48 Hours - An Invisible Enemy

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Nearly five years after Todd Sommer's death, his wife Cynthia was convicted of murdering her Marine Sergeant husband with a lethal dose of arsenic. But ten months after her conviction, she wa...s granted a new trial due to decisions the defense made that deprived her of a fair trial. Then questions arose about the validity of the lab tests. Would this be enough to exonerate her? “48 Hours" correspondent Richard Schlesinger reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 4/24/2010. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,
Starting point is 00:00:35 and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert
Starting point is 00:01:00 to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. Todd was a United States Marine. He was a good Marine. He had found his calling in the Marine Corps. He was a great kid.
Starting point is 00:01:41 He was not only big in stature, but big in heart. He wanted to be a career Marine. I was very proud that that was his job. I loved my husband very much. I loved the life that I lived. I remember going to sleep with him, and I woke up in the middle of the night and he was taking a shower. I just said, you know, what's, what's the matter? And he said, um, that he didn't feel well. He started vomiting. It sounded like food poisoning. He said that he had egg rolls. And he was sort of mumbling, so I shook him and I said, Are you okay?
Starting point is 00:02:33 He got up. He walked towards our bathroom. And he stood there for a second or two and then collapsed. And I called 911. 911, do you have a emergency? Yeah, my husband just collapsed. He'll call me, collapse. I knew he wasn't breathing, and I knew that I just closed down and did not leave me.
Starting point is 00:03:06 It wasn't too much longer. She said, Mom, Todd is dead. And I kept saying, Cindy, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure? Originally, they said heart attack. Everything that I had known at that time was gone. The pain was so horrible for her. She dealt with the death in her own way. Everyone grieves differently.
Starting point is 00:03:41 I missed my husband and I wanted companionship. I started drinking and I wanted to get away and to escape my life. She had portrayed herself as this grieving widow, putting out this persona as someone who loved her husband, but at the same time went into another type of lifestyle almost as if she was celebrating. They found a foreign substance in his body, and they weren't sure what it was. It became clear that this was most likely a homicide.
Starting point is 00:04:14 Nobody's guilty of a crime in this case because there was no crime. My name is Alan Bloom. I'm Cynthia Summers' defense attorney. My name is Alan Bloom. I'm Cynthia Summer's defense attorney. This started as a blunder and went into a gross and reckless behavior, and that really is what's very disturbing about this. My name is Cindy Summer, and I'm on trial for a crime I didn't commit. An invisible enemy. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. It's interesting the things that you remember.
Starting point is 00:05:22 Jan Lippert still remembers the phone call she got from her daughter Cynthia before everything changed. They had just had a great, great weekend. before everything changed. They had just had a great, great weekend. It was February 2002 when Cynthia and her husband, Marine Sergeant Todd Sommer, were coming home from a family weekend at an amusement park. And they'd rode roller coasters and did all kinds of fun things. They had four children and were the very picture of happiness. They did everything together as a family. No one could have predicted the roller coaster ride was just beginning. Came back home on Sunday, got the kids to bed, sat down on the bed,
Starting point is 00:06:00 and he said that his heart felt like it had fluttered and I said, should we go to the hospital? He said, no, I'm fine. I'm just going to go to bed. Hours later, Cynthia made that panicked 911 call. I love you, please. I love you. When Todd was pronounced dead a couple of hours later at the hospital, doctors said his heart had given out. They explained it the same as, you know, you hear the kids playing baseball and just falling over, that there's no symptoms, there's no warning signs, there's nothing. But there was something. Todd had started feeling sick ten days before he died.
Starting point is 00:06:44 His symptoms started on Friday, February 8th. Saturday, he started vomiting, had diarrhea and nausea, some stomach cramping. It sounded like food poisoning. On Sunday, Todd went to the Marine Base Clinic. A doctor thought it might be food poisoning and told him to wait it out. But when his symptoms got worse, Cynthia turned to her mother for advice. The conversation would be, Mom, Todd's fever is up to 102. What should I do? I just can't stop him from throwing up. What else can I give him? And it's, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:23 I tell her the usual mother's remedies and nothing seemed to help. Todd went back to the doctor two days later. They gave him the IV fluids. They gave him the prescriptions. And by that Saturday, the 16th, he seemed to be finally getting better. He felt well enough to go on that family outing to the amusement park. And 48 hours later, he was dead. The official cause of death, cardiac arrhythmia. It was a scene that I'll never in my entire life ever forget. Cynthia's mother, Jan, rushed to be by her daughter's side.
Starting point is 00:08:04 She was upstairs in their bed, and she had one of Todd's shirts. She was just clinging, just clinging onto his shirt. And saying how it smelled like Todd, and this was all that she she had left of him and that he was gone Todd and Cynthia had met just three years before Todd died he was just 19 Cynthia was 25 a divorced mother of three I finally found someone that wanted to be a friend. I just found someone that I could, you know, wanted to share my life with. Within six months, Todd and Cynthia were married and living in San Diego where Todd was stationed. And before long, the newlyweds added another child to the
Starting point is 00:09:07 family. We were a great family and the kids loved him. I loved him. We did family things all the time. But it all ended in an instant when Todd died. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service opened a routine investigation into Todd Summers' death. As the investigation began, NCIS agents found nothing suspicious. Cynthia's mother says her daughter began to face life as a widow. She wanted to go on and make the most of her life and do it as best as she could. and make the most of her life and do it as best as she could. It didn't take long.
Starting point is 00:09:52 Cynthia found a new boyfriend and moved with her four children to Florida. Officially, there was no mystery about how Todd had died. The death certificate said natural causes. But one investigator couldn't shake a bad feeling. There were some odd things going on with the investigation that I thought needed additional work. NCIS Special Agent Mark Ridley was in charge of what the service calls a death review panel. It's the way the NCIS makes sure that all leads are pursued in military deaths, especially when someone like Todd dies unexpectedly. They really were looking at the case as being a natural death from the beginning.
Starting point is 00:10:33 But Ridley felt the autopsy had overlooked important clues, those symptoms Todd started suffering 10 days before he died. When you look through the medical record, it showed that he vomited several times, maybe 12 to 15 times in the space of a short period of time. He thought those symptoms and Todd's sudden death were related, and it all started sounding familiar. Ridley had heard about a similar case in North Carolina, and in that case, the victims had been poisoned. It just so happens that Todd Sommer was exhibiting some of the same things that were found in some of the victims associated with the case. So it resonated with me, and when I read that case file, it just made me a little bit uncomfortable based on the symptoms.
Starting point is 00:11:24 Ridley was not ready to close this case. He ordered a rare test be performed on Todd's tissue samples that had been removed during the autopsy. Meanwhile, another NCIS special agent, Rob Terwilliger, started looking into Summer's personal life. Going from the day Todd Summer died and looking at every report, every note, every scrap of paper that was in the case file. Terwilliger dug deeply into Todd's relationship with his friends, his family, and his outwardly grieving widow. his family, and his outwardly grieving widow. More and more information came out indicating that his relationship with his wife was not what it seemed. The picture the NCIS was painting of Cynthia Summer was less than flattering.
Starting point is 00:12:18 Cindy was more of a party girl, was having financial difficulties when Todd was away on deployment. The more Terwilliger studied the Sommer family finances, the worse it looked for Cynthia. He quickly discovered she was spending more money than they had, but it was more what she was looking for. The same day Todd got sick, Cynthia apparently met with a surgeon inquiring about breast implants. They had about $150 in their bank account. The breast implants would cost nearly $6,000, and that would be a huge financial strain on the family. Cynthia says Todd wanted her to have the operation and has a note she says proves that on a Valentine's Day card he gave her.
Starting point is 00:13:09 In 2006, she told 48 Hours that she went ahead with the surgery just two months after Todd died. After he died, I just wanted to escape everything, you know, and I just thought maybe that would make me feel better. People say that that looks suspicious, it looks bad, it looks callous. I know that if he were alive and he had that much money, he would have wanted me to do it. It took about a year, but finally the results of the tests on Todd's tissues came back. year, but finally the results of the tests on Todd's tissues came back. They showed Marine Sergeant Todd Summer had been poisoned with a lethal dose of arsenic. But was it murder? Did you have anything to do with the death of your husband? No. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most. A bizarre and maddening tale involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense.
Starting point is 00:14:18 A sister testifying against a brother. A lack of physical evidence. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, the troubled case against Crosley Green, ad-free on Amazon Music. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty?
Starting point is 00:14:41 Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld, and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game
Starting point is 00:15:11 she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informants Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. We needed to make sure that we had all the answers instead of writing this investigation off. 23-year-old young men don't just die.
Starting point is 00:15:57 And it looked like NCIS Special Agent Mark Ridley was dead right. When lab tests came back, they showed startlingly high levels of arsenic in Todd Summers' liver and kidneys, levels high enough to kill anyone, even an apparently healthy 23-year-old Marine. The investigation started at that point, from being a natural death to really being a homicide. at that point, from being a natural death to really being a homicide.
Starting point is 00:16:31 The NCIS could find no innocent explanation for the high levels of arsenic. Investigators concluded it had to be murder, and Todd's wife, Cynthia, had to be the murderess. So, three and a half years after Todd died, in November of 2005, Cynthia Summer was arrested and charged with first-degree murder by San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. And our ethical duty is to Todd Summer, if he is killed by arsenic poisoning, if we have proof beyond a reasonable doubt to file that case. And that's what we did. But proving Cynthia Sommer murdered her husband with arsenic will be difficult. Arsenic is odorless and tasteless.
Starting point is 00:17:20 There's no way that you would know that your food was contaminated. Poison Control Center. Hi. Dr. Lee Cantrell is a toxicologist who runs a poison information hotline in San Diego, and he spent a lot of time studying the use of arsenic as a murder weapon. Arsenic is an element, probably the most widely used poison of choice with respect to murder. A dose smaller than a penny is enough to kill, and it requires a special test to detect arsenic in the body, a test that was not performed during Todd Summers' autopsy.
Starting point is 00:18:07 Dr. Cantrell says the symptoms of an acute poisoning show up very quickly. I would expect within a relatively short period, minutes to an hour or so, that you would start to develop severe gastrointestinal distress. Todd Sommer had those symptoms in the days before he died. Arsenic impairs the body's ability to produce energy. You can ultimately develop seizures, loss of consciousness, and death. And since Todd's symptoms first began very late one night, District Attorney Bonnie DeManis believed the only person who could have poisoned him was the only person who was with him at the time, his wife, Cynthia.
Starting point is 00:18:47 She had opportunity, and she had motive, and we had the arsenic poisoning. What struck you was that she looked like she had a motive. There was an indication that she was living above her means, that she had financial problems herself, and then there was $250,000 worth of insurance that she inquired into immediately. The $250,000 was from Todd's military life insurance, and Cynthia began trying to collect it within days of his death. There is no way in this world that Cindy could have possibly done this. It's absolutely impossible.
Starting point is 00:19:26 Jan calls the idea that her daughter poisoned Todd ludicrous. She doesn't even know what arsenic is. When this happened, she said, what does it even look like? I said, I wouldn't have any idea. I don't even know where you get it. She said, that's, she said, oh, I don't know where you'd get it from either. I don't even know where you get it. She said, I don't know where you get it from either. But NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger quickly discovered arsenic is easy to find. Went right to the Internet.
Starting point is 00:19:59 Literally dozens of laboratory supply stores. It was available, commonly available. available, commonly available. I loved him. I didn't want him gone. I didn't want him out of my life. There's no link between me and arsenic. And they can look for the rest of my life, and they won't find one. And in fact, NCIS never did find any direct evidence that Cynthia Summer poisoned her husband or that she had researched or bought arsenic, even when they searched her computer in Florida. The question was posed, you know, how long have you had your computer, that type of thing,
Starting point is 00:20:39 and she had indicated that it had been the same computer that she'd had in San Diego. Investigators say they soon learned Cynthia hadn't told them the whole story. That was not the computer that had been in the home prior to Todd's death. What happened to the first computer, which investigators photographed at the crime scene in Cynthia's San Diego home? I've moved five times since then. But it's a computer. Cynthia's San Diego home.
Starting point is 00:21:04 I've moved five times since then. But it's a computer. She told 48 Hours in 2007 that it somehow disappeared. I think that it just became obsolete. What happened to it? I don't have a clue. Did you lose it? Probably. It probably got thrown away.
Starting point is 00:21:28 With her trial about to begin, it doesn't look good for Cynthia. But she's about to get some help from one of the last places she'd ever expect. Music Prosecutors believe they have everything they need to prove Cynthia Summer murdered her husband Todd with arsenic. And on January 4th, 2007, nearly five years after he died, Cynthia Summer called 911. She went on trial. Prosecutor Laura Gunn. The murder weapon was poison. Todd Summer was pronounced dead at Sharp Memorial Hospital at 2.34 in the morning on February 18th.
Starting point is 00:22:18 Bob Udell was Summer's defense attorney at the time. defense attorney at the time. The evidence will prove to you that Cindy did not have a motive to kill Todd or have any desire to kill Todd. Cynthia Summer takes the stand to prove her innocence. Everybody wants to know, how'd you get the black eye? They get us up for court at four o'clock in the morning and I'm on the top bunk, and I slipped and fell. Despite her jailhouse injury, Cynthia Sommer is ready to tell the jury her story about the last night of her husband's life. He looked at me and he said, I'm okay, I'm all right, and he fell down. Defense attorney Bob Udell wants the jury to listen closely to the 911 call, which he says proves Cynthia was doing all she could to save Todd's life. Todd, I love you. Don't do this to me. What am I going to do without you?
Starting point is 00:23:18 When I called 911, it seemed like forever for them to even come to the house. Prosecutor Laura Gunn thinks Cynthia's 911 call tells a very different story about what happened the night Todd died. What kind of phone was it? A cordless phone. Did it have a headset that lets you have kind of a hands-free function with it? No. Are you doing CPR right now, ma'am? Yes. You are? Yes. Prosecutors wonder how Cynthia could be performing CPR if she was holding the phone with one hand. I don't remember. I wasn't, I was in shock. And I mean, I know I had speakerphone on my phone.
Starting point is 00:23:58 I don't know if that's what I did. I don't know if I just had it on my, on my shoulder. But the paramedics say when they arrived, Cynthia was just standing over Todd's body. She wasn't doing any CPR. What's also intriguing is they say the body was already cool to the touch. So when did Todd Summer die? Todd Summer was pronounced dead at the hospital at 2.34 a.m. But medical examiner Dr. Glenn Wagner told 48 Hours the appearance and temperature of Todd's body noted in the hospital records indicate he may have died much earlier that night. indicate he may have died much earlier that night. It's quite likely that Todd Sommer was in fact dead for some period of time before 911 was called.
Starting point is 00:24:54 Maybe as much as an hour to two hours. He was unresponsive, he was cold, they were giving him CPR, electric shock. Eva Stoner is the military police officer who drove Cynthia to the hospital. She says Cynthia didn't appear to be in any rush. After I had picked her up from her home and was transporting her to the hospital, she wanted to stop at the store to pick up cigarettes. In fact, Stoner says Cynthia didn't seem very upset at all. She wasn't crying in the vehicle.
Starting point is 00:25:29 She wasn't crying at the hospital. And even when the staff came in and told her that, we're sorry, you know, your husband has passed away, I don't remember her actually, like, showing tears. I remember her crying, but it's more like the act of crying. Cynthia's behavior that night raised a lot of questions for a lot of people, but so did the circumstances of Todd's death. Al Poklas, a leading arsenic expert, was first approached by NCIS early in the investigation, and he says tests performed on Todd's body raised
Starting point is 00:26:07 critical questions in his mind. Hokeless is convinced something's wrong with the prosecution's crucial evidence, those lab tests that found lethal levels of arsenic only in Todd's liver and kidneys. It attacks and kills all the tissues in the body. It's how it works. It doesn't selectively go to the liver or go to the kidney. You get a lethal dose of arsenic, it's carried by the blood to all the organs. And at trial, Poclis strongly criticized the lab's testing methods. It concerned
Starting point is 00:26:47 me whether he was poisoned. It concerned me what in the world was going on and who did this test. The tests were conducted at a military laboratory. They routinely test for toxins like arsenic, but they usually test water and soil, and according to Poclis, they rarely test for arsenic in human tissues like the liver, kidney, and brain. It was a red flag, and he brought it to the attention of NCIS investigators. I should say that after the NCIS came and saw me and I said, you have problems here and you have problems there and you ought to get the forensic people involved in this, I never heard from them. But he did hear from Cynthia Summers' defense attorney, Bob Udell, just a couple of months before the trial. months before the trial. He's telling me that what I looked at is the scientific evidence, if you will, in the case.
Starting point is 00:27:51 And I was shocked. I couldn't believe that that was the evidence that they had. Poklas found it hard to believe that Todd would be able to go to work, let alone to an amusement park, if he'd been given a large dose of arsenic. Arsenic kills everything, every kind of mammal. So healthy rats die quick. Healthy coyotes die quick. Healthy marines die quick. I mean, in your view, was Todd Summer poisoned at all? No. But the medical examiner, Dr. Glenn Wagner, says it is possible for someone to walk around with a high level of arsenic in his body if he is healthy and strong, like Todd Summer.
Starting point is 00:28:39 It depends on the body's ability to metabolize that poison. It depends on the body's ability to metabolize that poison. The body does a pretty good job, under most circumstances, to eliminate toxins. At some point, the body is overwhelmed. Dr. Wagner believes that's what happened when the arsenic got into Todd's body. His heart simply gave out. I looked at the lab studies. The only conclusion I could come to is that this was a case of acute arsenic poisoning.
Starting point is 00:29:13 He died when he died because of the direct effect of arsenic on the heart. The jurors may have a tough time deciding which experts to believe, but the prosecution has something else for them to consider. I believe it was a well-thought-out crime. She appeared to be the doting wife. She made well-placed phone calls.
Starting point is 00:29:36 If she was a doting wife who just lost the love of her life, the NCIS says she sure didn't act like it in the hours and days after her husband died. She had portrayed herself as this grieving widow, but at the same time went into another type of lifestyle as almost as if she was celebrating. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.
Starting point is 00:30:11 The scary cult classic was set in a Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now, we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there. And we're also going to uncover the larger story.
Starting point is 00:30:41 My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder.
Starting point is 00:31:00 Early and ad-free with the 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bolder risk-takers who brought them to life. Like, did you know that Super Mario,
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Starting point is 00:31:50 So follow The Best Idea Yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Best Idea Yet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's just the best idea yet. I can't remember if there was only one or two calls after that. For the first time, for the only time, Todd
Starting point is 00:32:24 Summers' mother, Yvonne, describes publicly the moment Cynthia told her that her only son was dead. The final call would have been to tell me that they couldn't bring Todd back, that he was dead. And she tells the jury in Cynthia's trial she was particularly troubled about an argument she had with Cynthia the night of Todd's memorial service, when Cynthia stayed out late with friends. She was angry that I did call her, and she told me to mind my own business, that she would grieve her way, and I could grieve my way. But Cynthia's mother, Jan Lipper, told the jury her daughter was overcome with grief when Todd died. And she was curled up in a fetal position in bed and she was clinging onto one of Todd's shirts, and she was just sobbing
Starting point is 00:33:29 uncontrollably. It was just a pitiful sight. But investigators say the way Cynthia Summer grieved in the hours after her husband died raised a lot of eyebrows, to say the least. Todd had been deceased not more than three hours, and she was calling the family accountant and asking about taxes and how she should file and how they were going to get their refund, things of that nature. So money seemed to be the driving force here.
Starting point is 00:34:03 I wasn't asking about money. My husband had just died, and I knew that being a military wife, I lost everything. I have four children, and I just felt like my life had, everything that I had known at that time was gone. Cynthia got the $250,000 from Todd's life insurance policy, and investigators say Todd's family convinced her to put roughly half of it in a trust fund for the children. Cynthia used the remaining money to pay off some debts, buy some clothes and jewelry, and pay for those breast implants.
Starting point is 00:34:41 And Cynthia apparently found other ways to make herself feel better. Her social life after Todd's death gave prosecutors even more ammunition. Was she participating in the wet t-shirt contest? Yes. Dana Benton testified about a trip Cynthia, the recent widow, took to Tijuana, just over the border in Mexico. Was she wearing a bra? No. Chantreau Wells was there too.
Starting point is 00:35:10 Did you see the defendant participating in the thong contest? Yes. What did you see her do? She was dancing and at one point had taken her thong off. I understand I did a thong contest and people do it in spring break all the time. I don't think that the actions that I did justify bringing me to trial. Sergeant Summer was a friend of mine. But former Marine Christopher Reed, who spoke at Todd's memorial service,
Starting point is 00:35:35 made things tougher for Cynthia when he testified she had three-way sex with him and his wife shortly after Todd died. Did they have sex with you? Yes. Cynthia was having sex with many Marines in the weeks after Todd's death. Did you spend the night with her and have sex with her? Yes. Did you have sex with her? Yes, ma'am.
Starting point is 00:35:57 It's not just a one-sided thing. I didn't go out to the bar and pick up all these random guys. These were people that I knew. I missed my husband, and I wanted companions companionship and that's how I got it. But Cynthia Sommer believes the case is more about her morality than Todd's murder. And as the case goes to the jury, she is confident. I think it's going really well. I think the trial went really well. It took three days for the jury to reach a verdict. With the jury in the above entitled cause, I find the defendant, Cynthia A. Sommer, guilty of the crime of murder of Todd Summer, a human being in violation of
Starting point is 00:36:46 penal code section 187. It's been so much harder on Todd's family than on anybody else. They didn't like her, they didn't like me. This isn't just a loss to Cynthia's lawyer Bob Udell, it's a devastating blow. I don't know how I'm going to go on. I can't sleep. I don't sleep. I haven't slept all night. I don't know what to do. I'm part of Cindy's nightmare. With a guilty verdict, with any verdict, most cases are over.
Starting point is 00:37:22 But not this one. The biggest surprise is yet to come in the pacific ocean halfway between peru and new zealand lies a tiny volcanic island lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still a virgin. It just happens to all of us.
Starting point is 00:37:58 I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.
Starting point is 00:38:26 Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Ten months after Cynthia was convicted of poisoning her husband, she appeared at her sentencing hearing. She had a brash new lawyer and a bold new strategy. Attorney Alan Bloom asked the judge not to sentence Cynthia, but instead to grant her a new trial. The evidence is incredibly underwhelming in terms of proving that Cindy Summers killed Todd Summers.
Starting point is 00:39:10 Bloom says Cynthia's first lawyer, Bob Udell, made a mountain of errors. The errors that occurred in this case were not harmless. Prosecutor Laura Gunn. It has to be shown that the trial she got was unfair. a gun. It has to be shown that the trial she got was unfair. It is common and understandable in a case like this to want to have a do-over with a better attorney. Lawyers rarely do this, but Bloom puts Udell on the stand. He wants to know why Udell called Cynthia's mother to testify about Cynthia's behavior after Todd died. And she was just sobbing uncontrollably. Bloom argues Cynthia's mother's testimony
Starting point is 00:39:51 about how Cynthia grieved opened the door for prosecutors to present all that testimony about Cynthia's sexual behavior after Todd died. And that turned the tide against her. Ms. Sommer, I think, did not get the result that she wanted, but Your Honor, she should not get a new trial based on what you've heard here today. The judge gets the last word, and everyone in the courtroom is stunned.
Starting point is 00:40:19 And I am going to order that Ms. Summer be allowed to have a new trial. It was a million-to-one shot. Cynthia's family is overjoyed. This puts us back at square one where Cindy has a right to really show her innocence in a full and complete way. way. January 2008, more than a year after Cynthia Summers' murder conviction and almost six years after Todd Summers' death, defense attorney Alan Bloom begins preparing for her retrial. He's eager to attack the prosecutors. They're not supposed to prosecute a crime where there is no crime. That's what happened here. There was no crime.
Starting point is 00:41:06 He will build his case largely on those lab tests he says are faulty because they found arsenic in some of the tissue samples, but not in others. There were lots of problems in this case. There was a fault of going to a laboratory that didn't know how to do the testing. If you're not expert in how to do the testing, you can end up with contamination. Bloom was suspicious about 31 tissue samples listed on Todd Summers' original autopsy report. They were never tested. The central issue is, when did they know about the 31 tissues and when did they know that it might make a difference?
Starting point is 00:41:47 When did they know that those tissues were important? Bloom found out the tissues had been in plain sight for years on a shelf in the autopsy room at the Navy hospital. And what's more, all 31 samples had been preserved in wax. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. Those were not, as you will, fresh samples, so they could have... They were preserved, though, weren't they? They were preserved, but we don't know what impact that preservation would have had,
Starting point is 00:42:16 which is why we didn't test them and which is why the defense probably didn't test them as well. About a month before Cynthia Summers retrial, prosecutors sent the samples to an internationally renowned lab to be tested for arsenic. It was startling information for us to receive. Startling? Startling. We got back the results on those tissues that we tested and it shows no arsenic. No arsenic? How did that happen? Defense experts believe it's more proof that the original tests NCIS ordered on Todd's tissues were botched, that the liver and kidney samples were contaminated with arsenic after he died. NCIS says it won't second-guess the new test results,
Starting point is 00:43:04 but the investigation into Todd Summers' death remains open. Still, when Bonnie DeManis got the latest lab report, she had to make a tough decision. My immediate thought was we have to do the right thing here. And so, without hesitation, just two weeks before Cynthia Summers' new trial was supposed to start, prosecution made an announcement that can only be considered stunning. We concluded that there was reasonable doubt, and therefore the case was dismissed.
Starting point is 00:43:36 Once Dumanis dropped the murder charges, a judge set Cynthia Sommer free. It happened so quickly, Cynthia wasn wasn't there and her lawyer didn't have time to dress for court. The defendant is forthwith discharged from custody as soon as possible. Thank you all. We're in recess. Cynthia didn't know for sure what was happening. She called her mother in Michigan. She said, Mom, do you know what's going on? So I said, well, you're being released. Moments later, Alan Bloom went to the jail,
Starting point is 00:44:21 and Cynthia Sommer, who had been behind bars for 876 days, almost two and a half years, was walking out of jail a free woman. How do you feel? I don't even think words can describe how I feel right now. Jan flew to California the very next day to be with her daughter. It was one of those moments in time that you just, you'll just never, ever forget. And I just hugged her and held on to her for a long time. Given the fact that this case has been dropped,
Starting point is 00:44:54 I'm just trying to get a sense of what you think you might have done wrong. Well, until we go over it, I don't think I can tell you that. You think you did anything wrong? I can't answer that until we look at everything. Eight months after the murder charges were dropped, I can't answer that until we look at everything. So how was basketball last night? Eight months after the murder charges were dropped, Cynthia Sommer was back in Michigan, living life as a busy mom. Well, I'm going back to school, winter term. I'm working two jobs, doing stuff with the kids. She can't erase her past, but she's not bitter.
Starting point is 00:45:27 I think I'm a better person for it. I've certainly grown up because of the things that have happened, and I've certainly learned a lot. That's nice. That one's my favorite. This one is your favorite? Cynthia's children are her focus these days. She lost custody of all four of them when she was arrested for Todd's murder. Her oldest son and daughter rejoined her soon after her release,
Starting point is 00:45:49 but it would take more than a year for Cynthia to regain full custody of her two younger sons. Can you see an end to this? Can you see a point where your life is back to normal? I don't think there's ever going to be a normal as I knew a normal before. I don't want my life how it was before I was arrested. I don't want that. I like my life now and I like who I am today. What about Todd? I mean, do you still think about him at all? All the time. You still miss him? All the time. That hasn't faded at all, your feelings for him?
Starting point is 00:46:29 Not at all. Not at all. I love him. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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