The Binge Cases: Denise Didn't Come Home - Fatal Beauty | 6. Hard to Get

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Investigators finally have Sandra exactly where they want her and look again at Alan’s murder. Could she have had an accomplice? Binge all episodes of Fatal Beauty, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access.     The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. Fatal Beauty is A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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By now, Sandra was indicted and behind bars, but just how long she would stay there had yet to be decided. I know this seems unbelievable, but the fact is, in the eyes of the law, Sandra at 63 was a rookie offender. She had not been convicted of any other crimes. He wishes to remain anonymous, but the investigator who worked at the direction of the U.S. Attorney's office told me, it's not uncommon for first-time offenders to be offered plea bargains.

Sandra's back was up against the wall, though. If she didn't accept a guilty plea, then we would have to go to trial. And if she was found guilty by a jury of her peers, she would end up probably being sentenced to more time. Of the five charges against her, Sandra only had to plead guilty to one, aggravated identity theft. After the breathless investigation, the sting operation, the resources spent trying to bring her in,

the system is built to cut deals like this for first time non-violent offenders, no matter how strong the case. That's how it works. Frankly, this pisses me off. Sandra was no rookie. She hadn't accidentally committed a crime, but she'd never been caught. And for that, the system decided to treat her

like some unfortunate soul who made a single bad choice. She was only considered a rookie because her first husband, David Stiegel's death had been ruled a suicide, on her word and the word of the psychiatrist she arranged for her husband to see. In the case of Betsy Bagwell, Sandra may have just gotten lucky, because Betsy's own husband refused to go to authorities with evidence that her supposed suicide seemed staged. Then Alan Rarick, could she have foreseen

the jurisdictional shit show that would occur if his body was transported across state lines? I wouldn't put it past her. I've got a lot of ways to describe Sandra Bridewell and rookie isn't one of them. But here she was in her 60s, a lifetime of deception behind her as she walked up to the federal courthouse to enter her plea bargain.

Inside, it was an unconventional reunion. The women who had tirelessly gunned for Sandra to face consequences were in the same place. This was a moment Alan Rarick's mother Gloria had waited decades for. I was so excited that Jane Todd told me to tell me she had arrested her in North Carolina. So when Sandra finally stood before a judge, not for Alan's murder, but for aggravated identity theft, Gloria was there. It might not have been the justice she had hoped for, but it was something. Reporter Glena Whitley would never have missed it. I mean, it was a rush, just like, yes, she's finally been arrested. And all these years,

she had never been in custody. These women sat next to one another as Sandra Bridewell entered the room. She walked in like she was Miss Queen. I sat right on the front row when she came in that door and I had a big lapel pin with Al's picture on it, on my jacket. A powerful reminder that her son had been stolen from her.

Maybe Sandra would catch a glimpse of his face and feel something. She did not look toward me at all. She walked totally past me. And just about six months later, she was back there again, this time for sentencing. Reporters gathered to catch a glimpse of the Black Widow, who was now gray.

I couldn't help but notice that nobody they grabbed for a soundbite characterized her as a novice. In a segment from Raleigh's local news station, WRL, investigator Marty Folding, who's no longer with us, painted a picture of a seasoned predator. Marty Folding, who's no longer with us, painted a picture of a seasoned predator. She aged and her looks diminished. She went from a gushing southern belle who could use her charms to get what they want to a missionary who could get what they want from religion.

Sandra's last victim, Sue Mosley, spoke her truth. Camille has humiliated everybody that calls themselves a Christian and loves the Lord. Yet at one point in the hearing, in a surprising pivot, she cut Sandra some slack. Sue Mosley approached the stand. She wore a charcoal blazer, a pearl necklace with matching earrings, her gray hair pulled back. Detective Jane Todd remembered this wasn't easy for her. Sue was really nervous. Who wouldn't be?

She got emotional there at one point. Then, she spoke directly to Sandra. She forgave Sandra for what she had done. I'll speak for myself here. I can safely say Sue Mosley is a better person than me. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people willing to extend forgiveness for being defrauded, manipulated, and robbed in their golden years. Her son Jim told me that was his mom through and through. Being a very Christian lady,

you're taught to forgive no matter what. It was an outstanding act of grace, significant to all but one person in the room that day. There was no acknowledgement out of Sandra. She kept her head down most of the time that Ms. Sue was on the stand. Sandra had always been a paradox in this way. She was cunning and brazen when she needed attention from someone else,

but cowardly when someone demanded her attention. While Sandra may not have paid Sue's forgiveness any mind, Judge James Devere III sure did. In cases of non-violent crimes, acts of grace can actually influence sentencing outcomes. The gavel fell. Officially charged with one count of identity theft, Sandra was sentenced to the mandatory minimum term

of two years in prison. She'd have one year of supervised release. By then it was anyone's guess whether she still had the nerve or the audacity to pull another con on an unsuspecting family. The more I think about Sandra's whole story, the more I find myself circling the same two opposing questions.

Did she outthink law enforcement at every turn? Or did cops make mistakes and let her slip away, when they should have had her dead to rights? In the final weeks of production on this podcast, I was mulling this over with PI Carrie Hussinson. This is what she said. Many people have asked, how is it that Sandra was able to get away with killing people, never being held accountable? And I'm just gonna say this, that I believe the reason why she's never faced justice

is totally and completely because of the incompetence of law enforcement. ["Sony Music & Error"] completely because of the incompetence of law enforcement. From Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to the finale of Fatal Beauty. I'm Cooper Maul, episode six, Hard to Get. It turned out a cold case investigator in Oklahoma City already had Sandra in his sights from the moment of her capture. His name is Kyle Eastridge. When news of her arrest made headlines, we got wind that she had been in trouble out

in North Carolina. So we started following that. Detective Easteridge is retired now, but he used to be a homicide detective, and eventually cold cases became his focus. After retiring, Easteridge was diagnosed with ALS. In our conversations, I never got a sense it kept him down. The guy's got a mean sense of humor

and an encyclopedic knowledge of homicide investigations. Allen's case was one we always wanted to solve. And his mother was his champion. She was always checking in with supervisors of the DA's office just to see if anything new had happened. While police handle investigations, DA's decide which cases are worth prosecuting. And the cases are usually reopened if new evidence pops up, like fresh tips, DNA breakthroughs, and forensic tech improvements. tips, DNA breakthroughs, and forensic tech improvements. Ms. Rear Rig was trying to get it reopened.

And we were having a little bit of problems. Detective Jane Todd was just as adamant as Gloria. She even called up the DA herself and asked him to reopen the case. A cop in Charlotte, North Carolina pushing a DA in Oklahoma City? That wasn't exactly standard. I never got word back from him. so I called Ms. Rerig

and asked Ms. Rerig, I said, look, I said, go to your church, have them write letters, get up with the DA, tell them you want the case reopened. Detective Todd thought, how could the DA say no to that? After all, public pressure and media attention can push a case back into the spotlight. All in all, 100 people from Gloria's fellowship signed a petition. And the DA ultimately got up with the cold case department.

It worked. And I finally got a call from Kyle Estridge. By spring 2007, Allen's cold case was officially being reopened. was officially being reopened. Now we just got to do some good old-fashioned gum-chewed police work and go out and find witnesses and see if we can build a timeline that will bring us the information to charge. Detective Eastridge was determined to do what couldn't be done two decades ago, find the missing pieces.

But in 2007, this investigation faced the same challenges it did in the 80s. It's a case that never really had a lot of physical evidence. There was only one person who could fill in the gaps. really had a lot of physical evidence. There was only one person who could fill in the gaps. The one person who had always been at the center of the storm. Maybe Detective Eastridge would have better luck than Detective Todd.

The whole time I had her in custody, she would never admit to having a third husband named Alan Rerig. It's an odd thing to deny because it's a fact. But maybe Sandra was trying to convince herself her whirlwind marriage to Alan had never happened. Her denial ran that deep. I mean, she just totally refused to say that she was married to him.

totally refused to say that she was married to him. They had to puncture her bubble, to get her to admit basic facts and get her to admit what had actually happened the day Allen met her at the storage unit. I knew I was gonna have to try to talk to her and she was in a spot she couldn't get away. Now that she lived in a jail cell, she couldn't slam the door on cops or evade them.

A few months after Sandra was incarcerated, Detective Eastridge got a shot to interview her. This was it. He took a flight down to Raleigh. I needed to try to get her nailed down to a story. I asked him if before going down there, like the detectives before him, he also suspected Sandra had killed Allen. For me, it's the whole picture that makes her suspicious.

And there's a lot of people that fight over money and get to wars, but Sandra had an idea in her head that she belonged in that world. It was a big driving factor for her. What even convinced me more was that when Sandra got to the age that she began losing her looks a little bit. She didn't have that, if you want to call it, sex appeal to lure in these guys. She shifted her tactics to fraud. Detective Easterich suspected Sandra would stop at nothing for financial gain, not even murder.

And perhaps when the two locked eyes in the interview room, Sandra sensed that in him. She entered controlled, deliberate, unshaken. I introduced myself. She said she knew who I was and didn't care. She had incredible self-possession. From the time she walked in and sat down to the time I left, she wasn't nervous. Her eyes were sharp. She didn't have that babe of the woods look. She looked like she was in charge. It was a real odd dynamic to me.

Sandra invoked her right to an attorney and showed Detective Eastridge the door. She shut me down immediately. But he'd been in the room long enough with her to figure out one thing. She just has no morals or ethics. Kind of like a sociopath, you know, she doesn't care about anybody else's suffering as long as she gets something out of it. The fact is, she lured men into her web pretending to be fragile, in need of saving.

But she was never the one drowning. She was the tide pulling them under, the architect of the game shifting pieces at will. The Queen who made pawns believed they were kings. Are you leaving savings behind at the gas pump? Get up to 7 cents per liter in value every time you fill up at Petro Canada gas station. When you link an eligible RBC card to your Petro points account, you instantly save three cents per liter at the pump and you earn 20% bonus Petro points.

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Ah! Woo! Okay, alright. When a core's light is cold enough, the mountains on the can turn blue. So the next time you want a cold lager, cold filter, cold package, Coors Light, just wait until those glorious mountains on the can turn blue. It's easy to say that fast when you're freezing gold. Outside the prison walls, the search for the truth wasn't over. The investigation pressed forward, and soon Detective Easterich wasn't working alone. I more or less jumped in. A lot of what I learned about this case

was on the fly through him explaining things and me asking questions. That's Detective Ryan Porter. He'd recently been selected for Oklahoma City's homicide unit when he was assigned Eastridge as his partner. Detective Porter told me what stood out to him when he was first put on the case. There was just a lot of weird things that he had brought up. She's cooperative one day

and then she shuts it all. She hires an attorney. That's not somebody that's a widow that has absolutely nothing to do with a case would do. I can imagine this was a real head-scratcher of a cold case, especially given it was his first. It made no sense to me why somebody who, if they had no involvement whatsoever, would not cooperate, let you talk to their kids, let you talk to everybody. That only made Detective Porter more certain there was something worth hiding. So the detectives turned their attention to the people who had lived under Sandra's roof,

her three children. Especially, Britton and Catherine would have had more information because of their age. They were 17 and 15 when Allen died, while the youngest, Emily, was only 12. I remembered a detail Glenna Whitley shared with me about when Sandra gave her first and only interview with Oklahoma police detectives Pacheco and Mitchell. The timing of everything was very important and the children could have known something about where she was over this weekend, over this period of time. Better late than never.

Here detectives were nearly three decades later asking timeline questions. Let's make another run at our kids. They're adults now, let's go take a run. Maybe they had heard something, seen something. Maybe after decades of silence, one of them would finally give them the lead they needed. — Kyle had already done a lot of the footwork in locating where the three children were located — you know, Emily, Catherine, as well as Britton —

where they were at. We were very optimistic we were going to get someplace. — Sandra's kids could be the key to the case. To get their statements, it looked like detectives Porter and Eastridge would have to embark on their own version of planes, trains and automobiles. Kids are scattered throughout the United

States. So at that particular time, and when I say from East Coast to West Coast, I mean East Coast to West Coast. They began with Emily, Sandra's youngest daughter. The two caught an early morning flight and spent the whole day traveling before arriving at her door. Emily was so willing to meet and talk with us, but too much time and her age at the time of this makes it very difficult for her to recall things or get specific dates.

Beyond her age, Detective Porter raised another valid argument for Emily's lack of recollection. Sandra kept her mouth shut. She doesn't necessarily talk about stuff. stuff. She appears to just be a habitual liar and she can do it with no thought involved whatsoever. So that just tells me that she probably shielded the kids from as much as she could. But kids don't stay in the dark forever. Even Emily had come to suspect the worst about her mom. She was convinced her mother was involved. I picked up a similar sentiment when I reached out to Emily, but she declined to speak with me. Emily did talk to the detectives though, but her interview?

Didn't give us anything that was going to be helpful for the actual homicide. And it was on to the next one. From that, we left the next morning, again at 6 a.m., and drove to Central United States and tried to talk to Katherine. Things didn't exactly go as planned. She wouldn't come to the door. Detectives Easteridge and Porter were striking out.

After driving halfway across the country, they were no further ahead. And things were looking dire when the oldest Briton, Sandra's son, also refused to speak with them. The detectives were clearly not getting what they needed on their own. So starting in late 2007, a grand jury was impaneled. When a grand jury asked for testimony, you show up. Detective Todd, although no longer on the case, was highly invested and recalled from

you what went down. And of course, they subpoenaed Brett, Emily, and Catherine. Emily testified. Brett, of course, his attorney pled the fifth for him. And Catherine, she pled the fifth. This refusal to testify from the two eldest baffled me. I'd been told they were estranged from their mother. So why wouldn't they talk? Was it too painful to confront who their mother really was? Was it a primal sense of loyalty to her? Or was it something else? Here's Eastridge again.

What was significant about it to me was how hard he fought not to testify about this and how hostile he was about it, it made us think that there might be a level of fear on his part. Why would Britton be afraid? Detective Easterich told me he thought Sandra's son didn't talk because he was in some way involved, somehow culpable.

I'd play you the tape, but sometimes he can be hard to understand given what he's dealing with living with ALS. But hearing this from Eastridge got me thinking. When Detective Todd began looking into Sandra's past, she also reached out to the kids. In talking with Catherine, I believe she knew something was suspicious. That was about as far as she got with her.

Brett was a different story. Brett was almost cold and said, contact my attorney. He was just like his mother. You contact my attorney. I thought this was odd. Why would Britt need an attorney to speak about his mother's alleged crime?

Then Detective Todd shared something Emily told her. She told me at one point during an interview that while on vacation in California at a resort, Alan and Brett were out using jet skis, and her mother had asked her brother to run over Alan with the jet ski, make it look like an accident. Could Sandra have wanted it out for Alan from the start? Had she contemplated making his death look like a tragic mishap in open water?

Suddenly, Britton lawyering up made a twisted kind of sense. Maybe this wasn't just about covering for his mother. Was he protecting himself? In the winter of 1985, one of the working theories was Alan Rarick had been killed in Dallas then transported to Oklahoma City. And remember, the driver's seat was pulled up in the Bronco for someone much shorter than him. Someone like Sandra. But if she had driven him there in the Bronco and left it, how in the hell did she get back to Dallas?

Detective Porter told me the initial investigators ruled out one form of travel. They checked air flights to make sure she didn't fly back down to Dallas from Oklahoma City, which she didn't. So if she didn't fly back, and if she wasn't strong enough to lift a hefty man like Allen, He almost has to have some second person involved. So who around that timeframe most likely had a driver's license that she knew well, she trusted and she knew she could manipulate. Well, leave it at that.

You're pretty smart, you'll figure it out. If you're having a hard time putting two and two together, Detective Easteridge told me flat out. Her son was old enough he couldn't help her. Could Sandra have forced her own son to help her dispose of Alan? He was just 17 in 1985. That fragile space between boyhood and adulthood, where the lines of right and wrong can blur under the weight of influence. At that age, you crave your parents' approval, fear their disappointment. And if that parent is a master manipulator, a woman whose spun lies as easily as breathing,

what chance did he have? Could Britton have been keeping a secret for his mother this whole time? I had to ask him myself. I sent him a FedEx to what was listed as his last known address and called a bunch of numbers associated with him. I tried his partner on Facebook and LinkedIn. Then I tried calling her. And something weird happened.

This cell phone number had been associated with both her and Britton. When I called, a man picked up, so I asked if she was available. The guy replied, What is this concerning? After I described this podcast and that I had been looking for this lady's partner to comment on claims he'd help move a body, that's when the man on the line said, Interesting. You have the wrong number. This made me think I was speaking to Britton himself, but he didn't want to admit that.

I followed up with the text and told him one working theory cops had was Britton might have helped his mother move Alan Rarick's body. I'd wanted him to comment, or at least respond with a no comment, but he never did. Podcasts are great because they help us make the most out of our routine. We learn about the fall of the Ottoman Empire while we drive,

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When I began looking into Alan's cold case, before I had ever even heard of Kyle Eastridge or Ryan Porter, I first visited a website called Oklahoma Cold Cases. On the bottom of the page dedicated to Alan Rarig, it directs anyone with information regarding his murder to contact a guy named Mike Burke. He was a detective before going on to work for the district attorney solely focusing on cold cases. I couldn't get him to talk to me, but I made one last attempt, hoping Detective Porter

could convince him. I was trying to talk him into getting on the phone with you. And he just said, look, I would just, I would ruin the report between us and Dallas if that happened. That answer stopped me cold. Did he mean he couldn't get on the phone because he didn't want to throw Dallas police under the bus? Was that it? If speaking to me would risk relationships between law enforcement agencies,

just how badly had Dallas mishandled this case? In my reporting, more than one source had told me they thought Dallas hadn't truly cooperated with the Oklahoma City cops. I don't believe that Dallas PD was doing very much. We didn't feel like we had any real cooperation from the Dallas police. They just dropped the ball. They didn't put in the time to actually do the research.

They took the word of everybody else around him. I shared with Detective Easterich what I'd been hearing through the grapevine to see what he thought. There were a ton of murder cases there. They don't care about the whodunits. They want to clear their plate as easy as they can. And since Allen turned up dead in Oklahoma City, with no hard physical evidence he'd been killed in Dallas, it never seemed like it belonged on their plate to begin with.

For a bigger city burdened with more investigations, paid by tax dollars, it seems fair to say they're not exactly chomping at the bit to overextend themselves on a hunch. Everybody's looking past the buck because murder cases are money, they're resources, and they're taking a lot of responsibility. Easter's told me that's just how the cookie crumbles. That's how law enforcement is. Everybody has their own problems and nobody wants to deal with someone else's. I get that. But by the time Alan died, Sandra was already under some pretty substantial suspicion for two other deaths. Her first husband David Stegall, then her friend Betsy Bagwell.

If you look at it, the way Betsy Bagwell died is real similar to how Allen died. And they were both headed to meet her. They were both not seen alive again after that. Detective Easter's hope, if he could get Dallas investigators to see the connection between the two cases that he did, then they'd be invested in helping him solve Alan's homicide. But Dallas PD had no interest in looking at it any further. But Dallas PD had no interest in looking at it any further. So we were kind of stymied on that.

And let's not forget the medical examiner couldn't be certain that Betsy's death in 1982 had truly been a suicide. Over a dozen years later, Carrie Huskinson revisited the case, scrutinizing forensic details. She collaborated with a blood spatter expert and with his help, determined that Betsy likely didn't die by her own hand, that the crime scene had been staged. Huskinson was excited and called the Dallas PD cold case squad with what she'd found. But the officer who picked up didn't react like she hoped he would. He just started yelling at me, telling me,

and what is it you expect us to do? Huh, huh, huh? You want us to get the cause of death changed on the death certificate to say homicide, and then what? He said, you know, we're just gonna have a cold case sitting on our desk, and how does that help anybody? Hustgenson's frustration was palpable. She had laid out the evidence, but instead of interest, she was met with hostility,

as if reopening the case was more of a burden than a pursuit of justice. The truth is that they just want the easy out for their case. It's a suicide, but it's not deal with it any further. that they will just want the easy out for their case. It's a suicide, but it's not deal with an any further case closed. Dallas police just seemed so laissez faire about Sandra. It's maddening. I called them a few times, sent emails with questions, and yet a spokesperson said that they would not comment on a case they didn't take over.

You shouldn't want somebody that's a potential suspect of a homicide roaming your community and not helping the people that are trying to get them picked up and taken care of. Yet Dallas let Sandra Bridewell roam, and they didn't help solve Allen's murder. There's one thing we haven't discussed yet that could have made a difference in solving Allen's murder. The only thing that would have really helped on physical evidence side would have been if we had found the weapon and ballisticly matched it. Basically it would have been if we had found the weapon and ballisticly matched it. — Basically, it would have been something

if they had found the gun that killed Allen in Sandra's home and matched it to the bullets found in the Bronco. But during the first investigation, Detectives Pacheco and Mitchell never searched Sandra's home. It's kind of incredible. Maybe if Sandra's attorney didn't intercept them, they would have found the gun then. Detective Easterich had pieced together a timeline,

a carefully reconstructed series of events that to him left little doubt about who pulled the trigger. But in homicide investigations, what detectives believe and what prosecutors can prove are two very different things. I know from the prosecutor's standpoint, they wanted that slam dunk. A case so airtight that no defense attorney

could poke holes in it. We really dug for that to see if we could find anything that would put over their comfort zone on charging her, but we just couldn't do it. The stakes were too high. Charge Sandra with weak evidence, and if she were acquitted, double jeopardy meant she could never be tried again. Even if the murder weapon surfaced years later, or if one day someone who knew too much decided to talk.

Actual people due to buy her, they weren't real keen on reliving it. Whisper's had filled Dallas since the late 70s, but Lipps remains sealed. I just remember this constant pushback from people that wanted no involvement. Why didn't people want to talk to

law enforcement about Sandra? When I spoke to Gloria Rarig, she told me straight, They're all afraid of her. But I'm not. I've been trying to get her on the phone ever since this podcast was just the seed of an idea. At an age when most people have already retired,

Sandra got out of prison, and it feels like she's been on the move ever since. She's been looking over her shoulder for 15 years. I've chased Sandra's shadow across the country, multiple PO boxes, dead end phone numbers and emails. I reached out to the people she stayed with during her supervised release. They didn't call back.

Every lead unraveled. And just as we were wrapping up production on this podcast, Ryan Porter tipped me off that Sandra had been stopped at Boston Logan International Airport last summer for erratic behavior. Finally, a solid lead. I called the Massachusetts State Police more times than I can count. Then I finally heard back. It's Debbie calling you back from the Massachusetts State Police.

I just wanted to let you know I searched our system for 2024, January 1st, all the way through December 31st, and no records actually appeared. No such incident report existed. No Sandra Camille powers. Maybe I was foolish to think I could catch a ghost in a year when others have spent decades trying and failing to. When I told Jane Todd and Carrie Huskinson I wanted to talk to Sandra for this podcast,

they responded with the same gentle tone your mom uses when she knows your dream is about to be crushed. Sandra is not just hard to find. She's 81 and has perfected the art of vanishing. While most people her age are slowing down, she's still outrunning everyone. For Gloria Rarig, Sandra may be out of sight, but she's never out of mind. When I know the truth and I pray about it all the time, every night when I go to sleep, I think, God, give me something, give me some peace about this.

Leads have run dry. Investigations have stalled. Sandras continued to live her life untouched by the weight of what happened. And yet those who remember Allen refuse to let him become just another cold case. Al was so liked and so loved by so many. Everybody who knew him, they just liked being around him, with him. And that's why this interest has stayed with me and all his friends. They need answers. Detectives Easteridge and Porter tried their damnedest to give that

to them. I went to her house with Kyle and just the absolute sweetest lady. You meet her, you want to help her get closure, and it breaks your heart when you're sitting there and you know, I'm just not there, I'm just not there. Detectives are off the case, but Gloria's still carrying the weight. And he would be pleased to know

that I was still fighting for this. He would. I wanted to take the baton from Gloria, to fight to make some movement on this case, to be the fresh set of eyes that caught something everyone else had missed. But the truth is, that's all I was able to do. Carry it for a while. I didn't deliver the moment she'd been waiting for since that frigid December night.

The reality of cold cases is, something has to shift. A witness has to remember differently. The right person has to start talking, or the wrong person has to slip up. At 95 years old, Glory is well aware she may not see the day Sandra's held accountable. Even if I die before I can get this done, I'm still going to pray that somebody else will take it up and see that we get justice for this. That's my hope. Justice isn't a straight line. It twists and turns, stops and starts,

stumbles and backtracks. I'll never stop fighting to uncover what happened. It's unsettling to think that maybe after all this time, the only thing standing between the truth and the people who have fought for it is the woman herself. Sandra has always been the keeper of her own secrets, the architect of her own legend, the woman who charmed her way into high society, wrapped men around her finger, and more often than not, slipped through the cracks. But even Sandra cannot run the inevitable.

If Sandra were to pass, I mean, I would be extremely hopeful that somebody would take another run at these kids with her gone now, just for closure. And what would that mean for Sandra? She will have gone to her grave without ever being convicted of a murder. She will have gotten away with it. But perhaps justice can be just as poetic as it's been elusive.

Because if truth comes out after she's six feet under, she won't be around to spin the story. And for a woman like Sandra Bridewell, that may be the greatest punishment of all. Unlock all episodes of Fatal Beauty ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge Podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get Binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts, all ad-free. Plus, on the first of every month, subscribers get a Binge drop of a brand new series. That's all episodes, all at once.

Search for The Binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page. Not on Apple? Head to GetTheBinge.com to access wherever you listen. Fatal Beauty is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment. It was hosted and reported by me, Cooper Mall. Catherine St. Louis is our story editor. Jonathan Hirsch is our executive producer. Sound design and mixing by Josh Hahn. We use music from APM and Epidemic Sound. Our associate producer is Zoe Kolkin. Our fact checker is Naomi Barr. Our production managers are Sammy Allison and Tamika Balanzkolosny. Our lawyer is Rachel Goldberg. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rozic, Jamie Myers, Eric Miller, Skip Hollandsworth and Glenna Whitley,

who's reporting for D Magazine and the Dallas Observer is an essential piece of the story of Sandra Bridewell. If you'd like to read more about Sandra's life, grab a copy of John Leakes' The Meaning of Malice, on the trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park. Please rate and review Fatal Beauty. It helps people find our show.