 2: That would make sense, That would make sense. I mean,
Speaker 2: we don't really have too many reports of strange behavior
Speaker 2: with him in two thousand and one two thousand and two,
Speaker 2: But who knows, Maybe he was doing such a good
Speaker 2: job at modulating himself that they didn't even notice anything concerning,
Speaker 2: so that when he finally ended his own life in
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, it just came as a complete shock.
Speaker 3: Do you think that Nancy would be in a position
Speaker 3: because she loves him and that's his wife. Would she
Speaker 3: be in a position to just not see those behaviors
Speaker 3: because she's with him the most, So it seems like
Speaker 3: she would pick up on some of these just like
Speaker 3: he's not himself. He's really struggling. I mean, yes, you
Speaker 3: can mask things, but at some point the mask seems
Speaker 3: to fall off, And I'm wondering, is she just unaware
Speaker 3: or do you think he didn't express that to her?
Speaker 3: If he's really struggling to that level. I feel like
Speaker 3: she'd start to say, like, gosh, he's you know, makes
Speaker 3: claims about me, he accuses me of things that didn't happen.
Speaker 3: He you know, uh has up security at our house,
Speaker 3: and it was kind of didn't make any logical sense.
Speaker 3: I just feel like she would have seen some of that.
Speaker 1: So at the time he was killed, Phil had been
Speaker 1: taking an antidepressant he was prescribed called then the faccine,
Speaker 1: which is sold under the brand name effects Her, but
Speaker 1: the toxicology screening turned up no traces of it in
Speaker 1: his bloodstream, which seemed to indicate that he may have
Speaker 1: stopped taking it at least five to seven days prior
Speaker 1: to his death. Since effects Her does have withdrawal side effects,
Speaker 1: if you will proptly stop using it. There's been speculation
Speaker 1: that going off the medication may have affected Phil's mental
Speaker 1: state and caused him to behave erratically, though getting to
Speaker 1: the point where he mutilated his own body before crashing
Speaker 1: his car would definitely be an extreme reaction. The autopsy
Speaker 1: also revealed the presence of zero point four to nine
Speaker 1: milligrams per leader of diephenhydramine in Phil's system, which no
Speaker 1: one has ever been able to explain. Diphenhydramine is an
Speaker 1: antihistamine used to relieve symptoms and allergies, and is marketed
Speaker 1: under the brand name Benaedrel, but according to Tracy, Phil
Speaker 1: did not have any allergies and she could not recall
Speaker 1: ever having seen him take Benaedrel. Another strange detail of
Speaker 1: the autopsy report is the presence of the white fiber
Speaker 1: material beneath Phil's underwear, which was consistent with material found
Speaker 1: in a diaper. One month before his death, Phil was
Speaker 1: evaluated at a urology clinic at Wilford Hall Medical Center
Speaker 1: for incontinence, and, according to Tracy, since he had a
Speaker 1: recent history of prostate enlargement with frequent urination, Phil would
Speaker 1: sometimes cut up pieces of diaper to line his underwear.
Speaker 1: It's possible that the presence of the diaper material had
Speaker 1: no relevance to the case at all. But since there
Speaker 1: are just so many odd elements associated with the accident scene,
Speaker 1: I see the detail often get mentioned in online discussions
Speaker 1: about the case.
Speaker 3: That makes me sad. I wonder, when you're looking at
Speaker 3: his you know, at the scene, did they find any
Speaker 3: remnants of of you know, pieces of diaper if that
Speaker 3: was a normal behavior for him. He's struggling with incontinence,
Speaker 3: and that's something to be absolutely humiliating at work to
Speaker 3: have an accident, you know, I wouldn't be surprising if
Speaker 3: he either wore an adult diaper or he had pieces
Speaker 3: of like almost like a pad lining his underwear. Yes,
Speaker 3: his autopsy found pieces of it. But at the scene,
Speaker 3: where there any pieces of clothing, our items that were
Speaker 3: recovered that would indicate that diaper was present.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. No, they didn't find a full diaper,
Speaker 2: just kind of small pieces of material in his underwear.
Speaker 2: And I haven't read anything about him keeping diapers at
Speaker 2: his home. If he did, I don't think Tracy has
Speaker 2: ever said anything about it. So it's not one of
Speaker 2: those details that they put really out front and talk
Speaker 2: about a lot. But people have noticed it in the
Speaker 2: autopsy report and they wonder, like what relevance this might have.
Speaker 1: Well, I think if people are looking at it through
Speaker 1: like the sadomasochistic sex angle, and then they add the
Speaker 1: diaper element to it, people could potentially think that it
Speaker 1: has to do with, you know, the fetish of dressing
Speaker 1: up like a baby or something like that, and somebody's
Speaker 1: having some alternative sex encounter. But I think given the
Speaker 1: fact that we know that he's struggling with urinarian continence
Speaker 1: and he's known to cut up pieces of a diaper,
Speaker 1: that that element can be eliminated.
Speaker 2: I think so, yeah, I don't think it has anything
Speaker 2: to do with any sex games.
Speaker 3: Of course.
Speaker 2: The biggest point which is brought up to support the
Speaker 2: idea that Phil's wounds were self inflicted was the presence
Speaker 2: of lytocade in his system. Has doctor Demeyo believed that
Speaker 2: he injected himself with it in order to all the pain.
Speaker 2: Since he worked at a medical center, Phil likely would
Speaker 2: have had access to lydakane, But the issue is that
Speaker 2: there were no actual injection marks found in his body,
Speaker 2: which is why doctor Weck prescribed to the theory that
Speaker 2: Phil recently implied e MLA cream to himself to combat
Speaker 2: the itchiness from shaving his chest hair. If his chest
Speaker 2: was sliced open, remnants to the lyocane from the cream
Speaker 2: could have seeped into his bloodstream. It's been reported that
Speaker 2: a package of small gauge needles was found in the
Speaker 2: car's glove compartment, though the package was unopened and there
Speaker 2: was no record of any hypodermic syringes at the scene.
Speaker 2: But theoretically, Phil could have used a small gauge needle
Speaker 2: to inject lytocan into his system through his chest before
Speaker 2: he cut himself, and then removed skin from the exact
Speaker 2: same area, completely obscuring the injection marks. Demayo believed that
Speaker 2: if someone had been torturing Phil and wanted to inflict
Speaker 2: the maximum amount of pain, it would make no sense
Speaker 2: for the perpetrator to inject lytocane into his body, but
Speaker 2: that might not be entirely true. In his book From
Speaker 2: Scene the Courtroom, Examining the Mysteries, Doctor Weck devotes a
Speaker 2: chapter to this case and makes mention of a man
Speaker 2: named Enrique Kihi Camarina, an American intelligence officer for the
Speaker 2: Drug Enforcement Administration. In February of nineteen eighty five, came
Speaker 2: Morena was kidnapped in Mexico by drug traffickers who proceeded
Speaker 2: to torture and interrogate him for thirty hours before he
Speaker 2: was murdered. While this was going on, came Moraina was
Speaker 2: injected with lighto kane because it would stabilize his heart
Speaker 2: rate and keep him alert and awake while he was
Speaker 2: being tortured. So, for all we know, maybe some sadistic
Speaker 2: kidnapper attempted to do the same thing to Fill in
Speaker 2: order to prolong his torture, but did not anticipate that
Speaker 2: he would attempt to escape.
Speaker 3: There's that. There's also this idea, the idea of the
Speaker 3: cream being exposed into his body and him having that
Speaker 3: lighted king kind of transfer from his skin into the bloodstream.
Speaker 3: I think it's a possibility. But remember he was itching
Speaker 3: and you talk about the benadrux being present. Yes, Tracy
Speaker 3: doesn't remember him ever taking benadryl, but if he's itching
Speaker 3: and he's using a cream to try to stop the itch,
Speaker 3: that's what benadryla is for. Oftentimes, if you know, my
Speaker 3: girls break out in a high or there's a rash
Speaker 3: or anything like that. It's like, hey, take a benindre
Speaker 3: and let's see if you're you know, the histamines can
Speaker 3: kind of cease in your body and you can stop itching.
Speaker 3: So the benadryl is not is not that difficult to explain.
Speaker 3: The lytocane if it's not from the cream, would he
Speaker 3: have injected himself? I just don't see that. Like you
Speaker 3: said earlier, there were the hesitation marks supposedly noted around
Speaker 3: the chest injury, but then not around the nipples. And
Speaker 3: if he didn't have extreme levels of lytocane in his system,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't have really numbed him to the point that
Speaker 3: he could have just really just mutilated his body. I
Speaker 3: don't think so. The rate wasn't that high, was it.
Speaker 2: Not? Really? No, That's what they said, is that the
Speaker 2: amount that was in his system really wouldn't have dulled
Speaker 2: the pain that much. And of course it doesn't sound
Speaker 2: like the rainy injection mark near his nipples where he
Speaker 2: would get the maximum amount of pain. So I do
Speaker 2: agree that doctor Wex's theory is possible, and that it
Speaker 2: might just be some from the EMLA cream that seeped
Speaker 2: into his wounds.
Speaker 3: That seems more possible to me than anything else, just
Speaker 3: because now, if it was a really crazy high level
Speaker 3: of lytocane, then that does make sense, either that a
Speaker 3: perpetrator injected him or he injected himself. But to me,
Speaker 3: if I'm going to say I need to dull the pain,
Speaker 3: I'm going to literally mutilate my body, I'm going to
Speaker 3: put a lot more medication in my own body, and
Speaker 3: I would know how much I needed to put as
Speaker 3: a medical professional. But he didn't. That's not that's not
Speaker 3: what happened, and that's not what showed up in the
Speaker 3: autopsy report.
Speaker 1: I guess if somebody's trying to make it look like
Speaker 1: there's a possibility that like something like doctor Wex's theory happened,
Speaker 1: and they're trying to administer the least amount of lydacane
Speaker 1: so as to make it look as though it were suicide,
Speaker 1: like that could be possible too. But I agree if
Speaker 1: I was going to be doing something like that to myself,
Speaker 1: I would be pumping myself full of light. It came
Speaker 1: because I wouldn't want to feel anything. So it seems
Speaker 1: odd to just have a small amount. One of the
Speaker 1: biggest points which has been used in favor of the
Speaker 1: stage suicide theory is that when Phil was driving erradically
Speaker 1: on the interstate, he passed by all the exits which
Speaker 1: would have taken him back to his home and born.
Speaker 1: He also reportedly drove by a police car that was
Speaker 1: pulled over by the side of the road, and never
Speaker 1: made any attempt to stop and seek help, even though
Speaker 1: he was supposedly fleeing for his life. But I think
Speaker 1: it's a bit unfair to judge actions of a man
Speaker 1: who may have been abducted and tortured and just made
Speaker 1: an escape from his captors, as he would have been
Speaker 1: in tremendous pain at this point and likely not in
Speaker 1: the most lucid or rational state of mind. It's worth
Speaker 1: noting that two motorists followed behind Shoe down an interstate
Speaker 1: from the time he nearly crashed into the medium until
Speaker 1: he fatally crashed into the trees, and for all we know,
Speaker 1: Shoe could have assumed that they were his captors trying
Speaker 1: to chase him down, which is why he didn't stop.
Speaker 1: Doctor de Mayo brought up the fact that Shoe's cell
Speaker 1: phone was found in his car and he never attempted
Speaker 1: to use it. To phone for help, but we also
Speaker 1: had the account from Shoe's neighbor, who claimed that traces
Speaker 1: of blood could be found on the inside of the
Speaker 1: flip phone after they retrieved it from the scene. Remember
Speaker 1: this was still two thousand and three, the era before
Speaker 1: wireless hands free devices, so driving at a speed of
Speaker 1: between sixty to sixty five miles per hour will trying
Speaker 1: to make a call on a flip phone would not
Speaker 1: have been the easiest thing to do, especially if you
Speaker 1: have numerous wounds on your body and are experiencing great pain.
Speaker 1: It's possible that she briefly opened his phone and was
Speaker 1: planning to make a call, which would explain how the
Speaker 1: blood gone on the inside, but he was just too
Speaker 1: panicked and frenzy to dial a number. In addition, the
Speaker 1: area of which he was driving was known to have
Speaker 1: patchy cell phone service, so any calls he attempted might
Speaker 1: not have even gone through and they wouldn't have shown
Speaker 1: up on cell records. For all we know, Shoe's top
Speaker 1: priority at this point point was to escape and get
Speaker 1: as far away from his captors as possible before he
Speaker 1: sought help, But then he passed out and lost consciousness,
Speaker 1: which is why his car swerved off the freeway and crash.
Speaker 3: If he truly had escape, that would be exactly what
Speaker 3: I would think could happened. That he'd be in the
Speaker 3: state of shock, he'd be coming in and out of consciousness,
Speaker 3: and his whole goal is get as far away from
Speaker 3: them as possible. So while if you're sitting there thinking, well,
Speaker 3: the rational thing to do would be pull over and
Speaker 3: get help for him. It might just get distance between
Speaker 3: he and his captors or he and his abusers. And
Speaker 3: he could think, if I pull off at these exits
Speaker 3: near me, they're going to find me, because you know,
Speaker 3: obviously i'd pull off right here. So he's trying to
Speaker 3: just continue to drive away from the scene and create
Speaker 3: that kind of safety between he and his captor. But
Speaker 3: like you said, if he's bleeding and he has these
Speaker 3: injuries and he's in pain, and he's scared and he's
Speaker 3: in shock, at some point, I would think he would
Speaker 3: lose consciousness and then that's when the car would go
Speaker 3: off the road. Even driving erratically could have been a
Speaker 3: sign of that in and out of consciousness where he's
Speaker 3: you know, his vision's going and he's feeling lightheaded and
Speaker 3: you know, blackness is coming into his eyes and he
Speaker 3: just can't focus on the road. So what looks like
Speaker 3: erratic behavior is him, you know, trying to come in
Speaker 3: and out of consciousness to stay on the road.
Speaker 1: I think that's a pretty good theory, and I just
Speaker 1: think the amount of panic and how outside of yourself
Speaker 1: you would feel trying to escape a situation if he
Speaker 1: was indeed being tortured by an outside party. The fact
Speaker 1: that he didn't stop by a police officer, or that
Speaker 1: he wouldn't have called on a flip phone, where it
Speaker 1: would have been very difficult, given the fact that it's
Speaker 1: not so easy just to key in numbers like it
Speaker 1: is today, I can't put too much weight behind the
Speaker 1: fact that he didn't behave in a way that people
Speaker 1: would think would be typical, because what is typical in
Speaker 1: a situation like that? I think you want to put
Speaker 1: as much distance between yourself and those who've harmed you
Speaker 1: and inflicted all of this terror and trauma and like
Speaker 1: physical injury on your body.
Speaker 2: The key to figure out what actually happened to Colonel
Speaker 2: Shoe is to account for the two and a half
Speaker 2: hour window between when he left his residence and when
Speaker 2: he fatally crashed his car, as we just have no
Speaker 2: idea where he could have been during this time period.
Speaker 2: If Shue did this to himself, here's how all the
Speaker 2: events would have to unfold. At some point on his
Speaker 2: right to work, he pulls into a remote area where
Speaker 2: he proceeds to wrap pieces of duct tape around his
Speaker 2: wrists and boots. He presumably has to do this while
Speaker 2: wearing gloves to avoid leaving finger prints on the tape.
Speaker 2: He then injects himself with Lyda cane before slashing a
Speaker 2: large gash in his chest, slicing out both of his nipples,
Speaker 2: and cutting off the distal joint from his left pinky finger.
Speaker 2: There's been some dispute about whether any cutting instrument shoe
Speaker 2: could have used to inflict these wounds was inside his
Speaker 2: vehicle at the accident scene. According to one police report,
Speaker 2: two small pocket knives were found, one of which apparently
Speaker 2: had blood on it, matching shoes DNA, but these knives
Speaker 2: are not shown in any of the crime scene photos.
Speaker 2: The photos did show a straight race inside the glove compartment,
Speaker 2: as well as a Swiss army style knife, though the
Speaker 2: knife's blade did not appear to be sharp enough to
Speaker 2: have created the incisions on Shoe's body. The straight razors
Speaker 2: seemed to have a bloody discoloration on the edge, but
Speaker 2: forensic testing would later show that it was nothing more
Speaker 2: than rust. If Shoe's wounds were self inflicted, he would
Speaker 2: have had to drive back to Interstate ten and continue
Speaker 2: westbound at a high rate of speed for several minutes
Speaker 2: while in tremendous pain before he crashed into some trees
Speaker 2: and was killed. We have no idea where exactly this
Speaker 2: self mutilation took place, but who may have needed to
Speaker 2: leave behind his severed nipples, his severed pinky finger, the
Speaker 2: cutting instrument he used to inflict these wounds, the original
Speaker 2: roll of duct tape, and the gloves he wore wrapped
Speaker 2: the tape around himself, as well as his wallet and
Speaker 2: his dog tags. I mean, given that Chow's desk was
Speaker 2: not treated as a homicide investigation, I'm sure the authorities
Speaker 2: didn't perform in extensive search of the area to find
Speaker 2: these missive to find these missing items and extremities, but
Speaker 2: they have still never turned up into twenty years.
Speaker 3: You would think that at least his walleted dog tags
Speaker 3: are something that could have been found. So if you
Speaker 3: were walking around and you found a wallet or you
Speaker 3: found dog tags at some point. I feel like those
Speaker 3: would get turned in, right that they have identifications on
Speaker 3: them that people would be like, oh, that's odd, what
Speaker 3: are those doing out here? But I mean, obviously something
Speaker 3: like nipples and finger digit and things like that. I
Speaker 3: don't think those would keep their original appearance very long,
Speaker 3: and I don't think you'd be able to identify them
Speaker 3: after they had any kind of weather to them whatsoever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, big, that's a good point about the dog tags.
Speaker 2: I mean, if someone finds a wallet, they may decide
Speaker 2: to keep it, but the dog tags are such a
Speaker 2: distinct item. And also, Colonel Shoe's death made the news
Speaker 2: and it was featured on true crime programs like forty
Speaker 2: eight Hours, So you think if someone found thems, they
Speaker 2: might put two and two together and say, hey, don't
Speaker 2: these belong to the guy who died in that car crash.
Speaker 2: So the fact that they have not been found anywhere
Speaker 2: makes me wonder like if someone took them and that
Speaker 2: Sho didn't take them off himself.
Speaker 1: On the surface, that scenario that Robin just presented does
Speaker 1: not sound believable, but the issue is that none of
Speaker 1: the scenarios involving abduction, torture, and murder seemed particularly believable either.
Speaker 1: The biggest potential suspect has always been Nancy and Donald Timson.
Speaker 1: But if their motive for having Phil killed was to
Speaker 1: collect on his insurance policies, why would they go to
Speaker 1: the trouble of torturing him first? I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: it's possible that Nancy was just a very sadistic person
Speaker 1: who wanted to inflict the maximum amount of pain on
Speaker 1: her ex husband, But how exactly was her plan supposed
Speaker 1: to work the Theoretically, if Nancy did abduct Phil and
Speaker 1: sliced his chest and cut off his nipples, she received
Speaker 1: a major break when Phil managed to escape and fatally
Speaker 1: crash his own car. Technically, this meant that she was
Speaker 1: no longer directly responsible for his death, and she received
Speaker 1: another stroke of good fortune when the authorities believed that
Speaker 1: Phil staged an elaborate suicide. So if Phil had not
Speaker 1: attempted to escape and Nancy murdered him and left his
Speaker 1: mutilated body somewhere, there definitely would have been a full
Speaker 1: fledged homicide investigation, and it would not have been as
Speaker 1: easy for Nancy to collect on the policies since insurance
Speaker 1: companies are often reluctant to pay out to a murder
Speaker 1: victim's beneficiary unless they've been cleared as a suspect. And
Speaker 1: I know that suspicion has been directed towards Nancy because
Speaker 1: she pleaded the Fifth Amendment on every single question she
Speaker 1: was asked during her deposition for Tracy's civil lawsuit and
Speaker 1: never officially denied on the record that she was responsible
Speaker 1: for Phil's death. But that shouldn't necessarily be taken as
Speaker 1: an indicator of guilt, as she was likely doing this
Speaker 1: on the advice of her attorney. Remember, you can't just
Speaker 1: be selective about what questions you want to answer, because
Speaker 1: if you plead the fifth on one question, you have
Speaker 1: to plead the fifth on all of them. Even if
Speaker 1: Nancy had no actual involvement in her ex husband's death,
Speaker 1: she may have feared that just answering one question might
Speaker 1: open up the floodgates and force her to talk about
Speaker 1: some stuff that she didn't want to discuss under oath.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the most frustrating aspects of
Speaker 1: this case is it details about the alleged alibis for
Speaker 1: Nancy and Donald, and there are incredibly vague as all
Speaker 1: we know is they were supposedly at work in Florida
Speaker 1: on the day that Phil was killed. I have no
Speaker 1: idea how extensively this was verified, but you'd think that
Speaker 1: traveling from Florida to Texas and back would leave some
Speaker 1: sort of paper trail. I guess it's possible that Nancy
Speaker 1: could have hired someone to abduct and murder Phil while
Speaker 1: she remained in Florida to establish an alibi. But again,
Speaker 1: it does seem counterproductive to hire an outside party to
Speaker 1: torture your ex husband if your primary motive is insurance money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I find this really unlikely. I think she pled
Speaker 3: the fifth because what does she gain from talking. There's
Speaker 3: you know, you have nothing to do with it. Yes,
Speaker 3: you would think, well, if you're innocent, you want to
Speaker 3: have your voice cleared and things like that, have your
Speaker 3: name cleared. But for me, we've been divorced for years,
Speaker 3: and he's in her mind crazy like he keeps accusing
Speaker 3: me of trying to kill him. Oh my gosh, it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3: She is over it, she wants her money and to
Speaker 3: move on, and she is being told by her attorney
Speaker 3: just keep your mouth shut. There's zero that they can
Speaker 3: have on you because you're innocent, So just plead the
Speaker 3: fifth and let's just get through this deposition and move on. So, yes,
Speaker 3: you would think, Okay, this man died. You'd think his
Speaker 3: ex wife would want to help, and if she's innocent,
Speaker 3: why wouldn't she, But there's no benefit for her to do,
Speaker 3: so they're at odds. They're strange. She hasn't had anything
Speaker 3: to do with him as far as we know, in years.
Speaker 3: She is getting calls from him where he's saying, listen,
Speaker 3: quit harassing me. I know you're trying to kill me.
Speaker 3: So for her, assuming that she doesn't have anything to
Speaker 3: do with it, he seems off his rocker to her,
Speaker 3: and it's almost abusive to her and stressful for her.
Speaker 3: And so at the deposition, what benefit does she have
Speaker 3: to say anything other than I plead the fifth.
Speaker 1: If you were going to hire a third party to
Speaker 1: kill him, you'd think that you would want them to
Speaker 1: make it look like an accident. Do you guys think
Speaker 1: that there's a possibility that perhaps he had some stalker
Speaker 1: that really just laid back and maybe they had a
Speaker 1: really stressful life event. Maybe they were responsible for initially
Speaker 1: writing that letter, and they had some sort of animosity
Speaker 1: towards him, some kind of obsession, and then maybe their
Speaker 1: life was going okay, and then they had a stressful
Speaker 1: life event which triggered them, and then they acted and
Speaker 1: chose to torture Phil, and that led to the events
Speaker 1: that ended his life.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I mean, when I think about it,
Speaker 2: when if Nancy was not responsible for what happened, it
Speaker 2: would make more sense that an alternate suspect could be
Speaker 2: some stalker who had an intimate knowledge of Phil's life,
Speaker 2: because on that particular day, he left a lot earlier
Speaker 2: than usual in order to go to work. And how
Speaker 2: would an outside party know that unless they were watching
Speaker 2: him or stalking him. I mean, a lot of the
Speaker 2: odds that Phil would just cross pass was someone on
Speaker 2: the highway on his way to work who would abduct
Speaker 2: him and murder him. So yeah, if you're looking at
Speaker 2: alternate theories which don't involve his ex wife, you would
Speaker 2: think it would be someone who had a personal obsession
Speaker 2: with Phil and knew a lot about his life. But
Speaker 2: I've never heard of anyone from Phil's personal life who
Speaker 2: fits that profile. And he never mentioned anything about being
Speaker 2: stalked by a particular person.
Speaker 1: I would be interested if there was anybody who had
Speaker 1: acted towards Tracy in a way that showed that they
Speaker 1: were obsessed with her or interested in her, and they
Speaker 1: saw Phil as maybe an obstacle for them somehow cultivating
Speaker 1: a relationship with her, and there was some type of
Speaker 1: delusion present. I mean, you might not even know what
Speaker 1: stalkers can be invisible, So I don't think that we
Speaker 1: can eliminate the possibility that it was either somebody who
Speaker 1: was obsessed with Tracy or somebody that was obsessed with Phil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting theory too, But I've never heard
Speaker 2: Tracy mention anyone who acted creepy towards her after she
Speaker 2: lost her husband, or like tried to get together with her.
Speaker 2: So but who knows. Maybe it's just as Stocker who
Speaker 2: thought this has gotten so out of control. I'm going
Speaker 2: to keep a low profile and stay away from her.
Speaker 2: Of course. The third possibility, which was once brought up
Speaker 2: by Nancy's attorney, is that Phil's death was not actually
Speaker 2: a homicide or a suicide, but a failed attempt to
Speaker 2: stage an abduction and possibly frame his ex wife for
Speaker 2: harming him. And while Phil's plan involved intentionally crashing his car.
Speaker 2: He never actually thought he would die. The first time
Speaker 2: I witnesses saw Phil's Mercury Tracer driving radically, it was
Speaker 2: traveling in the Interstate Center medium for several hundred yards
Speaker 2: and negotiated between two light poles before it struck an object,
Speaker 2: causing the vehicle to go airborne. This could be interpreted
Speaker 2: as philm making an attempt to intentionally stage an accident,
Speaker 2: but it didn't go as planned since his car wound
Speaker 2: up flying through the air instead. He then decided to
Speaker 2: travel down the interstate for a couple more miles and
Speaker 2: veer off the road and crash into some trees, but
Speaker 2: the impact wound up killing him. One potential argument against
Speaker 2: Phil's death being a super is that he spent years
Speaker 2: obsessively attempting to cancel the policies Nancy had on him,
Speaker 2: but the insurance companies refused to do so, so by
Speaker 2: killing himself, Phil would essentially be guaranteeing that his ex
Speaker 2: wife got exactly what she wanted. But if Phil attempted
Speaker 2: to stage a phony abduction and mutilated himself to make
Speaker 2: it look like he was tortured, then perhaps he thought
Speaker 2: he could finally make people believe that Nancy was trying
Speaker 2: to kill him, after all. If you've been following the
Speaker 2: news these past several years, you're probably familiar with the
Speaker 2: story of Shery Peppini, who told everyone that she was
Speaker 2: abducted and held captive for three weeks back in twenty
Speaker 2: sixteen before she managed to escape. But of course, her
Speaker 2: so called captors were never identified, and it was eventually
Speaker 2: revealed that the entire kidnapping ordeal was a complete hoax.
Speaker 2: So people are capable of doing things like this, though
Speaker 2: once again, cutting off both your nipples and a tip
Speaker 2: of one of your fingers and slicing a six inch
Speaker 2: gash on your chest seems like a very extreme step
Speaker 2: to take in order to frame your ex wife. It's
Speaker 2: not a very logical plan, But if Phil suffered a
Speaker 2: complete mental breakdown, then we shouldn't apply standard logic to
Speaker 2: his actions.
Speaker 3: You also could think about the fact that maybe he
Speaker 3: didn't want to die, that he thought if I staged
Speaker 3: this and I'm fleeing from somebody, I can tell the police.
Speaker 3: Look at all these actions. There's the letter, there's this
Speaker 3: note that I got that you know they were out
Speaker 3: to kill me, and look at what they just did.
Speaker 3: They hired someone to abduct me and do these sex
Speaker 3: acts on me. She's a sex therapist. Like it all
Speaker 3: makes sense. And then he's so injured that he does
Speaker 3: start to lose consciousness on his way to try to
Speaker 3: get help and stage this and the crash actually takes
Speaker 3: his life. That's possible as well.
Speaker 1: This is the best theory thus far in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yay, I guess the only hole in that logic is
Speaker 2: if he was trying to frame Nancy, how could he
Speaker 2: know what an alibi would be, Because if it could
Speaker 2: be conclusively proven that she was in Florida, an entirely
Speaker 2: different state, then is kidnapping hoax is not going to work.
Speaker 2: But like I just said, though, if he's suffering a
Speaker 2: mental breakdown and not in the most rational state of mind,
Speaker 2: that he might not have been thinking of those sort
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 3: Well, now Nancy doesn't have to be the one who
Speaker 3: did it. It could be a third party who she hired,
Speaker 3: and he's making that claim and then it's years where
Speaker 3: she's being investigated.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's true. Yeah, he could just say a
Speaker 2: third party did it. And even if she never gets
Speaker 2: arrested for anything, he might be driving some pleasure over
Speaker 2: the fact that she's living under a cloud of suspicion
Speaker 2: and being investigated and potentially removed from his life insurance
Speaker 2: policy if they think that she's culpable.
Speaker 1: And he could very easily say if he had, like
Speaker 1: the alternate theory that Ash described, had survived this, he
Speaker 1: could say that this person who was hired had said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is for Nancy, or like, he could
Speaker 1: have very easily inserted that, yes, it was very clearly
Speaker 1: his ex wife who was responsible, even though she had
Speaker 1: an alibi. So I think the fact that they were
Speaker 1: in Florida in that particular scenario becomes a moot point. However,
Speaker 1: the one wild card in this case is Phil and
Speaker 1: Nancy's son, Jeffrey, who was removed from his father's will
Speaker 1: only five days before his death. I mean, Phil's logic
Speaker 1: for that made sense, as Jeffrey had been suffering from
Speaker 1: financial problems and there was concern about how responsibly he
Speaker 1: would handle any inheritance he received. Yet it seems like
Speaker 1: one hell of a coincidence that Phil made this decision
Speaker 1: so soon before he was killed. On one hand, if
Speaker 1: Phil was planning a suicide, this may have been his
Speaker 1: way of ensuring that Tracy would get full control of
Speaker 1: his assets and they would not be squandered by his son.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, if Jeffrey had issues with money,
Speaker 1: I haven't heard anything about him being estranged from his
Speaker 1: father or them having a terrible relationship. Remember, even though
Speaker 1: there was a good chance that Jeffrey was conceived through
Speaker 1: an affair and not actually Phil's biological son, Phil still
Speaker 1: raised Jeffrey as he was his very own. In spite
Speaker 1: of Jeffrey's financial issues, he did manage to get a
Speaker 1: job as a pilot for Delta Airlines was proud of
Speaker 1: his accomplishments. At the very least, I'd expect that Phil
Speaker 1: would want to ensure Jeffrey was taken care of while
Speaker 1: he was gone. I guess being removed from his will
Speaker 1: could have been a potential motive for Jeffrey to have
Speaker 1: his father killed, but it's unclear if Jeffrey found out
Speaker 1: about this until after Phil's death. It's also not clear
Speaker 1: to me what kind of relationship Jeffrey had with his
Speaker 1: mother at that point, since he lived in another state.
Speaker 1: So for all we know, Jeffrey may have had an
Speaker 1: airtight alibi clearing him of any involvement in what happened,
Speaker 1: But he never gave interviews or was formally questioned about
Speaker 1: the case under oath. Since Jeffrey passed away nine years ago,
Speaker 1: we'd never got to hear his side of the story
Speaker 1: or his thoughts about what happened to his father.
Speaker 3: I do wonder if he would have known that he
Speaker 3: had been removed from the will it was five days earlier.
Speaker 3: I mean, what did Phil do call him up and
Speaker 3: be like, hey, by the way, removed you from my will.
Speaker 3: That's kind of a difficult conversation to have, so I
Speaker 3: don't know that someone had even been aware of it
Speaker 3: at the time.
Speaker 1: I agree. I don't think that, like, if you're planning
Speaker 1: to do that, unless there was some event that was
Speaker 1: a catalyst for you doing it, if it was just
Speaker 1: a pattern of behaviors that led him to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've really got to make a change here. I think
Speaker 1: you'd wait until you were face to face with that
Speaker 1: person and have that type of a conversation. I mean,
Speaker 1: back then, there wasn't even zoom or anything so or
Speaker 1: you know, FaceTime, so he couldn't look at him face
Speaker 1: to face. And I don't think you just call somebody
Speaker 1: up or text them and are like, hey, you're out
Speaker 1: of the will.
Speaker 2: I suppose the most damning piece of evidence to suggest
Speaker 2: the accident might have been staged is the alleged statement
Speaker 2: film made to a psychiatrist, Lieutenant Colonel Dion, six months
Speaker 2: prior to his death, where he mentioned having a dissociative
Speaker 2: episode in which he imagined his cargoing out of control
Speaker 2: on his way to work, well great violence was done
Speaker 2: to him. The psychological autopsy report treats this as a
Speaker 2: piece of foreshadowing in which phil practically announced what he
Speaker 2: was planning to do, but there's been a lot of
Speaker 2: dispute about whether or not he actually made this statement.
Speaker 2: When the case was featured on forty eight Hours, Deon
Speaker 2: declined to be interviewed on camera, but the show claimed
Speaker 2: that he shared this story about the dissociative episode with them. However,
Speaker 2: according to Cyril Wex's book From Scene to Courtroom, Examining
Speaker 2: the Mysteries, Giannas said that if he was ever asked
Speaker 2: about Shoe's alleged statement under oath, he would deny that
Speaker 2: it ever took place. So this is definitely one of
Speaker 2: those cases where you're going to find conflicting information about
Speaker 2: key details. From different sources, and you pretty much have
Speaker 2: to make up your own mind about which side you believe.
Speaker 2: And I have to be honest, I've always had a
Speaker 2: difficult time figuring out what actually happened here, as no
Speaker 2: theory makes one hundred percent complete sense. If you read
Speaker 2: Colonel Shoe's psychological autopsy report, it does make a fairly
Speaker 2: convincing case for his death being a suicide, and you
Speaker 2: might come away believing that he staged the entire accident.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it fails to come up
Speaker 2: with logical explanations for some of the major discrepancies involving
Speaker 2: Shoe's death and requires you to make a lot of
Speaker 2: assumptions about his mental state.
Speaker 3: And I do give a lot of credence to what
Speaker 3: Tracy said, she recognized before all this happened to her,
Speaker 3: he seemed like he was doing okay. And you say, well, yeah,
Speaker 3: you never know, But I mean, this is I get
Speaker 3: in the car this morning, I cut my nipples off
Speaker 3: and my finger off, and I'm stabbing myself in the
Speaker 3: chest and crashing my car. It just seems really, I
Speaker 3: don't know, chaotic as as a form of suicide. Like
Speaker 3: you said, we do have Peppini, who did something very
Speaker 3: similar where she beat herself and had her friend hurt
Speaker 3: her and stuff like that so that she could fake
Speaker 3: her own kidnapping and get attention and love from her husband.
Speaker 3: But here the only thing I could think is he
Speaker 3: needs to frame her. He's tried every other thing to
Speaker 3: get his ex wife off of his life insurance policies.
Speaker 3: He has this paranoia that she's out to hurt him,
Speaker 3: and so if it is self induced, I would see
Speaker 3: him trying to frame her to be under investigation. Remember
Speaker 3: they had petitioned the insurance company to remove them as
Speaker 3: a risk to him, that they couldn't be beneficiaries, and
Speaker 3: they were denied. And so if she's under investigation for
Speaker 3: a murder investigation, it's possible that the insurance company would
Speaker 3: drop her at that point. So if it's self induced,
Speaker 3: I would go that direction that he's trying to fake
Speaker 3: an accident where then he can talk to the police
Speaker 3: and at the insurance company to remove her. But I
Speaker 3: couldn't see him wanting to end his life with everything
Speaker 3: he had going on. He was supposed to be moving
Speaker 3: with his wife, they had a dream house picked out,
Speaker 3: he was continuing his education. It just doesn't seem like
Speaker 3: that would be where he was at in that moment
Speaker 3: of his life.
Speaker 1: This makes the most sense to me of like everything
Speaker 1: that we've discussed so far, because I don't think that
Speaker 1: if he did this to himself, the death was intentional
Speaker 1: and just given the behavior that if Dion did say
Speaker 1: that he had that dissociated episode in which she said that,
Speaker 1: and that is factually correct, then I think that that
Speaker 1: is some interesting foreshadowing. Whether or not he had this
Speaker 1: episode or he's saying he did. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it was just sort of him putting it out there
Speaker 1: that the hay this could happen, or if it was
Speaker 1: like a self fulfilling prophecy. He had this vision and
Speaker 1: then somehow it gave him an idea of a way
Speaker 1: that he could get his ex wife off of the
Speaker 1: insurance policy and just be free of her in that sense,
Speaker 1: if he was really truly worried about his life, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but I think you build in a few
Speaker 1: holes from you with that ash, and I think that
Speaker 1: that is the best theory.
Speaker 2: The one part that still bothers me, though, is him
Speaker 2: mutilating his nipples, because I could see him like staging
Speaker 2: an abduction and maybe inflicting a few wounds on himself
Speaker 2: to make it look like he was tortured. But like
Speaker 2: removing your entire nipples if you're planning to still be
Speaker 2: alive afterwards, really does seem like an extreme reaction.
Speaker 1: You're probably not in a good mental state if you're
Speaker 1: going to remove your own nipples, Like, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that would be something that if you were going
Speaker 1: to try to like simulate Toure, that that would be
Speaker 1: the thing that your mind would go to. I'm going
Speaker 1: to slice off my own nipples. That's so permanent, like
Speaker 1: to cut yourself and to put gashes in your body
Speaker 1: that will heal, that will grow back. But nipples don't regenerate,
Speaker 1: So that is a really extreme thing to decide to do.
Speaker 1: But if he wasn't in a logical frame of mind,
Speaker 1: then again we can't apply logic. I suppose it's possible
Speaker 1: that all this drama involving Shoe's ex wife and the
Speaker 1: insurance policies is nothing more than smoke and mirrors, and
Speaker 1: he was instead abducted and tortured by an outside party
Speaker 1: who's managed to stay off the radar. Maybe there was
Speaker 1: just some random psychopath who felt the urge to abduct
Speaker 1: and torture someone that particular morning and was lying in
Speaker 1: wait for a random victim, and Colonel Shoe became the
Speaker 1: unfortunate target. However, shee wound up escaping and was killed
Speaker 1: in a car crash. But because he didn't have any
Speaker 1: known connection to the torturer, no one's been able to
Speaker 1: figure out who that person might be. But regardless of
Speaker 1: whether Shoe's death was a homicide, suicide, or a staged
Speaker 1: accident gone horribly wrong, I think the one thing we
Speaker 1: can all agree on is that he was failed in
Speaker 1: a huge way by all the agencies who were responsible
Speaker 1: for investigating his death. I mean, yes, he technically was
Speaker 1: killed by the car wreck, but if you arrive at
Speaker 1: an accident scene and discover that the victim's nipples are
Speaker 1: missing and cannot be found anywhere nearby, then you have
Speaker 1: to assume that there's a lot more to the story.
Speaker 1: And I know that Judge Palmer's ruling that Colonel Schue's
Speaker 1: death was a homicide had no official legal weight, but
Speaker 1: I still find it incredibly frustrating that all the investigative
Speaker 1: agencies have refused to budge and take a fresh look
Speaker 1: at the case. At the very least, Choo's official cause
Speaker 1: of death should be reclassified as undetermined instead of suicide
Speaker 1: until more conclusive answers can be found.
Speaker 3: And why they didn't approach it that way from the
Speaker 3: get go is what's so frustrating. I get aftermath there's
Speaker 3: a lot of politics and things changing that cause a death,
Speaker 3: But when you look at the original investigation, they failed him.
Speaker 3: It should have immediately been something they said, this is odd.
Speaker 3: If we assume it's a suicide, that's fine, but I
Speaker 3: would like to gather as much information and as much
Speaker 3: evidence from the scene to confirm that assumption. That is
Speaker 3: a big assumption to make in the moment, especially given
Speaker 3: all of the details that you have in front of you,
Speaker 3: missing nipples, a finger digit missing, a gash in his chest,
Speaker 3: the tape around his ankles and feet. So why you
Speaker 3: would assume suicide and before you really were doing a
Speaker 3: deep dive into a psychological background, I don't know. You
Speaker 3: should have approached it as a homicide and gone from there.
Speaker 3: And like you said, why not be willing to take
Speaker 3: a fresh look now.
Speaker 2: Lastly, I should acknowledge that Tracy Shue did benefit financially
Speaker 2: from her husband's death, since she received a payout of
Speaker 2: one point eight million dollars from both her husband's military
Speaker 2: death benefits and to other insurance policies. I'm sure there
Speaker 2: are some cynics who might take this as a sign
Speaker 2: that she was involved to what happened to him. But
Speaker 2: if that were the case, why wouldn't she have just
Speaker 2: accepted the suicide ruling and collected the money. Why spend
Speaker 2: years dragging the case through the courts and keeping your
Speaker 2: husband's story in the spotlight. So yes, I definitely think
Speaker 2: you can rule out the possibility of Tracy's involvement, as
Speaker 2: it's clear that she only wants justice and conclusive answers
Speaker 2: about what happened. I will admit that in some cases
Speaker 2: which a victim's death was ruled to be a suicide
Speaker 2: and their loved ones disagreed with the conclusion, you got
Speaker 2: the impression that there was a lot of denial at
Speaker 2: work and that pushing a homicide narrative was their coping
Speaker 2: strategy for dealing with the pain and grief. But here
Speaker 2: there are just so many things which don't make sense
Speaker 2: that I can completely understand why the victim's widow would
Speaker 2: continue the fight. So if you happen to have any
Speaker 2: information about the unexplained death of Colonel Philip Schue, please
Speaker 2: contact the appropriate authorities. Jules Ashley, any final thoughts in
Speaker 2: this case.
Speaker 3: I'm so perplexed. This is one of those where I'm
Speaker 3: wrapping it up and not feeling really confident in which
Speaker 3: direction I feel this case goes. I'm almost tempted to
Speaker 3: go with my gut that says he staged this as
Speaker 3: a abduction and abuse situation, right torture situation where he
Speaker 3: wanted to live and just have Nancy punished and out
Speaker 3: of his life and further removed from him. But there
Speaker 3: really are questions in every single possible scenario. A straight
Speaker 3: up suicide does not make sense. The straight up homicide,
Speaker 3: we have no information, especially because they didn't investigate that
Speaker 3: way and my other plan. Like you said, Robin, there
Speaker 3: aren't one hundred percent, you know, foolproof ways to look
Speaker 3: at that either. So it's one of those cases where
Speaker 3: as the widow, I would be so devastated and so
Speaker 3: upset that I felt failed from the get go, and
Speaker 3: that there was an assumption that my husband would take
Speaker 3: his own life given the life we had created together.
Speaker 3: So I feel so much empathy for her, so much
Speaker 3: sadness for her, no matter what happened, And I don't
Speaker 3: think the investigation was fair to fill or his wife.
Speaker 3: And it's one of those cases where it says, you
Speaker 3: start assuming it's a homicide and later you can change
Speaker 3: your mind, but you can't go the opposite direction. You
Speaker 3: can't say suicide and then try to undo the lack
Speaker 3: of investigation and make any kind of conclusions later. So
Speaker 3: I'm very frustrated with the way it was even investigated
Speaker 3: to start this case.
Speaker 1: Is like you said, ash is just so frustrating. The
Speaker 1: fact that they didn't investigate it as a murder first
Speaker 1: and let the evidence lead where it may is such
Speaker 1: a huge failing to his family. I don't know what
Speaker 1: happened here. I think that there are so many different possibilities.
Speaker 1: Like I said earlier, I think the theory that Ashley
Speaker 1: posited that his intention wasn't to end his own life.
Speaker 1: His intention was just to simulate this torture and to
Speaker 1: have his ex wife, Nancy's insurance policies on his life
Speaker 1: be terminated, because clearly this was a black cloud that
Speaker 1: was hanging over him. I think that it is a
Speaker 1: pretty good probability that that may have been what happened.
Speaker 1: There's still obviously a lot of questions as to where
Speaker 1: he did this. If he did indeed do this to himself,
Speaker 1: where did he decide to take off his own nipples
Speaker 1: and to cut himself like this, Because we know that
Speaker 1: his finger and the nipples weren't found in the vehicle,
Speaker 1: so it was likely done somewhere else and we just
Speaker 1: don't have that information. I feel like the investigation being
Speaker 1: so lacking initially, it just leaves us with more questions
Speaker 1: than answers, and my heart really breaks for the family.
Speaker 1: It's just it's really really sad, and I don't believe
Speaker 1: that Nancy and her husband, even though they stood to
Speaker 1: benefit from his death, had anything to do with what happened.
Speaker 1: I think that there's obviously like a possibility, but it
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem like a strong one to me personally
Speaker 1: because of the manner in which it was done. If
Speaker 1: he was killed in a way that looked like it
Speaker 1: was just an accident without all the torture, and then
Speaker 1: I'd be more inclined to believe that they had some
Speaker 1: type of involvement. And as far as Jeffrey goes. We
Speaker 1: don't know that he knew about being taken off the will,
Speaker 1: and I don't believe that he would have just called
Speaker 1: him up. I mean, I don't really know what type
Speaker 1: of guy he is, but it does seem a little
Speaker 1: callous to be like, yeah, you're just off the will,
Speaker 1: like Jeffrey, I'm disinheriting you because you're bad with money.
Speaker 1: It feels like it's a more compassionate thing to have
Speaker 1: a conversation one on one, face to face. And he's
Speaker 1: a psychiatrist and he would have known that. But this
Speaker 1: is just one of the most mysterious cases and strange
Speaker 1: cases that we've ever covered.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I remember watching it on the forty eight Hours
Speaker 2: episode many years ago, and of course my initial impression
Speaker 2: was that there's no way this is a suicide and
Speaker 2: that Colonel Shoe had to be the victim of foul play.
Speaker 2: And I started researching it for the Trail Went Cold
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, and I read the psychological
Speaker 2: autopsy report and I'm like, Okay, oh, yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: valid point. This is me making a compelling case for
Speaker 2: this being a stage suicide. But then I'm reading that
Speaker 2: a lot of the information in this report is not
Speaker 2: entirely accurate, and I also look into the fact that
Speaker 2: it can't account for a number of the strange discrepancies
Speaker 2: which were not adequately explained. So it left me on
Speaker 2: the fence again not really sure what to think. I
Speaker 2: do believe that there is no one theory that makes
Speaker 2: one hundred percent complete sense. The theory we brought up
Speaker 2: here about this not being an intentional suicide but rather
Speaker 2: an attempt by Phil to stage an abduction and a
Speaker 2: torture in order to frame his ex wife, even though
Speaker 2: it doesn't make any logical sense on the surface. If
Speaker 2: he was suffering some sort of mental breakdown, then yes,
Speaker 2: maybe he would have been capable of doing something like
Speaker 2: that and doing something as extreme as cutting off his
Speaker 2: own nipples. But even so, there are some holes in
Speaker 2: that theory, and that's why this case is so mysterious.
Speaker 2: And like we said, I think the authorities did a
Speaker 2: major disservice by automatically ruling this as a suicide and
Speaker 2: not doing a full fledged homicide investigation. And we mentioned
Speaker 2: in our last episode that Tracy did not even find
Speaker 2: out many of the strange details, such as the removal
Speaker 2: of the nipples from law enforcement. She was told that
Speaker 2: by a newspaper reporter, and that's why she decided, hold on,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to cremate my husband like originally thought.
Speaker 2: We're going to give his body a new autopsy and
Speaker 2: figure out what's going on here. And that's what convinced
Speaker 2: her that foul play must have taken place. But Yeah,
Speaker 2: even though Nancy on the surface seems like the most
Speaker 2: logical suspect, the whole theory about her doing it doesn't
Speaker 2: make much logical sense either that she would travel or
Speaker 2: hire someone to travel to Texas to murder and torture
Speaker 2: a husband for the insurance money. Would it be a
Speaker 2: lot more logical to kind of stage his death to
Speaker 2: look like an accident to avoid all the suspicion. So
Speaker 2: I think that either Phil was murdered by someone who
Speaker 2: we don't even know about it, possibly a stalker who
Speaker 2: never popped up in the radar as a suspect, or
Speaker 2: like Ashley said, maybe he decided to stage the accident
Speaker 2: but did not plan on ending his own life and
Speaker 2: as a result, the whole investigation turned into a mess
Speaker 2: and no one could figure out what happened. But regardless,
Speaker 2: this is still remains one of the weirdest mysteries we've
Speaker 2: ever covered, and I do hope we finally get conclusive
Speaker 2: answers someday.
Speaker 4: Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
Speaker 4: about the Trail Went Cold?
Speaker 1: Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yes, The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
Speaker 2: years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
Speaker 2: early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
Speaker 2: and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
Speaker 2: with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
Speaker 2: tier tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
Speaker 2: which I talk about cases which are not featured on
Speaker 2: The Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon,
Speaker 2: and if you join our highest tier tier three, the
Speaker 2: ten dollar tier. One of the features we offer is
Speaker 2: a audio commentary track over classic episodes of Unsaved Mysteries,
Speaker 2: where you can download an audio file and then boot
Speaker 2: up the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or
Speaker 2: YouTube and play it with my audio commentary playing in
Speaker 2: the background, where I just provide trivia and factoids about
Speaker 2: the cases featured in this episode and incidentally, the very
Speaker 2: first episode that I did a commentary track over was
Speaker 2: the episode featuring this case. So if you want to
Speaker 2: download a commentary track at which I make more smart
Speaker 2: ass remarks about jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join
Speaker 2: Tier three.
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Speaker 4: so we hope you'll check out those patreons.
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Speaker 1: Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy