Criminal - Cold Case

Episode Date: April 6, 2018

In 1984, Sheila Wysocki found herself helping the police investigate the murder of her college roommate, Angela Samota. Detectives asked her to help gather information, and even sent her out to dinner with the main suspect, a man named Russell Buchanan. But the case remained unsolved. 20 years later, Sheila Wysocki decided to investigate it herself. This episode contains descriptions of sexual assault and may not be suitable for everyone. Visit Sheila Wysocki's website at http://sheilawysocki.com/ Say hello on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Sign up for our occasional newsletter, The Accomplice. Follow the show and review us on Apple Podcasts: iTunes.com/CriminalShow. We also make This is Love and Phoebe Reads a Mystery. Artwork by Julienne Alexander. Check out our online shop.  Episode transcripts are posted on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's BotoxCosmetic.com. That's BotoxCosmetic.com. This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and may not be suitable for everyone. Please use discretion. One of the things that makes me laugh all the time, and this tells you how old I am, we used to, back in Dallas, there was a street called Forest Lane. And you would drive up and down Forest Lane. And that's when you met boys. Now, can you imagine that today?

Would you stick your head out the window? I know. Doesn't it sound ridiculous now? I mean, I'm sure people are rolling their eyes. Sheila Wysocki was a student at Southern Methodist University, SMU, in the 80s. Sometimes for fun, she and her friend Angela Samoda would drive around Dallas. She had the coolest car. It was a Toyota Supra. And of course, she was adorable. And so it was great fun being with her because we would meet a lot of people.

And so we would go up and down Forest Lane. How did you meet Angela Samoda? I was just put with her as my freshman roommate. I remember my freshman roommate. How was yours? I mean, did you and Angela know this was totally the right match right away? It was not the right match right away. So I had to get used to her and she had to get used to me. And when Angie and I, I call her Angie, when she and I were put together, she came from a very wealthy family. I obviously didn't. So we came from a different background.

Angie had a boyfriend who was always hanging around. Sheila couldn't stand him. She thought he was controlling. And so things got off to a pretty rocky start between the roommates. But then, after the holidays, Angie broke up with the boyfriend. We just started hanging out. And, you know, it's back in the era of disco. That was the greatest thing, going out and dancing.

And that was fun. And then we used to go to a place called the Rio Room. And the Rio Room was a private club that you had to have a membership. And Angie was very friendly with the, gosh, I guess they're called bouncers now. But he would always let us in. And we'd hang out and dance. And she drank. I didn't. I still don't. And so I was the designated driver.

By the end of their first year, they did everything together. I think back to those days, and it was such a short period of my life, but it changed it completely. At the beginning of their sophomore year, in the fall of 1984, Angie decided to join a sorority. But instead of moving into a sorority house, she got a condo off campus. She'd begun dating an older guy, his name was Ben, and she wanted to be able to see him whenever she wanted. Sheila kept living in the dorm, and on the second weekend of October 1984, she was home visiting her mother in North Texas.

So I was home, just got in from a haircut, and of course back then we didn't have cell phones, and the phone was ringing, so I ran in, went into my bedroom, picked up the phone, and on the other line was a sorority sister of Angie's and a friend of mine who was crying. Her words were, there's been an accident. And I immediately thought Angie had a car accident. And I said to her, where is she? What hospital

is she? And my friend kept crying. So I knew, you know, obviously I knew something was wrong because the next question I asked was, is she dead? And my friend was crying harder, so I knew that she was dead. And one of the things that Barbara said is that the police needed to talk to me. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. Tell me about the weekend in October of 1984. That was Texas-Oklahoma weekend. And what that means is the football season, they have a big, in Dallas, they have this big football game every year. It's a huge deal in Texas. And all the people from Oklahoma come in and all the people from University of Texas come in. So it was a busy weekend. And Angie decided to go out that night

and invited one of her friends from class and a guy named Russell. And Russell was, he was older than we were. He was more established. He was an architect. He was a very soft-spoken guy. So they decided to go to the Rio room. They stayed out late, and then Angie took everyone home. First, she drove Russell to his apartment. Next, she dropped off her friend at the dorm. And then she drove over to her boyfriend Ben's house. Now, Ben was supervisor of a construction company. So he was older. And when I say older, I only mean like two or three years. It's not like 50-year-old with a 20-year-old. So he was probably 28 at that time. And he was in charge of a construction site. And so he didn't go out

that night with her because he had an early morning at the construction site. So Angie went by his house. It was about, I would say, 30 minutes from her apartment. And her personality was really kind of funny and teasing. And so Ben opened the door, and she was kind of teasing him about having to stay in. And they only talked for a few minutes. She left. He went back to bed. She left. And then when she came to her apartment, she goes upstairs, and then there was a knock at the door. And so she opened the door and there was a guy at the door who said he needed to use the restroom and the phone. Angie was smart enough to go to her telephone and dial Ben. And when she dialed Ben, he answered the phone. He's groggy and he wasn't really following. I believe she was giving him clues, saying certain things. And finally he goes, I hear a voice. Who is that?

And she said, some strange man. Well, the phone call between Angie and Ben was cut off. It was cut off. Ben, because the phone, because it ended, you know, and he didn't know what was happening, he got into his truck. And back then, we did not have cell phones. However, he had a cell phone because the construction site, his, literally, that phone was as big as a dashboard. And so he kept dialing the number over and over, and of course she never answered.

On October 13th, 1984, police found 20-year-old Angie Samoda dead in her bedroom. She'd been fatally stabbed and sexually assaulted. Officers interviewed SMU students who'd been close to Angie, trying to piece together the events of that night and also to try to get a sense of her life in general. Students were terrified. They didn't have a suspect, and that's when the rumors started it could be this person or that person,

and all these guys were under suspicion, and you wonder, is it somebody I know? Is it somebody I've been with? Is it somebody that, you know, is a friend of Angie's and mine, and who could it be? And that gives you a lot of anxiety. How did you feel about her boyfriend, Ben? I liked him. He was good for her.

Her first boyfriend, when we were freshmen, couldn't stand him. He probably is not a fan of mine, when we were freshmen, couldn't stand him. He probably is not a fan of mine, but yeah, I couldn't stand him. Ben was respectful, kind, funny. So when his name came up as a suspect, I was pretty surprised. But there's part of you that wonders, well, could it be? You went to the police station. Oh, yeah.

I did. That's for being, looking back and being 21 years old and going into that environment, I never dealt with the police before. It was a really gross place to me. And I remember going to meet the detective in charge. And to this day, gosh, I still remember the pictures on his desk. Those pictures were the crime scene. I understand that was just an everyday event for the police, but they were there. And there's this one picture that still haunts me. They showed it in the trial, too. And it's Angie on the bed with her eyes open.

And there's blood everywhere. And it was just a picture on the desk to somebody. What did you think had happened to her? I mean, when you were, what did you think about? I certainly had an opinion. I thought the freshman boyfriend killed her. He had pulled a knife on her prior to this.

He had shredded her clothes. I was 100% convinced that he killed her. Did the cops suspect the first boyfriend? They did an investigation on him. So there were four guys that were primary suspects. He was one, but his alibi, he was an Amarillo. His alibi evidently checked out. And of course, Ben was a suspect. Then Russell Buchanan, who had been with Angie that night dancing. And a fourth guy, he had a crush on Angie, and he'd leave her notes on her car, and she was so nice. Now, you have to understand, she was in the engineering and computer science classes, and you didn't have a lot of

girls back then in that field, and so she was beautiful. She was nice, and these guys loved her. I mean, she was such a nice girl. So she would get flowers and notes and things. And he was a suspect just because he left her some love notes. How did you first get involved helping the police? I think because I knew everybody. I knew all the players. And, you know, I could ask questions and talk to people. And I remember when it really started was I was on the phone with the detective. And I said, I just have an uneasy feeling when I talk to this person. And he goes, well, let's explore that. So we did. And I would meet the lead detective at bars, which is hilarious since I don't drink. But I don't know if he said, I need your help, because I don't really think they needed it. Well, they did need it. I think that he just used me as a resource.

So how it worked is he had me ask questions. So I would go to dinner with Russell, asked him questions about, you know, that night, and compare it to what he told the police. Now, the police were convinced that Russell did it. And I was told that, you know, his semen matched, he failed the lie detector test, they believe they have their guy. And when I had dinner with him at August Moon, thinking I'm sitting with a murderer. His story matched what he said before. But let me just, wait a second, you're 21 and you're sitting, I mean, I would be terrified to have dinner with this guy. I would say my mother has never been, was never madder than that moment. And I just thought, somebody's got to do it.

Did the police tell you what to ask? Yes. I'm not smart. I was definitely not smart enough to know what to ask. And so I asked what they wanted to know. I mean, I would just be thinking, this guy's going to come after me if he figures out that I'm snooping around here. We went to a public area. The only mistake I made is he drove. That was probably not the wisest thing thinking back.. But, yeah, the whole time, I didn't eat.

I sort of ate. And just watching him, everything that he was doing, his body language, if he's a bad guy. And, you know, I really thought he was the murderer. I'm so confused at the Dallas police. Did they send a car behind? No. It's just you. I mean, it's in the 80s. Well, but it's not 1880. I never questioned. I had such a high regard for the police that I would never question anything they asked or did. The police questioned Russell repeatedly, but they never charged him.

They just didn't have enough. Eventually, the investigation seemed to fizzle out, and then Russell started graduate school in London. So, you know, I'm being told he fled the country. I also was told that he lawyered up. And in Texas back in the 80s, the famous attorney was Racehorse Haynes. They told me that he has Racehorse Haynes as the attorney, which meant he was guilty. You only get Racehorse Haynes if you're guilty, evidently.

Why did they stop investigating? I have no idea. Well, actually, I do. I think they felt like Russell did it, and they were going to go after him. And if he didn't do something, they didn't have a case. Sheila ended up leaving school. She just couldn't handle being on campus. She stayed close with her friends and with Angie's sorority sisters.

And she'd meet up with Ben from time to time. And then she started dating the man who would become her husband. My husband fit into the group. He's a solid, grounded guy. He's an accountant, so probably boring to a lot of people, but everything to me. They got married. They moved to Tennessee and had two boys, and Sheila decided she wanted to stay home to raise them. When the boys got old enough to both be in school during the day, she suddenly had a lot of time to herself. So I decided, in the South, what do you do when you have extra time? You go to a Bible study, and that's what I did.

I went to a Beth Moore Bible study at a church with some friends of mine, and we were studying Daniel. So I was in my bed trying to get through the homework, and I was laying back. Oh, gosh. I was laying laying back and I looked to the right and understand when I was laying back, it could have been the dream state or it could have been whatever. I just know what I saw. I saw Angie next to my bed and that was it. It was probably a second or it could have been five seconds, but it was a moment and it was gone. And I leaned over, picked up the phone because I knew it. I knew she wanted me to call the Dallas police and I did. I knew it was time. I knew it was time, and it was. Support for Criminal comes from Apple Podcasts. Each month, Apple Podcasts highlights one series worth your attention,

and they call these series essentials. This month, they recommend Wondery's Ghost Story, a seven-part series that follows journalist Tristan Redman as he tries to get to the bottom of a ghostly presence in his childhood home. His investigation takes him on a journey involving homicide detectives, ghost hunters, and even psychic mediums, and leads him to a dark secret about his own family. Check out Ghost Story, a series essential pick, completely ad-free on Apple Podcasts.

Hey, it's Scott Galloway, and on our podcast Pivot, we are bringing you a special series about the basics of artificial intelligence. We're answering all your questions. What should you use it for? What tools are right for you? And what privacy issues should you ultimately watch out for? And to help us out, we are joined by Kylie Robeson, the senior AI reporter for The Verge, to give you a primer on how to integrate AI into your life. So, tune into AI Basics, How and When to Use AI, a special series from Pivot sponsored by AWS, wherever you get your podcasts. Twenty years had passed since Angie's murder, and Sheila decided she wanted some answers. What did you say to the Dallas police? When I started calling, they did not have a cold case division at all.

And they were working the current cases. They had no desire to talk to me at all. And I was like, I'm just going to keep calling until I get somebody who will at least do something, pull the record, look at it. So yes, I have the personality of I'm going to keep trying. So, how often, how frequently would you call the Dallas Police? You know, I know how often. Over a period of time, it wasn't, it was like 700 and maybe 750, 800 phone calls. It wasn't, you know, it was over a year's period of time.

So it wasn't every single day. It's just whenever I felt like it. Now we had cell phones. It was really easy to pick up the kids and get on the phone. And when you would call, would you say, hey, wait a second, you guys dropped the ball. What are you going to do? What are you going to do about this? No, I would never say that.

No, I think it was more of a begging. I just wanted someone to do something right for her. I was told that not one person had called in 20 years. And I thought, gosh, she deserved better than that. She kept trying, over and over, and getting nowhere. Years later, one of the homicide detectives told her they'd given her a nickname. He said, we call you PETA, pain in the ass. And he said, probably every time you called, they would say, who wants to take this PETA, you know?

And I'm sure it's true. I'm sure it was kind of who are we going to get to talk to her today. And one day I had a cookie exchange at my house and then we went to the club afterwards and I got a call back from this police officer from the Dallas Police Department, I can't tell you how exciting that was to me because that guy was a rookie, which is hilarious. And he said that, oh, no, they do have some things from that file. And I asked him a bunch of questions, got the answers, and it was one of those great moments. I knew they had it. I asked him one thing. He goes, oh, I have to ask my sergeant.

Hang on. And I was like, no, don't go ask anybody. Just don't even worry about it. And he goes, oh, I'll call you back. Never heard from him again. And when I was blown off numerous times, I lived at that point in a gated, guarded community. That's one of the byproducts of Angie's death. I like living in a gated, guarded community. And I was telling the head of security how the—it became a joke between us of, you us of how the police were blowing me off. And one day,

he said, you know, I'll sponsor you if you want to become a private investigator. You'd be great. And that's how it started. And I did. And he mentored me for a long time. Because you thought that if you were a private investigator, the cops, the police would have to show you all the records. I got my PI license in order for them to have to deal with me. I mean, how does someone become a private investigator? Back then, it wasn't like it is today. You had to, you know, work under somebody. You had to be sponsored by somebody. You had to take a test, which I acted like it was a Harvard entrance exam.

And one of the things my oldest son did was he would read me all the laws so I could memorize them and take the test. We would sit on the couch at night, and he would read it to me, and my youngest to this day still remembers it, and asked me questions. And so I took it and passed the test and started working with these guys, the security guys. So I learned things that weren't necessarily what I wanted to do, like the cheating spouse thing and the, you know, just a whole bunch of stuff. And in the background the whole time, were you thinking about Angie's case? That's the only case I cared about. So what did you do on your own to start investigating? So I went back to the beginning of what we remember and

what I remembered. My son called it a war room. It wasn't a war room. It was pictures and, you know, where people were. And it was very messy. And, you know, I mean, is this what we see on TV, these pictures of people with little pieces of string drawn from here to there and pinpoints in a map? Yes, but no. I didn't have the string. But I did go back to the rape, because we had the Internet, which is the greatest gift. I did go back to figure out the rapes in the area and how many were reported and if there was a pattern. Were you also now calling the Dallas police and saying, listen, I'm a private investigator. I need some information. So yes, I called them and

I thought, oh my gosh, it's the heavens are going to open and they're going to be so excited. Oh my gosh, they so weren't. By now, she'd been pressuring the Dallas police for five years. And then Sheila finally got a detective to take her seriously and dig up the evidence from Angie's case. The detective's name was Linda Crum. And when she called me and we had our first conversation, I knew she was the right person, and she was. So she told me not only did they have the file and the evidence, they had the semen, they had the fingernail scrapings, they had it all, every frigging bit of it. Sheila asked about DNA testing, something they couldn't have done 20 years before.

You know, the OJ case had happened when my youngest was born. I remember actually nursing him, listening to what this thing called DNA was and trying to figure it out, thinking, oh, I can use this in our case. We've just got to, you know, I had no idea what DNA was back then. And so with the semen, I knew we had DNA. And it took about a year to get the DNA back. And what did the DNA show? In a show. Well, I'll tell you, that phone call came in, and she said they got him. And the next words I was thinking was going to be Russell Buchanan, because that's who I, all these years, had bad feelings towards.

He was the bad guy, and it wasn't him. She said, Donald Bess. And I'm like, who the heck is Donald Bess? I had no idea, and I'm going through my mind going, Donald Bess, was he in a fraternity? Was he on our, you know, sister floor? Who is he? Could not place him for anything.

I'll tell you I didn't believe them. I was like, they screwed up. My initial reaction was, oh my gosh, something's wrong here. They must have messed up the DNA. And I start asking the detective, you know, how she knew it was him. And the match was like one to one billion that it was him. I don't remember the exact numbers. But I did call the DA's office and talk to the assistant TA to ask him, are you sure that's the guy? Are you sure that was the right evidence? Because all these years I was told the evidence was, you know, not there. Are you sure you got the right guy? Donald Bass was a convicted rapist who was out on parole in 1984 when he attacked Angie. By the time Sheila and Detective Crum figured out it was him. He'd been convicted of another attack and was serving life in prison.

He would not talk to the female investigator because he, quote, thinks all women are bitches. And so he did talk to the male investigator. And one of the things that I thought was so ironic, you have a female investigator, you have this great female woman who did the autopsy, and myself, and these women did it. Sheila and her oldest son drove 650 miles from Nashville to Dallas for the trial. And I remember getting there. My son's sitting next to me. And Donald Bess walks into the room. Donald Bess was this beast of a human being. And I remember it was like the oxygen

in the entire room was sucked out. He sits down and I could not breathe. Angie's family and friends were all in the courtroom. The lawyers defending Donald Bess insinuated that Angie was somehow responsible for what had happened to her. And they trashed Angie's character and reputation. It was disgusting to me.

She was a tease. She was this. She was that. I mean, it was, you know, they brought in what she was wearing that night. And it was a beautiful outfit. But it was revealing. I mean, back in those days, standard is probably something you wear every day now. But, you know, from the 80s, it was pretty revealing.

It was her fault, basically. The jury deliberated for less than an hour. Donald Bess was convicted and sentenced to death. Why did you think that you could do this? Become a private investigator, solve the case. I didn't, but I had to try. She deserved it. You now have your own firm. What's it called? Without Warning Private Investigation.

And how many cases have you done? I was retiring my license after Angie's case because that's the only case I cared about. And I was approached numerous times from these families who are going through the same thing. And I thought, oh, I'll just help this family. And then it started to grow from there. And as we're speaking right now, I'll have a call sometime this week from another family. I get hundreds, sometimes thousands of people contacting me. So I started working one-by-one cases. I don't have 400 cases. I take, I used to take one a year. I have five right now. And you only do cold cases? I only do cold cases. Murder cases? Yes. I'm thinking about these women in your Bible study What do they have to say about your new career?

Okay, so I'm not really invited to a lot of the foo-foo girl things because I don't have a lot in common with that anymore. I don't even do my cookie exchange anymore. She's currently investigating a case from 2015. A woman's body was found by fishermen in a cove in Tennessee. It was labeled an accident. But Sheila

doesn't think it was. In our next episode, we'll go to Nashville to shadow Sheila as she investigates the case. Tilt Irfelino is our intern. Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal. You can see them at thisiscriminal.com or on Facebook and Twitter at Criminal Show. Criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina Public Radio, WUNC. We're a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a collection of the best podcasts around. Shows like Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. The Theory of Everything is a podcast where you never really know what's

fake and what's real. That's because The Theory of Everything features both documentary and fiction. And he's just launched a new season. It's called False Alarm. The phone goes, and I grabbed my phone and see my entire life flash before my eyes. I was amazed with myself that I could believe that it was real. So for the record, you like this guy. You like our president. Listen, I can relate to him because, you know, as a stripper, you know,

you come into the world of fantasy and I'm like, oh yes, I'm going to give you this. I'm going to give you that. And then you give me money and I run away. And then the alarms started going off on the television, like the buzzer. This is not a drill. Take immediate action measures. Go listen. Special thanks to AdCirc for providing their ad-serving platform to Radiotopia. I'm Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal.

Radiotopia. From PRX. in adults. headache, eyebrow and eyelid drooping, and eyelid swelling. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness. Tell your doctor about medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis, or Lambert-Eaton syndrome in medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. For full safety information, visit BotoxCosmetic.com or call 877-351-0300. See for yourself at BotoxCosmetic.com.

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