0:00

A warning to our listeners. This episode

0:02

contains discussion of mental illness, domestic

0:05

abuse, suicide, decomposition,

0:08

and death.

0:14

The doctor in this case ruled her

0:16

cause of death

0:18

mixed drug intoxication, and

0:21

the manner of death is suicide. Okay,

0:27

actually, before we start, I was thinking

0:29

about this as I was driving home last night, the

0:31

few are not with codeine. I think it's really

0:34

hard to take 30 as an accident. Like 30

0:37

pills does seem like a lot to me. It

0:39

is a lot.

0:41

And so there are two huge

0:43

macros

0:43

in this situation. That

0:46

introduces another layer of uncertainty.

0:49

And to call something a suicide,

0:52

I need to feel pretty certain. I

0:55

was so ready yesterday to believe

0:59

that that could have been an accident. And

1:01

I think it still could have, but 30 pills

1:03

is a lot of pills.

1:04

I really

1:07

don't believe she killed herself. She was there one

1:09

day, and then all of a sudden she didn't show up. Have we

1:11

uncovered a conspiracy indirectly? Too

1:13

many unanswered questions. She was scared to

1:15

death. She was alive after they

1:17

said she

1:18

was dead.

1:25

Oh, this looks like prescriptions.

1:29

Didrax, Duracef, Phentermine,

1:32

Theoremol. That's the drug she overdosed on. Yikes.

1:36

It's actually a list of prescriptions that were

1:38

given for destruction, turned

1:45

into a pharmacist to destroy after her death. Maybe

1:48

we should ask Steve about, if he took any of her

1:51

medications to get destroyed. He said he put them all

1:53

in a plastic bag. Yeah. But

1:56

that was listed, what, like 15? 16, 17, 18.

1:58

19, 20, 21.

2:02

So 21 pill bottles. And he said he

2:04

had put hundreds in a plastic garbage

2:07

bag. So, yeah. If

2:09

you had to sort of ballpark guess the number

2:11

of bottles, how many would you say? 200, 200, 300, probably.

2:16

I took a black plastic garbage bag. It

2:18

was at least heavy enough to half of the

2:20

bag was full.

2:24

Okay, so this looks like a letter from her doctor

2:27

to Milton Adams, the Justice of the Peace. Dear

2:30

Judge Adams, in follow up to our

2:32

phone conversation this morning regarding the

2:34

unexpected sudden death of Sue Cogan Knight,

2:37

I am forwarding the synopsis of her medical care.

2:40

I have been her primary care physician since May 25th, 1985.

2:44

She has been seen variously for illnesses,

2:47

injuries, weight loss, and depression. She

2:49

was on continuous estrogen replacement therapy

2:51

because of a complete hysterectomy due to endometriosis

2:54

back in 1983. And she

2:56

had been on Prozac in the past for some previous

2:58

episodes of depression. She was not currently

3:00

taking the Prozac because she was not currently

3:03

depressed.

3:04

When I saw her last on April 4th, 1996,

3:08

she had made a routine appointment in her attempt to

3:10

lose some weight.

3:11

And I could tell things had changed

3:13

in her life. She had gained a pound

3:15

or two, and she actually told

3:18

me that she didn't like getting older.

3:22

She said she was glad she had made the appointment

3:24

because the day before she had come down with a sore throat,

3:27

a dry coffin headache. So she made

3:29

the appointment to lose weight, but when it was time-

3:31

And it was just a happy accident. Yeah, she got the flu.

3:33

At the visit, she had normal vital signs. She

3:36

was in no acute distress and no obvious

3:38

pain. The diagnosis at the time was

3:40

upper respiratory infection and left

3:42

occipital lymphadenopathy.

3:45

That was secondary to some scratches

3:48

behind her left mastoid region that

3:50

she had inflicted on herself inadvertently,

3:53

just in scratching, which had subsequently

3:55

become mildly infected. So

3:57

that was what Haley said

3:59

was on her-

3:59

It was sort of like the back

4:02

of your head, neck, behind your ear. Yeah.

4:06

It was not serious in appearance.

4:08

She had also requested medication to assist

4:10

in her weight loss, which she was to take after

4:12

she had finished her antibiotics.

4:14

She was examined for breast cancer since

4:17

her mother had died from breast cancer. Unless

4:19

something happens later on, if she

4:22

was terminally ill in some way, she

4:24

didn't want me to tell you that's when she's got cancer. No

4:29

abnormalities were found, and she was advised to

4:31

get a screening mammogram and to return

4:33

to the clinic if she had any problems with her medications

4:36

or if any complications are

4:37

bros. Okay,

4:40

page two says, we had no further contact

4:42

with Sue until we heard that she had passed away at her home.

4:45

As many others, we are saddened by this unexplained

4:47

loss and are awaiting the autopsy results to determine

4:50

what had caused this basically very

4:52

healthy young woman to pass away. She

4:54

was approximately 43 years old, I

4:57

believe, at the time of her death, and was in good

4:59

health for most of the 11 years that I

5:01

have treated her.

5:02

There had been an episode of possible meningitis

5:05

a year ago, which was evaluated at

5:07

the hospital and proved to be viral

5:09

in nature. There had been a question of

5:11

a breast mass, which had been evaluated

5:13

and found to be benign. Other than

5:15

those episodes, there were no other serious threats

5:17

to her health, of which I was aware.

5:20

Once again, if you have any specific questions or a

5:22

need for any more information, please do not hesitate

5:24

to contact

5:24

me. My

5:28

name is Dr. Erin Barnhart, and I

5:30

am currently the chief medical

5:32

examiner for Galveston County and Galveston,

5:34

Texas. The term medical examiner

5:37

can mean slightly different things depending

5:39

where in the country you are. But

5:42

here, at least, a medical examiner

5:45

is a forensic pathologist, and

5:47

a forensic pathologist is a

5:49

medical doctor who has then done subspecialty

5:52

training in anatomic

5:55

and then forensic pathology. It's

5:57

interesting

5:57

that it changes depending on where you are. It does.

5:59

And the reason for that is that throughout

6:02

the United States, the medical legal

6:04

death investigation system is really

6:06

a patchwork. So here in Texas,

6:08

for example, the larger

6:11

cities and in some smaller cities

6:13

like Galveston or some smaller counties are

6:15

covered by medical examiner offices.

6:18

And then obviously Texas has

6:20

a lot of rural, less

6:23

populated area. Chances

6:25

are you're not going to have a forensic pathologist in

6:27

those areas. So in Texas,

6:29

those areas are covered by elected justices

6:32

of the peace. And in

6:35

cases where they determine that a forensic autopsy

6:37

is necessary, they will have an arrangement

6:40

with usually the closest medical examiner's

6:43

office. And they will transport

6:46

folks to those larger offices for exams

6:48

as needed. Wow, that's so interesting. That answers

6:50

a lot of questions I already have about

6:53

Sue's autopsy in particular.

6:55

I'd love for you to walk me through Sue's autopsy

6:57

report, but first I was wondering

6:59

if there's anything that stood out to you while you were

7:01

looking it over or anything that you found particularly

7:04

noteworthy.

7:05

I don't think so. I mean, I think what I would say

7:07

about this autopsy report is that

7:09

it's not terribly noteworthy.

7:11

It's a fairly standard report, right? So

7:14

the very first page that says manner

7:16

of death pending and cause of

7:18

death pending, usually something needs

7:21

to be filed after an autopsy, right?

7:23

And if you don't know the cause yet, you

7:25

then have this pending piece of paper. This

7:28

piece of paper would be sent to, for example,

7:30

the justice of the piece. It basically lets

7:32

the JP know we did your exam,

7:35

but we

7:35

don't have the results yet. We have to do

7:37

some additional studies. And then if we

7:39

move on to the next page, this is

7:41

where the actual body of the autopsy

7:44

report begins. It starts

7:46

with the viewing of the outside

7:49

of someone's body. It looks like

7:51

Sue was 63 inches tall, 135 pounds. Her

7:55

hair color was brown.

7:57

described

8:00

as long and slightly wavy. She

8:03

had like blondish silver hair,

8:05

natural blonde blue eyes. She

8:08

was dirty blonde. She was a green

8:10

man.

8:12

It looks like she did have some evidence of decomposition,

8:16

not unusual. And then after

8:18

that, the next section is the internal

8:20

exam, where the internal areas

8:23

of the body and internal organs are described.

8:27

All right, now I have some specific

8:29

questions for you about things that stood out

8:31

to us when we read through this report. Sure.

8:35

One of Sue's friends told us that she

8:37

had a missing tooth. She

8:39

did. I want to say if I'm looking

8:41

at her, so they got to be on the left side and the

8:44

upper.

8:46

Is that indicated

8:47

at all? And would

8:49

it normally be indicated in an autopsy

8:51

report like this? So it says the teeth

8:54

are natural and in good condition. This

8:56

is probably doctor dependent,

8:59

but we are usually not doing

9:02

any sort of in-depth dental

9:05

exam or description unless

9:08

somebody is unidentified and we are using

9:11

dental records to identify them.

9:13

But usually we're not going through and saying,

9:15

oh, this single tooth

9:17

is not there, for example. Got

9:19

it. So it wouldn't necessarily be

9:22

unusual if she was only missing one tooth

9:24

for it to be listed this way as natural

9:26

and in good condition.

9:28

Exactly.

9:32

Is there an indication in the autopsy of how

9:34

long Sue was dead before her body was

9:36

discovered? They said

9:38

that she had been dead four days when they found

9:40

her. I had talked to her a day before that,

9:43

so I knew that one right.

9:46

So it tells us that her

9:48

date of death was

9:51

April 11, 1996. And

9:53

then in parentheses it says found. That's

9:56

a common way to indicate.

9:59

that her date of death was

10:02

probably prior to that, right? For

10:06

most investigational agencies, if

10:08

the date of death is not known, the date

10:11

found is what's used.

10:14

Based on her

10:17

state of decomposition, which

10:20

is described as being early, I

10:23

think it's probably safe to assume

10:26

that she had been dead from between

10:29

one to three days.

10:30

Before she was found, the

10:33

length of time that somebody has

10:36

been dead is a complicated

10:38

issue.

10:39

In the past,

10:42

and I'm glad to see that it was not done

10:44

in this case, but definitely as

10:46

recently as the 70s and 80s, it was

10:48

not uncommon for forensic pathologists

10:51

to put some

10:54

type of estimated, not only

10:56

day, but time of death in

10:58

their reports. That's no longer

11:01

done anymore, and it shouldn't

11:03

be, and it really never should

11:05

have been, because it's too much of

11:07

a guessing game.

11:08

Here in Texas, somebody

11:11

who is in the heat or

11:14

in an un-air conditioned space can

11:17

start to decompose in a few hours versus

11:20

someone who is in a cold climate.

11:22

It may take them days to get to that same

11:25

state. So simply looking at the outside

11:27

of somebody's body and saying, oh, there's a little purge

11:29

fluid or the skin's a little discolored

11:32

here, therefore they died 18.5

11:34

hours ago. You

11:37

just can't do that.

11:38

There's myriad other factors besides

11:41

external temperature that contributes to

11:43

the decompositional rate. And

11:45

once you're past a certain point, your

11:48

best bet for knowing when somebody

11:50

died are circumstantial indicators

11:52

like when did they last pick up their

11:54

mail? When did the neighbors see them? When did

11:56

they last send a text message or

11:58

post on Instagram?

11:59

I mean, these days, those are

12:02

your most reliable indicators of really

12:04

when somebody died. So,

12:12

it's not a very exact measurement, but

12:14

you're saying that in this case, he didn't really

12:16

do what was, what might have been typical at the time,

12:19

which is guess, basically. Yes,

12:22

yes. That's exactly

12:24

right. The doctor

12:26

in this case did not guess the time of death,

12:28

which I'm very grateful for.

12:31

But, you know, this was in 1996. And

12:33

so, for the most part, this practice had

12:35

fallen out of favor by that time. And

12:38

this is

12:38

the time of death estimates that used

12:41

to be done are really a perfect

12:43

example of the things

12:46

that shows like CSI get wrong,

12:48

right? Or give,

12:51

yes, are really misrepresented to the

12:53

public because the public has this idea that

12:55

we can stick a thermometer in

12:57

somebody's liver and then know the exact

12:59

time that they died four

13:01

days ago. And it's just, it's

13:04

utter nonsense. You said that he lists

13:06

the level of decomposition as sort

13:09

of early. Yes. We have heard a

13:11

rumor that when they found her, her

13:13

body was described as liquified.

13:14

He said that

13:17

when they arrived, she was pretty well

13:19

liquified. And my theory about

13:21

that is they made arrangements with

13:24

a cadaver they didn't expect to be

13:26

found as soon as she was.

13:30

I think it's probably a misunderstanding.

13:33

We're talking about early, moderate, and

13:36

advanced decomposition from

13:37

a scientific perspective. Someone

13:40

who is in the early stages

13:43

of decomposition can

13:45

still look

13:47

to a person who is not forensic trained, they

13:50

can look

13:52

awful.

13:53

I mean, they can look very frightening.

13:56

And so to that person,

13:59

they're going. to say the decomposition was

14:01

severe. Maybe they're using

14:04

terms like liquefied, right? Yet

14:06

to us, and scientifically

14:08

speaking, that's still an early state

14:11

of decomposition. For us, advanced decomposition

14:13

is a skeleton.

14:16

Was there any indication that Sue had

14:18

cancer at the time of her death? Nobody

14:21

that she was dead and he said she didn't want me to tell you

14:23

that's what she's got cancer.

14:26

No. Okay. We

14:28

have sort of heard that as a rumor, but

14:31

we hadn't found any actual records of it.

14:33

So I was just curious if anything stuck out to you in that regard.

14:36

No. The caveat there that

14:38

I would say though is that

14:40

there's a few kinds of cancer that we

14:42

aren't good at saying grossly. One of

14:44

those, for example, would be leukemia. So

14:47

if you're talking about something that doesn't actually

14:49

form a tumor proper,

14:52

that's something that we wouldn't necessarily

14:54

have an indication of at the time of autopsy.

14:58

You looking at this document, how

15:01

do you believe that the cause of death

15:03

was determined? So it looks

15:05

like in this case, the cause of

15:07

death was based on the

15:10

toxicology testing.

15:12

So cause of death, the

15:15

choices for cause of death and how

15:17

to word cause of death are basically infinite

15:21

manner of death, though you only have five choices.

15:24

So your choices for manner of death are natural

15:27

suicide, accident, homicide,

15:29

or undetermined. The doctor in this case

15:31

ruled her cause of

15:34

death mixed drug intoxication

15:37

and the manner of death is suicide. Now

15:39

in drug related deaths, those

15:41

cases are almost always

15:44

either going to be accidents or suicides.

15:47

Accidental versus suicidal

15:49

drug overdoses can also be hard

15:52

to figure out. Generally

15:54

speaking, indicators of suicidal

15:57

overdoses are going to be things like

15:59

like toxicity with drugs

16:02

that are not typically abused.

16:05

So overdoses with,

16:07

you know, your bottle of prescription medications

16:10

versus cocaine or heroin. Other

16:13

indications might be that,

16:15

for example, a bottle of prescription or over-the-counter

16:18

medication is empty. Other

16:20

circumstantial things that are extremely helpful

16:22

are obviously things like suicide notes.

16:25

If somebody has sent email or

16:27

text messages to loved ones

16:29

describing

16:29

what they're about to do, that is

16:32

obviously enormously helpful. So

16:34

those are all things that need to

16:36

be taken into account when this manner

16:38

of death ruling is made.

16:41

And then the toxicology report said

16:44

that her death was mixed drug intoxication due

16:46

to specifically those 30

16:49

fiorinol with codeine tablets. How would that have

16:51

been determined? Well, in

16:53

the past, it was not uncommon,

16:56

similar to the time of death approximations

17:00

that used to be given in autopsy reports. It was not

17:02

uncommon to try to estimate how

17:05

much of a drug somebody might

17:07

have taken. I believe that this

17:09

has really fallen out of favor now. This is

17:11

not something that

17:11

I would ever attempt to do. Again,

17:14

there's too many variables at play here.

17:16

What if, for example, the person didn't take all the pills

17:19

at the same time? What if there

17:21

was some post-mortem redistribution

17:24

of that drug, especially in somebody who's

17:26

decomposed that could lead to an artificially

17:29

slightly elevated or lowered blood

17:32

level? This estimation of

17:34

pill number is not something that I would ever attempt

17:37

to do, but it was

17:39

not an uncommon thing for

17:41

doctors to do at a certain time. But

17:44

again, I think when you are making

17:48

the ruling of suicide, that's

17:51

not something to be taken lightly. It

17:53

has a lot of implications. I think

17:55

probably for that reason, some

17:58

of these calculations were... done

18:00

to try to support that ruling,

18:03

right? To say we're not making that ruling lightly.

18:06

We're not saying this is somebody who took three

18:08

tablets instead of their usual one

18:10

tablet. So I think that these

18:12

calculations and these estimates were

18:14

probably done with the best of intentions. I'm

18:17

just not really confident in their

18:19

accuracy.

18:23

So then if that much of the drug was in her

18:26

system, does it make sense to you

18:28

that that would indicate intentional

18:30

overdose?

18:31

I think it's definitely suspicious.

18:34

But, you know, assuming somebody is familiar

18:36

with this medication knows how many

18:38

they should be taking and is, you know,

18:40

of a reasonably sound mind. When

18:43

you have levels this

18:45

high, again, it's not, you know, you took one

18:47

pill versus two pills. It's a

18:49

really significant difference.

18:52

When you

18:53

send out for a toxicology report,

18:56

who comes up with the

18:58

ruling? So the only

19:00

person that can sign a death certificate

19:03

is a medical doctor, with the exception

19:05

of elected officials like JPs

19:08

and coroners. Now, once the

19:10

medical examiner makes that ruling and

19:13

that death certificate is signed, it

19:15

depends on the jurisdiction where you are, but

19:17

death certificates can be amended. You know,

19:20

if new information becomes available

19:22

in a case

19:23

later, a death certificate can be changed.

19:25

So that kind of explains to me,

19:28

basically, we've heard that there were two death

19:30

certificates for Sue. But what we actually

19:32

have here is an original death

19:34

certificate that says pending

19:37

and an amendment post-toxicology

19:39

report. Right. And actually,

19:41

the State Department of Vital Statistics

19:44

requires, I'm not sure what the timeline is,

19:46

but they have a requirement for you have to file

19:48

something within a certain number of days,

19:51

even if it's just pending.

19:53

You know, there has to be some sort of a placeholder.

19:56

The funeral home also uses that

19:58

to sort of make arrangements.

19:59

So there are a lot of people that depend

20:02

on that death certificate to

20:04

get the ball rolling for certain things.

20:06

So even if you don't know the exact cause yet,

20:09

you still need to get something filed. And

20:11

would it be unusual for the autopsy

20:13

to have been completed,

20:15

the toxicology samples to be sent

20:17

for testing, and then the body

20:19

to go ahead and be cremated

20:22

while that testing was still being performed?

20:24

That's not unusual, no. And in autopsy

20:27

cases, we will often keep a very

20:29

small piece of each organ in

20:31

case we need to do additional testing later,

20:34

in case we need to look at something underneath the microscope.

20:37

It's why we take photographs at the time

20:39

of autopsy, because we don't want to keep people waiting.

20:41

I mean, it could potentially be a couple of months. And

20:44

that's obviously, that could obviously

20:46

be super disruptive for families who

20:48

are trying to do burials

20:49

if they want

20:51

to have visitations and viewings and

20:53

things like that. It had been almost

20:56

three weeks since the death. They're

20:58

not letting them listen to the body. It's 12

21:00

weeks before we even got

21:03

anything, and it was a bag of ashes.

21:12

We talked to a medical examiner. Her name was Dr.

21:15

Erin Barnhart. And she

21:18

was so much fun to talk to, first of all. But she

21:20

also just gave us a whole bunch of good information

21:23

on basically how normal Sue's autopsy

21:25

report actually was, which just

21:27

kind of underlines for me what we've discovered

21:30

in all of our expert interviews so far, which

21:32

is just like, if you're not an expert,

21:36

all of these things seem scary

21:38

and weird. But as soon as you have that expert

21:40

knowledge, they're all just standard fare.

21:43

I honestly find that such a relief, that

21:45

so little was remarkable, or that so

21:47

little really flagged for her or

21:50

like seemed wrong to her.

21:52

That's what we want. We want

21:54

people to do their jobs correctly, and we want

21:56

everything to make sense to the experts. Totally.

21:59

One of the things that I asked her about specifically was

22:02

this rumor that we've heard that when police discovered

22:05

Sue's body, it had been sort of

22:07

liquefied. Really her

22:09

answer to that was one of perspective.

22:11

She basically said that to a normal person,

22:14

seeing a dead body in any state of decomposition

22:17

is horrifying and traumatic, and

22:20

they don't look good. Do you know what I mean? They

22:22

look pretty rough. But to a medical examiner,

22:25

that's still really early state decomposition.

22:28

Like what was mentioned in the autopsy, this bit of purge

22:30

fluid and stuff, that's still considered

22:33

early decomposition because she said to a

22:35

medical examiner, advanced decomposition

22:38

is a skeleton.

22:39

So it makes sense to me that the

22:41

experience of seeing her in any state of decomposition

22:45

would have been very upsetting and

22:47

could have led to this liquefied idea,

22:50

especially if she had been in her house for a while. And

22:52

I did actually talk to Dr. Barnhart about the

22:55

potential timeline of death

22:57

versus discovery. We've always had questions

23:00

about this four day versus three day versus

23:03

one day timeline. And

23:05

when I asked her about how that would have been determined,

23:07

one of the things she said is that

23:10

it really comes down to

23:12

circumstantial evidence, basically, because,

23:15

and this is my favorite thing that she said, she said,

23:17

a lot of people watch shows like CSI

23:20

and think that you can stick a thermometer

23:22

in a liver and determine

23:24

down to the minute when someone passed away and

23:27

that's just not the case. So

23:29

the time of death,

23:30

really to me, it makes sense that that came

23:32

directly from her neighbors who called in the wellness

23:35

check. And just to clarify, the

23:37

date and time of death listed on the autopsy

23:39

is April 11th at 3 p.m. But

23:42

it does specify that this is when her body

23:44

was found. So there's no officially

23:46

documented timeline where they say

23:48

how long she had been dead before she was found,

23:51

other than that they note in the police report

23:53

that her neighbors said they hadn't seen her since

23:55

the eighth. So, yeah, it seems like it truly

23:57

is all based on word of mouth.

23:59

said that they hadn't seen her outside in three days,

24:02

so the rumor becomes that she officially died three

24:04

days ago, even though that's not necessarily

24:06

true.

24:07

Especially knowing what we know from Dale about how when she

24:09

was sick, she just really wanted to be alone, didn't

24:11

want to be bothered. Like, there's no telling

24:14

how long she was just in her house being

24:16

sick. And, you know, Pat, her coworker,

24:19

having talked to her the day before, if he

24:21

didn't tell police that at the time, if

24:23

he didn't tell that to Milton Adams at the time,

24:25

then they may not have known and just gone with

24:27

the information they had in the police report, which

24:29

is her neighbor saw her several days ago.

24:32

Another thing from the autopsy.

24:34

So I know Pat mentioned that he wondered

24:36

if the body they found might not have been Sue,

24:39

but in the autopsy report, they mentioned a

24:42

scar on her lower left

24:44

arm. And Sue actually mentioned

24:46

that same scar in her visa application from 1976.

24:50

So that to me is a

24:51

pretty clear confirmation that this body

24:53

did belong to Sue. Yeah, I agree. That

24:55

feels like pretty solid evidence. And after talking

24:58

to the former U.S. Marshal, I feel like the cadaver

25:00

theory is sort of off the table.

25:03

One thing that Dr. Barnhart wasn't able

25:06

to explain really

25:08

was

25:12

why Steve would have had to wait

25:14

for 12 weeks to get Sue's ashes.

25:17

When I asked her about it, she said that delay would have likely

25:19

been on the funeral home's end. And I've

25:21

reached out to the funeral home and they

25:23

said they don't have her records from that far back.

25:26

There was also a separate crematorium in this case.

25:29

I called them. They won't release any of their records without

25:31

a subpoena. But also, I don't

25:33

know why Steve would

25:35

have gotten the ashes at all if the funeral home

25:37

was the one that flew

25:38

them to Stonehenge. Yeah, me either. Except

25:41

that maybe those arrangements weren't made until later.

25:43

For me, the tricky thing here is that we

25:45

can't verify through records any of these

25:47

things, really. If Steve did

25:49

have to wait 12 weeks for ashes, that is

25:52

a longer time than expected.

25:54

But we also have no paperwork saying

25:56

when exactly Steve received these ashes or

25:58

that he had them before they were flown. to Stonehenge

26:00

or that they were flown to Stonehenge at all. So

26:03

honestly, my feeling is that even

26:05

though we can't specifically explain

26:07

this 12-week waiting period, we also don't

26:09

know for sure that it really happened that way.

26:11

I agree, but I will say, Steve

26:14

does seem to remember it pretty vividly.

26:16

Like, it is a detail that stuck with him. So

26:19

whether it's truly strange or not, it

26:22

was definitely strange to Steve.

26:29

I was also looking back over the police

26:31

report, specifically the section that mentions the

26:33

medications that were confiscated from Sue's house.

26:36

It says in the report, quote, the medication

26:38

was located in the living room and bedroom

26:41

areas. This medication was

26:43

checked through the EMS crew through the hospital,

26:45

end quote. So that's what I assume

26:48

this list of prescriptions is, that it would

26:50

have come from the pharmacist who ended up destroying

26:52

them.

26:53

And then it says, quote, the majority

26:55

of the medication was for weight loss. However,

26:57

one medication, a digrex 50 milligrams,

27:01

was believed to be for a heart condition, end

27:03

quote.

27:04

Actually, digrex is one of the amphetamines

27:06

that can be prescribed for weight loss. It's an appetite

27:08

suppressant. And that

27:10

seems to be the case for Sue, according to this document

27:13

from the pharmacy. So another weird little

27:15

clear glare. My question is, if they

27:17

confiscated some of her medications, why

27:20

not confiscate all of them? Like, why were there still

27:22

so many pill bottles around for Steve to

27:24

fill a black trash bag with? Right. I

27:27

mean, we can't ask the police because they've declined

27:29

to be interviewed, but I think we might need to ask

27:31

Steve because, honestly, I'm wondering

27:33

if the ones that he

27:34

pulled from her house were actually empties.

27:36

But then some of the ones on this list from the pharmacist are empties

27:39

too. So that still doesn't fully explain it. Like,

27:41

if they took some empties, why not all of them?

27:43

Why would there still be so many left at her house? The

27:46

only overlap I see there would be that the police

27:48

report specifically says that the medication

27:51

on this list was located in the living room and

27:53

bedroom areas. And Steve

27:55

said that he found those other bottles in the bathroom.

27:58

Yeah, I think we just need to ask Steve.

27:59

because it does feel like a contradiction. I

28:02

also find it really weird that the police report

28:04

mentioned some of the medications specifically

28:07

and not others. And they don't mention

28:09

the pills that she supposedly overdosed on, which

28:11

is the fjornal with codeine. Right.

28:13

Which suggests to me that the

28:15

bottle itself wasn't noteworthy. Like I

28:17

imagine if it was spilling open or on

28:20

her nightstand or something,

28:21

it would have been mentioned in this report.

28:26

My name is Dr. Stacy Hale. And

28:30

I am first and foremost an emergency

28:32

medicine physician, but I

28:35

also am a medical toxicologist.

28:38

And a medical toxicologist is somebody

28:41

that specializes in poisons, specifically

28:45

treating and managing poisoned patients.

28:47

So we are the experts

28:50

on how drugs manifest

28:53

in a human being. And

28:56

part of what I do as a medical toxicologist

28:59

is I review a lot

29:01

of autopsies for medical legal

29:03

situations. But the vast majority

29:06

of what I do is for the Department of Justice,

29:08

mainly

29:08

looking at federal drug crime. And

29:11

I also review a

29:13

number of high-profile murder mysteries.

29:16

When you looked over Sue's autopsy report, did

29:18

anything strike you as unusual?

29:20

Yes. And let me preface that by

29:22

saying that I have

29:24

reviewed many, many, many

29:27

hundreds, if not thousands of deaths

29:29

that are poisoning related. With

29:32

that in mind, what I would say

29:34

is probably one of my most major

29:37

pet peeves in reviewing

29:40

autopsy reports as it relates

29:42

to toxicology findings is

29:45

to look at these concentrations

29:49

of drugs that

29:52

are found postmortem and

29:56

make some sort of conclusion

29:58

just based on those levels. And

30:01

just to recap, in this

30:02

particular autopsy, the medical

30:05

examiner looked at the

30:07

post-mortem toxicology findings

30:10

and extrapolated

30:13

to not just what might

30:15

be a level in a living person, but

30:17

then somehow did some kind of magical

30:20

calculation in Harry Potter

30:22

land to come up

30:25

with the fact that this was exactly 30

30:28

fioronal tablets and thus, 10 tier 2, 4 was a suicide.

30:34

And do you disagree with that? I do. Can

30:36

you explain why? Sure.

30:38

So, let's just say that you

30:41

took some kind of drug, any

30:43

drug, and because you're

30:46

alive and your heart

30:48

is beating, your blood is mixing all

30:50

over your body. And then while you're

30:52

still alive, if I was wanting

30:54

to check a blood level of

30:57

that drug, I would draw your blood

30:59

and send it to the laboratory and I would get some number

31:01

of what that concentration is. Whether

31:05

you draw that blood level from a vein

31:08

in your scalp or a vein in your neck or

31:11

right smack in your heart or in

31:13

your toe, that number should always

31:15

be about the same within some laboratory

31:17

error because it's being mixed together because

31:19

your heart is beating. But when

31:21

you die, everything stops.

31:24

Your heart is no longer beating and all

31:27

the blood just kind of stops right

31:29

where it is. It's kind of like musical chairs

31:32

and the music stops and everything freezes. And

31:34

then what happens is part of the putrefaction

31:37

process, meaning that as your body

31:39

starts decaying, cells in your body

31:41

burst open. And so, whatever

31:44

is inside those cells, because

31:46

drugs don't just stay in your blood, they go into

31:48

your brain cells or your heart

31:50

cells or your fat cells. When

31:53

those start bursting open and they

31:55

spill into different compartments

31:58

in your body, you're going to get different

32:00

numbers based on how

32:02

close to the blood that tissue is. So

32:05

in other words, in a dead person, you

32:07

could potentially draw

32:10

in the same scenario a

32:12

blood level from your scalp vein, your neck

32:14

vein, your heart, your femoral vein,

32:17

your toe vein, and get completely

32:19

different answers. There

32:22

is a blood level in a living

32:24

person does not extrapolate

32:27

to a dead person. Wow,

32:35

that's huge. That feels huge. Well,

32:37

and it is huge because

32:39

I have seen medical

32:41

examiners say, oh, this number is XYZ.

32:46

And because this number is so high,

32:48

that means that they died from this drug.

32:50

This medical examiner actually took it to

32:53

another level, which they not only

32:56

compared it to a number in

32:58

a living person, which you're not supposed

33:00

to do, but they even went as

33:02

far as to determine how

33:05

many pills that

33:07

could have met. And so there

33:10

are two huge math errors

33:12

in this situation. So particularly

33:15

because this was in 1996, how

33:18

common would this kind of backwards

33:20

extrapolating math have been back then

33:23

and how common is it now?

33:24

Well,

33:26

I still see from time to time, medical

33:28

examiners say that a

33:31

concentration is a lethal concentration.

33:34

I have not seen anybody in

33:36

the 15 or 18 years

33:39

that I've been doing this to actually go as

33:42

to determine the number

33:44

of pills that someone could have taken.

33:48

Now in 1996, in full disclosure,

33:50

I was still in medical school. So

33:53

it's hard for me to say what was standard practice

33:56

in 1996 for this kind of thing.

34:02

I still think that even then,

34:04

this was requiring quite

34:07

a bit of junk science

34:09

calculations to come up with

34:11

this sort of determination. I

34:13

think that in this particular situation,

34:16

just looking at what was found

34:19

in this toxicology testing,

34:22

the best kind of answer is that

34:24

it was undetermined. Especially

34:28

because let's just say that she

34:30

was having such a bad headache that she was taking

34:32

more pills than she should have. That

34:34

would be an accident, right? And so how

34:37

do you know that it wasn't an accident

34:38

versus a suicide? So

34:42

this brings up something that I've always considered

34:44

sort of a weird detail. The

34:47

pills that are listed in this

34:49

toxicology report are

34:51

fiorinol with codeine tablets, and

34:53

the report claims that

34:56

the levels in her blood indicated

34:58

she took 30 of them. But

35:01

we know from another report that

35:03

when the bottle was removed from the scene,

35:06

it still had some pills left

35:08

in it. And

35:10

to me, if it was intentional and she decided

35:12

to take her own life by overdosing on

35:14

these pills,

35:17

it just seemed to me like maybe she would take all

35:19

of them? Like that has always just seemed a little bit odd

35:21

to me. So I agree

35:24

that if somebody was intentionally

35:27

trying to hurt themselves, that

35:29

they would take all of them. But

35:31

more importantly, if you look on her prescription

35:34

list, these fiorinol tablets

35:37

were actually prescribed in December.

35:40

They were prescribed on December 20th. So

35:43

roughly four months earlier.

35:46

So presumably she took

35:49

those pills from time to time

35:51

whenever she would have a headache. So

35:54

I think just considering

35:57

the fact that there are a certain number missing,

36:00

is not helpful when you know that this prescription

36:02

had been prescribed four months prior. The

36:10

thing that I guess I'm confused about is that the actual

36:13

cause of death is listed as mixed drug

36:15

intoxication. Can you explain

36:17

what that means and

36:19

how that would have been determined?

36:21

So mixed drug intoxication is a

36:23

catch-all phrase that

36:25

medical examiners use

36:28

when more than one substance is found post-mortem.

36:31

And in general, I feel like that's

36:34

intellectually honest to

36:36

call it mixed drug because I don't really

36:38

want the medical examiners picking and choosing

36:40

what drug they think is the one that caused

36:42

death. So when

36:45

you look at what's present post-mortem,

36:47

you see salicylate,

36:50

codeine, utalbital, caffeine,

36:53

and morphine. Those are five different substances,

36:56

but they all came from the one pill.

36:58

And then there was fentermine, which is from her

37:01

weight loss medication. So there

37:03

were several different weight loss medications

37:06

found at her home. And even

37:10

though they're not exactly like methamphetamine

37:12

or amphetamine, they are in that amphetamine

37:15

class and can be dangerous from that standpoint.

37:18

Now, the things that are

37:20

found post-mortem in her were

37:22

drugs that she was prescribed. So

37:24

you would expect to see those, whether

37:27

she had committed suicide by an overdose

37:29

of them or not. This is not

37:31

like finding arsenic. Just because

37:34

these substances are present doesn't tell you anything.

37:37

You expect to find them.

37:39

Based on the amount of medication

37:42

in this toxicology report, would

37:45

that have been a lethal dose? If we knew

37:47

that she had taken 30, then

37:50

that could certainly be a cause

37:52

of her death. But we

37:54

don't know how many she took. And

37:57

you can't go backwards from these levels.

38:00

to determine how many were taken.

38:03

So that's where the controversy is.

38:05

You cannot interpret post-mortem

38:08

toxicology in a vacuum. You

38:10

need to correlate that with scene

38:13

findings, witness statements. You

38:15

have to look at the totality of the evidence.

38:18

And I always reserve the right to say, I don't know,

38:21

but I think that in this particular

38:24

situation, based on what I've seen,

38:27

saying I don't know is fine. And so

38:29

to call it undetermined would

38:31

have been perfectly appropriate. Thank

38:38

you so much for talking to us again, Dr. Barnhart. I

38:40

really appreciate it. Sure. So

38:42

since we last spoke, we interviewed a

38:44

toxicologist who said pretty

38:47

emphatically that there was no

38:49

way to determine the number of pills taken

38:51

based on post-mortem

38:53

samples, which is something that you brought up in

38:56

our interview, too, that that's not really a kind

38:58

of calculation that you would do. So do

39:00

you agree with what the toxicologist said,

39:02

that there's really

39:03

no way to make that calculation?

39:06

I do. I do agree.

39:08

And I think really that's why you don't

39:11

see people doing that anymore. I

39:13

honestly don't know exactly how long

39:15

that particular practice lasted.

39:18

I obviously was not practicing at that time. But

39:20

my impression is that it was a bit of a fad,

39:23

frankly.

39:24

But yes, I agree with

39:26

the toxicologist. I think there's too many variables

39:29

and too many problems with that type

39:31

of calculation to be of any real value.

39:34

So since the amount of drugs

39:36

in Sue's system at the time of her autopsy

39:39

doesn't tell us definitively how

39:41

much or how little medication she took, what

39:44

effect, if any, do you think that has

39:46

on the official ruling of suicide

39:48

as the manner of death? I think it has

39:50

a big effect. When we're talking

39:53

about suicide,

39:53

there's a lot of

39:56

human behavior involved

39:58

in that, right? A lot of. nuance

40:01

about our attempts

40:03

at prediction of human intention.

40:05

And thus,

40:09

it's fallible and really highly

40:11

subjective. So it's an area

40:13

that I always try to be really careful

40:15

and I try to...

40:16

I

40:21

really want, when I'm making a ruling

40:24

of suicide, I really want to have as much

40:27

evidence as possible

40:29

that that's really what was going on.

40:32

So the levels matter and

40:34

so uncertainty about

40:36

those levels certainly introduces

40:39

a layer of uncertainty

40:42

and one that's frankly a bit hard

40:45

to get past without some

40:48

other pretty clear evidence that that's what

40:51

was going on in this case. It can be

40:53

hard looking at these old cases,

40:56

especially back then, right when

40:58

it's not like people were exchanging

41:00

electronic email back and forth or keeping information

41:03

on servers. It may have just been that

41:05

the doctor had a phone call from

41:07

the investigators that, oh yeah, this lady is suicidal

41:09

and depressed and he may

41:11

have had some other impressions of the case

41:14

that maybe weren't

41:16

officially documented. Yeah,

41:18

and unfortunately this was in kind

41:20

of a rural area and so it

41:22

was handled by Justice of the Peace, sort of like

41:25

you mentioned last time, and we

41:27

just don't have a ton of insight

41:29

into what that communication might have been,

41:32

right? We know that they were in contact

41:34

to an extent, the JP and the medical examiner,

41:37

just based on a few records in the

41:39

inquest,

41:40

but it seems like you're exactly right. Most

41:42

of it would have been over the phone, so our

41:45

records are limited. Yeah, it

41:47

definitely complicates things because

41:49

the medical examiner in this

41:51

case really has no legal

41:53

authority to investigate the case because

41:56

it's a JP county, it's not a medical examiner

41:58

county. So,

41:59

What that means is that that forensic

42:02

pathologist, or any forensic pathologist,

42:05

is entirely dependent on the JP

42:07

for investigational information. And

42:09

ultimately, you know, the JP is the one that is

42:12

signing the death certificate also, and

42:14

they can put whatever they want on the death certificate, even

42:16

if it's totally different from what the doctor puts

42:19

on the autopsy report. So

42:21

it does introduce

42:23

a level of complexity into

42:26

any death investigation.

42:29

One of the things that you talked a little bit about last

42:31

time was that an

42:33

empty bottle is pretty solid evidence,

42:36

or is pretty suspicious and compelling

42:38

evidence. Since that

42:41

time, in our research, we have found

42:43

that the medication she took, which

42:45

is Fiorinol with codeine, still had

42:47

some pills left in the bottle, actually.

42:49

What are your thoughts on that?

42:51

So my thoughts are that,

42:54

much like the uncertainty about

42:56

drug levels that introduces another layer

42:58

of uncertainty. And to

43:01

call something a suicide, I need

43:03

to feel pretty certain. Also,

43:07

another absolutely valid manner

43:09

of death classification is undetermined. We

43:11

don't like to do that. Forensic

43:14

pathologists hate to call cases undetermined.

43:16

It's very unsatisfying. You know, we like

43:18

to be able to provide an answer. But

43:21

nonetheless, it's the appropriate manner

43:23

of death classification in some

43:25

cases, and it may just be that this

43:27

is one of them. Firstly, it told

43:30

us it was complications of her

43:32

having the flu. Sounds weird that

43:34

someone was sick with the flu, and then

43:37

their death is a suicide. And

43:39

then it was complications. She was taking medication,

43:42

and it drank liquor with it. I

43:44

knew that she had been sick, and they said, well, you know,

43:46

she threw up during the night and aspirated,

43:49

and that choked her. She didn't shoot herself.

43:51

Oh, okay. Maybe she shot herself.

43:53

This is yet another example of a different

43:56

theory about how she died

43:57

because there was so little clarity around

43:59

her death. before

44:06

talking to dr barnhart and dr hale i really

44:09

was feeling pretty confident

44:12

in the suicide theory but that

44:14

was because of the 30 pills

44:17

calculation

44:18

so if that's not real if 30 pills can't

44:21

be trusted i don't

44:23

really know what to think the

44:26

thing i keep thinking about is that like

44:29

dr hale said you have to look at the totality

44:31

of the evidence so if we

44:33

are being told that this math cannot be

44:35

trusted then that would mean that

44:37

the other things surrounding her death become significantly

44:40

more important exactly so

44:42

this feels like a good time to talk about my conversation

44:45

with dr pralo the original medical

44:47

examiner who performed sue's autopsy yes

44:49

tell me everything well there's not

44:52

really a lot to tell honestly he didn't

44:54

want to go on mike and remember he's

44:56

done hundreds if not thousands

44:58

of

44:58

autopsies since then and this one

45:01

was almost 30 years ago so he didn't

45:03

remember sue's case specifically so he

45:05

was just going off of our copy of his autopsy

45:08

report from 1996 he did

45:10

not do the drug level calculations himself

45:12

he said that would have been done by a toxicologist

45:15

and he would have just received their results and

45:17

we've tried to track down the toxicologist who actually

45:20

did sue's report and haven't been able to get in touch

45:22

with them dr pralo also said

45:24

the drug levels indicated in the toxicology

45:26

report would have been consistent with overdose

45:29

but he said something similar to dr hale

45:31

that those types of calculations aren't really

45:33

done anymore for all the same reasons dr

45:36

hale described right like she said even

45:38

if those levels were high there's no way to know

45:40

if they're accurate in a post-mortem body

45:42

the numbers can't be trusted exactly

45:45

but he did stand by the suicide decision

45:47

because the toxicology report was only one

45:49

piece of it and all of the other circumstantial

45:52

factors haley just mentioned would have

45:54

informed his recommendation as well and

45:56

that information would have come from the investigation

45:59

done by the

45:59

of the piece. Right. And

46:03

Milton Adams, the Justice of the Piece, has declined

46:05

to be interviewed. But just in terms

46:07

of what we have in this inquest report,

46:09

which we inherited in the briefcase, and

46:12

it's basically a bunch of paperwork the JP collected

46:14

while looking into Sue's death, we

46:17

do have this note that Sue wrote, which

46:19

we've been calling her depression note.

46:21

["The Justice of the Piece," by Sue Williams plays in the

46:23

background.] August 21,

46:24

1995, at 9.45 p.m. The

46:29

thoughts race around in my head. The

46:31

radio plays. A thought.

46:34

I'm tired of hanging

46:35

on. I'd like to let go. Yet

46:38

if I really wanted to, surely I would do so.

46:41

Yet I really want to let go. I'm

46:43

just afraid it won't succeed. I'd

46:46

hate to wake up again. I'm tired

46:48

of it all. I argue that it's just

46:50

chemicals in the brain out of balance, but

46:52

that doesn't help, even if it's true. I

46:55

don't want to cry. I don't feel like

46:57

crying. I'm not sad. I'm

47:00

not lonely. I'm not miserable or

47:02

desolate. I'm just tired of hanging

47:04

on. I really have prayed

47:07

to be taken, but it falls on deaf

47:09

ears. I always wake up

47:11

and get up and go on. But

47:13

hell, I'm really tired of it. There

47:16

isn't really much reason for anything good or

47:18

bad. It's all just blah.

47:21

Yuck. So why am I wasting

47:23

my efforts writing? Hell, no one will

47:25

ever read it. No one can do anything

47:27

about it because there is nothing wrong. I'm

47:29

just tired. Blank, empty,

47:32

full, tired.

47:34

Pointless even writing, God, please,

47:37

please take me. I'm done. Don't

47:39

leave me here anymore. I want to go

47:41

to sleep and not wake up anymore.

47:44

Please.

47:52

It is pretty rough. And

47:54

I mean, I can definitely see how it could

47:56

point to suicide as an answer. And

47:59

clearly, the JP felt like it was important enough

48:01

to include it in this file, but

48:05

it was written about eight months before

48:07

she died. And

48:10

also in this inquest report, we

48:12

have this letter from her doctor, who of course

48:14

also declined to be interviewed, but

48:17

in this letter from just after she died, he

48:19

says specifically that Sue wasn't

48:21

currently taking antidepressants because

48:23

she wasn't currently depressed.

48:26

So yeah,

48:30

I just wonder what else

48:32

led to that determination because again,

48:35

this could be me being a

48:37

layman speaking on expert things.

48:40

But to me,

48:42

a note written eight months earlier

48:45

and

48:46

a quote unquote not currently

48:48

depressed woman by word of her doctor

48:52

does not a suicide make. Yeah.

48:55

I mean, the depression note in my mind is specifically

48:58

not a suicide note, right? But

49:00

Dr. Pralo made it seem like it was really a process

49:02

of elimination based on what was found by

49:04

the JP and the police. So

49:07

she was found alone in her home with

49:09

the doors locked in her own bed, no evidence

49:12

of foul play. So, you know, not homicide,

49:15

not a natural death because she didn't have any

49:17

kind of terminal illness. She wasn't that old.

49:20

She was just 43. So, you know, that

49:22

kind of narrows down the possibilities. So

49:24

I could see that kind of making suicide

49:27

more plausible just by that evidence.

49:29

The big thing that I sort of gained

49:32

from talking to Dr. Barnhart and Dr. Hale

49:35

was that

49:37

not being able to trust the math that

49:40

led to

49:41

the idea that she took 30 pills

49:44

doesn't necessarily mean that her death wasn't

49:47

a suicide, but

49:49

it also puts accident

49:51

back on the table. I think

49:54

that that really changes things for me. I think a lot of

49:56

the reason that people in Sue's

49:58

life were up unable to

50:00

accept her death and

50:03

unable to accept things as

50:05

told to them is because they felt like suicide

50:08

was so

50:09

out of character, which again, we've talked about

50:11

before, like how do we categorize that? How do

50:13

we define that? But I

50:15

just wonder if

50:17

accident is any more

50:19

palatable or

50:21

acceptable. Yeah, honestly,

50:24

accident, I mean, what could be

50:26

more tragic than a suicide? I don't wanna downplay

50:28

that possibility and how horrible that

50:30

is, but

50:32

accident weirdly feels sadder to me

50:34

that she wanted to live and that she

50:37

couldn't. I don't know if it's more

50:40

palatable or better

50:43

because I think most people who love being alive are

50:45

terrified by the idea of dying, but I

50:48

don't know if it's more palatable, but if it's more true,

50:50

I think that matters. Yeah,

50:53

it really sucks too because it's very possible

50:56

that that determination was completely reasonable

50:59

based on the combination of everything.

51:02

We just don't necessarily have all of the records

51:04

that indicate what those elements

51:07

were that combined to suicide

51:09

as an answer.

51:10

Right, the Athens PD told me they gave

51:12

me everything they have, but since this case is

51:14

so old, it is possible that there was more

51:16

that has since been destroyed. And since

51:19

neither the Athens PD nor the justice of the peace

51:21

will speak with us about Sue's case, we

51:23

just don't have a full picture

51:26

of how Milton landed on the suicide ruling

51:28

because like Dr. Barnhart said, it was ultimately

51:30

Milton's call. It falls on the JP's shoulders

51:33

to sign the death certificate in a case like this,

51:35

which brings me to another roadblock that

51:38

I wanted to mention. Although

51:40

we do have a copy of the JP's inquest

51:43

file,

51:44

that copy was originally requested by Steve

51:46

Barksdale in 2018.

51:48

So I requested a new copy of the file directly

51:50

from the office just to make sure that what we have is complete.

51:54

And

51:55

the JP districts have shuffled since Sue died,

51:57

but I've talked to several offices now. And

52:00

none of them can locate this file.

52:02

They've told me that it's not lost.

52:05

It is misplaced. That

52:07

sounds like the same thing to me. Yeah. To

52:09

be fair, it is a paper

52:12

record from almost 30 years ago. So

52:14

they're digging through filing cabinets for me.

52:17

But it's been several months now, and it seems like

52:19

the original file is not where it's supposed to

52:21

be. And it is concerning to me that no one

52:23

has been able to track it down.

52:25

But we don't necessarily have any reason to believe

52:27

that the copy we have is incomplete, right? Well,

52:29

that's the thing. I just can't say for sure.

52:31

You don't know what you don't know.

52:33

God, that is so frustrating.

52:36

I really, really

52:38

was hoping that looking more

52:41

closely at the body would give us actual

52:44

answers, and it fucking

52:46

didn't. I just fucking

52:48

didn't.

52:54

I will also just say, going back

52:56

to the question of how this manner of death ruling

52:59

was determined, I asked Dr. Pralo

53:01

about the possibility of an accident. And he

53:03

said that if there was no indication that she

53:05

was incoherent or incompetent,

53:08

there'd be no reason to think it was an accident.

53:10

So it's almost suicide by default,

53:12

because there was no reason to think she would have been

53:15

unaware of how many pills she had taken.

53:17

That doesn't make sense to me. What if she was

53:19

just distracted, not paying attention, took her medicine

53:22

again? Or sick.

53:25

I've definitely been sick enough to not remember if

53:27

I already took my medicine. Again, I

53:29

am not a doctor. But that idea just

53:31

doesn't leave much room for simple

53:34

human mistakes. Which in my

53:36

mind brings us back to undetermined

53:38

is maybe the best answer, which is what Dr.

53:40

Barnhart suggested. Dr.

53:42

Pralo didn't mention that option, and

53:44

I reached back out to him to ask about it, but I'm still

53:47

waiting to hear back. Yeah, Dr. Hale said

53:49

that too, that she would have probably gone with undetermined

53:51

based on the information in the autopsy. I

53:54

find it so incredibly poetic

53:56

too, that like basically what she was saying,

53:59

what I heard her saying. was the best

54:01

answer I can give you

54:03

and not best in terms of like, I'm out of other

54:05

things to say, but the truest best

54:08

number one correct answer I

54:10

can give you is actually I don't know. And like,

54:12

that just feels so true for so

54:15

much of this. You know, that's after looking

54:17

at thousands and thousands of pages of research.

54:20

Sometimes the best answer is still, I

54:22

just couldn't tell you, I just don't

54:25

know. Yeah, but I can totally understand

54:27

the impulse of the people who are given the answer

54:29

I just don't know to not accept

54:32

that. Totally. Especially when you're taught

54:34

that you can stick a thermometer in a

54:36

liver and say, you know exactly to

54:38

the hour when somebody died, you know, like when you are

54:40

taught that there's somebody out there who is

54:42

smarter and knows better than you and they

54:45

don't. That's

54:47

awful. It is

54:49

awful. And on top of that, there are still

54:51

so many unanswered questions. Like that

54:54

letter from her doctor

54:55

mentioned that she had previously had

54:57

viral meningitis and meningitis

54:59

affects your spine and brain and can give you headaches.

55:01

And that plus her scratching the back of her

55:04

head to the point where it broke

55:06

skin and got infected and her

55:09

taking all of this headache medication, like

55:11

to me, that seems like it goes together. When

55:14

there's so much weird shit, it

55:16

just, it should mean something.

55:19

Do you know, like those things should go together.

55:21

They should point to something. Yeah, but

55:23

those pieces don't necessarily go to

55:25

the same puzzle. And to make them fit

55:27

together, you have to stretch farther and farther from

55:29

the truth. Like, I don't think we

55:31

should say that just because she had a scratch and

55:33

took headache pills and used to have an illness,

55:36

that her death was definitely an accident or

55:38

not, which is again, like both of these

55:40

doctors pointed to undetermined as an answer.

55:43

There's really no way to know and then guessing

55:46

has huge implications. Absolutely.

55:48

Like if Sue's death hadn't been ruled a suicide,

55:50

then she would have received more of her life

55:52

insurance money, not to mention the social

55:55

stigma around suicide, especially in a conservative

55:57

part of Texas in the 1990s.

55:59

And it reflects so much on your life and makes

56:02

your loved ones rethink who you are. I

56:04

get that and I know you're right.

56:07

I know you're right.

56:09

It just still sucks. It sucks to

56:12

be on either end of an I don't

56:14

know answer, especially when there's still so

56:16

much that just doesn't make sense. Next

56:25

time on Undercover of Night. She

56:28

was there one day and then all of a sudden she

56:30

didn't show up. Like I don't consider myself a

56:32

naive person, but I mean clearly the

56:34

course of this project has convinced me otherwise

56:36

because I just, I'm believing everyone at every turn.

56:38

Memory is not like a video camera.

56:41

It's not like we capture everything and then can

56:43

retrieve it accurately. Even when we have

56:45

this strong feeling, it doesn't necessarily

56:47

mean we get every detail correct.

56:49

She still remembered that you were listed as the executor

56:52

several years later in 1993. And

56:54

she never, she never told

56:56

you about it at all. Never knew anything about

56:58

it. Let's just take a moment to appreciate

57:00

that at this point, we've got a woman

57:02

with about six different names that we know of, a

57:05

missing death in quest. And we can't even

57:07

seem to nail down the name of the street she lived on.

57:09

Like this is the squishiest story ever.

57:22

Undercover of Night is

57:23

an Apple original podcast produced

57:26

by Spoke Media and Castle View

57:28

Productions. Our writer, host

57:30

and showrunner is Jenna Burnett. Associate

57:33

producers are Lucy Huang and Reyes

57:35

Mendoza. Our researcher is

57:37

Haley Nelson. Our consulting journalist

57:40

is Bob Sullivan. Mix, sound

57:42

design and original music by Will Short

57:44

with additional music from Universal Production

57:47

Music. Story consulting by Brigham

57:49

Mosley. Executive producers are

57:51

Caroline Hamilton, Sharita Lynn Solis,

57:53

Ted Barnhill, Heather Mansfield Jernigan,

57:56

Alia Tavakolian and Keith Reynolds.

57:59

Special thanks to Dr. Dr. Erin Barnhart and Dr.

58:01

Stacey Hale for sharing their expertise with

58:03

us. If you have any information

58:05

on Sue Knight, you can email us at

58:07

infosuenightatgmail.com.

58:11

If you or someone you know needs support, go

58:13

to apple.com slash here to help for

58:15

resources. Follow on Apple podcasts.

58:18

Thanks for listening.