Criminology - The Mysterious Death of Dorothy Davis

Episode Date: August 28, 2022

Dorothy Davis died at the Fort Lewis Army base in Washington State in 1991. Her death was originally ruled a suicide because that's what the scene inside her bedroom suggested. But, as more pieces of the pictures came into focus, suspicion began falling squarely on the shoulders of Dorothy's husband, Corporal Christian Davis. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss Dorothy's death and the investigation that eventually led back to her husband. As authorities pieced everything together, they learned that Christian may have tried to kill Dorothy years earlier in a fire made to look like an accident. Crucial clues emerged, including the jacket Christian was wearing the night his wife died and a hazy 20-minute window of time that night. Suicide letters next to Dorothy turned out not to be what authorities they were, and the way that she was holding the gun was re-examined. It all led to one suspect, Dorothy's husband, Christian. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You want your child to be successful, but should they get down to work or work their way up? Commonwealth Charter Academy believes both. Our career readiness program, CCA works, helps students of all ages discover their future careers and gives them a head start in agriculture, healthcare, technology, and more. And when they succeed, our work is done. CCA, how schools should work. Visit ccaeducate.me. Hey guys, if you're looking for your next binge-worthy podcast and you like your true crime light on the gore, then you should check out our show, Moms and Murder, a true crime podcast hosted by myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa.

Some of our recent episodes include one about the craziest hotel bombing you've never heard of, the crimes of Lou Pearlman, and even the murder of pop superstar Selena. Each Tuesday, we give our take on a new crime story, balancing our delivery of facts and levity while still giving the stories the respect they deserve and making you feel like you're part of our conversation. Moms and Murder covers both the lesser known and the more familiar stories, and there are over 200 episodes to binge so you can get started right now. Search Moms and Murder on your favorite podcast app and subscribe so you never miss a new episode. Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 221 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, what is going on with you, buddy? Not a whole lot. What's new with you? Just getting everybody going back to school. And I know you said your kid started a couple weeks ago. My daughter started back last week. My oldest started college this week. And my wife's a teacher. So she's getting ready to start, I think, next week. So we got a lot going on. Yeah. It's crazy on social media when you see you've got friends all across the country and they're all starting school at different times. Yeah, taking pictures of their kids on the first day. And it was a little sad because this is my youngest. last first day, right?

She's a senior. And that was a little sad, no doubt. It probably made you feel a little bit old. Well, I feel old every day I get up. But that's, uh, that's another story. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Ashley Zierley, Laura and Claire Sexton. So some great new support.

We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you so much for everyone that takes a moment to contribute. It means a lot. And anyone that would like to support the show can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, let's go ahead and jump into this episode. You know, it's been a while since we covered a case on a military base, but in the past,

we've covered some really big and strange cases that have happened on military bases over the decades, the 1970 McDonald family murders out of Ford Bragg in North Carolina, and the more recent, mysterious Fort Hood deaths in Texas are a couple that come to mind. You know, the truth is, when you get all. kinds of people with all kinds of backgrounds together on one base. There is a chance that crimes are going to happen there or at the very least. Some deaths under mysterious circumstances will take place. It's one of those deaths under mysterious circumstances that we're talking about in this episode.

That being the death of Dorothy Davis, who died at the Fort Lewis Army base in Washington State in 1991. Dorothy's death was feet. featured on Season 10 of the TV show Forensic Files in an episode called Army of Evidence. Fort Lewis was a standalone United States Army Post from 1917 to 2010. It merged with McCord Air Force Base on February 1, 2010, to form Joint Base Lewis McCord. Today, the Joint Base is one of the biggest on the West Coast, and it's home to much of the 2nd and 7th Infantry Divisions, as well as the First Special Forces Group.

The base has a total active population of nearly 210,000 inhabitants, making it the fourth largest military installment worldwide by population. As per the website Military.com, Fort Lewis was named after Mary Weather Lewis of the famed Lewis and Clark Expedition. It's one of the largest and most modern military reservations in the United States, consisting of 87,000 acres of prairie land, cut from the glacier flat and its Kuali Plain. It's the premier military installation in the northwest, Fort Lewis is situated in a key location along Interstate 5, allowing easy access to CETAC Airport and to the deep water ports of Tacoma and Seattle. Dorothy and Christian Davis had been married for five years, and they had a child together by February 1986 when Christian enlisted in the

U.S. Army. In 1987, he was stationed at Fort Polk in Louisiana, and they later moved to Fort Lewis in Washington where Christian Davis was a communication specialist and earned the rank of corporal. They were having a pretty tough time financially, but they had a second child and Christian was very happy with his career. Dorothy, however, was not as happy living the life of a military wife. She was struggling with depression and had the sneaking suspicion that Christian, by this time her husband of 10 years, did not love her anymore. She went to a doctor and was persuasive. the antidepressant Prozac, which at the time had only been in use for about four years. She also went to therapy to try and deal with the thoughts and feelings as she was having.

She struggled through, dealing the best she could to try to make her marriage better and raise her kids. The area I grew up in New Jersey was close to a military base, so I knew a lot of military families, and I was very familiar with the people coming in out of the base. and in talking to them, you would hear that some people were really caught out for the military lifestyle. They enjoyed it. They loved seeing new places. And it was sort of an adventure. But for other people, especially the spouses sometimes, they really felt out of place.

There was something missing. And it didn't always appeal to them. So I can totally understand Dorothy's issues and being upset. and having to try and make it through military life as a military wife. On the night of March 13, 1991, Corporal Davis was drinking at the non-commissioned officers club on base at Fort Lewis with a few of his buddies. At around 8 p.m., he decided to call home and check on Dorothy and see how she was doing.

He went out to the lobby and used one of the pay phones to call Dorothy at home, but he felt that something sounded off with her. As was later revealed in forensic files, he went back and told friends that he thought she sounded to spot. So he was going to call to night and go home to be with her. When he got back to his home that night, tragically, it was much too late. Christian found his 35-year-old wife Dorothy in their bed, tucked in with the covers up to her chest, but she was clearly dead. And he called 911 for help.

When first responders arrived, they found that Dorothy had, by all appearances, shot herself once in the temple. Her hand was still firmly wrapped around the gun, a 22-calibre pistol. multiple sealed envelopes addressed to Christian and to her sister Patty were laid out on the bed and opened book sat beside her. The Army Criminal Investigative Command took over the case and quickly determined that Dorothy had taken her own life. They believed that the notes had been suicide notes, one to her sister, another to Christian. The letters were signed by Dorothy and sealed. It appeared to investigators that after a battle with depression and under able to adjust to life as a military wife, she had clearly been determined to do this and succeeded.

As laid out in forensic files, one of the two letters addressed to Christian read, My darling love, as said many times, it's the coward's way out. So I'm a coward, for I could see no other way out. I ask God to forgive me. The letter to her sister started with Dear Patty, I'm sorry. By the time you get this, I'll be gone. I did. didn't know what else to do. Investigators found no signs of forced entry to the home and no sign that any sort of struggle had taken place. In fact, both of the Davis girls, ages five and two, were still sound asleep in their beds. Dorothy had no defensive wounds on her hands or arms. Her hand was wrapped tightly

around the grip of the gun in something called a cadaveric spasm. It's apparently something that only happens in certain circumstances and can't be simulated, duplicated, or replicated as U.S. Army Special Agent Steve Chancellor explained to forensic files. The only way that Dorothy's hand could have been holding the pistol so tightly as if she was holding it when she died. All of this backed up investigators' beliefs that Dorothy had indeed taken her own life. So, you know, to me more if it's pretty easy to see why investigators came to the conclusion that they did.

You mentioned no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle, no defensive wounds as if she had, you know, fought off an attacker or anything like that. And then the fact that the gun is gripped tightly in her hand. And there are apparent suicide notes next to her. What else could they have thought at the time? Yeah, I think in some cases we talk about there's a rush to judgment and people, experts come to some conclusion that a lot of us find perplexing. I mean, we cover the case of a woman that had stabbed herself, supposedly, according to the experts, several times in the back of her neck and head in a suicide.

And we were wondering at the time that just sounds preposterous, yet he somehow came to that conclusion. But in this instance, based on what the scene presented, it seemed like the logical conclusion. The medical examiner found a contact wound on Dorothy's Temple, which is something that's, occurs when the gun is placed very close to the head and you would not find if someone was shot from a bit further away. The bullet was still embedded in her skull with only one entrance wound. There were no drugs or alcohol found in her toxicology tests. Sadly, an autopsy also showed that Dorothy had been about two or three weeks pregnant. The baby would have been the Davis's third child. Now, Dorothy was aware of her pregnancy.

She had told a few family members and friends that she was expecting. While a new baby may be a source of great joy for many, some felt that Dorothy may have fallen deeper in depression by the news, leading her to suicide. Despite the official ruling, Dorothy's sister, Patty, was suspicious of the situation. In an interview with forensic files, she said, I just kept saying there's no way she would hurt that baby. Patty also wondered if Dorothy would have ever left her two daughters behind, saying, there's no way. There's no way she'd harm herself and do this. She loved those girls. They were her life.

Of course, it's not uncommon for people to struggle more than anyone in their life could have imagined. And it's not uncommon that a family member has a hard time accepting that someone they love has taken their own life. So with the absence of anything suspicious, the family had to accept the finding of suicide and faced a life without Dorothy. Soon after Dorothy's death, a woman moved in to Christian's home, leading U.S. Army Special Agent Alfred Brown. To tell forensic files, apparently Chris had gotten over his grief from his wife's suicide quite quickly. Christian claimed to neighbors and friends that the woman was going to nanny his two young daughters,

who now had no mother to watch and care for them at home. However, it seemed like everyone at Fort Lewis knew the truth. This woman was not a nanny at all. According to gossip on the base, the woman had been having an affair with Christian, even before Dorothy's death. The woman, going by the name Barbara, was interviewed for an appearance on the Forensic Files episode. She told the show, people knew we were romantically involved. They knew that because he was very affectionate out in public, something I wasn't getting from my husband at the time. She told the show that she had no clue that anything was suspicious surrounding Dorothy's death.

death saying myself and everybody else. We believed she actually took her own life with her own hand. We believed it. And more if this is not the first time we've heard of something like this, a wife dies. And very suddenly, the husband has a new woman in his life, even, you know, has this woman move into the family home. This happens quite often, actually. But, you know, you have to look at the optics of it. Are you grieving the death of your wife if it seems as though suddenly you've moved on, you've got a new woman in your life? It just doesn't look good.

And it doesn't make someone a killer necessarily, but I think it sort of made people look at Christian in a different light that, hey, his wife of 10 years, the mother of his children, dies tragically, and here he is moving this woman in this quickly. So I think maybe some of the suspicion that some people had early on came back. Well, if there's any suspicion at all, this is going to heighten it. There's no doubt about that. If there's no suspicion, you know, in regards to the death, at the very least, it makes you look like a callous person, a bad husband, a bad human being. Dorothy's sister wasn't the only one who had doubts about the true nature of Dorothy's death.

A woman who had been at the bar with Christian the night his wife died was suspicious of him. because at the time that Christian was supposed to be in the lobby on the payphone, checking on Dorothy, she needed to go to the lobby for something else and notice that Christian wasn't there. He had only been gone from the rest of the group for about 20 minutes, supposedly on the phone. But when he got back to the group he was with at the club, Christian was breathing hard like he was out of breath,

and his face was red. He was also wearing only a short-sleeved shirt, but the group noticed that he had come to the bar that night wearing a maroon jacket, which he didn't have with him after returning from the long. lobby. Fueled by suspicion and armed with this new information, this 20-minute window, when Corporal Davis was unaccounted for, the Army Criminal Investigative Command reopened an investigation into Dorothy's death. Just one year after the case was closed as a suicide.

There were now signs that it may not have been a suicide at all that possibly Dorothy had been murdered. And when the investigators began to look closely, they found that it might be. It might be might not have been the first attempt on Dorothy's life, just the first successful one. Investigators looked through the crime scene photos. One of them noticed a maroon jacket hanging from the knob of the bedroom door. Special agent Steve Chancellor said in the Forensic Files episode, it's not thrown. It's not dropped. It's not what you would expect in an emergency scenario, where Christian had really come home and found Dorothy dead by her own hands. It's And investigators further explained a person who comes in who finds their wife lying there,

perhaps mortally wounded, is not going to take his jacket off and nice and neat hanging up on the doorknob. So this got investigators thinking, maybe Christian Davis had never made any phone call. Maybe he had used the 20 minutes. He had excused himself to rush home, kill Dorothy, stage the scene, and then rush back to try and create an alibi. And more of I think this goes back to what we were just saying about suspicion. There seemed to be no suspicion early on of Christian Davis.

But then you bring in a new woman very quickly. And people start to look back at things with maybe a little more suspicion. I think that's maybe what happened in this case. And then things start to come out. That causes investigators once they start. start learning of new information to think, uh-oh, maybe we got this wrong. Maybe we need to reopen this and look at things again. And I think you mentioned earlier that having this new woman in his house, it looks pretty

crappy, but it doesn't automatically mean that there's a crime here. But this missing 20 minutes of when he was supposed to be on the phone talking to his wife and something that made him decide he needed to go home, according to his story. that part seems to be shaky because this witness came forward to say he wasn't out there making this call. And then I think the maroon jacket just kind of capped it off, right? He was wearing the jacket. He comes back after the 20 minutes. The jacket's not there. That's important. But maybe even more importantly is this idea that a man would come home wearing a jacket, go into the bedroom, find his wife lying in bed appearing as though she's dead because I think that would be a fairly easy

assessment, you know, a very quick assessment. And then he's going to take the time to remove his jacket and hang it up on a doorknop. No, that's not what's going to happen. If anything, like in a lot of cases we talk about, you would expect a loved one to rush over and get blood on themselves or by, you know, picking the deceased person up and cradling them because they're so distraught. A forensic document examiner, Sandra Holmwood, was called in to analyze the letters that Dorothy had supposedly written to Patty and Christian before she supposedly took her life. It was her job to determine whether the letters were forgeries, and she was able to determine that it was indeed Dorothy who had written the letters.

The handwriting was consistent with other known writing samples of Dorothy's. Homewood told forensic files, she had a very distinctive capital D, and she also wrote her lowercase Fs backwards. The lower staff on the F went in a clockwise motion instead of a counterclockwise motion, which is not the way most people are taught to write the letter. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, handwriting analysis has always fascinated me. You know, it goes back many, many years, and I know we have computers and things today that help, But, you know, I'm thinking back about people who, you know, are trained in the art of comparing manually, visually, one writing sample to another.

That has always fascinated me. Yeah. And I think it's one of the tools that authorities use when they work on cases. But I think in the end, they'd rather work with DNA or fingerprints because at the end of the day, handwriting analysis is really someone's opinion. The finding by Homewood that Dorothy had indeed written the letters seemed to go against the investigator's theory that maybe she hadn't really taken her life. But they kept digging and they found some damning evidence against Christian. They uncovered the first known time. Christian Davis attempted to murder Dorothy and make it look like an act.

She can change it to an accident. And make it look like something other than murder. On May 24th, 1987, when the Davises were living at Fort Polk, Louisiana, there was a fire at their mobile home. They broke out at about three in the morning when Dorothy, who was six months pregnant with their second daughter at the time, was sleeping alone in the home. Christian had taken their oldest daughter, who was just an infant, on a car ride. Luckily, even though the smoke detectors did not go off, Dorothy woke up and found that the television in the TV, their living room was on fire. She was able to escape with no injuries. A fire inspector ruled that the fire was an accident caused by a failure or electrical short in the TV. In the course of the

investigation, however, he found that the smoke alarms didn't go off because the wires inside of them had been purposefully disconnected. Yeah, that seems like a pretty strange thing. If you have a home with a family in it, you think you're going to have your smoke detectors operational. The fact that they're taken apart so they're not working, that seems like a red flag. Well, there's no doubt that would look a little suspicious, right? You have this fire. It seems as though, okay, a short in the television set, could that be accidental? Yeah.

Now, the smoke alarm thing, the first thought that went through my mind was, yeah, doesn't seem to be right. You have a family, you want those connected, but how do you prove that someone in the family did that on purpose, disconnected those wires? Couldn't someone just make the claim that, hey, we moved in here, we never checked these smoke detectors. They were probably like that when we moved in. And as suspicious as the disconnected smoke detectors were, investigators learned that about 15 to 30 minutes after Dorothy escaped, Christian drove back up to the house to find firefighters there, but he didn't ask about his wife at all. Witnesses remember him being very calm, especially for the circumstances.

It was also discovered that Christian had a life insurance policy on Dorothy at the time that was valued at $100,000. Christian Davis filed an insurance claim due to the fire damage in the trailer, and the insurance company paid out a $10,400 settlement, which is about $16,000 in today's value. Despite the large insurance policy and the eerily calm behavior looking suspicious. The fire inspector and insurance claims representative both ruled the fire as accidental and electrical nature. According to an appeal brief from 1998, both the inspector and insurance claims rep testified that had they been aware of other circumstances surrounding the fire, they would have

viewed the situation suspiciously. Well, I wonder how many inspectors, how many insurance claims reps have said that over the years. Well, you know, if we would have known this, this, this, or then we would have viewed the situation differently. And maybe we have some fire investigation experts that are listening, but I would think that perhaps these guys had seen disconnected smoke detectors before, so maybe that wasn't as strange as we thought it was. I have the situation where that's sort of the opposite. I have batteries that once they start going dead, the alarms start blaring,

and I have to go up there and take the time. to replace them. So my situation is the opposite of not having working smoke detectors. Oh, I have that all the time. And it's the most annoying thing in the world because number one, it seems to always take me 20 minutes to figure out which

smoke alarm because the sound travels strangely throughout the house. And I guess it's a good thing. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. And it reminds you to change your batteries. Yeah, because you want your smoke detectors to work. Now, I could see where some people listening or some individuals, over the years have disconnected it because either they didn't have a battery to replace it and they didn't want it going off or I'm sure people have run into scenarios like that. You would think you'd get it fixed pretty quickly, but maybe you forgot. Who knows? Investigators also learned that Christian had been seeing a woman named Penny Wagner behind Dorothy's back even before he joined the army.

Christian had promised Penny that he was going to join the army. army and leave Dorothy, getting a divorce so that he could then get married to her. He obviously did join the army, but he did not leave Dorothy, and there was even another child on the way. Penny didn't believe that Christian was serious about the relationship anymore, and it was obviously going to be more difficult and complicated to leave with a new baby in the picture. To investigators, it seemed as if there clearly was motive. If Dorothy had died in that mobile home fire. There would have been no new child, no spouse to divorce, and no child support or alimony to pay. Nothing. Just a lot of support and sympathy. Social security survivor's

benefits for his daughter until she was 18 and a nice $100,000 settlement from the insurance company. That settlement back then is equivalent to about $260,000 today. The attempt, though unsuccessful, would have obviously shown Penny that Christian was serious about leaving or getting rid of his wife so that he could be with her. But for how long? But even with all of this objectively suspicious circumstantial evidence piling up, investigators were stuck since Dorothy, after all, was the one who had written the notes that were very clearly suicide notes in the minds of investigators. But it turns out that Dorothy's sister Patty had the missing piece that investigators needed. She told them Dorothy had been seeing a therapist for her depression and suicidal ideations.

As an exercise, the therapist told Dorothy to write down everything she was feeling, everything she wanted to say. Patty told investigators, I believe that's what that was from. The letters had been written months before when she was at one of her darkest points. The letters had been a way for Dorothy to get out her emotions and figure out what she was dealing with. They were things she never wanted to have to be delivered. This is why, as investigators would soon learn, Dorothy never sealed the letters in their envelopes. Fingerprint expert Bill Thomas was contacted and received the notes to review. He analyzed them and used a chemical called Ninhidrin on the paper to see where whoever wrote the letters had left sweat.

Using this causes amino acids and sweat to react. And when placed in a humidifying chamber, a print from a finger, or side of the hand will become visible. This process revealed that, unlike most people who are intending to take their life, Dorothy was not sweating excessively. This was a huge clue to investigators that Dorothy may have written the notes,

but not actually intended to take her life, backing up what Patty learned from Dorothy's therapist. Pieces of the adhesive flap on the envelopes were taken for analysis. A PCR DNA test was done on the pieces to determine who saliva was on the envelopes, who had licked them, to seal them, Dorothy before taking her life or Christian after killing her. Dorothy had been cremated,

so her DNA was not immediately available. Investigators had to create a DNA profile for her by taking DNA from both of her parents and both of her daughters to narrow down her DNA type as well as ruling out Christian's DNA, which they had access to since he was in the military. The DNA test gave the answer. Christian was the one who had licked the envelopes.

The letters were not actually suicide notes, more likely, as Patty had said, they were an exercise given to Dorothy by her therapist. But Christian was aware of this. He probably supported it under the guise of wanting his wife to feel better when what he really wanted was to have proof later that suicide was something she was thinking about and planning. You know, more of we're really getting a picture here of Christian Davis. And, you know, honestly, the picture is not a good one.

We're getting into some some really dark areas of manipulation, forethought, right? Planning. This guy was a little devious as we're finding. out. I think he made mistakes along the way that sort of caught up with him, you know, the jacket hanging on the door, the not being seen where he was supposed to be when he made the phone call. And I think the biggest smoking gun is that it turns out he's the one that has sealed these suicide envelopes. That's pretty damning. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's amazing evidence. Right. Now, I said he was devious. As you point out, not a criminal mastermind. And that's what we often find in many of

these episodes, people think they're smarter than what they really are. You know, they've watched some CSI. They've watched some, you know, movies. So they believe that they can concoct this perfect scenario. No one's ever going to suspect them, but they mess up all along the way. And thankfully so because, you know, it's what allows them to be caught. And looking at everything in this new light, investigators believe that Dwarth was probably home sleeping when Christian raced home from the club. He walked right up to her, put his pistol against

her head, and pulled the trigger, knowing that his two young daughters were asleep in their beds just feet away. Then he took Dorothy's hand and put it on the handle of the gun, beginning the staging of the scene. He forgot to put her finger on the trigger, instead putting the gun in her hand like she was just holding it. He retrieved the notes that Dorothy had written on the advice of her therapist and sealed the envelopes before placing them nearby in plain sight. The Forensic Files episode specifies that Christian placed a true crime book and a bottle of antidepressants near her body to further stage the scene to look like a suicide. He then fled the scene, heading back to the club for getting his jacket in the process.

It seems as though absolutely no forensic testing was actually done at the scene of Dorothy's death during the initial response. Now, this does make sense to me because we said. It appeared to be a suicide. Initial thoughts, initial determinations were suicide. So would they have done or thought to have done certain types of testing because of the way that the initial scene looked? And I would say probably not. Now, we know testing for gunpowder residue would have easily shown whether Dorothy had been holding the gun when it had been fired, especially since her finger was not on the gun. And the trigger. And that definitely could have raised questions very, very quickly with investigators. So I guess you can look at that more for a couple of different ways. You know, now adding in this detail that Dorothy's finger was not on the trigger. Does that change the perspective of whether or not this should have been so quickly determined to be a suicide? You know, is it possible that someone could be

holding the gun, pull the trigger, and their finger slip off the trigger, but still tighten up around the handle? I don't know. I wonder if these investigators at the scene are not used to dealing with these kinds of crimes on a regular basis. So something as little or not so little as her finger not being on the trigger might have been something they missed. When Agent Chancellor interviewed the officers who had responded to the scene after Christian Davis had called 911 and March of 1991. One officer described that all four of Dorothy's fingers were around the butt of the pistol. Chancellor immediately wondered how she had been able to shoot the gun if her hand had frozen in that position. So, you know, I think it does maybe back up your point of, you know, how seasoned were these

people that, that showed up? Or is it just an instance where they just didn't put that clue together? And I think, you know, sometimes that could happen honestly. Not everybody is going to catch everything. Yeah, I think the general rule of the thumb is when you arrive on scene and you find a suspicious death, you always treat it first like a homicide until evidence can clearly rule that out. And then if you determine suicide or accident or whatever else it could be, then you move on from that. So I wonder if there was that part of the process wasn't done.

Once Christian knew that he was being investigated in his wife's death, his new girlfriend, Barbara, said everything changed. She told forensic files, I couldn't use the phone. I wasn't allowed to go grocery shopping. Wasn't allowed to have money. I was, like, imprisoned in the house. It seemed as if Christian was paranoid and worried, and he had good reason to be.

Christian Davis was charged with premeditated first-degree murder for Dorothy's 1991 death, as well as conspiracy to commit murder, adultery, making a false official statement, false swearing, and even fraudulent enlistment in the army. He was also charged with aggravated arson and attempted premeditated murder in relation to the 1987 fire in Louisiana. The arrest caused his new girlfriend Barbara to see him in a new light. She told forensic files, Chris is cold-blooded. He's sick. He's demented. I've seen it firsthand. How sick, evil this man can be. I saw it.

And to me, more of this is always interesting when you see people, you know, interviewed that are connected to a case like this woman Barbara on a show like Forensic Files, my first thought is what else are they going to say? Obviously, once all this news comes out, okay, this was a bad person. He's sick. He's demented. But at what point did you see it? And this is not a blame on her at all. My thought is this is probably a guy who is pretty good. at hiding things from those around him, making you see exactly what he wants you to see. He's not going to come right out and show you the monster. And I always look at these things when people say, oh, I knew it. I was aware of it. I had these suspicions, but they never really act on them until after the fact. You know, I don't want to speak for this late.

I don't know what she saw, what she didn't see. but I wonder if it's just her maybe feeling some kind of embarrassment for being with this guy knowing what he did and not being aware of it, not sensing it. Well, how can it not be embarrassing? You know, you, let's say, we're duped. You have to feel that way. When it comes out later that this person you were attracted to, this person that, you know, you lived with and all of these things, turns out to be this evil.

monster. That can't be easy on anyone. Yeah, I don't think anyone wants to admit the truth that someone like this could be living with them and them not know it. News of the charges was a shock to Dorothy's family, but this was welcome news. Patty felt vindication for being suspicious and doubting that Dorothy would ever take her life, despite the very clear notes that she did right. She told forensic files, I did not see violence in Chris. Never once with my sister or the family. I never really thought that he would ever physically hurt her. And again, this goes back to my comment.

I think a lot of these individuals are fairly adept at hiding the monster. Because if you show the monster, then people become suspicious of you. So you're really going out of your way, I think, if you're some of these individuals to be nice to the family, to be Mr. nice guy. Now, we should point out, we could not find any charges for Penny or Penelope Wagner regarding conspiracy to commit murder back in Louisiana. But it is very important that Christian Davis was charged with conspiracy to commit as well as attempted murder in the 1987 fire. A later appeal brief even states Ms. Wagner's ultimatum as part of the information that would have made the

investigators believe the fire had been suspicious rather than accidental. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about, where the guy, the investigators mentioned, had they been aware of other circumstances, they might have made a different conclusion. And I think this sort of hits on that because had they known this woman is saying, leave your way for this is going to happen, you know, I'm not going to be with you anymore. Would that be enough for them to change their ruling on the fire to make it say, well, He might be trying to kill his wife and trying to make this look like an accident. Well, I don't know if it would have been enough to make them change.

I think it definitely would have been enough to make them look a little deeper, probably, look at it a little differently. Now, obviously, this information comes out after he was charged, after an appeal. So it comes much later in time. It also came out that Christian and Penny had talked for 14 minutes on the phone, just four hours before the fire started. at around 11 p.m. The reason that she was never charged may be because it was a court-martial against Christian, a military court, not a civilian court. The case would likely have to be handed

over to a different authority for her to be charged, but apparently the real culprit had already been caught. The firefighters didn't know about the financial or extramarital difficulties that Christian was having, and neither did the insurance claims officer, who was also unaware that the wires and the smoke detectors had been disconnected. A fire causation expert was able to testify about the rarity of a TV, especially one that was turned off to just burst into flames. I can tell you this, over the course of my life, which is becoming longer and longer, I've owned a lot of TVs.

I have never had one burst into flames. Now, there's probably somebody listening that says, oh, I have, but I personally have not, and I don't know anybody that has called me on. the phone and said, hey, man, you're never going to guess what happened. My television just burst into flames. It wasn't even off. So, I mean, I think what this fire causation expert is saying is it's very rare. And it would also be very difficult to use a television set to make what would ultimately be arson look like an accident. It was also revealed that Christian had told multiple members of his command that he was asleep inside the trailer when the fire had started and that he was able to help

Dorothy and their daughter to safety. This was clearly a lie. One reason they were able to charge him with attempted premeditated murder is that he had undeniably tried to get himself and his daughter to safety by leaving and waiting until he thought Dorothy would have died to come back to the scene of the fire. He had also made sure to raise the chances. of Dorothy being unable to escape by waiting till she was asleep to start the fire. All of this, according to the appeal, was Christian effectively targeting his victim in a conscious and reflective way, because he had set up a situation where she would be most vulnerable to injury from the fire. On March 13, 1993, a military panel handed down a sentence of life in prison to Corporal Christian.

and Davis. He was also knocked down from corporal to the lowest possible enlisted grade, E1, before he was finally dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army and stripped of any pensions and allowances. Christian later appealed his conviction of the charges of attempted premeditated murder and aggravated arson regarding the 1987 mobile home fire. His argument was that the evidence admitted as a court-martial is legally insufficient to convict him of those charges. But it was found that there was enough circumstantial evidence admitted from which a rational fact finder could infer that arson occurred in his trailer in Louisiana in 1987. The motives were clear to the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals. First, Christian's

mistress put extreme pressure on him to end his marriage with the victim in order to be with her. And he had financial problems that were becoming more serious. It was stated in the brief that a reasonable juror could infer from this motive evidence that appellant coolly plotted to kill his wife as a simple answer to two pressing problems. And I think more if it's exactly this scenario that we see so often with a spouse murdering another spouse. What are the factors? And so often it appears to be either financial or another love interest or a combination of both, which is what I think we have here in this situation. Money and love or greed and sex. I mean, you can call it whatever you want, but it seems to play such a huge factor in so many cases that Christian was initially

able to get away with murder due to his victim's own writing is a very terrifying prospect for anyone who struggles with their mental health, especially those who keep a journal of their honest thoughts and feelings. You know, if you open up, you're trying to heal, could it be used against you like it was against Dorothy? And that's one thing that ran through my mind as we were going through that scenario. That was really scary. Here's a woman who, you know, is trying to get a handle on some issues that she's

experiencing. She goes to see a therapist, the therapist gives her an exercise that they believe will be beneficial. And then someone figures out a way to turn that exercise against her in a plot to murder her. That's a scary thought, man. Yeah. And I look at it too, as if they had just taken the writing experts findings and just stopped there, they would have said, okay, this just further confirms that This was a suicide. It was her writing. Let's call it a day. But they didn't.

They went the extra step of testing the DNA on the envelope seal. And that's what linked to Christian. Luckily for Dorothy and her loved ones, Christian Davis licked the envelopes when he sealed them. And this really, you know, it's a perfect case for a show like forensic files. Because as Dorothy's sister said, if he hadn't have licked that inbelow,

if Chris had not done that, he would have walked free. If Christian Davis had been successful in killing Dorothy in 1987, he probably would have been a free man for the rest of his life. DNA and criminal trials was brand new in 1987, having only been used the first time just the year before in 1986 in the UK. If Dorothy had died in that fire, there would have been no way to prove that it was Christian who had disconnected the wires and the smoke detector, or that he had started the fire. People know to wipe away fingerprints, but back then they didn't know to wipe away. void DNA. And even today, that's hard to do. It's clear as we've gone through this episode that Christian Davis made such simple but really damning mistakes. You know, he was smart enough to know

that he had to switch up his methods. He couldn't try another accidental fire. First, he had to make sure Dorothy didn't escape and survive again. But it would be too suspicious if it had happened again exactly as it had back in 1987. He was smart enough to fool two teams of investigators in different states. Unfortunately, the first team in Louisiana was unable to catch him because each person had different pieces of the puzzle. And the second team was fooled by a tight alibi and the handwriting analysis. He was able to create such a timeline that there was only a 20 minute window where he could

have committed the crime, leading many. to believe him at first. It was only 20 minutes. This plan, although it was premeditated, according to what they found, seems kind of half-assed and that he thought he would go home in this 20-minute window

while he's supposed to be making this phone call in the lobby at the club on the base and commit this crime and then run back there and hopefully no one would find him out. It seems kind of silly when you think about this plan, but at the same time, it worked initially and he was able to fool investigators. Yeah, I mean, you said half-assed, and I agree with you, but at the same time,

it worked for a little while. He almost got away with this. He very easily could have gotten away with this, in my opinion, if not for, you know, a few people coming forward in the suspicion building a little bit, if a couple of those things go his way, he gets away with this thing, Moore. Yeah, that's pretty scary. And with such a tight alibi, Dorothy holding the gun and the apparent suicide notes at the scene, it seemed like the investigators may have rushed to a conclusion. From their point of view, there really was no reason to rule the death of homicide. From the gunshot evidence, there was nothing indicating someone else had shot Dorothy. In the end, it was the mistakes that Christian made along the way that brought him down.

Yeah, again, I don't want to put too much on investigators. You know, we kind of laid out that initial scene. I can easily see why the first thought would have been suicide. The one nagging thing I have is her fingers were so clenched around the handle of the gun, but her finger not being on the trigger. I feel as though it seems as if someone would have. caught that, but didn't. I could see situations where someone that takes their own life with a gun could maybe drop the gun and then you wouldn't know as much as we know here.

But in this situation, she did not drop the gun. It still remained in her hand. But that one finger not being on the trigger was really what the big clue was here that was overlooked. Well, yeah, because I'm not a scientist, but my thought is if the spasm that occurred, was enough to clinch her hand around that handle. My thought is it most likely would have clenched her finger in the same position as well. And as we wrap up this case, you know,

you just said it was the mistakes along the way that Christian made that brought him down. There's no doubt about that. There are things that he could have done differently that most likely would have allowed him to get away with this. you know, not leaving his coat at back in the bedroom. That was a biggie. What if he doesn't lick the envelopes and instead uses some type of moistener or just water? And then there would be no saliva, no DNA on the envelopes to prove that he was the one that that licked them.

I mean, that's the thing about some of these cases. You don't want to tell people how to get away with murder, obviously. But there are points in every story where. where you have to break down what caused a person to get caught. And so by reverse engineering those, you can see how if someone had done something a little differently, it's very likely that they would have got away with this terrible crime. And I think that holds true for Christian Davis. But luckily, there was finally some justice for Dorothy, though it was a bit delayed.

these days, you know, you and I are raving about forensic genetic genealogy, solving cases that are decade old, bringing justice that was long delayed. We can't forget about the cases that are solved or could be solved through some of these more old fashioned methods, witnesses, photographic evidence and just regular DNA testing, you know, without some of this stuff coming to light and good old fashion police work and forensic evidence work, there's a good chance that Chris Davis would have gone free, could have still been a free man as of this very moment. And it makes you wonder, are there cases out there that are similar to this one that have similar little clues that may have been overlooked or misinterpreted? And there are

other cases that are really murders that are classified as suicide. That's scary. Well, it's scary, but I think the answer is yes. I am sure with the number of cases that are unsolved, there are other examples so very similar to this one where the death was ruled a suicide based on, you know, everything that investigators saw at the crime scene, but there's probably some clues hidden or overlooked that could change that determination. And some of those were probably murders that were made to look like suicides. And maybe the, the murderer just did a better job of covering their tracks than Christian Davis did, which I hate to say because you and I don't want anyone to get away with doing these things. But I'm not naive enough to think that it doesn't

happen. I know it does. As always, if you love the show, but you haven't done so yet. Take a minute, go out, give us a rating, leave a review. Keep telling your friends. That word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by searching for Criminology Podcast or by joining our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, Discussion and Fans. So that's it for our episode on the Mysterious death of Dorothy Davis. But Morp and I will be back with you next Saturday night with a brand new episode of criminology. So until then for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care,