48 Hours - The Curious Case of Colonel Shue

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

In April 2003, Air Force Colonel Philip Shue died in a violent car crash when his vehicle struck trees alongside a Texas interstate highway. After a year-long investigation, all the agencies involved -- the Air Force, and both local and state police -- agreed that Col. Shue had suffered a psychological breakdown and died by suicide. However, Tracy Shue, his widow, was adamant that her husband had been abducted and tortured, and then somehow broken free. “48 Hours" correspondent Troy Roberts reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 10/24/2009. 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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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. It was 1989 in Titusville, Florida. Kim Halleck said she and her ex-boyfriend Chip Flynn were kidnapped and attacked at gunpoint. Kim fled the scene, but Chip didn't make it out alive. Did you kill Chip Flynn? No, ma'am. Crosley Green has lived more than half his life behind bars for a crime he says he didn't commit. I'm Erin Moriarty of 48 Hours, and of all the cases I've covered, this is the one that troubles me most, involving an eyewitness account that doesn't quite make sense. A sister testifying against a brother.

They always say lies. You can't remember lies. A lack of physical evidence and questions about whether Crosley Green was accused, arrested and convicted because he's black. Just because a white female says a black man has committed a crime, we take that as gospel. Listen to Murder in the Orange Grove, The Trouble Case Against Crosley Green, wherever you get your podcasts. My husband was a beautiful, honorable man who served his country for 26 years of his life.

I'm Tracy Shue and my husband was Air Force Colonel Philip Shue. I wanted to give you a little tour of what this place is like. He loved it. He loved the adventure that it offered him. See you later. From Croatia. See you later from Croatia. Colonel Shue gets up in the morning and leaves for work. That particular day he never made it to work. Now we know that there were some eyewitnesses that saw Colonel Shue driving his vehicle on a highway. That's about where he saw him, right here, isn't it?

He went from this right lane over to the left and to the medium. Then he started weaving through the lights. And then this is where he kind of went across the... Right here, started veering off to the right. He went off right, right here. I mean, he hit that tree doing about 60. and i got out to see if i could offer any help there was no response he wasn't coughing he wasn't breathing moaning i mean the man looked dead to me

moaning. I mean, the man looked dead to me. My name is Joseph Mora. I'm a private investigator from Boston, Massachusetts. I was hired by 48 Hours to look into the circumstances involving the death of Colonel Philip Shue. When they first pulled him out of the vehicle, they recognized the fact that his nipples had been cut off. There was slash in his chest. Basically, he was mutilated. From there, there was an investigation done by the local sheriff's department. My name is Roger Anderson. When Colonel Shue died in his car wreck, I was the supervising officer on the investigative case.

There was no way that those wounds were accident related. He said, is there any reason why your husband would have duct tape on his arms and ankles? Somebody had this plan quite well. It was no doubt a homicide. They just didn't grab him, kidnap him, and mutilate him and leave him for dead. People are tortured because they're hated. People are tortured because somebody is angry. Well, I would look at the people that had the most motive for it. Who had the most to gain if he were to die? Some people, a million dollars motivates them pretty well.

The possibility that Colonel Shue could have committed those wounds to himself certainly is there. Philip Shue took his own life. Yes, sir. Military investigators, the medical examiner, the justice of the peace, who all say your husband took his own life. Are they all wrong? Yes. No defects of the scalp and the nasal septum is intact. This is a very bizarre case.

The pupils are on regular and equally zero point. Truly so atypical as to be classified in the unique category. unique category. There's never been any question in my mind that my husband was murdered. Never any doubt. The Curious Case of Colonel Hsu. Tonight's 48 Hours Mystery. We have come today to express our love and support to Tracy and the family and friends of Colonel Philip Michael Shue. In the spring of 2005, Air Force Colonel Philip Michael Shue was laid to rest at Arlington

National Cemetery with full military honors. We've come to affirm the impact he had upon our lives. Shue was 54 when the violent car crash took his life, his vehicle striking some trees alongside a Texas interstate highway not far from San Antonio. I am on behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful nation. I present to you this flag for the faithful service of your husband.

But even as his widow Tracy accepted the traditional trifolded American flag in his honor, even as she left a single white rose on his casket in his memory, she and those closest to him spoke of one final mission for truth. But Philip, know this. While you rest, the mission for truth will continue, and it will be accomplished.

You miss him? I do I do every day I feel like he's with me all the time It all began 15 years before in 1988 when Tracy, then an Air Force nurse, was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. And that's where you met Phillip? Yes. I liked him. I liked him as a person. He was a great doctor. Everybody liked him.

Tracy and Phil, a psychiatrist, soon began dating. Phil was separated, going through a difficult divorce. What did he say about his first wife and their marriage together? He didn't talk a lot about his first wife, other than to say there was not any love in the marriage. In 1993, with the divorce finalized, Phil and Tracy decided to marry. I don't think in my whole life I have ever met somebody who had such a passion for life and just enjoyed the simple things.

He would walk into a room and he would just light it up. People, people loved him. You had a great life together. We did. We did. He brought nothing but joy into my life. I was very happy. Five years later, Phil was reassigned to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. He and Tracy bought a house in nearby Bernie.

We became good friends. Nina Willard is Tracy's nearest neighbor and her closest friend. nearest neighbor and her closest friend. Well, Phil had that Midwestern, very low-key, soft-spoken, mild-mannered, very laid-back. And Tracy was a born-and-bred New Yorker, a little bit more demonstrative, I guess you could say. The friendship developed over the next five years of Phil and Tracy's marriage. Nina had mixed feelings in 2003 when Phil decided to retire from the Air Force. Well, we were sad to see him go. Phil and Tracy had already found their dream house in Alabama, a big place with a pond in back. It was a new adventure, a new chapter in his life. And, I mean, life was just very, very exciting at that moment.

Just one day after putting down a deposit on their new home, early on the morning of April 16, 2003, the colonel dressed in his fatigues and brought Tracy her customary first cup of coffee. We had coffee in bed and typical morning. Normal day? Normal day other than he was getting to work a little early to do some paperwork. We sat there and talked.

We talked about the house and he kissed me goodbye and left and said I love you and those were the last words he said. Two hours later, Colonel Philip Shue was dead. That car caved in on the driver's side and he was apparently killed instantly. Lieutenant Roger Anderson saw pretty quickly that this was more than a car crash. They could see that the T-shirt underneath had been ripped open from the chest to the navel. There was a 6-inch vertical gash in the man's chest and that both nipples had been removed.

There was another very unusual set of findings. They could see on his right wrist what appeared to be duct tape. Both wrists actually were wrapped with duct tape in a similar way. Both had dangling ends. There was also duct tape at the top of his boots. 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 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. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. 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.

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It would take a year of investigation, but in the end, all the agencies involved, the local and state police, even the Air Force, all would come to agree that the death of Philip Hsu, a psychiatrist, was actually the end result of his own bizarre psychological breakdown. A deeply disturbed Philip Hsu had committed suicide. The case is bizarre. Dr. Vincent DeMaio was the chief medical examiner of Bexar County. His office performed the autopsy. What do you know about his emotional state in the

weeks leading up to his death? The information that was provided to the office was that he had been having some problems. He had seen some of his colleagues for depression or panic attacks. DeMaio believes the injuries found on Shu's chest are self-inflicted. You believe that Dr. Shu mutilated himself and went to these bizarre lengths to commit suicide? Based upon the information that was provided, that's the only conclusion. that's the only conclusion. The District Attorney convened an investigative grand jury, 12 citizens sworn to secrecy, and asked them to consider the case.

The grand jury found no evidence of any crime and believed that the ruling of suicide should stand. Tracy is determined to prove that her husband did not commit suicide, but that it was murder. I couldn't allow such an injustice to have happened, not only to a wonderful person, but a person that I loved. So what did you make of the duct tape around your husband's wrists and ankles and the excised nipples and the gash in his chest. That he had been abducted and tortured. That was the only explanation. What other explanation could there be?

But if Shu had been kidnapped and then bound and tortured and then somehow managed to escape, Demayo wonders why didn't he seek help? If you had been tortured like that and you had broken free, where would you go? You would go to either the police or a hospital. But he was driving away from San Antonio and the hospitals. He passed three of the exits to his own town, Bernie. He had a working cell phone.

I mean, this action is not consistent with someone fleeing an assailant. There's just no way. He wouldn't have done that. He wouldn't have done it to Tracy. As painful as it is to even think about it, have you ever even entertained the notion that your husband committed suicide that day?

No. Never? No. Never. No. Never? No. Never. In your opinion, Dr. Hsu was a deeply psychologically troubled man. I would think by the actions, he had to have been a troubled man. Dr. Vincent DeMaio believes the evidence strongly supports suicide, but you have to look for it.

These wounds were self-inflicted. For example, an anesthetic called lidocaine was found in Shu's system. It would have to have been injected in each nipple and in the middle of the chest. DeMaio concludes Shu injected himself with the drug to avoid pain. If you're going to torture somebody by mutilating them,

are you going to give them an anesthetic to prevent them from feeling pain? That's the thing that doesn't make any sense. Was Dr. DeMaio's investigation flawed? Yes. And flawed is a very polite word. She doesn't believe this was a suicide. That's absolutely perfectly reasonable. Her reaction is normal.

And her view of the case is distorted by her love. To take on Dr. DeMaio's findings, Tracy hired her own doctor, world-renowned pathologist Cyril Wecht. Manner of death undetermined. Wecht has provided his expertise in many high-profile cases, ranging from the assassination of President Kennedy to the death of Anna Nicole Smith. On one key point, Wecht actually agrees with DeMaio. I have never seen a case as bizarre,

as atypical as this one. But Dr. Wecht, who did his own autopsy on Tracy's husband, is highly critical of Dr. DeMille's conclusion of suicide. We have no injection site identified in the original autopsy, no needle or syringe found either, and no cutting instrument of any kind to be attributed to Colonel Shue. Wecht says the lidocaine levels were not high enough for Shue to numb himself from the pain and that there's no evidence to show Shue cut his own chest. There's an equally plausible scenario to such marks

and they're called torture. Dr. Weck believes someone else was involved in Colonel Shue's death. His fingerprints were not found on the duct tape. And no gloves were found. I would place my bet that this was a homicide. So the question remains, who would go to such lengths to kill your husband? And why? You would have to ask the person who did it.

And who was that person? If I was going to identify a person of interest, definitely that's where an investigation starts. The person Tracy is cautiously referring to is Philip Shue's first wife, Nancy. Nancy. Absolutely. Absolutely. Philip and Nancy Shue's 20-year marriage ended in 1992. In a bitter settlement battle, Nancy received the right to own insurance policies on Phil's life. They were worth $1 million.

policies on Phil's life. They were worth $1 million. Beginning in the late 90s, Shue started demanding that Nancy cancel the policies. But she refused, saying she couldn't afford to. Did he ever say that he was fearful of Nancy? Or what she was capable of?

After he got the letter, yes. The letter. It came as an anonymous warning saying, you may be in danger. The typewritten note, which also advises Shue to please be careful, is one of several Shue told Tracy he received. It was an anonymous letter that said,

essentially, that a person overheard a conversation between Nancy Shue and Donald Timpson, her current husband. At the time of Phil Shue's death, Donald Timpson was an active duty Air Force pilot. And they were plotting, I believe, to have him murdered for the insurance money. Shue wrote to his ex-wife Nancy, confronting her about the warning he'd reportedly received, again insisting she cancel the life insurance, adding,

I feel helpless to prevent my eventual murder if you hire good assassins. What did Nancy say about the allegations in these notes? She said that she was not responsible. Nancy wrote back, this may have been someone's terribly sick idea of a game or a joke. I am not any further involved and never was.

Shu tried canceling the policy, but the insurance company told him he couldn't. They told him that she owned the policy and therefore she had total authority over that policy. They could not cancel it. He'd been given these threats. Correct. Did he fear for his life? Yes. That fear never left him. He didn't know what to do. He felt that he tried everything, every avenue to try and address this, including his ex-wife. And it was a brick wall. He couldn't control it. Tracy says the stress began to take its toll. Never before had he ever, ever showed any symptoms of depression or panic or anxiety.

showed any symptoms of depression or panic or anxiety. This was a happy, healthy man who loved life until that first letter arrived. Tracy believes the nature of Phil's injuries provides another lead. Court documents show that Nancy was a board-certified sex therapist who, among other things, had studied the practice of sadomasochism. Do you believe that your husband was tortured by someone familiar with sadomasochistic techniques? I believe that the injuries that he sustained are consistent with an act of sadism. And they certainly are sexual in nature. Forgive me, but I have to ask this question. Did your husband have an interest in this fetish himself?

No, he did not. And it's interesting that you would ask that question because you are actually the first person out of the entire five-year time frame that has ever asked me that question. And I do believe it is an appropriate question to ask. Nancy Hsu told Air Force investigators that on the day Philip Hsu died in the Texas car crash, both she and Don Timpson could prove they were seen at work in Florida.

Nancy added that she believed Phil and Tracy might have fabricated the warning letter. Nancy Shue refused to take a polygraph. And ma'am, would you just state your full name for the record? Nancy Louise Shue. Two months after her husband died, Tracy filed a civil lawsuit with Nancy Hsu as a defendant seeking to prevent Nancy from collecting the million-dollar death benefit.

Two insurance companies, USAA and Northwestern Mutual, were also named as defendants. Tracy claimed they had been warned about the threat on her husband's life and therefore had a legal duty to cancel the policies. Were you responsible for the death of Colonel Philip Shue? On the advice of counsel and pursuant to the Fifth Amendment of the United States... As part of the lawsuit, Tracy's lawyers demanded that Nancy answer their questions. But she took the fifth. demanded that Nancy answer their questions.

But she took the fifth. Ma'am, did you discuss with Don Timpson a plot to murder Colonel Philip Shue for insurance purposes? On the advice of counsel and pursuant to the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States... Nancy Shue took the fifth more than 20 times, refusing to answer any questions about murder or motives or torture. Ma'am, were you involved in the torture of Colonel Philip Sheehan? On the advice of counsel and pursuant to the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution.

Why not talk to investigators? If you had absolutely nothing to do with this, why not be open and honest with investigators? I assert my right against self-incrimination and refuse to answer this question on the grounds that... Why not sit for a deposition? Why not come into Kendall County and sit in a courtroom and say, I had nothing to do with this? I assert my right against self-incrimination

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and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Bosnia, 1995. American military personnel are part of a bloody, often brutal, peacekeeping effort. As a psychiatrist, Air Force Colonel Philip Shue is there to treat those in need. But his thoughts were never far from home. Shue, shown here in video he sent home from Bosnia to his wife Tracy,

Shown here in video he sent home from Bosnia to his wife Tracy. Picture of Tracy right here, which keeps me going throughout most of this. Seemed a picture of happiness, content with both his career and his marriage. Phil's new life with Tracy seemed so much better than his old one with Nancy. He was very relieved to be out of that marriage. What did she want? Everything, and she got, pretty much got everything. He did say that she liked to spend a lot of money. He would say it that way, money that they didn't have.

By 1999, with the divorce now seven years old, Phil and Tracy thought they had little reason to worry about Nancy. But all that changed with the arrival of that first letter, warning of the plot to have the colonel killed. Did you really believe these threats were real? Yes. Yes. But it's so cloak and dagger and something out of a movie. Yes, it is.

It is. Why didn't your husband call the police? We as military members are clearly trained to first go through our chain of command. It's drummed into us from day one. And what did they do? What did the military do? What they did or did not do to investigate this, I don't know. And I don't think I'll ever be privileged to that information.

But the military did issue this report that turned out to be the single most damning evidence of suicide. It's a 20-page document called a psychological autopsy. a 20-page document called a psychological autopsy. Produced two years after Shue's death, it concludes that Colonel Shue had become depressed, irrational, even paranoid in the months before he died. The report questions whether the warning letter was real, and it finds no evidence of another person being involved in Colonel Shue's death.

In a videotape deposition, the report's principal author, Dr. Gerald Donovan, says it all adds up to suicide. You've come to the conclusion, in your opinion, that on the date of his death that he was suicidal. Correct. I've come to the conclusion that he committed suicide. Dr. Donovan declined our request for an interview. However, Colonel Shu's own doctor, the psychiatrist who was treating him at the time of his death,

Dr. Douglas Dion, insists Shu was not suicidal. Dr. Dion went on record for us, but not on camera. He says Shu was responding to treatment and getting better. But Dr. Dion also told us that six months before he died, Xu had experienced a dark and disturbing dream, a dream in which he imagined, quote, his car went out of control on the way to work. Great violence was done to him.

Your husband did suffer from psychiatric problems. My husband suffered from what I would consider a psychological injury. And that was the traumatic stress that he suffered from the threat on his life. This was something that was triggered by a specific event. Nevertheless, the psychological autopsy findings clearly hurt Tracy's cause that this is a murder case. You have to look at all aspects of the case. In this particular situation, how severe was the psychological problem?

Private investigator Joe Mora has worked cases for 48 hours before. Everything from a complex murder mystery in Chicago to a child abduction investigation in Portugal. We brought him to Bernie to evaluate the shoe case. I had access to all the reports that were provided on the official record here. Hey, Joe Mora. We also spoke to the two young men who were the eyewitnesses to the actual accident on I-10.

Moore met at length with Roger Anderson, the lead investigator on the case. We've got a dead body. We've got mutilation on that body. Moore found that Roger Anderson now admits he lost control of the investigation, beginning with a jurisdictional beef with the state police right at the crash site. I couldn't get their attention. Finally, I yelled, screamed at them, get the hell out of my crime scene. And that got their attention, but it also made them mad at me. Would it be fair to say at this point in time your investigation is going down the toilet?

At this point in time, the investigation has been severely hampered. Severely hampered. Important evidence may have been lost. Important leads may have been ignored. They didn't preserve the scene. They didn't preserve the vehicle. So it wasn't handled as if it had been a crime scene or that a crime took place someplace else. But do you believe that evidence was tampered with?

I don't believe evidence was tampered with. What I believe is they didn't preserve the evidence. He was the one who had the experience to really follow up on this investigation. And I think today he regrets it. And he knows he was wrong. He blames himself. I am guilty. I was in charge of the investigation. and I think today he regrets it, and he knows he was wrong. He blames himself. I am guilty. I was in charge of the investigation.

There's a lot of fault to go around, but in the end, it's mine. Anderson is now one of Tracy Shue's biggest supporters. He's haunted by the results of the investigation. Why does it bother you so much? Because there's absolutely too many unanswered questions. If there had been a true investigation in this case, I assure you this would never have been put down as a suicide. In your opinion, there was sloppy police work in the initial days of the investigation. There was no investigation, and I really want to emphasize that.

There was no investigation. Joe Mora also doesn't think highly of that critical psychological autopsy prepared for the Air Force. I got a 20-page report here from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. I read this once. I read it twice. I read it three times. And I'm saying to myself, where's the evidence? Did anybody from the Air Force come and talk to you guys?

No, sir. Never had no contact. You never contacted? It's all assumptions. It's theories. There's not one bit of scientific evidence that anybody can show me that would clearly show that Colonel Shue committed suicide. Moore says what little evidence there is points to money and to anger as possible motives for murder.

People do crazy things. People do crazy things when it comes to money. That's not to say that Nancy Hsu was involved in this. Did you intend to kill Colonel Philip Hsu one day to collect those proceeds? On the advice of counsel and pursuant to the fifth amendment... All I'm saying, she had the opportunity to tell her story. To clear her name of any suspicion, she took the fifth.

Did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Five years after her husband's death, Tracy Shue takes some comfort in the peace and quiet of the garden she has lovingly created and cared for in his memory. She has never wavered in her belief that her husband did not commit suicide. It was a murder and should have been declared so five years ago. In June 2008, Tracy Shue finally got her day in court.

The civil lawsuit she filed was at long last ready for trial, but with some major changes. Most dramatically, Nancy Shue was dropped as a defendant. So was one of the insurance companies. Only USAA Insurance remained as a defendant. In her lawsuit, Tracy Hsu insisted the company was liable for damages because it had refused to cancel the policy. The official finding that Shue committed suicide did not affect the payment of his life insurance benefits. I refuse to answer this question on the ground. Phil Shue's first wife, Nancy, received $1 million.

His second wife, Tracy, received $1.8 million. I still believe, and to this day I believe, that a crime had been committed against this man prior to that traffic accident. Lead investigator Roger Anderson now has a theory on what really happened to Colonel Philip Shue. I think he was intercepted on the way to work. I think somebody was laying for him. They had planned to intercept him, to take him into custody, take him to some location unknown.

I think they intended to terrorize the man. It would appear that Colonel Shue was able to tear away the bonds that were restricting him and to get to his vehicle and attempt to escape. That's the most reasonable conclusion I can come to. I can't prove even one part of it. Anderson's a stand-up guy. Anderson knew from the word go, and he's had to live with it, okay, that this was no suicide. Our investigator Joe Morris says that once the crash scene was

compromised, theories are about all that's left. There's a lot more evidence to support the theory that this was a case where this man was abducted versus a case of suicide. Is it possible that he may have staged this attack and accidentally killed himself that day? Anything's possible, Troy. Could I sit here with you and tell you absolutely unequivocally that that's not a possibility?

I can't do that. As the court case begins, the town of Burney settles in for what's expected to be a two-month trial. Whatever Tracy may lack in the way of strong evidence, she has plenty of support. Well, the crime scene couldn't have been messed up anymore if they tried to mess it up. George Brown, a lifelong friend of Phil's, served as police chief in several Ohio communities. His experience as a career cop causes him to question the official findings.

experience as a career cop causes him to question the official findings. Just to arbitrarily say, yeah, that's a suicide without doing a little investigative work, I, as I sit here today, can't figure out why it would happen. But just before George Brown is scheduled to testify, the trial takes a major and unexpected turn. Judge Bill Palmer dismisses the jurors and announces that the parties have reached an agreement. The judge will decide the case on his own. Given what Tracy had gone through, she was prepared.

She's always prepared for the worst. Jason Davis is Tracy Shue's lawyer. So she was prepared for whatever came out of the judge's mouth. Cameras were not permitted in the courtroom during the Shue trial. But later, Judge Palmer did agree to read

his ruling for us. USAA Life Insurance owed no duties to Colonel Philip Shue or to his wife Tracy Shue related to Colonel Philip Shue's death. Therefore, a take-nothing judgment is rendered in favor of USAA in this matter. Palmer finds the insurance company, USAA, did nothing wrong in refusing to cancel the policy owned by Colonel Shue's first wife Nancy, but it's the judge's other ruling that shocks the courthouse.

Well it was tense. Her friends, her family, her neighbors, the investigators, and many more people were in that courtroom. People that have supported Tracy. It was a tense moment. People that have supported Tracy. It was a tense moment. The evidence considered by the court substantiates a finding that Colonel Philip Shue was murdered. The court therefore finds that the April 16, 2003 death of Colonel Philip Shue was a homicide. You feel vindicated today. I do. I do. Absolutely. It's given me finally a sense of peace. Just to hear the judge actually declare this what it was. It was a murder.

And the murderers need to be brought to justice. After Judge Palmer's ruling at Tracy and Phil's house in Burney, there's a subdued sense of justice. Five years ago, April 16th was a horrific day. Today's a joyous day. An honorable, beautiful, decent, kind man. To Philip. For man. To Philip. For Phil. To Philip.

To Philip. It makes me happy that we're standing here today with the judge having done the right thing. I salute Tracy and all of her friends and family. Today's a good day. What has this journey done to you? I'm sure now I'm a different person in a lot of ways. How?

I don't know. It just changes you. I think I'm a stronger person having gone through it. I think I'm a more spiritual person having gone through this. You have to be in order to survive it. Do you think this case will ever be resolved? Probably not. That's sad, isn't it? But I tell you what, there was a judge who agrees with me.

And right sitting on the bench, he said this was not suicide, this was homicide. But in his ruling that Shue's death is a homicide, Judge Palmer did not point a finger specifically at anyone, including Nancy Shue. ...to the Fifth Amendment and the Constitution of the United States. Throughout our preparation for this program, we wanted to hear from Nancy Hsu to get her side of the story, but she has declined our repeated requests. The answers may not be forthcoming, but the questions remain. I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that any answer might incriminate me.

No law enforcement agency has ever named Nancy Hsu or her husband as a suspect or as a person of interest in the case. There's no new evidence to this point right now for us to say we're going to open the case. The Sheriff's Department has no plans to investigate. And despite Judge Palmer's order to change Colonel Shue's death certificate from suicide to homicide, Kendall County officials have refused to do so, questioning the judge's authority to make that determination. I may never know exactly what happened that morning.

I'm hoping that this case is opened by a federal prosecutor and that it should have been at a federal level to begin with. and that it should have been at a federal level to begin with. For Tracy, the judge's ruling is just a starting point, a new beginning. But for the moment, she needs some time to heal. I think right now I'm able toery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.