Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Astronaut Love Triangle Leads to Murder Plot?

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

Lisa Marie Nowak seemed to have it all. She was an American aeronautical engineer, a former United States Navy captain, naval flight officer and, test pilot Nowak was selected by NASA to be aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. She was also a wife, mother, and mistress. Nowak had an affair with colleague William Oefelein in 2004. Oefelein, ultimately, divorced and Nowak separated from her husband. Oefelein, however, met someone new, Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman, and the trail toward a murder plot begins. Nowak devises a plan and embarks on a 900-mile car trip, taking with her what's described as a kill kit. Investigators find hundreds of dollars in cash, mase, a knife, rubber tubing, gloves, a BB gun, a mallet, a CD containing images of bondage scenes, and diapers.Joining Nancy Grace today: Ashley Willcott - Judge and Trial Attorney, Anchor on Court TV, www.ashleywillcott.com  Dr. Shari Schwartz, Forensic Psychologist (specializing in Capital Mitigation and Victim Advocacy), www.panthermitigation.com, Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrialDoc, Author: "Criminal Behavior" and "Where Law and Psychology Intersect: Issues in Legal Psychology" Sheryl McCollum - Forensic Expert & Cold Case Investigative Research Institute Founder, ColdCaseCrimes.org Kimberly C. Moore - Investigative Reporter, The Ledger (Lakeland, Florida), Covered Lisa Nowak’s criminal case for Florida Today, Author: "Star Crossed: The Story of Astronaut Lisa Nowak" on Amazon, @KMooreTheLedger Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Just recently, both of my twins, now age 13, took part in a countrywide scout activity. And it was online. And part of it included speaking with a real live astronaut. It led us down to NASA to tour the facilities there. Both of the twins ran around trying to actually see and or touch a real astronaut. So when you think of an astronaut, you think of the very, very best our country has to offer, right? You don't really think of them driving cross-country in an adult diaper to wreak havoc on a love rival.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. It is a haunting situation. Alone, late at night in a deserted Orlando airport parking lot with a stranger in pursuit. Are you walking quickly? Yes, at a fast pace, you know, speed walking like you read about. So you think you're being pursued yeah oh definitely oh i knew it closing fast is a figure wearing a trench coat and a large black wig how far is the car 10 spots down maybe but to you it was like a mile away death situation. Get to the car. I get to the car and I got myself

in there and locked the door and just as I was locking the door she was up under the handle and trying to open the door. Right there is the first clue that this is no ordinary carjacking and Colleen Shipman's assailant isn't just any woman. Sounds like a straight out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. You're at the airport. It's late at night. You can almost hear the steps going down, those cement parking deck steps. And to your car, it's super dark. And in the distance, you see a woman in a trench coat and a big black wig coming right behind you. It really does sound like a nightmare. You get in your car, you hit that lock button,

and then the next thing you know is you hear her trying to open the door handle. It sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie, but it's real. You were just hearing our friends at ABC speaking to a young woman, Colleen Shipman. Let me introduce you an all-star panel making sense of what we know happened. First of all, judge, trial lawyer, Court TV anchor, Ashley Wilcott at ashleywilcott.com. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist, and boy, do we need a shrink. You can find her at PantherMitigation.com. And Dr. Sherry is the author of Criminal Behavior, Where Law and Psychology Intersect.

Cheryl McCollum, founder and director of the Cold Case Research Institute and forensic expert. And you can find her at ColdCaseCrimes.org. But first, to Kimberly C. Moore, investigative reporter with The Ledger in Lakeland Florida she's been on this case from the very very beginning and she is the author of Star Crossed the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak and that's on Amazon and you can find her at K Moore The Ledger Haymore, the ledger. Okay, you know, I know you heard that first intro about Colleen Shipman getting off a plane late at night at the Orlando airport. We've all been there many, many times. Kimberly Moore, take a listen to this. Did you know who she was? No, no idea.

No clue. I figured she was just, you know, a criminal, you know, just a criminal doing a random crime. Police arrive quickly and arrest her attacker. But hours later at the police station, Colleen Shipman's confusion is only heightened when she spots a NASA photo ID laying on the desk of the detective. I heard the word astronaut in the hallway and I'm thinking this woman has stolen an astronaut's ID card and he said does the name Lisa Nowak mean anything to you and I was like gosh you know. In fact Lisa Nowak is a star of the U.S. space

program. Like all astronauts she's an American hero of epic proportions. We feel like we've done all the tests and met the objectives, and we feel like the whole program is back on track. Wow. Okay. You know, an aside, Cheryl McCollum, growing up on a red dirt road in middle Georgia the first time I thought I saw a real astronaut was on I Dream of Jeannie. Do you remember?

She was a Jeannie that would come out of a bottle and she had a crush on an astronaut. Do you remember that? Absolutely, yes. He always wore that beautiful uniform. Yes, him or her. But long story short, the astronauts were somebody you looked up to, that stories were written about.

You grew up wanting to be an astronaut boy did that get bass-ackwards in this case Kimberly Seymour investigative reporter with the ledger author of star-crossed that's a great title by the way the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak Kimberly who is Lisa Nowak she was a hero up until this point now her name is forever synonymous with adult diapers. Well, and honestly, they were actually toddler-sized diapers with a cartoon character on them. And she had about. Okay, wait, wait, wait.

What did you just say? I said they were toddler-sized diapers because, like you, she had twin girls. She still has twin girls. They're in high school now. And she had about 50 clean toddler size diapers in the trunk of her car. And when the detective searched her car, he found two used diapers in a garbage bag behind the driver's seat. And she had told him, according to the detective, Chris Becton, that she slid these under herself during this trip so she wouldn't have to make these frequent stops. And he and I both think that actually she used them so she wouldn't be seen at, you know, rest stops or McDonald's bathrooms. Mm hmm. You know, that reminds me of Kimberly Moore, Jodi Arias.

Remember Ashley Wilcott, judge, trial lawyer, court TV anchor that Jodi Arias, another killer girlfriend from hell straight from the devil's bedroom. Let me tell you, Jodi Arias crosses the desert with cans of gas in her car tank so she won't be spotted getting gas at a gas station. She left no trail getting to her lover, Travis Alexander's home, so she could kill him. Remember that? I do, Nancy. I do remember that. And you're right. Taking any measures, any lengths in order to make certain there were no stops, couldn't be traced. What's that called?

Oh, yeah, premeditated. Back to you, Kimberly. And actually, this astronaut did a couple of other things in terms of that. She stayed at a hotel in Dapuniac Springs, Florida, which is way up in the panhandle. It's just a little spot on the map. And she used an assumed name. It was a fake name. She paid cash.

She had printed out all these maps to get her from Houston to Orlando. And she printed out a set of them. And then she hand wrote on them you know to print them out again but no tolls so she didn't want to go through the toll booth ah so she got maps to avoid the tolls and listen i know exactly where defuniac springs is and if you do not want to be spotted that's a good place to go uh little known fact my father was born in Hey, Cody. I think it's an Indian name. And nobody knows where that is. Hey, Cody, Alabama. It's as I always say, it's near Op, which is near Enterprise, which is near Mobile. I have to keep going from city to city to city till there's some

kind of glint of recognition. So yes, I know exactly where you're talking about. Believe me, Kimberly Moore, and of course, you know more about it than I do. You literally wrote the book. She picked Diffuniac Springs to hide out overnight because she knew nobody would find her there. Well, and I'm wondering if Diffuniac Springs held some kind of special memory for her because she and her husband went through flight training together at Pensacola Naval Air Station. But then they did survival training near Punyak Springs. So I don't know if that was the first place that they stayed. OK, let me understand something, Kimberly Seymour. Now, I know you're a renowned investigative reporter, but you really think she was thinking about her husband on this trek this odyssey well I I'm I'm not uh

mentally ill uh I like to think so um and she was so it's hard to crawl into the mind of somebody who has lost their mind. But, you know, Kimberly, this woman was literally a hero. Yes, she was. An astronaut hero, one of the first women astronauts pioneering astronautical journeys as one of the first females. So it's amazing to me that she ends up like this. Guys, take a listen to our friend Dave McDaniel at West Hill. You think about a cross-country trip by car to apparently confront a romantic rival who was coming in on a flight from the same city that you drove in from. And you have all these disguises, supposedly. And you're talking

about an astronaut, somebody who has an occupation of such high esteem, going to an airport to supposedly confront the other woman. Then you got prosecutors saying that a good part of the scheme caught on camera. Roughly 12.30 in the morning, February 5th, 2007, the airport terminal video seems to show Lisa Nowak settling in. Just after 1.10, she wanders in front of the security camera wearing a jacket, hat, and wig. Her romantic rival, Colleen Shipman, was apparently to land any minute. Ten minutes later, Shipman with the blue backpack walks toward baggage claim. Nowak keeps her distance but trails behind her. And it's all caught on video. Listen to more. Down the stairs, both women go. Later, we see Shipman waiting for

her luggage, while a few feet away, Lisa Nowak also waits. A minute or two later, we see Nowak buttoning up a trench coat. Shipman told police the woman who came after her with pepper spray was wearing a trench coat. Shipman's luggage is delayed, so this plays out another two hours. As Shipman walks to baggage claim a second time at a quarter after three in the morning, Nowak apparently again follows, this time putting some sort of scarf over her head, knocking off her hat, but she doesn't stop to get it. The last shot on the tape, a person in a trench coat running past the doors in the area where buses take people to remote airport parking lots. And it was in one of those parking lots where Colleen Shipman alleges that Lisa Nowak came after her.

Wow, of course. Here, the luggage delay plays into the entire scenario. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. We are talking about one of the most famous astronauts, a female astronaut, that now is more infamous than famous. So, Kimberly Moore joining us, investigative reporter. When you're stuck there at the airport and you're waiting on your luggage, there was a two hour delay. Certainly, Colleen Shipman had to notice this woman in a wig and a hat everywhere she turned around. There was the woman. Well, she didn't notice her in the airport, Colleen. You know, her bag was about two,

two and a half hours late. And so she went to Starbucks, she got a hot chocolate and something to eat. And then she walked around the airport a little while and, you know, all the whole time Lisa is watching her and she curled up on a bench and put her backpack under her head and took a nap at one point. And she later told the judge she would have welcomed some company because Lisa Nowak told the detective, told the judge she just wanted to talk to Colleen. Well, she had two hours to walk up to her in the nice, you know, air conditioned airport and go talk to her. And instead she stopped her through the airport. They got on the same bus together to go out to the blue lot. And Colleen noticed her on the bus

because Lisa Nowak is a very petite woman, just like Colleen. And her jeans were rolled up on the bottom. And Colleen remembers thinking, you know, I feel her pain. I have to roll up jeans myself and noticed her humongous 1980s glasses. And the thing that really stuck out for her is that this woman had on layers of clothes like you would wear up north in the dead of winter. And it was early February in Florida, but it was kind of a nice evening. It wasn't freezing cold, although it can get freezing cold here. So she gets off the bus and the bus driver helped Colleen Shipman off the bus and then noticed that her cell phone was sitting in the seat and the bus driver got it for her and handed it to her.

Lisa Nowak never said a word to either one of them. And she got off the bus and Colleen is walking to her car and she can hear the swish, swish, swish of Lisa's pants kind of rubbing against each other. And she noticed Lisa's just kind of wandering through the parking lot not really aiming toward a car or anything and so and then she could hear her running up behind her and so uh colleen threw her backpack in the back of uh back seat of her car she jumped in she locked the door and uh suddenly there's this woman slapping at her window and pulling at the door handle trying to get in. Can you swear on this show? Yes.

Okay. So Colleen Shipman looks up and says, holy lady, you know, you scared the out of me. And she, Lisa Nowak said, can you give me a ride? My boyfriend isn't here to pick me up. And Colleen, you know, said, you know, I will go and get you some help. And in the back of her mind, she's thinking, why is her boyfriend picking her up in the parking lot, not at the airport terminal? And so Lisa Nowak said, can I use your phone? And Colleen's phone was dead, thankfully, because Colleen might be dead if it hadn't been. So she held up her phone and showed

it to her and she said, it's dead. And Lisa said, what? I can't hear you. And she kind of started to cry and said, could you please help me? And Colleen went to roll her window down just a little bit. But it's one of those cars, it was a Saturn, where if you touch the button, it just went all the way down. And Colleen caught it before it went all the way down. But it went down just enough where Lisa Nowak pulled a can of pepper spray out and pepper sprayed Colleen Shipman. To Dr. Sherry Schwartz, forensic psychologist, joining us at panthermitigation.com. And she is an expert in criminal behavior. And it's actually written the book on that. Dr. Sherry Schwartz, thank you for being with us. It's amazing how we as humans have this intuition that something is not quite right. We may not realize immediately that we are in peril, but all of our senses scream something is off kilter.

To what do you attribute that? Well, that's our fight or flight response. I remember when I was in college, one of my professors called it lizard brain because she sees a woman struggling and crying in front of her and she wants to help her. And this is very often how female victims of crime get into trouble. From empathy. You're so right, Dr. Sherry Schwartz. Again, to you, Cheryl McCollum, you and Ashley and I have discussed many, many times that feeling. I've spoken to so many crime victims and their families, crime victims that have an extreme sense of foreboding that something's not exactly right before they become a victim. And crime victims' families that separated in time and space have a sense of foreboding that something is going wrong. I don't know what that is, but I wouldn't dismiss it as a hunch or a gut feeling. I really believe, Cheryl, it is a sense that we have not yet identified as one of the senses, such as touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing.

But something born thousands and thousands of years, millions of years of evolution. I think it's a very significant. Oh, I do, too. And fortunately, this victim listened to it. She didn't ignore it and say, gosh, this poor woman is stuck here. She's asking for help. I'm going to help her. If she had let that woman into her vehicle, she would be dead. She had cash. She had printed out emails that she spent hours reading, printed them out to bring them with her. She had pepper spray. She had a knife, Nancy, a rubber mallet.

She had gloves. I mean, this was going to be a horrible ending if she had allowed that to happen. And the emails were regarding what, Cheryl McCollum? The relationship between the victim and the astronaut's former boyfriend. So she breaks into his house and starts reading all these emails about how they. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, whoa, wait. Lisa Nowak, the astronaut breaks into boyfriend Bill Otheline, a.k.a. Billy O., also an astronaut, home. And what?

Starts reading emails. Can I interject something here? She actually had a key. Jump in. She had a key to his apartment that he had given to her. Well, that was stupid right there. Well, they were dating. Well, she used the key he gave her, but he didn't want her there. They were done.

So she used the key that she shouldn't have used at that time to read emails. She absolutely had no business reading that I think further flipped her out. Right. You know, Ashley Wilcott, could somebody surprise me one time? Another love triangle. You know, I don't get it. I guess I'm going to go to the shrink after you, Ashley. And I mean that in a loving, caring way, Dr. Sherry Schwartz.

But Ashley, another love triangle attacked by another killer girlfriend. Listen, if the guy's dating somebody else, leave. Who wants him? You know, that's what I've told my children. When you grow up and you have a boyfriend slash girlfriend or whatever, don't chase them. Because what do you do when somebody chases you? Run. Don't chase them.

You want another woman? Fine. Have at it. I mean, I don't get it. Well, and you should also think more of yourself. Well, you should think more of yourself, right? If somebody doesn't want you, guess what? Okay, then I don't want you either because I think enough of myself to realize I deserve to be with somebody who wants to be with me.

And like you said, leave them. And plus, Ashley, if somebody didn't want to be with you, they're clearly insane. And you don't need their doctor bills, okay? Did I hear Sherry Schwartz jumping in? Yeah, I was laughing. But this is really no laughing matter um you know i understand well i'm happy because in this case it's a rarity for me and we're we're doing a jig here in the studio because the victim actually lived this time yeah this is a huge moment of celebration for us, Dr. Sherry Schwartz, because typically by the time it gets on Crime Stories, you're looking at a funeral.

And we're not today. So I'm happy about this. But it's this close. You're right. It's very serious. Go ahead. Well, I understand, you know, there was a lot. I remember the case, actually, because I live in Florida.

But there was a lot of talk at the time. And even now through Kimberly Moore's book, which is very good. I haven't gotten through it completely yet, but it's very good. Thank you. About her being mentally ill and seriously mentally ill. People don't have the they're not able to be that organized in their thinking to be able to do all of the planning that she did. And there's so many points in the planning, the disguise to getting in the car, to all the weapons that she had with her and all the things, stopping in Defuniac Springs that speak to, there's probably some mental health issue there, more likely a personality disorder. And this rage that's directed at Ms. Colleen Shipman, this sounds to me more like narcissistic

rage. Now, I've never met Lisa Nowak. I don't really know all of the ins and outs of her psychopathology, but narcissistic rage is this outburst of intense anger. And it doesn't have to be screaming and yelling. It could be silent simmering. But what happens is somebody who has a narcissistic personality disorder, they have this exaggerated or overly inflated sense of their own self-importance. And so when they're told no, they don't like that. And Lisa Nowak was someone who was rarely told no. She had to work very hard, I'm sure, to ascend to the level that she did. But she was rarely told no. And so when she's being told no, if you have this level of narcissism, well, that is unacceptable.

Because you have this inflated sense of self-importance. You think that you are the best of the best. How dare this woman get in my way? I'm going to fix it. And her way of thinking it was to bring harm. crime stories with nancy grace kimberly moore i want to hear a little bit about no x background how she worked her way all the way up to become one of the first female astronauts okay and I do have her psychiatric evaluations and I'll go over in just a second, her diagnosis. So she was co-valedictorian of Charles Woodward High School

in 1981. She was at the top of her class. She went to the Naval Academy in 1981, and that was a time when not very many women went. And so I'm sure there was hazing involved. I know there's kind of an infamous story among her classmates. Once you arrive at the Naval Academy, they cut your hair, they give you your uniform as a plea, and then you take all your stuff that they've given you they give you a duffel bag and um you go up to your room and it took her an hour to find her room in uh i believe it's bancroft hall which houses all of um theshipmen. So she graduated in 1985 and, excuse me, became a naval lieutenant. And she went to flight training in Pensacola. She eventually learned how to fly 30 different

kinds of aircraft, including experimental aircraft. And in 1995, she and 2,500 other people applied to become an astronaut. 120 were chosen for interviews. And then in 1996, she was selected for that astronaut class. And that astronaut class actually included a couple of people who died on the space shuttle Columbia. The only woman that she really was ever truly close to was Dr. Laurel Clark, who perished on board Columbia. And, you know, and Lisa sat in her living room with her son and watched this happen on NASA TV. And she, you know, she and the other astronauts knew what had happened. And they knew that their friends had died. Because there just was no way to survive that. So at the time, I believe her son was about nine or 10 years old. And she also had twin girls, and so she was the mom of three children. She was running the household by herself because I believe her husband was deployed after the 9-11 horrible incident. So, you know, she had a lot of pressure.

She was also the family liaison officer for Laurel Clark's family, helping them fill out the paperwork, which, you know, there's mounds and mounds of paperwork when anyone dies. But, you know, here we have astronauts. And Laurel Clark had a son who was about her own son's age, and she looked after him and took care of him. Wow. So she's super mom and an astronaut. Right. And so much more. You mentioned it took her an hour to get to her room at the Naval Academy. What's the significance of that? She had no sense of direction. And, you know, in the past, I used to think that only dumb people got lost. But I have a very good friend. She's one of the smartest people I know. And she could not find her way out of a wet paper bag. You know, I've been reading about that just recently,

and apparently it has something physical, as it's the way you're hardwired. Either you are a good pathfinder or you're not. And it's kind of genetic. There's really nothing you can do about it, I guess. Hence, all the maps she had. So this incredible woman is in the middle of a love triangle. Take a listen to our friends at ABC Cut 8. But in previously unreleased audio recordings of her interrogation obtained by 2020,

she hints at her affections for the same man. You were the companion, but now you're not. I still feel like I'm a companion. by 2020. She hints at her affections for the same man. Just weeks earlier, O-Flyne, also known as Billy O, piloted a shuttle home from the space station. But now he may face an even greater challenge, navigating the perils of Lisa and Colleen. So to Kimberly Seymour, investigative reporter and author of the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak on Amazon. How did she, and I assume she's still married, she being Lisa Nowak, the mom astronaut, get hooked up with Billy O, another astronaut. How'd that happen?

Well, her marriage had been pretty rocky, and they had agreed years before her shuttle flight in july of 2006 that once uh she was done with her flight they would they would part ways and um so she and billy oh they had met actually at uh puxaton at naval air station um in Station in Maryland. And they went on cold weather survival training in Canada in 2004. And it was a year after the Columbia accident. And it was really, I think, the first time that she was away from home and away from all those responsibilities. And he was on this training. I believe there

were eight astronauts on it. You know, there's campfires, there's tents, there's trying to stay warm and the speculation is that that's where it began. Was he married? He was married at the time of this survival training. He got divorced the following year. His mother-in-law originally came out and blamed Lisa after this incident happened. She said that Lisa was the reason his marriage fell apart. She recanted on that. So, you know, they were seeing each other. They had made plans to spend their lives together.

So this was not just a fleeting affair between Lisa Nowak and married astronaut Billie Opheline. This has been going on for a while. They planned? Mm-hmm. Wow. So I guess that makes the rejection even worse. Right. So in November, she had about five major life events happen in the span of five weeks. He met Colleen Shipman in November of 2006, and the attraction and the sparks were immediate and they fell in love as a matter of fact it was so quick that he invited her to be at his space shuttle launch in uh december and okay

i'm sorry uh kimberly moore i i disagree because sheryl mccullum say i'm driving through the drive-thru and i see what many people would think is a good looking man. You know what I think over his head? Nothing but trouble. So, so when you feel that spark, then you can decide, oh, should we go have coffee? No, you shouldn't. Because that's how things, quote, just happen. It just happened. No, it didn't just happen. You made it happen. You know, I see this a little different too. So when you see that stewy kettle of fish go by, that's nothing but trouble. Don't go have a cup of coffee. Don't just meet for lunch. Don't. That's how it happens. Yeah. Well, none of it just happens. There are some steps involved.

But I just want to point out one thing. High school, top of her class, college, she was at a top military academy, very rigorous. Then she goes into a master's degree, Nancy, for aeronautical engineering. You know, again, rigorous. Smoking my head hard. Then she goes to astronaut training. The first time this woman ever fails, it's her marriage. The second time she fails.

Ooh, we need to shrink on that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. crime stories with nancy grace dr sherry schwartz cheryl mccollum is right so this will be her first big fail well it does seem that way based on what we know about her there there may have been some you know less dramatic failures you know along the dramatic failures, you know, along the way, along her journey through school and things like that. But it doesn't sound like that. It sounds like this was someone who was incredibly successful. We know that this is objective evidence, right? She became an astronaut at NASA as a woman, you know, at that time in particular. I can only imagine how hard she had to work to get there, but that's why I feel like... The pressure.

And now this. The one thing she can't make it work because Billy O has suddenly fallen for somebody else. That's someone, Colleen Shipman. Take a listen to Colleen Shipman, our cut nine. My name is Colleen Shipman. Shortly after I turned 30 years old, Lisa Nowak hunted me down and attacked me in a dark parking lot. Her attack was part of a well-researched, well-planned, and deliberate crime.

Now, almost three years later, I'm still reeling from her vicious attack, and I'm still trying to put my life back together amidst the terrible, relentless media scrutiny that Lisa Nowak, thank you, brought down on me, first with her attack and later with her PR campaign. I knew in my heart when Lisa Nowak attacked me that she was going to kill me. It was in her eyes. A blood-chilling expression of limitless rage and glee. It's my understanding that Lisa Nowak had researched murder, corpse dismemberment, as well as disguises and trace evidence. And I'm 100% certain that Lisa Nowak came here to murder me.

Oh, yes, she did. Mm-hmm. Researching corpse dismemberment. And to you, Kimberly Seymour, author of Starcross, the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak, what does Colleen Shipman mean when she describes NOAC's PR campaign against me? Oh, gosh. Part of what her attorney, Donald Lickaback, and by the way, if you're ever in trouble in Orlando, you want to call Donald Lickaback because he got a great deal for Lisa NOAC.

No offense, but I hope we never meet. Go ahead. He posited that Colleen Shipman actually was not pepper sprayed. The pepper spray went into her car. I mean, she did suffer the ill effects of being pepper sprayed. He, I'm trying to think, and he also said that the diaper story was not true. Oh, blah, blah, blah. That sounds like a defense attorney throwing anything he can up against the wall. Take a listen to Colleen Shipman.

She began preparing for her crimes weeks before she committed them. She thoroughly researched my personal information. She entered my boyfriend's apartment, and without his permission or knowledge, she stole my contact information, my travel itinerary, and several personal e-mails between myself and my boyfriend's apartment and without his permission or knowledge, she stole my contact information, my travel itinerary, and several personal emails between myself and my boyfriend. She also collected my address, the latitude and longitude coordinates of my house, directions to my house, my cell phone number, and my email address. dress. She gathered weapons and tortured devices, which in her own words were too scary to even think about, but apparently not scary enough to prevent her from bringing them along during her attack on me. Lisa Nowak's claim that she only wanted to talk to me is at best ridiculous. I believe it is one of many lies that she designed to deceive and gain sympathy from this court, NASA, the U.S. Navy, her friends, her family, and the American people.

Please don't be fooled. I was fooled. Lisa Nowak is a very good actress. To you, Ashley Wilcott, judge and trial lawyer, Anchor Court TV, she was researching corpse dismemberment. She had the longitude and latitude of the victim's home. And reportedly, she had a duffel bag full of torture devices. That's attempted murder. Absolutely. I was just going to say that as well. And premeditated, we go back to that piece, premeditated. Look at all the planning she put into it. It is attempted murder. Not only that, but I just have to comment, it is not unusual that exceedingly intelligent individuals, when they partake in criminal activity and become someone who gets obsessed like this, go to such great lengths and have a very deliberate, well-thought-out-in-their-mind

plan. You know what? You're so right, Ashley, once again. And of course, you know your way around the courtroom. Kimberly Seymour, what can you tell me about this alleged duffel bag full of torture devices? Well, Mark Furman called it a murder kit. She had the steel mallet. She had a BB pistol that was loaded and ready to fire. And she had a hunting knife, a five-inch hunting knife that she had bought. She had bought the BB pistol and the hunting knife in the weeks before this happened.

And I want to go back to her psychological diagnosis. She had a baker's dozen lists of diagnosis, but the major ones were obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder, a single episode that was severe, a brief psychotic disorder with marked stressors producing a mixed manic and depressive state, Asperger's disorder, and she had stopped eating and sleeping, basically, in the five weeks leading up to this. You know, her husband moved out in mid-December. She was told she would not get the next shuttle mission, and because there were so few shuttle missions left,

that essentially ended her astronaut career. She was told she was not a good team player in space, and that you want to be able to depend on your coworkers in space. She lost 15% of her body mass. She went from 127 to 107. And she was already a very petite but fit woman. And to drop down to 107 was huge. She told her psychiatrist that she had reached this euphoric state where she felt like she really didn't need

to sleep a whole lot. And she was sleeping two to three hours a night. You know, like I said, her husband moved out. And then after January, after the new year is when Billy Otheline sat her down and said, hey, I've met somebody else and I want to pursue a relationship with this woman. You know, Kimberly Seymour, I appreciate all that. I really do. And if I were Dear Abby, I'd write a really long letter addressing each one of those. But I'm not Dear Abby. I'm looking for the truth about an attempted murder. Right. The rest is just, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. Don't care. Take a listen to Colleen Shipman,

our cut 13, in her own words. She blasted me with what felt like acid. It burned my eyes, my nose, and my mouth, and it sucked the air out of me. I don't know what other weapons she had at the ready because I didn't hang around to find out. I stomped on the gas, and I wondered if there was a gun pointed at my head.

My eyes and throat were on fire. My lungs ached for air. I fought the urge to breathe in whatever poison it was that she had sprayed me with, and I was sure that she had just tried to kill me to steal my car. I had no idea that a high-ranking, high-paid military officer had just attacked me. I believe I escaped a horrible death that night. It was a nightmare and the nightmare continues in the media with suggestions that I lied or changed. Lisa Nowak attacked me is the

truth and I never changed my story. Lisa Nowak did chase me to my car. She did force her way into my car. She tricked me with pepper spray and she did spray me directly with pepper spray. I just can't get over the computer searches for corpse dismemberment and so many other indications of premeditated attempted murder. Kimberly Seymour, I take it that now Lisa Nowak, female astronaut, is now out of jail walking free. What has happened to the other characters in this scenario? For instance, Colleen Shipman, the victim, and the love object, Billy O'Flyne. was withheld. So the hearing with the Navy was to determine whether or not they were going to let her stay in. And she was dismissed from the Navy with an other than honorable discharge, which meant she could keep her Navy pension, which she did, which is about $6,000 a month. And from what I understand, she might be doing some consulting work with the aviation industry or even with the Navy itself. So Colleen Shipman and Billy Opheline were not at her naval hearing because they had the best excuse ever.

They were on their honeymoon in Bora Bora. I guess that tells me the end of the story. They now have a son who they're teaching to fly. They live in Alaska and just living happily ever after. Where is Nowak living? She is in Houston and sometimes in San Diego or near San Diego. So they got as far away from her as possible. You can't really get much further away than Alaska and live in the U.S.

Well, he's from Alaska, right? He is from Alaska, grew up there. His parents are there. I advise him to stay there. Long story short, she's walking free. Colleen Shipman ends up marrying Billy Opheline, and the two of them live happily ever after but

think of how close this came to a very different ending about that far just that much further down

that window and no it would have got her hand around Colleen Shipman's throat. Killer Girlfriends, Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.