True Crime All The Time - Marie Robards

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Marie Robards was charged with poisoning her father with chemicals she stole from her high school laboratory. Marie, who was just sixteen at the time, claimed she only wanted to make her father sick so she could go back to living with her mother, but prosecutors described the death of Steven Robards as “coldblooded murder” and “the perfect crime.”Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Marie Robards. Marie wasn't getting along with her stepfather and decided she couldn't live there any longer. But her stepfather had a rule: once you left, you couldn't come back. When Marie decided she wanted to be back with her mother, she hatched a plan that ended in murder.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 461 of the True Crime All The Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime Mike Gibson. How are you? Hey, I'm doing good about you. Doing great. Good. Except for the back.

Yeah, we still have the back issues, don't we? Both of us are still kind of down on our backs. But hey, what are you going to do, man? You got to power through. Absolutely. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had True Pearson. Hey, Pearson.

Beth Lecetre. What's going on, Lecitra? Samantha Gardner jumped out to our highest level. Oh, that's awesome. Thanks, Samantha. Jen Holyfield. Hey, Jen. Testicles.

Well, testicles. Well, we appreciate that. Testi. Ronda Holly Chapel. What's going on, Chappelle? Or Chappelle, yeah. Actually, I think it's, it might be Chapel, but I said Chappelle on Patreon. Well, you say Chapel, I say Chappelle.

I think it's Chappelle. We're just leave it there, I guess. Jason Manwaring. Hey, manwaring. Yvonne La Roche Pardo. That's a fun name to say. It is fun. Pardo.

And last but not least, Kristen Chesnik. What's going on, Chesnik? And if we go back into the vault, this week we selected Natasha Carter. Cada. Carter. Mr. Cada? Yeah, I remember that show. Yeah.

Who doesn't? Well, young people. But you know what I mean? Probably a lot of people. I don't know what he was referencing. It was a fun. show. It was.

Back in the day when you had three channels and much less to choose from. It was John Travolta was in that. He was. My hair, my hair. We also had a great PayPal donation from Emily Chek. Hey, Emily. So we appreciate all the support. We love it.

We have an episode out right now on True Crime All the Time Unsolved. And it's a big case. We're talking about 21-year-old Maura Murray, who went missing from Haverhill, New Hampshire in 2004, moments after crashing her car in the snow. And over 20 years later, there's still no trace of her. But this is such a big case. There have been, you know, entire podcast dedicated just to this case. Or have been.

And, you know, online forums, amateur sluice. This is one of those cases that a lot of people really follow. It's very fascinating. So, you know, we took a long time in doing. doing it, but a lot of people have asked us to cover. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We are talking about Marie Robards.

Marie was charged with poisoning her father, with chemicals. She stole from her high school laboratory. She was only 16 at the time, and she claimed she only wanted to make her father sick. So she could go back to living with her mother. But prosecutors described the death of Stephen Robards as cold-blooded murder. and the perfect crime. Stephen Robards and Beth Lomber were high school sweethearts in Fort Worth, Texas. Beth and Stephen married in 1974.

She was 18 and Stephen had just entered the Navy. I think you were in the Navy in 1974, weren't you? I was in a lot of things. I was one in 1974. Yeah. You weren't that much older. I was eight. You were eight.

Yeah. Not quite Navy time yet. I played Navy, though. And I'm sure you had a singlet by that point, just in preparation for your high school wrestling career. Well, absolutely. Came out with a singlet on. Two years later, their daughter, Dorothy Marie Robarts was born.

Stephen was stationed in San Diego in Florida, but the family eventually returned to Fort Worth. You ever been to San Diego? I have been. I love San Diego. And all the San Diegoans. Yeah. Can't even say it right. That's actually probably better than what Ron Burgundy that did.

But yeah, I don't know that that whole gas light, gas lamp district. San Diego and obviously got the weather. It's just amazing there. But I've been a couple of times. It just seems like a really cool place. Yeah, it's pretty nice there. Stephen and Beth separated in 1980 due to problems in their marriage. Beth took Marie with her.

Beth told Texas Monthly that she became disillusioned with Stephen because he began experiencing depressive episodes after their wedding. And let's face it, Gibbs, a lot of people struggle with depression. They do. That is something that, you know, has been around a lot. I have a feeling maybe even more so post-COVID. maybe there's probably even more people struggling with depression. I kind of agree with you.

You know, the difference, though, between today and back in 1980 is I'm sure there wasn't a lot of conversations about it. No, like a lot of things. Right. Especially related to mental health. You know, when you and I were kids, I'm sure a lot of the kids that we went to school with had things going on from ADD to OCD and all that stuff, it just wasn't recognized that much back then.

Beth said Stephen's behavior had always been a little erratic, but I was a naive Catholic girl caught up in this whirlwind teenage romance with this swab guy. But there came a point when I didn't know how to act around him anymore. He became jealous. He had temper tantrums. He couldn't hold on to a job. And then there were times when he would get so tired and feel everything was so bleak and dark and that nothing was worthwhile. You know, it's hard to be around somebody that is bleak and sees the negative and everything.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you. And, you know, I get it. If he's suffering from depression and it's undiagnet, and it's undiagnet, you. It's not treated. Well, it's just probably going to get worse, right? Yeah.

I don't know that some of that stuff gets better on its own. By 1981, Beth was married to a man named Frank Burroughs, whom she met when Stephen was stationed in Florida. Beth claimed they were just friends. And there was nothing between them at that point. Now, that could be true. It could not be true. I think when people end relationships, get divorced. sometimes they meet new people sometimes they rekindle relationships that they've had in the past and

when I say relationship I don't even mean romantic no just people in your life that maybe you had an attraction to but didn't act on or you just thought they were a really good person and you just got along with them really well and kind of just clicked now the flip side of that is you know there could have been something going on yeah they could have while the marriage was still going, but we have no idea. Burroughs was recently divorced and had a young son. He worked as a police officer in Granbury, Texas. He wanted to be a father figure to four-year-old Marie.

Marie called both Frank and Stephen dad. And you and I have talked a lot about kind of the stepdad role or the stepmom role. It's not always the easiest role for someone to take on. No, it has its challenges. Yeah. I mean, I've never had to do it, but I do have both a stepmom and a stepdad. And let's face it, there were times when, you know, I didn't get along with it. And you told them.

I'm sure I did. Yeah. Actually, I can remember telling them. I didn't make it easy on them all the time. Let's put it that way. And I don't think that's unique. No, I don't think it is at all. Although Marie lived with her mother in Frank full time, she still visited Stephen twice a month.

In Fort Worth, Marie began having problems with her stepfather as an adolescent. Jay Randall Price, a psychologist later hired by her defense attorneys, told Texas Monthly, when Marie has described those days, I have sensed there was some jealousy or possessiveness about her mother's relationship to Frank. Marie might have seen the marriage as a way of taking her mother away. By the same token, Frank was probably jealous of the mother-daughter relationship. So it can go both ways. Yeah, I mean, and again, just highlights kind of how tough that situation can be. Not just for the stepmom or stepdad, but for the kid as well.

It was clear to anyone that Marie and Beth were extremely close, almost like sisters or best friends. And man, what mom doesn't want that type of relationship? Yeah, I think at a certain age, right, you look forward to that. Mm-hmm. Now, it usually comes a little later on. I think so, yeah. As the kids get older, but I can see a pretty stark contrast in my daughter's relationships with my wife now versus when they were, you know, 10, 12,

14, 15. Yeah. Big difference, right? Big difference. And that's how it really should be. I kind of think, you know, my personal opinion is like when you're a parent, you got to be a parent and you're going to do and say things that maybe your child won't like. But as they get older and mature, then, you know, that kind of changes to dynamics. Well, it does. You know, you're pushing back a lot, right? As a kid, You're testing those boundaries when you're 14, 15, 16 years old. Although there was some tension at home. Marie appeared to be doing well. At Granbury High, she was known as a good-natured girl who stayed out of trouble.

She played the clarinet in the band and participated in art and dance. And I know you've talked to me about it playing the clarinet. That was your instrument. Oh, man, I was like Kenny G on that thing. You were a woodwinds guy. Just call me, uh, give you the woodwind. What I thought was strange and is that in old photos and videos of your recitals, you were wearing the singlet.

You know, a lot of times, uh, wrestling practice and band practice was right before or right after. So I just had to be ready to go to the next thing. Oh, okay. You know, so sometimes I'd get to take my clarinet and shove it down into my singlet, you know. Hey, where you put your clarinet is your business. I don't think everybody needs to know that part. In the summer of 1992, shortly before Marie started her junior year, Beth and Frank almost separated. Frank would later testify. At the time, I failed my family as a father and as a husband. I caused grief.

Marie had lost respect for me because of what I had done. Beth explained that Frank was having an affair. and Marie caught him the weekend before her 16th birthday. Beth was devastated when Marie told her, but she decided to stay with Frank. So, you know, we're talking about the dynamic, right? The stepdad, stepdaughter dynamic in this case. Well, now Marie catches him having an affair. So, I mean, that's going to add friction right there. Yeah, it's going to be a problem, right?

when your stepdaughter catches you having an affair. I mean. And obviously she's got to go tell her mom. Sure, which her mom is also one of her best friends, right? So it's going to happen and it's just going to ruin that trust bond. Beth told Texas Monthly, I loved Frank and I knew that he just didn't have his head on right. He felt neglected because of all the time I was spending with my own job. Beth worked in the emergency room at the local hospital and she said,

said this was his way of reacting. Now, I get it. People have affairs. I'm not saying it's right, but it happens. Sure it does. And I do think in a lot of instances, the person who's being cheated on, and they have to make a big decision. You know, do I end this relationship or, you know, do I try to work through it, forgive this person and make my marriage strong? Yeah.

That's a tough decision. I think it's a tough decision, even if whatever decision you make, let's say you say, I want to stay, I think it's a tough road to walk down. It's not going to be a weekend thing where you say, oh, okay, it's okay. No, it's going to take time because that trust is, it doesn't come back overnight. Yeah, and then next time that you think maybe you're not giving your partner enough attention, are you going to worry, you know, are you going to worry that they might stray again? Marie's relationship with Frank was damaged after she caught him having an affair.

She started talking back to him and refused to clean her room when he asked her to. She also withdrew from her mother. One day, Marie came to Beth and said she couldn't stand being in the house. She wanted her mother to divorce Frank. When Beth said she loved Frank and knew he would change, Marie told her, I have to to leave. And that's when Beth arranged for Marie to live with her parents in Fort Worth. Marie enrolled in a new high school. But five days later, she used her own money to get a cab back to Granbury. So I talked about it, right? This relationship between Marie and Frank was damaged

because obviously she caught him having an affair. But it does sound also like she was upset with her mom because her mom wasn't willing to leave him. She didn't want to leave him. Yeah. She wanted to make the marriage work. I think that upset her, obviously. Like, why would you stay with this guy, mom? The problem was Frank had a rule that if his son or Marie wanted to move out to live with another parent, they couldn't move back in. He later explained that he didn't want the kids to think they could go back and forth whenever they wanted to get their way. When Frank's own son moved out to live with his mother. He didn't allow him to return. So when Marie showed up at the house, Frank refused a letter inside. You know, I can see why he has that rule, but also think because of his

actions, maybe he should have been a little bit more understanding. Yes. Because possibly his actions is what led to all of this in the first place. Yeah, I get that. Now, if you, if you have, have a rule and you don't follow through with it, well, then what good is the rule? Now, you can argue was the rule good to begin with or were there extenuating circumstances? And you can also say, well, he didn't follow the rules of marriage, right? Yeah, absolutely. Beth recalled, it was this terrible scene. All of us outside screaming and crying at one another, Marie was crying for me to take her back. And Frank was shouting at me, you know the rule and you can't break it. same thing that applied to my son should apply to her. He was making sense. I know, but I felt like he

was making me choose between him and her. And I think he absolutely is. But Beth chose to stick with the rule and called Stephen to take Marie. She thought this would be a temporary arrangement. And Frank would soon let Marie move back in. I mean, that's a really tough place for her to be in. It is. I'm surprised that he had the power that he had, though, after what he did. Yeah, you would think he would be in a very weak position. Yeah. But it didn't seem that way. According to defense psychologist Randall Price, Marie saw this as abandonment.

I can see that. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people would. Stephen was excited to have Marie living with him. By 1992, he was taking medication for his depression and he was doing better. He was in a relationship with the single mother and had a steady job with the post office. Stephen was living in a one-bedroom apartment, but applied for a two-bedroom unit at his complex to accommodate Marie. Marie struggled to adjust to her new school, Eastern Hills High, which was much larger than Granbury High.

She wrote to her mother about how much she hated school. and said her father had no homemaking skills. He didn't clean, had very few kitchen supplies, and Marie slept in a rollaway bed in the dining room while they waited for a two-bedroom unit to open up. Well, it's a guy that was living pretty much single with no kid for a long time. So there's going to be an adjustment period. Well, it's also tough when you live in a one-bedroom apartment. Well, exactly.

Kind of limited on your space. According to Stephen's girlfriend, Sandra Hudgens, who lived in the same complex, he was very anxious about pleasing her. And he did everything he could to make her feel comfortable. He took Marie out to restaurants and movies. But I know that those first few weeks, Marie was constantly on the phone, calling her mother. She was pleading to get back home. She probably also really missed her other high school. Yeah.

But I don't think she wanted to be away from her mom either. Yeah. you know, I get it. She had some issues with her mom about the affair and all of that, but it doesn't sound to me like she really wanted to go live with her dad. Beth recalled that when Marie wrote a letter saying she was suicidal, I immediately called her and told her life was too precious for her to say things like that. I really thought Marie was only being overdramatic in the way teenagers can be. And teenagers can be overdramatic. There's no.

doubt about that. But I think when anyone starts to talk in those terms, man, you got to take it so seriously nowadays. Yeah, you do. I mean, it should have been taken seriously back then. I don't know that it was, though. After a few months, it seemed like Marie was adjusting. She was earning A's. She was one of the top students in her chemistry class by December 1992. Sandra Hudgens noticed that she was more relaxed at home and was. cooperative with her father. It was a top student in my chemistry class, too. Did you know that?

I just assumed it. Me and my buddy, Walter. Walter White? Yeah. Yeah. I've heard you talk about him. I didn't know him personally. We were really good in chemistry together.

I heard you guys made quite a bit of money, too. Yeah, we had a little gig going on. But in February, 1993, when her chemistry teacher, Tracy Arnold wasn't looking, Marie poured poisonous barium acidity into a napkin, which she hid in her knapsack. According to psychologist Randall Price, for whatever reason, Marie did feel permanently trapped.

She told me that prior to the Berium incident, she had been thinking that if she could burn down Stevens apartment, when he wasn't there, she would be able to be reunited with her mother. Well, and those are the thoughts that she's having. She really wants to get back in with her mom. But she's got some extreme thoughts about how to do it. And maybe it just simply goes back to Frank's rule, right?

It's going to take, I think, in Marie's mind, something life-altering for him to bend that rule to let me back in. Yeah. Marie would later admit that on the night of February 18th, 1993, she decided to mix the barium acetate into her father's refried beans, which were part of his takeout meal from a local restaurant. Stephen ate his dinner and went to a Wednesday night church service. He returned less than an hour later and complained of a stomachache. He began to vomit. And Marie went to Sandra's apartment to tell her that Stephen wasn't feeling well. Marie stayed in Sandra's apartment with her son.

Sandra found Stephen in bed. He was struggling to swallow and said his arms and legs were still. Sandra called an ambulance and heard Stephen gurgling while she was on the phone, she found him foaming at the mouth. I mean, this is a very serious situation. Yeah. But there's only one person that knows what's really happening. Right. And that's Marie. Paramedics couldn't get an oxygen tube down Steven's throat because it was close. Marie returned to the apartment and stood in the doorway when paramedics arrived. According to Sandra, it was like she was in shot. She didn't tell the paramedics anything. She just stood there.

Well, she's probably standing there looking like that because she knows what she did. Yeah, right. We know what the question's going to be, right? Why did she do it? And what did she think was really going to happen? Sandra hugged Marie and put her face into her shoulder so she wouldn't see her father die. Later that night, Beth and Frank came to the hospital to take Marie home to Granbury. Stephen Robards was only 38 years old when he died. his autopsy found nothing unusual but did show that he had heart deceit. His cause of death was ruled a heart attack. After Stephen's funeral, Beth informed Marie that they were moving to Florida.

She explained that she and Frank were still having problems and she was moving out. Beth later told Texas Monthly, Marie stared at me. She said, you had this plan all along to take me to Florida. I told her I had found a job there. And we were moving and we were going to be together again, the two of us. Marie looked like she couldn't breathe. If I had only told Marie one week earlier, none of this would ever have happened. Man, you wonder how much that weighs on her?

As far as like the guilt. Yeah. Yeah. And there's no way around it. No, there's no way she could have known, right, that Marie was going to go to these links, but that guilt's still going to be there no matter what. by the end of March, Marie and her mother were living in Panama City, Florida.

And Panama City is a place I know very well. Are you still allowed to go back there, though? I don't know since the last time. But when I was in college, that was the place to be for spring break. Yeah. I know we went at least two years in a row. And it was wild.

You could take kegs on the beach, you know, bury them in the sand, try to keep them, little cold. It's like the old Daytona and Fort Lauderdale days for me. It was like no rules there. Yeah. They actually sold kegs of beer in the hotel lobby. They knew, they knew how to make their money. Yeah. Marie enrolled in a new school, but she was so depressed, she struggled to get out of bed some days. Beth sent Marie to a counselor, which didn't seem to help. In June 1993, Frank Burroughs came to Florida to try to fix things with Beth, Marie was accepting of Frank's presence for two weeks until she found a note

in his pillowcase from another woman. Well, I'm sure that went over well, him coming back and being all, baby, take me back, please. And then Marie finds this note from another woman. Yeah. Well, Marie already had the experience with Frank, right, catching him cheating. So this just had to be, just another dagger against him for her. I mean, if you had any hopes that Marie was going to trust you again as best daughter, it just went out the door. Which you kind of need for the relationship with Beth to work, right? Absolutely, yeah.

Marie told her mother, mom, you can put up with him if you want to, but I don't have to. I miss Texas and I'm going home. Beth remained with Frank in Florida. Marie asked to live with Stephen's father, Jim Robart, in Mansfield. Beth later said, I think Marie somehow wanted to make up

to the Robards family and be the best granddaughter there was. She was determined to start a new life. The Robards family never suspected anything of Marie.

The only thing they noticed was her refusal to go to her father's grave. Marie told them she couldn't emotionally handle it. I'm sure that had to be hard knowing that the reason

he's in that grave was because of something you did. Well, very hard. But can we go back to Beth's decision. And I don't want to make too much out of it. I don't want to paint her as a bad person.

But this is like twice now that she has essentially picked Frank over her daughter. Yeah. And we said it, right? The first time Marie took that as a real abandonment thing. And I'm sure this just compounded it. Marie kept the true cause of her father's death a secret for almost a year. she was a straight-A student at Mansfield High and she participated in volleyball and the yearbook club. The other girls thought she was mysterious because she refused to talk about her past.

Well, heck, you know, I don't like to talk about my past. So does that make me weird? That alone? No. I mean, there's a whole bunch of other things that make you weird. I mean, some of it you're, you know, contractually obligated not to talk about. you signed NDAs around a numerous different things. But I get there are some things in your past that probably shouldn't be talked about ever,

ever. But you know, what I want to talk about Gibbs is Marie kind of living with this secret knowing that whether she meant to or not, right? Because we'll get into that. She killed her father. Yeah,

she did. And now, you know, she's living with her. her grandparents, his parents. Yeah. She's going to a new school kind of going on with her life, but it had to have been eating her up. I would think so. I don't know how anybody kind of just keeps that inside without it gnawing at them all the time. I mean, anytime her grandparents would have brought up Stephen's name, I mean, I think it would probably just hit like a dagger. Marie's closest friend was a

named Stacy Hyde. They were inseparable and they did everything together. Stacey described Marie as one of the most mature girls I had ever met. Do you ever meet Stacy's mom? No, who's that? Stacey's mom. Stacey suspected that Marie tried to present a perfect exterior to hide something. She told Texas Monthly, I had come from an abused background. And I had been to plenty of psychologists. I could tell that Marie had gone through something too. I thought I could help her come out of her shell, teach her to have a little more fun in life. So certain people are seeing this. Yeah, I always wonder, you know, was she really seeing it at the time?

Or, you know, is she talking to a reporter after the fact? And maybe it's both. Maybe she did see it at the time. But Stacey's view of Marie changed completely one night in January 1994. The girls were studying Hamlet. together, is recounted by Stacy, she was reading her favorite part of the play that focuses on the character Claudius, who poisons his brother to gain the throne. Stacey recited the part of Claudius's speech where he says,

My fault is past, but oh, what form of prayer can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder. That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder. After reading the passage, Stacey said, isn't that cool? But when she looked up, Marie was pale and trembling. Marie then asked, Stacy, do you think people can go through life without a conscience? Stacey replied, well, how about the kind of person who can look somebody in the eye and kill him in cold blood? Marie stood up, collapsed against the wall, and began to cry.

Stacey asked her what was wrong. Marie whispered guess. And Stacey asked her several questions. She asked her if she was pregnant. She asked her if she wrecked her grandparents' car. Finally, Stacey asked her if she killed someone. And she was joking. But Marie answered my father.

I poisoned him. I mean, what a, oh, shit, moment. Oh, my gosh. I mean, I can't even imagine you're with your best friend. You're doing best friend stuff. You're studying in this case. But to, you know, kind of hear that. revelation. What do you do? Yeah, because it's the last thing you would think you would hear from her.

I don't think anybody is expecting on a Thursday night in your bedroom to hear your best friend say that they killed their father. Yeah, I mean, I think the first two questions made sense. Like, maybe it's one of these things. Sure. But then to joke and then to jokingly say, would you kill somebody? And I'm sure she only asked that because of the the part of the Shakespeare play that they were reciting. Yeah, they were reading. Marie told Stacey, she was the only one who knew and pleaded with her not to tell anyone. However, Stacey told her mother Libby later that night.

Again, I don't know how you keep that to yourself. Now, people do because we talk about it in so many cases, whether it's knowledge of a murder before the murder occurs. Right. And they don't go and tell anybody for whatever reason. They don't think it's going to happen. They think somebody's just kind of venting or whatever. In this case, it's obviously well after the fact of the murder, but you still have that

knowledge. Yeah. And you got to make a decision on what you're going to do with it. I mean, it's like when you told me something that was terrible and you said, please don't tell anybody. and I said I wouldn't. You know, I mean, obviously, I told my two brothers and I told Vinie at the gas station, I told Sheila at the bar.

But outside of that, I've kept it a secret all this time. I'm sure they haven't told anybody. No, no, I'm sure they haven't either. But that brings up a good point, right? You also have to look at it from Marie's perspective. She is holding this piece of information in. And like I said, I'm sure it's eating away at her. Oh, it had to be.

She's with her best friend who she probably thought more than anybody she could trust and she unburdens herself of the secret. But Stacey goes and tells her mother, which is exactly what she should do. Let's be honest. Yeah. With that information, but not everybody does. Libby initially thought that Marie was overcome with grief about her father and made up the story. Libby called the poison center number.

to ask if barium acetate could kill a person by closing their throat. The person on the line said it could. And then asked suspiciously why Libby wanted to know. Well, that would be a suspicious call. It'd be a good question to ask, right? Absolutely. Yes, it can do that. Also, why are you asking?

But Libby chose not to call the police. She explained to Texas Monthly that after her disastrous marriage, She felt her responsibility as a single mother to prepare Stacey for the real work. Libby said, I wanted Stacey to know that I trusted her to make her own decision about Marie. I guess I knew that this was the moment in which Stacey was going to have to grow up. So it sounds like maybe she put it back on Stacey? I think she did. Now, you know, you can debate that whether it was right or whether it was wrong.

I think from her perspective, she didn't want to violate her daughter's trust. And I get that. She's a single parent. But you have to weigh that with, okay, what's the right thing to do? It's, again, these decisions, some of them are tough. Nobody knows exactly what they would do, probably, unless they were in that exact position. It's pretty easy to say she should have called the cops, though. Tracy tried to keep the secret for weeks. She looked at a little bit. She, later told Texas Monthly, when you're in high school, it's like so important not to betray your best friends. And this is something you and I have talked about a lot. You know, when you're in high school, that is your world, right? Your friend group. It is. You also think that's the most important thing,

not only right then, but that's ever going to happen to you, everything. Yeah, sometimes you think it's more important than your own family. Your boyfriend at the time, your friend group, and more times than not, those relationships, they're not going to last. But that's not how the teenage mind works, right? Your boyfriend is going to be with you forever. Yeah. Your first boyfriend. Yeah.

Chances are, no, they're not. Stacey said that the burden of the secret almost led to a complete mental breakdown. That would be a serious secret to hold. knowing that your best friend killed her dad. Yeah, she's in a very tough position. I think on the one hand, she knows what the right thing is to do, but she also doesn't want to rat out her friend. Stacey talked about Marie with a school counselor,

but never mentioned her by name. She confided in a few friends who had already graduated, but they accused her of life. She started to have nightmares that Marie, was chasing her through a forest all while continuing their friendship. She tried to tell herself. Marie made a teenage mistake and suggested Marie go to counseling. At her mother's suggestion, Stacey lied to Marie and told her she confessed the secret to a priest.

Libby explained that she did this because I thought if Marie ever wanted to harm Stacy, she wouldn't do it because she believed Stacey had told a priest. And I think, you know, for me, this is the part where, as a mother, and again, I'm not bad mouth and living in this, but, you know, as a mother or parent in general, I'd be worried about my own child safety. Yeah, I get it. At this point, as a parent, you're probably like, hey, get your coat. We're headed down to the police station.

You are going to tell them what you know. You're not having sleepovers with this girl who has confessed to being a murderer. That would be really tough as a parent. In February 1994, Marie's grandfather, Jim, took Marie and Stacy out to dinner to mark one year since Stephen's death. When Jim tried to make a toast to Stephen, Marie refused to listen. She didn't want to put flowers on her father's grave. She said she was over his death and no longer wanted to think about it. I think as a grandparent, you're going to be very confused, offended, taken aback.

Yeah, I mean, you're, you've got to wonder, like, what's going on with Marie? Why is she acting like this? She's acting as though she never loved her father at all. Doesn't miss him. Is not sad about it. A few weeks later, Stacey could no longer bear the guilt. She went to her high school counselor and asked them to call the police. All the medical examiner's office needed to do to prove Stephen was poisoned was retest his blood,

which they had a sample of. However, it took almost three months to find a lab with a machine capable of testing for barium acetate. It took another few months to get the results. How does that work? You know, you have this blood sample. You need to test it.

And you got to make like 200 calls during that week. Like, hey, this is John over at the lab. Do you guys have the X-5-2? machine so you can test for this substance. No, okay. You mean the X-5-2 sphincter-niner ringworm? Yeah, exactly. Well, keep in mind, it's not 2026,

but it does seem like it's also not the 1880s. Yeah, exactly. It's like, come on. It's not even the 1970s. You would think that that wouldn't be that hard, but I guess it was. As the months past, Stacey questioned her decision to report Marie, they never talked about Stephen during that time.

Stacey did try to distance herself, though. She dropped out of yearbook class so she wouldn't have to see Marie every day. Stacey started missing school and partying in April 1994. She checked into an after-school program at a private psychiatric treatment center. Well, it sounds like holding on to this secret as long as she did and then finally releasing it but not really seeing any developments from that. I'm sure it messed with her mental health. Yeah. Well, holding the secrets one thing, but then divulging it and then having to kind of play along as though you didn't and you're still friends with this person for month after month.

That'd be hard. I could see how that could, you know, really weigh on someone. Stacey did attend prom and took a photo with Murray. Stacey recalled she was so. beautiful that night that I couldn't believe she had ever done anything wrong. I kept thinking, maybe we can all just forget this ever happened. The girls went there separate ways. After graduation, Stacey attended Sam Houston State University and Marie attended the University of Texas at Austin. So quite a bit of time has gone by, if you think about it. Yeah. I mean, both of them have moved forward with their lives. Doesn't shock me that they went to different colleges. Yeah.

Because my thought is at that point, there was no way Stacey was going to go to the same college as Marie, room with her, anything like that. In October 1994, in the middle of Marie's first semester, the lab results came in. Stephen had 250 times the amount of barium acetate normally found in a person's blood. his cause of death was changed to acute barium intoxication. On October 18th, Marie was arrested and charged with her father's murder. Fort Worth officers arrested her on campus and took her to the police station where she admitted to poisoning Stephen. A detective asked her multiple times if Stephen abused her, but Marie insisted that he hadn't. The detective asked her why she did it.

And Marie responded, because it was the only way I could go back home. She described how she stole the poison from the chemistry lab. At Eastern Hills High School, she chose barium acetate because her teacher emphasized how poisonous it is. On the night of Stephen's death, Marie and her dad got takeout for dinner. They went home and sat down to eat. But Stephen went to the store to get something to drink. Marie wrote in her statement, And while he was gone, I put a chemical, barium acetate in his beans.

It was an average spoon size amount. She also wrote, I just wanted to be with my mom so bad that I would do anything to be with her. You know, part of me wonders at that moment, did she feel any type of relief? I would imagine so. I mean, on the one hand, nobody wants to be in jail. Yeah. or caught for something like this. But, you know, on the other hand,

I'm sure this had been eating at her for years. This is like two years, right, since the murder happened. On January 26, 1995, Marie was certified to stand trial as an adult on murder charges. Sworn statements by Marie and her friend Stacey became public during her hearing. Marie was indicted for murder on March 29. 1995, where he was released on bond and went back to Granbury where her mother and stepfather moved earlier that year. She got a waitressing job while awaiting trial. Sure, that went over well. Well, you know, I think I've told you, I've been watching this 60

days in. I also watched another show about people getting like booked into the jail. And some of these people, they don't get any bond for things that are a heck. of a lot less than murder. Yeah. So I'm sure it varies by state, but now it could also, you know, have had something to do with her record, her age. I mean, there are a lot of factors, right, when it comes to, uh, to bond and all that. Beth used the life insurance money that Marie received to hire two attorneys,

Bill Magnuson and Ward Casey. Their goal was to convince the jury that Marie didn't know Barrym acetate was deadly. If the jury believed she didn't intend to kill her father, they might convict her of manslaughter rather than murder. Kind of weird that she can afford these attorneys only because she has the money that she received from her father's passing, which she caused. Yeah, obviously there's something not right about that.

But it's a good defense strategy. She's already admitted to the poisoning. Right. She's not getting out of this thing. Scott free. No, she just wants to try to lessen the impact. Well, and that's what her defense attorneys are trying to do. Marie did an interview with the AP just before her trial in May 1996. She said she loved her father very, very much, but wanted to live with her mother.

She never intended to kill Stephen. She wanted to make him sick enough that she could move back home. She said, I never thought anything through. I didn't realize what I was doing. I knew I had done something very, very wrong, but I didn't think of myself as a criminal. She said about her father's death, I was in shock. My whole body just heated up. I knew I had done something very, very wrong.

She also noted that she didn't feel animosity towards Stacy, adding, I think for a long time, I did a good job of pretending it didn't happen. For a long time, I tried not to think about it. Although she was dreading the trial, Marie said, that I do look forward to the end of this thing. I've been pretty much in limbo the last year and a half. And, you know, that kind of goes back to your question. You know, is there some relief in the admission of this thing?

And I think maybe there was. You know, she was saying in that statement that she didn't really know what she did was as bad as it was when she first did that. Meaning she didn't think it would kill him. Yeah. Yeah. And I can see that's a thought of a kid, right? That's somebody that's not mature enough to understand what can happen if you do something like this.

Yeah. I mean, I think you have to balance that with how intelligent she was, right? She was a straight A student and she was particularly good in chemistry. Yeah. And she admitted that the reason why she chose barium acetate was because her teacher talked about just how very poisonous it was. Yeah.

So you can take it a couple of different ways. Yeah, it's very poisonous, so it's going to make him really, really sick. Or it's so poisonous that it's going to kill it. Either way, you're taking a big chance. It's not like there's directions of how much to give somebody to make them sick. Well, that's true. So my thought is, you know, as a jury, you got a lot to digest to. a lot to wade through.

The trial started on May 7th in 1996. The prosecutor described Marie as an intelligent team who was at the top of her chemistry class. She intentionally poisoned her father and didn't try to help when paramedics arrived. And that's a good point, right? We talked about it. She could have very easily told the paramedics exactly what was making him sick. Yeah, at that time, maybe they could have gave them some shot of something, right, to reverse the effects. Or some help if they had known exactly what was in his system.

The defense agreed Marie was intelligent, but noted she was unsettled by her unstable home environment. Defense attorney Casey told the jury, she'd never say a bad word about her daddy because she didn't want to kill her daddy. She wanted to go home to mama. The prosecution star witness was Stacey Hott, who testified that Marie admitted during one of their conversations that she knew barium acetate would be fatal. And I think gives, as a juror, if you believe Stacey, then that is an incredibly damning statement. Yeah, that's going to hurt. Chemistry teacher Tracy Arnold testified that Fort Worth school officials locked a bottle of barium acetate in a firefight. in a filing cabinet to hide it from police.

Her principal and the director of high schools asked her not to say anything, school officials eventually turned it over to police and received a warning that they could be charged with obstruction of justice. Why in the world would they do that? Well, assistant superintendent Phil Peregrine said he and principal, Johnny Largen, put the barium in Largen's office to keep it away from students after the allegations surface. An officer inspected the lab, but never asked for the barrier. They would have given it if asked. So either you believe their explanation or they were trying to not let it get out that this stuff came from their high school lab, which potentially would make them liable maybe in some way.

prosecutors rested their case after playing Marie's tape confessions and suggesting that she might have been motivated by her father's postal service pension. The jury heard Marie say that she put the poison in her father's food because it was the only thing I could think of to be able to move back to where I wanted to be. When asked if she knew the effect of the poison, she said it would make him sit. When pressed further, she said her teacher told her,

it would close up someone's throat. But under cross-examination, Tracy Arnold said she didn't make such a statement. On May 9th, 1996, Marie was found guilty of murder after less than two hours of deliberation. That's not very long. No, it didn't take long at all.

Now, we've seen much shorter deliberations, but two hours in a murder trial is not that long. Marie did not testify at trial, but the defense felt, they had to call her to the stand during the sentencing phase, re testified that she loved her death. She broke down and said, I'm so sorry,

I'm so very sorry. And I'm sure she was sorry, but sorry for what? Sorry that she ever did it, ever thought about it, or sorry that she got caught. That's it. That's always my question.

And maybe it's both. You know, she was a teenager. Teenagers make some of the, the most boneheaded decision. They do. But now she has to live with it. Oh, she has to live with the decision.

There's no doubt about that. And I do kind of take the jury's two-hour deliberation as they felt pretty confident, given the evidence presented at trial that she murdered her father. Well, she never denied, right? She's always said she gave the poison. Yes. the only thing was she said, I didn't think it would kill him.

I just wanted to make him sit. During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked why she didn't tell emergency workers that she poisoned her father. Marie explained that she was scared. The prosecutor asked if she was scared for herself or scared for her father. Marie replied, I was scared for both.

Stephen's father, Jim Robarts, asked the jury to show compassion. As upset, he was, he believed Marie should be forgiven and sentenced to probation. That's pretty interesting. Yeah. Now, I get it. She had been living with him. So, and I'm sure he was very fond of her, loved her, but she also killed his son. So that's a very tough position to be in. I mean, you could sit there and think, okay, it's my, it's my granddaughter. I love her. She did this terrible thing to my son, but she was as a kid. She didn't really know what she was doing.

and he's already gone. There's nothing that's going to bring him back. Yeah. I don't want my granddaughter's life destroyed as well. And she'll always have to live with that the rest of her life. Texas Monthly later quoted Jim as saying, I know this girl does not have a criminal mind. For reasons only she'll know,

she committed this one-time act. But I know that's all it was. A one-time act. I have to say, I don't understand what good a penitentiary sentence will do for a girl like Marie. And I understand what he's saying at the same time, like we just talked about, right? There are consequences to action. Now, what those consequences should be, I mean, that's up for debate.

But I think probation is a hard sell. Yeah, I mean, if the jury believes it's murder, you're exactly right. Probation only, probably not going to happen. Psychologist Randall Price planned to testify that Marie was so consumed by remorse that she was experiencing PTSD and unable to express her emotions. However, the defense did not call him to the stand. That could have been helpful. Yeah, I don't know what it would have done. I'm assuming he's saying the PTSD was from what she did to her father.

So that would have meant the act was already completed. Yeah. So I get it. She's unable to express her emotions, but the crime was already committed. The prosecution asked for a life sentence. But on May 10th, 1996, Marie was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Marie was a model prisoner and was granted parole after seven years. I think that's one of those where, you know, some people will be like, okay, I'm

go with that. Some folks will say, oh, there's no way she should have been led out after seven years. Yeah, that's, that's kind of a very personal view. Now, each person's going to have a different view on that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that there's a wrong and a right view. There's just different views. I guess at the end of the day, Stephen's family was okay with her being released. Yeah, heck, they wanted to give her, they wanted her to get probation. Yeah. But I'm sure, you know, you factor in her age, good behavior in prison. Okay. They decided that after seven years, she was ready to be released.

And although this case has been covered by the media in recent years, Marie herself has stayed out of the spotlight, which you would expect her to do. Absolutely. Why would you want to draw attention to yourself? There's nothing good that could come out of it. I think, right, you did the time that they said you needed to do. Do you really want to draw attention to yourself? Do you want to talk to the media, the papers?

No, probably not. I wouldn't. I would want to start living my life or trying to put my life back together, I guess. But I think as we wrap this one up, Gibbs, the questions still were made. Did Marie intend to kill her father? Or did she really not know that this poison she stole from the high school lab was going to be deadly? And that's a question that only she knows. Yeah.

I don't know who else would know that for sure. Now, if Stacey High is telling the truth, then Marie admitted to her that she knew what she gave her father was going to kill him. But Marie herself has never said that. No. But if she did say it, I mean, that's just something she'll have to live with forever. Every time she wakes up and looks in the mirror, she'll have to remember that. You know, I think there are a number of reasons why this grabs people, you know, people's attention.

This was a young girl, right? It's 16 years old who willingly took this poison from the chemistry lab, willingly put it in her father's beans. she even admitted, right? He wasn't abusing her. He wasn't doing anything to her. She wasn't trying to get away from him because of that. She just wanted to live with her mother. And in her mind, she thought this was what it was going to take, right? A catastrophic event to get her back home with her mother. Now, is that a teenager's brain at work, right, not making good decisions? or is this someone who knew exactly what she was doing, knew what was going to happen, and was

okay with that happening? At the very least, she was okay with making her dad extremely sick. Yeah, for sure. And you would have to say, okay with the possibility of him dying, how she know how much of this, this, um, barium acetate was going to be okay for him to enjoy. just without dying. Right, right. And I go back to that as kind of either not being thought out at all or being thought out and she just didn't care. It really comes down to that for me, one of the other. But that's it for our episode on Marie Robards. We got a voicemail. You want to check that out? Let's hear it. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Sarah from Bellingham, Washington. I just finished listening to the Todd Ken Hammer.

I think I'm saying that right episode. And I don't think I've ever been this conflicted before. When I first was listening, I was like, well, maybe he's not. But then I was like, well, maybe, well, yeah, he definitely is. Why would he make up so many excuses? But I almost had the benefit of the doubt, but I really, I just didn't understand why he would do these things. So I felt compelled to call because.

because I never felt this way before about a case. So it just felt so strange to me that this guy would make such excuses that, you know, were so easily debunked, I guess. But anyway, I'm a very long-time listener. Met you guys in CrimeCon in Vegas a few years back. Still have my whistle on my keys. So, but yeah, love you guys. Team Mike and Team Gibby all the way.

But have a great day. Stay safe and keep your own time picking. All right. Love you too. I think Gibbs, that was an episode where a lot of people were conflicted. Yeah. I've actually probably gotten more communication about that episode of people being conflicted than any other one that I can remember because it was so strange.

It was. It really was. What this guy did, how he thought he could get away with it. If he, you know, he really did what the, what he was convicted of doing. But, you know, to me, there are cases where, you know, at the end of the day, even with the evidence we know of that was presented at trial, it's pretty easy to see, right? Why somebody was convicted. There's very little doubt that they did what they're accused of doing. But every now and then, there's a case where, who, you just don't know.

Yes, it's too gray. There's a little bit of gray there. And I think this was one like that. But we appreciate the voicemail. Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully we'll see you again, maybe in Vegas. That's right. We're going back to Vegas.

We're going back to Vegas in March or April or May. I think it's May. I think it's May. I'll get there eventually. Yeah. So we'll see you again. All right, buddy, that is it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and give me, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.