True Crime All The Time - Susan Polk

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

Susan Polk was convicted of murdering her husband of 20 years, respected psychologist, Felix Polk in 2002. Susan claimed that the killing was self-defense but the prosecution argued that she killed Felix for money and custody of her children because of a contentious divorce. The two were married for 20 years and had 3 children together at the time of the murder.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Susan Polk. Everything about this case is the stuff that tabloids thrive off. The pair met when Susan was just a teenager and a patient of Dr. Polk. He later divorced his wife to marry Susan. She would later claim that Felix drugged and raped her as a teenager while she was under his care. Susan's trial was sensationalized by the media as she defended herself and made some outrageous claims, leading many to question her mental health.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.

everyone and welcome to episode 195 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. Gippee, how are you? Hey, man. I'm doing good about you. I'm doing really well, man. You know, I'm, I'm getting caught up from being in the hospital with my daughter. And actually, we just went today to get, uh, to do like the follow up. Right. And all the test results came back great, the genetic testing. We walked out of that feeling like, you know, $10 million. That's great,

so I just want to throw that out there because I know a lot of people have been worried and they've passed on their, their messages. So just want to tell everybody things are really looking up. Good, good. All right, we've got some new Patreon supporters.

So let's give shoutouts there. We had Joe Winding. Hey, Joe. Amber. What's going on, Amber? Gene Niederberger. Hey, Niederberger. It's a Niedermiter.

Remember that show? That's Niedermeier. Needer miter. Yeah. He's the guy from Animal House. Exactly. Yeah. That.

He said Niedermiter. I did. Angela Pappalus. Hey, Papalus. Courtney Elkins. What's going on? Courtney. Aaron theme jumped out of their highest level.

Appreciate that, Aaron. And I guarantee you I did not say that right. There's about five different directions I could take his name. Yeah. But Karen Aguilar. Hey, Karen. Ashley Phillips. What's going on, Ashley?

Aalia Maxie. Hey, Leah. Emma Honeyset. What's going on, Honeyset? Debbie McKinney. Hey, thank you, Debbie. Brandon McKinsey jumped out of our highest level. And thanks, Brandon.

Jessica V. What's going on, Jessica? Heather Burke jumped out of our highest level. Thank you, Heather. Sarah Peterson jumped out of our highest level. Wow, thank you, Sarah. We had Julie Summerhaze. What's going on, Summer Hay.

Thomas Martin. Thank you, Thomas. Stephanie. Robin Mishad. What's going on, Meshad? Shailen Hardin. Hey, Shailin. And last but not least, D.D.

Calura. Well, thank you, D.D. So thank you for all that new support. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Adrian Phillips. Well, thank you, Adrian. Yeah, been with us a long time. Appreciate the new support and the continued support. Yeah.

We had some PayPal donations as well. We had Corrine Colter. Hey, Corrine. Thomas Clark. Good, Thomas. Brandon. What's going on, Brandon? Harleen Avent.

Hey, thank you, Harleen. So thank you all as well. All right. gives right now on true crime all the time on salt we have a brand new episode out we're talking about carrie parker right down in texas yeah yeah it's a uh disappearance in 1991 down in uh like you said down in texas and uh it's very interesting there's some parts about that case that will definitely have you shaking your head i think it's one of those where we just really don't want to give too much away right because we

want the listeners to kind of hear it as it unfolds. Definitely think it's one of those what the, yep, what the F type of, uh, for stories. So make sure you check that out. Okay. Well, you check it out too, Gibbs. I'm just saying. You know, you're just so used to me saying something and you're like, okay.

Okay. Please do that. Yep. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time? I am. We are headed out to California to, to talk about Susan Polk.

And the 2002 murder of her husband respected psychologist Dr. Felix Polk. This is another one of those very bizarre stories from how the two met, the true extent of their relationship, Susan's mental health and her conspiracy theories, all the way to her extremely strange antics during her trials. Very strange. Very. I mean, you know, you and I, it depends on the story, but, you know, we may spend more time on the perpetrator, more time on the victim, less time on the trial, more time on

the trial. We'll probably spend a little bit more time on this trial just because it was so bizarre. And people will really get a sense of it once we get. through the information, Felix Polk was born in Vienna, Austria on June 30th, 1932. His family was Jewish. And according to his obituary, the family survived the Holocaust by hiding out in occupied France for a number of years. Wow.

So you've seen the movie Inglorious Bastards. Right. Quentin Tarantino. And I'm a huge Quentin Tarantino fan. That movie is a little strange, but they're. is a part there in the beginning where they're in France. Right. And a person is hiding an entire Jewish family underneath the floorboards of his house.

Right. At the dairy farm. Mm-hmm. At the dairy farm. The family eventually traveled to the U.S. and settled in New York. Felix was very bright. And after he finished high school, he went on to earn his college degree at St. John's.

And then he served in the name. Navy as an officer during the Korean War. By 1962, Felix had moved to California and that year, he married a woman named Sharon Mann. The couple had two children together during their 20-year marriage. And it was kind of during this time. Sharon became a pretty prominent concert pianist. And Felix piled up degrees, eventually earning his PhD from UC Berkeley and, 1965. You know, that's rough. You know, I've been there when you get a pile of those degrees on, you know, just one after the other. It's a lot of hard work. It is. But it's, you know, it's worth it in the end. I mean, you have, what, a number of PhDs both earned and honorary. Right. Because of

your humanitarian work and things that you've done around the world, there's been a number of universities that have given you honorary degrees. Ones you never ever heard of. No. No. No. They might even sound like they're made up. Yeah. But you still print them out. I mean, you still display whatever you're given and hang it on the wall. It's all about the cost of the frame, you know? Good frame can make anything look legit.

That's true. You know, there's some credence to that. Don't skip on the frame. Go, go big. Felix began a private practice in San Francisco. And, you know, really over the years, for the rest of his life. This was a practice that thrived. He also taught a number of classes at some colleges in California during his career.

But in 1972, Felix met a girl named Susan Bowling. Susan was born in 1957. So she would have been around 15 or so at the time. Susan was having trouble in school where she lived near Oakland. I mean, first of all, her parents were going through a divorce. And it was tough on her. I think a lot of people can relate to that. A lot of us are, you know, the product of parents that have gone through divorce. Right. It's never easy. She began skipping school. And when she did attend, she acted out. She also acted out at home. So a school counselor suggested to Susan's

mother that she would benefit from going to see an expert child psychologist, named Felix Polk. And that's what happened. Susan began going to see Dr. Polk, but gives at some point early on the relationship went way beyond professional and it turned sexual. So, you know, here you have this very well respected 40 year old married doctor, right? Father of two who is having sex with at, I think at that point, was his 16-year-old patient.

That's a problem. That's a huge problem. Yeah. There would later be allegations of rape on the part of Susan. But either way, this was a crime, right? The age of consent at the time in California was 18. It still is today. Now, the one thing I will say is that the reporting is all over the map on Susan's age.

Some reports have her as 14 when she first goes to see. Dr. Polk and the first time that they had sex. Some have it a year or two apart. I believe based on all the reports when you put it all together, she was somewhere around 15 when she started the counseling and 16 when they first had sex. But again, no matter how it shakes out, it was illegal on the part of Felix Polk. And you would think it would be against some type of psychologist's oath?

You would think so, right? would think at the very least that would be in their whatever you want to call it, their documents, their guidelines as being unethical. Shouldn't have a relationship with your patient. No. But I looked it up and strangely enough back in 1972, it wasn't even listed as unethical. Wow. By the American Psychological Association for a psychiatrist to have a relationship with a patient.

They didn't make that distinction until 1982. Now, today, in California and a number of other states, it's actually illegal for a therapist to have sex with a patient regardless of age. And it should be. When you're going to see somebody like that, you're pretty vulnerable. You're letting every wall down or their job is to get your walls down so they can find out what's going on. And then for them to come in on the backside and try.

to, you know, manipulate you. Yes. You would think it would be very easy for a psychologist, a psychiatrist, any type of, you know, professional like that to manipulate a patient if they wanted to. Right. Into making them think that something was the, the right thing to do or the best way to go. Exactly.

And that could be sexual in nature. and yeah, it's hard to believe that it wasn't until 1982 that that was even listed as unethical. It's kind of bothersome. I also was surprised to find out that the age of consent in California has been 18 for like 100 years. Now, that's if you're not married. Right. I didn't say that. I should have said that.

We've talked about a number of states where not all that long ago, it was, you know, like 14 years old. Right. Yeah. California has actually been very progressive in making it 18, I think back in the 20s or 30s. Well, that's good. Now, before that it was 10. Yeah, that's a problem. So like in the 1800s, it was 10.

Yeah. It's kind of strange to hear that. I mean, I know some of their logic behind it, but it still doesn't sit well. Yeah. It's hard to believe that people thought that was a good idea. Exactly. Felix's fascination with Susan, it didn't wane. He treated her as her psychologist for a number of years.

And over that time, they continued having sexual contact. Many of the, you know, a couple of those years, she was still underage. Eventually, Susan stopped seeing poke professionally, but they continued to have some sort of relationship. Susan went on to attend a couple of different colleges, ultimately graduating from San Francisco State University. but as far as I could tell, the relationship between Felix and Susan never stop. And at that point, you can call it a relationship, right?

She's over 18. Yeah. You can't really call sex between him and her at the age of 16, a relationship because it's a crime. But then in 1982, Felix divorced his wife and married Susan, who was 26 years his junior. the couple went on to have three children together, Gabriel, Eli, and Adam. So pretty strange, right? That, and we'll probably talk about it later on in trial, to think that, because I mentioned there were allegations of rape.

There will be allegations that he drugged Susan. Yeah. Back when she was a young girl. So some of those are going to be hard to square up with the fact that, okay, you continued on with this guy in a relationship once you became an adult and then you married him and had a family with him and stayed with him for 20 years yeah some of those questions i think on her part are going to be hard to answer but if you can show that he manipulated and brainwashed maybe you you could you could throw that out there like well and that's some of the things we'll talk about

as we get into the trial and we hear, you know, some of her allegations. But up to that point, can you imagine telling your kids, you know, because your kids probably asked you, how'd you mom meet? Yeah, we met at Walmart, you know. We both worked at Walmart at the time making like $4.75 an hour or whatever it was. I don't think that's the kind of thing that you actually tell your kids. Now, you're obviously going to have to tell them that dad was married, had a number, had a family. So you have some step brothers or sisters or whatever it was. But I don't,

I definitely don't think you're going to be sitting around the dinner table and open up with, you know, this is how your dad and I met. And I was just your age when I went and saw him for the first time. He was my doctor. And we had, yeah, and we had sexual contact. I don't think you're going to do any of that. So all of this brings us up to 2002. Like I said, I didn't think we would spend a lot of time on the backstory. The main thing is for me, how they met and, you know, some of the allegations. But by 2002, Felix and Susan had been married for 20 years. They have three children. And they were living in a multi-million dollar home in Orinda, California, just outside of San Francisco. Felix Polk was 70 years old by this time and was still.

going strong, still making a bunch of money. He'd made a lot of money in private practice over the years, but the marriage was crumbling, had crumbled, really. And Felix and Susan were in the process of battling through a divorce. I believe Felix filed for divorce in 2001. And at that time, told his attorney that Susan could be violent, unpredictable, and possibly dangerous. It's documented that police were called out a number of times to the house. Now, Susan would later claim that Felix had controlled her and that he was emotionally, verbally and physically abusive. One of her children would back her, but the other two would not.

And that's going to be interesting when we get to trial. Sure. At some point, Susan made the decision to leave the home and go to Montana. She later claimed that she was out there looking for a place to live, right? She's going through this divorce. She said, I was out there looking for, you know, a home, looking for a place where I could start my life again after the divorce. But while she was gone, this was on October 2nd, Felix went to court and he won an order

granting him control of the house and custody of their youngest son Gabriel. You move fast. Well, you know, some could argue that she was in Montana. Abandoned her child. Had abandoned the household. Yeah. And he made a calculated move and went to court and was successful. But according to court documents, when Susan found out about the court order, she called Felix on the phone and threatened his life.

And he took this threat serious enough to report it to police. Susan finally returned to the home from Montana on October 9th. And then the very next day, Felix was at work. I told you, gives this guy 70 years old. He's still working, still making money. It's young man.

That day, Susan got one of her sons to help her move all of Felix's belongings to a cottage on their property. So she essentially kicked him out of the house and said, hey, you can just sleep in the cottage now. Yeah. I'll sleep in the big house. I personally be okay with the cottage, you know.

Well, what's in the cottage? How big is the cottage? You don't know. Hey, when I'm done with it, you have everything I want. But it's kind of interesting because he had this court order. Yeah. Granting him exclusive rights to the property. So really, she had no right to kick him out. No. But she tried to force it anyway.

Well, like most men, Felix wasn't real happy when he got. home, right, to find out that he had been relegated to the cottage. A big argument broke out. And apparently during this argument, Susan threatened his life again. The police were called again. Like I said, they were out at this house a number of times. So it's not hard to see, Gibbs. This situation is getting worse by the day. And it finally came to a head on October 13th. Another argument broke out that night between Susan and Felix. And it ended inside the cottage with 70-year-old Felix Polk dead from stab wounds from a paring knife. From a pairing knife.

Yeah. Wow. But here's where things get just unbelievably strange, right? It wasn't Susan Polk who reported her husband's death. She didn't stab this guy and then immediately pick up. up the phone and call 911 and say, hey, you know, my husband and I got into an argument. Things turned physical. I was scared for my life and I ended up stabbing him.

Send somebody. Right. That didn't happen. No. She acted like the next day when the kids asked where dad was, she said, I don't know. I haven't seen him. Nope. I have no idea where he is.

It was her 15 year old son, Gabriel, that found his father dead. inside the cottage and called 911. That'd be rough on him. Walk in to find your dad like that. Yeah, no doubt that would be rough. But how callous is it? Let's look at it from Susan's perspective. Sure.

No matter what she's going to argue down the road, self-defense, whatever, how callous is it to leave this man's body for a full day, knowing full well that eventually, one of your sons is probably going to stumble upon their dad. Exactly. Or you're going to eventually have to call somebody, right? So how are you going to explain the delay?

Yes, exactly. Police got to the scene and they found Felix dead. They also found the floor of the cottage living room covered in dried blood. Because remember, a whole day, almost a whole day had passed. This was the next day when his body was found. And it's probably not a stretch to think that police. lease would have been suspicious of Susan from the start. Yeah, you know, they've been called out to the house before. A number of times. Yes. So, and everybody knows the spouse is going to be looked at

anyway. That's even in a case where there's been no reports of domestic violence. There's been, you know, the cops have never been called out. This time, you've got a record of a number of fights. So there's going to be a lot of suspicion on Susan for sure. Well, it didn't help her at all either that they found some bloody shoe prints that matched her shoe size. Yeah. Yeah, that's, uh, that's not helping you at all. So just break that down, right?

How are you going to explain that you walked around this crime scene in the blood, but yet you had no idea your husband was dead. You didn't know anything about it. Right. It's going to be hard. Very hard. A Contra Costa sheriff's deputy later testified at trial that Susan showed no emotion when she was told of her husband's death.

And actually she said, oh, well, we were going to get a divorce anyhow. So when I use the word callous, you know, you can throw the word cold in there. Yeah. Ice cold. Ice cold. So again, even if you're going to come up with a source. story or tried to say that, you know, this happened in self-defense. Why would you be so cold?

Now, when she was initially questioned, Susan said she didn't know anything about Felix's death. I don't think it took too long for her to have to change her story. And that story was that that night, Felix had come at her with the knife. She was able to wrestle it away from him. And then she killed him in self-defense. That was basically her story. I think one of the big problems was that when authorities examined Susan, she didn't have a single scratch on her.

Yeah, it didn't look like any defensive wounds anywhere. No, not a scratch. And if you're in a fight with somebody over a knife, chances are there's not just one person that's going to have a ton of injuries. And we'll talk about what Felix's injuries were when it comes time for trial. But the key thing is Susan had none. She was arrested and charged with the first degree murder of her husband. And then in the years that followed, leading up to her trial, Susan fired, I don't know, how many attorneys, a number of attorneys.

Right. I think she at certain times was really set on representing herself, which is most likely why she, you know, kept firing attorneys. The other thing, I think, that comes. up a lot in the research is that she most likely didn't like the direction that the attorneys wanted to go. She had a very specific plan. And, you know, that plan, as we'll find out, didn't involve her admitting anything about her mental health. Oh. Which you know, a defense attorney would want to introduce. Absolutely. If there is a doctor.

diagnosis, if there are, you know, any issues with mental health, they're going to want to introduce them as mitigating factors or to try to help her defense. I don't think that's something that she wanted. Well, you know, their job is to keep you from going to jail. That's why you hire an attorney. Yeah. To keep you from going to jail. And if you have to go, they want their try to minimize.

Yeah. Your stay. Right. You know, it's kind of part of the deal. But by 2005, it looked as though she had settled on an attorney, a guy by the name of Daniel Horowitz, prosecutors had come out and said that they believed Susan Polk murdered her husband towards the end of a contentious divorce because basically she wanted to get as much money as she could. And she didn't want to lose her kids. And, you know, you can go back to this.

court ruling that happened right before the murder. Sure. Okay. He gets the house and he gets custody of one of the kids. Yeah, probably threw her over the edge for sure to get that phone call while you're up in Montana to hear that you just lost custody of one of your kids. Yeah, it wasn't good. Wasn't good for her.

Her attorney, Daniel Horowitz, told papers that Susan Polk killed Felix in self-defense. She had been attacked and bullied by him for years. And that night, she was in fear for her life. Now, at one point, she got out on bail, right? Judge issued bail. It was put up. She's free. But she couldn't leave well enough alone.

And she kept trying to contact her children. I think she sent some threatening messages or left threatening messages on voicemail. and once that got back to the judge, her bail was revoked. Yeah. And she was back in jail. As Susan's trial approached in September 2005, her defense team petitioned the court to be allowed to introduce Felix Polk's medical records from his time in the Navy.

The Associated Press reported that he was hospitalized in 1955 after attempting to take his own life. and he was diagnosed with psychotic depressive reaction with suicidal tendencies. In those medical records, doctors described Felix's agitated, depressed, and concerned over sexual problems. They also noted that he had some incestuous fantasies involving his older sister. I don't know how they would have known that unless he had disclosed them during a session. Right. Or something like that.

I think at issue and what the defense wanted to present was evidence that Felix Polk had been diagnosed, obviously, and that he had been prescribed medication, that he was not taking at the time of his death. So my understanding is the defense was setting up an argument that the fact that he wasn't taking his medication, most likely led to him attacking Susan the night he was killed. This was their plan. Well, sure. If you want to try to have the jury buy into the fact that it was self-defense, right? You got to say, here's why it was self-defense.

He quit taking his meds and he seriously needed to take his meds or he would go off like he did. Yeah. Yeah, because we've already talked about it, right? They're going to have to get around the fact that she doesn't have any wounds on. her. He's the only one with wounds. How do you prove that he was the attacker? So her first trial began in October 2005, but it ended very quickly in a way Gibbs that I've never seen a trial in. Tragic. In a very tragic way. The wife of Daniel Horowitz, Susan's attorney, was murdered. You know, during this trial, like right in the very beginning of this trial. And the judge

declared a mistrial due to the publicity surrounding these events. The way I took it was that the judge felt the murder could influence the jury in some way possibly leading to them feeling sympathy for the defense attorney. Right. Because he had just lost his wife. In turn feeling. And somehow that sympathy would transfer onto his client, Susan Polk. Now, ultimately, police tied the murder to a local teenager named Scott Dyloski. And he was arrested and later convicted. But mistrials happen all the time, right? It can be jury contamination, this, that.

I've just never seen one happen as a result of a defense attorney or any attorney's, you know, family member being murdered. But it makes sense. It does when you look at the logic that the judge kind of lays out. I think you could leave whatever verdict comes down the pike, open to some criticism later that did the attorney really represent her that well if his mind was not where it needed to be? And I do think I left it out, but I think there were some hesitations on the part of the judge that this would have ramifications down the road like in an appellate court.

So I think you're on track there. There were some concerns around that as well. Susan's trial was rescheduled for 2006, but Daniel Horowitz would not represent her. And this is something, you know, bizarre as well. I've seen a number of different reports around this. I've seen where Susan fired him. I've also seen where he resigned from the case. I don't know that it matters all that much how it happened. The interesting part is that Susan came out publicly and said that she believed Daniel Horowitz was somehow involved in his wife's murder. So, you know, whether he was fired or he left on his own accord, it's not going to be a

real good working relationship between attorney and client when the client comes out and says, hey, I think my attorney killed his wife. Yeah. That's not good. It's not going to be good. So she has to get a new attorney? Or is she? You know, she's, you know, she's, already fired what three, four, maybe five different attorneys. You know, what's this woman going to do, Gibbs? Of course, she's going to make the decision to represent herself. And you know how I feel about that. I know. But here's the thing. Why would a client come out and accuse her attorney of being involved in his wife's murder? You think maybe it's because all along she wanted to represent herself? Oh, I I can see that for sure.

I think it's a distinct possibility because she had tried or at least alluded to the fact that that was her intention, you know, throughout the years. The problem is this decision is basically going to turn her trial into a circus. And there's no doubt about it. A judge ruled that Susan Polk was competent to stand trial and that she could represent herself. So she was happy. Yeah. She got her way.

I think she was happy. think it's really what she wanted all along. Now, two attorneys were appointed to assist her, but I don't believe she took much advantage of, if any, of that assistance. That was probably more just to make sure that the courts can say, we did everything we could to make sure she had the correct legal guidance. Yeah, because when somebody represents themselves and they're convicted, almost always that's brought up on appeal. When you talk about in assistance of counsel, yeah, that's in play here because you've got a person that is not an attorney representing themselves.

So I think you're absolutely right when you say that the court does that because they want to stave off as much as they can any of those arguments down the road. Yeah. She represented herself. but here were two competent attorneys that we provided to help her. She just chose not to take any of their help. Right. That's not our fault.

No. So the trial started. And the prosecution alleged that Susan murdered Felix because of the divorce and the ruling that had gone against her. I think Gibbs, what they were hammering home was that this was a woman that just wasn't going to take the chance that, you know, she would lose. custody of any of her sons that she was going to lose the support payments that would have gone along with that, right? If you lose custody, you lose money. And I don't think she wanted to lose

the house, period. It was worth about $2 million. And basically, Gibbs, I think she won it all, right? She didn't want to lose anything. Now, this was a long trial. It lasted four months. And it was a pretty heavily covered trial. I mean, this was back in the day of court TV and I think, you know, a lot of the networks were there and covering it. It was a pretty big case at the time. Susan contended that she killed her husband and self-defense, but I said this trial was a circus and it really was. Yeah. You know, Susan Polk fought with everyone involved. She fought with the judge, the prosecutor. She fought with witnesses. She constantly told the judge that she should recuse herself from the case because she was somehow biased against Susan. I guess she shouted constantly, right? She didn't act

like a defense attorney. Right. Number one, she wasn't a defense. She wasn't a defense attorney. She kept calling for a mistrial, would say that multiple times a day. Yeah. We should have a mistrial. Well, okay. I'd like to have a. a Coke Freezy. Well, we don't always get what we want in the moment where we want it. Now I want a Coke Freezy. I know. That sounds good.

That's not the name of it. What do you call it? Slushy. Slushy? Coke slushy? Yeah. The other thing that she did was she talked over everyone. And we all know people like that, right?

You're in the middle of a sentence. I don't know what you're trying to say, Mike. You're in the middle of a sentence. You can't even finish the sentence before, you know, someone starts in. Okay. that's fine. It's not great. People don't like it. You know where they really don't like it is in a courtroom. And you know who really, really doesn't like it? Yeah, the judge. The judge. Somebody in power. And so apparently she was talking, you know, over the judge just all the time. And judges don't like that.

Susan had a number of conspiracy theories that revolved around the police and how they were out to get her. So, you know, they tampered with the crime scene. They fabricated evidence. Okay, you might get that in quite a few trials. But Susan also told the jury that she was psychic and that she had predicted the 9-11 attacks, but her husband Felix prevented her from warning authorities. Right. Now we're getting into a little bit of the bizarre.

Yeah, got it down that pike. And the sense that I got was that it really was the way she talked about Felix that got a lot of people's attention. I mean, this was aside from the fact that she was claiming self-defense, right? She repeatedly said he was a vile person. And she basically took every opportunity to point out to the jury what a piece of trash this guy was. But she also said he was a foreign spy. Oh, do you go down to Ecuador too? Yeah, for training.

For training. Like you did. Yeah. But this is one of the things that many jurors said after the trial that was most off putting to them about Susan Polk. They just thought that, you know, at times she was delusional. And at other times, she was just so callous that it really kind of rubbed them the wrong way. The first witness that the prosecution called was Susan's son, Gabor. So this is interesting, right?

she had three sons, two of them testified against her, and one testified on her behalf. Gabriel obviously is one that testified against her. He spoke about life in the family, talked about how his mother had threatened to kill his father a number of times. He also testified about what it was like to find his father's dead body. That's all things that you would expect that a prosecution witness would testify to, but then came the cross-examination, Gibbs, and just think about how strange this would be. Susan questioned her son on the stand for about three hours.

And her whole goal was to basically destroy her son's credibility on the stand. The problem was she wasn't a litigator. Right. Now, she was smart. That's something I really haven't touched on very much. She was highly intelligent. And you and I have gone back and forth before about, you know, some of these people that think they're smarter than the room. You know, it's a term I use quite a bit.

Right. Those are the ones that somehow make the decision that they can represent themselves. They're smarter than everybody else. You know, how can this prosecutor beat me? He's not smarter than me. Yeah. They just don't understand, right? Well, it's not all about how smart you are.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Intelligence will get you so far. Exactly. It doesn't gain you automatically the experience that, you know, the prosecutors and defense attorneys get through years and years of education and hands-on training and practice and all that. There's definitely a skill set. Well, sure. That you develop, you know, as an attorney, especially when it litigates. So she's questioning her own son Gabriel.

And she asked him why his father told him that she was delusional. Gabriel's response was it was because of the way you were acting. But he added, I didn't need his evidence. I saw your delusions for myself. At one point, there was this really strange exchange about a schoolyard fight that had happened years earlier that Gabriel was involved in. Susan asked him, isn't it true that back then you weren't the big guy that you are now? Okay.

Not exactly sure where she's going with this questioning. Right. But Gabriel replied, yeah, between the four years when you murdered my dad and now, I grew a lot. So that's not exactly how a defense attorney would want an exchange to go down. Right. And that goes back to, I think, the point that you and I are both. making. There's a skill involved there of not just knowing what questions to ask, but how to ask them in a way that limits the people's ability to say things that you don't want them to say or expand

on, you know, things that you don't want. Yeah, because in that same thought, there's certain questions you should not ask. You've got to know what those questions are that you shouldn't even get near. Right. And I think these are some examples of, you know, how she really opened up for, at least in these examples, Gabriel, to say that she murdered his father. And experienced defense attorney would never get him or herself into that situation or they would never want to. They'd try really hard not to. That's not helpful to the case whatsoever. No, no, absolutely not. Susan's son, Adam also testified for the prosecution and he pretty much echoed some of the same sentiments made by Gabriel. The basics of their testimony was that it was their mother who was the abuser in the

relationship. She was the one who started the fights because she was always angry, very often delusional, and she could sometimes be very violent. And I think that's important, right? Because Susan's trying to trying to put forth the message that Felix was the abuser. He was the one that was always starting the fights. He was violent. And two of her sons are saying, no, mom, it was you. Yeah. You call us all that. Adam at one point called his mother bonkers and said that she was cuckoo for Cocoa Puff. That's, yeah. So just the way that you chuckled right there, it's kind of. of hard not to because the saying is so, you know, kind of out there. Obviously, most people know that comes from the commercial for Cocoa Puffs. It was reported gives that the judge, she could barely

contain her laughter. But all in all, you would have to think that the testimony of Susan's two sons would be pretty powerful for the jury to hear. And especially to hear them talk about their own mother in the way that they did. The autopsy information was introduced at trial. Photos of Felix's body were shown to the jury. The autopsy showed that Felix Polk had suffered 27 separate wounds. Now, five of these were very deep cuts to the chest. There were a number of other cuts. There was also a number of defensive wounds, as well as wounds suffered from blunt force trauma. So I think this is important as well, right? The number of wounds and how they were suffered. This wasn't a situation where you and I are in a scuffle. A knife comes out and I accidentally

plunge it into your belly. Right. Which is in my mind how that would go down. But this is not that. Right. Because that would never happen. I knew you were going to say that. 27 different wounds. And then, you know, five of them very deep. You've got the defensive wounds. And then we've talked about it, right? You've got no wounds on Susan Polk.

Which seems impossible if she's saying what happened happened. If it went down the way that she said it did. Yeah. Because she's just that good with a knife. That little pairing knife, she was just that good that she was able to stab and, slice him 27 times without getting one wound on her. Yeah, I think if you're looking at it from the jury's perspective, you have a man who suffered brutal wounds.

Now, granted, he's 70 years old. Sure. But he's pretty active. He's still working. Yeah. And then you have this relatively small woman when you see pictures of her or anybody that's seen pictures of her. She's not a very large woman at all who claims.

that in this fight involving a knife, she was somehow unscathed. And I think to add to the circus-like atmosphere of this trial, Susan Polk made the decision that she was going to take the stand. This happened about three months or so into the trial. And I think it took a lot of people by surprise, which I think is normal. When defendants take the stand, I think quite a few experts. pundins. Yeah. They're very surprised. Just because it's, it's often not the, the best thing to do.

It's often not the advice given by counsel, but she's her own counsel, right? So she knows what's best. How's that work? Uh, I call myself to the stand. Yeah. Well, I think that's where it's interesting. I know we've had at least one other case like this where, you know, someone represented themselves and it's not like you get up in the box and then you jump down and ask yourself a question

and run back to the box and answer it. It doesn't happen that way. Basically, my understanding of how this transpired was that she was allowed to sit in the witness chair and kind of free form, just talk, you know, talk about her childhood, you know, bring up the, the rape and you know, she contended that Felix drugged her when she was a teenager. She cried on the stand. She showed pictures of her family to the jury. It was just kind of a rambling narrative, I guess is the, is the words that I would use. She did say that she regretted ever marrying Felix Polk.

And she kind of laid out the deterioration of the. the marriage over the years, but she also told jurors that Felix constantly put her down. He told her that she was bad, ugly, evil, and destructive. She said that he beat her and she was often afraid that he would kill her. She added that Felix over the years told her that she was crazy and told their children that she was crazy as well. but she also testified that he forced her to take hallucinogenic drugs that caused her to have flashbacks so i i think you have to kind of picture all of this try to be in that courtroom

well there's no attorney that's prompting her as you would see in a normal trial right a defense attorney would say would ask the questions yeah would kind of lead you as the witness down the path to tell the story the way that would be most beneficial to you. But instead, she's just going to ramble on. Yeah. I mean, you're just going to get up there and kind of, you might have some notes or something, but are you really traveling down a path?

Or are you just kind of throwing things out there? Yeah, because you kind of want to get to a certain point to drive home to the jury, not just bring up all these random facts throughout your marriage. Yeah, you want to make points, and then you want to move on. The part that I could not find Gibbs is, and maybe it came out,

maybe I missed it, was why Susan ended up marrying this man later on who she said had drugged and raped her. She said she regretted it, but, you know, now maybe it did and I just couldn't find it. Either way,

I don't know the answer to that question. You know, did he have some type of, spin golly-like grip on her that she couldn't shake free from. Did she fall in love with him despite what happened? Yeah, I think it could have went down several different ways. Yeah. There are a number of ways that it could have happened.

I just, I was very curious as to what that explanation was. I just could never find it. Yeah. Here's the problem. When you make the decision to testify, you know the prosecutor is going to have a chance to come at you. And that's exactly what happened to Susan Polk. Yeah, she got to sit on the stand and kind of do this freeform narrative to the jury.

But at some point, it's the prosecutor's turn. Oh, yeah. And I'm sure their mouth was watering. Yeah, because the prosecutor hammered her on her account of what happened the night Felix was killed. and it kind of goes along the lines of what you and I have already talked about. He asked her, okay, how did you manage to wrestle this knife away from Felix without suffering a single cut anywhere on your body, but especially on your hands, right? If I've got a knife in my hand and it's pointed at you and you're going to try to get that away from me, I think more likely than not, you're at least going to suffer a cut on your hand.

Oh, for sure. Somewhere. Yeah. think that the one thing that the prosecutor was able to do was to push some of Susan's buttons. And at one point, he asked her if she had a history of turning on people who didn't agree with her. And then he pointed out all of these different examples. She'd had run-ins with police. She had all of these things that had come up with her ex-defense attorneys.

But then you had just what had happened during the trial. And the jury had already seen it. He just had to kind of point it out, right? She was contentious with everybody. Including her kids. And the judge. Susan's third son, Eli, testified on her behalf. And I don't have all the details of his testimony, but it's, it was described in a number

of outlets as very bizarre. And I don't know if it was an attempt to back up some of the very bizarre things that She had said, that's really all I found out. I think the bottom line is it doesn't seem as though it helped her out greatly. Eli was also arrested during the middle of the trial for battery and violating a restraining order against his ex-girlfriend. So that normally doesn't look real great either. No, that doesn't help. Both sides gave their closing statements and then they handed it to the jury.

It took the jury about three days of deliberation to come back and, find Susan Polk guilty of second degree murder. That's not what the prosecution was after, right? They were trying her for first degree. The jury came back and said, we're convicting her of second degree. The jurors who spoke out later said that they just didn't find Susan credible. They didn't find her son, Eli credible. And they didn't buy her explanation of the events of that night.

They just didn't feel as though what she said matched up with the evidence. But her sentencing was delayed to give her new attorney time to prepare motions. For sure. Now that she's been convicted, she wants an attorney. Yeah, I won't say it's funny. It's, it's kind of interesting, right? This whole time she's been angling to represent herself doesn't want the help of an attorney. well, I don't think it worked out quite the way that she had in mind. So now I think she's thinking,

all right, we got to do these appeals and stuff. Now I have to have an attorney. One of the motions filed was for a new trial. And that was ultimately denied. So in February 2007, the judge sentenced Susan Polk to the maximum sentence allowed, 16 years to life. She would be eligible for parole after 15 years. And she'd already served three of those in jail. But I guess at the sentencing Gibbs, Susan again tried to accuse the judge of conspiring against her. And for some reason, this time she even pointed the finger at the court reporter as a conspirator. Oh, sure, they were out on it. Why wouldn't they be?

Well, because, yeah, the court reporter has a lot to gain in the guilt or innocence of anyone. I think the janitor was involved as well. So look for that. Deep undercover. Deep undercover for sure. In 2019, Susan was denied by the parole board. So she finally came up for parole.

She was denied. But again, she could have had somebody in there to help her. Sure. Somebody that's more of an expert on parole hearings. Yeah. She chose to represent herself. And it was reported that once again,

she chose to verbally spar with the parole board, not really the best way, in my opinion, to get them to let you out. It got so bad that eventually they had to kick her out and escort her back to herself. See you in 10 years. Yeah, that's when she'll get another crack at it. It will be, you know, 2029. But I'm not sure it's going to get any better the next time around. I mean, for one thing, she hasn't exactly been a model prisoner.

she's gotten into quite a bit of trouble over the years and her mental state and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute but it seems to only be getting worse you know reportedly in prison she continues to spend conspiracy theories and these aren't even about what happened to her and her trial no she's telling people that there's a guard in the prison that's actually a male disguised as a female. Why? Yeah. Why? What, what are you getting out of that? So Gibbs, you know, this is a case with a lot of twists and turns. You know, on the one hand, I believe that Susan Polk murdered her husband. On the other hand, it's kind of hard to argue that in some way, she was not or is not mentally ill. I'm not sure she ever got to help that she really needed from an early

age. No, maybe not. Maybe he manipulated every facet of her life. Well, it could be. It could be that Felix took advantage of her in those early years, as we know to be the case. I mean, he did take advantage of her. He committed a crime against her rather than truly helping her. You know, that's where did he treat her the way that he should have? And at the same time, you know, kind of committed this crime by having sex with her, or was there another agenda where he didn't want her to get better? So maybe he didn't do some of the things that he should have done. Those questions we really can't answer. And you and I normally try not to talk bad about the victims, but this guy did commit a crime.

There's no doubt about that. You can't refute it. No. And so you have a woman who was a victim. as a girl, let's say a 16 year old girl, who then later murdered the person who victimized her. Now it was after 20 years of marriage. But then you also have the murder victim who committed a crime so many years earlier. That's just very strange to me that kind of both parties are victim and perpetrator.

Yeah. You just don't have that very often at all. You don't. I don't think you'll argue. Gibbs that representing herself was probably the worst decision she could have made, at least in regards to the trial. The worst decision she made was killing her husband, but some of her attorneys later came out and said that they had very good evidence of her mental illness and that they could have argued to the jury that she was in fact fearful for her life. They believe that the

jury would have taken that evidence into account. But like I kind of mentioned earlier, I don't think Susan wanted that. She simply wanted to, you know, walk into the courtroom and tell the jury that she didn't murder her husband. She acted in self-defense. Daniel Horowitz, her one-time attorney, was quote to saying, Susan was more willing to be convicted of murder than to admit she had mental issues. That's the tragedy of Susan Polk. That's what he said. I think it's spot on. Now, the one thing I didn't have, and maybe it's because it never came out, you know, at trial, it was never introduced as a court document, was exactly what her mental illness was or what, you know, I know she had been seen.

Right. But I never actually saw what her diagnosis was. But I don't think there's any doubt that, you know, to whatever extent, she was mentally ill. Yeah. And most likely still is. I don't, it doesn't seem like she's getting the help in prison that she needs because she's going to the parole hearing and, you know, verbally jousting with them and, and kind of setting it up to.

So that it's almost guaranteed that she's not going to get out by acting that way. Now, will she ever get out? Maybe. Maybe if she uses an attorney and takes the coaching that they give her to show her what she needs to say and do to get out. Yeah, that plus I think one of the other big hurdles is that she refuses to show any remorse. Well, they're going to tell her you have to show that. Yeah, because, you know, historically, parole boards don't like that. They want to see some contrition.

They want to see that you're sorry for what you've done. Now, in some of these wrongfully accused cases, that becomes very interesting because people that that haven't done what they, they were convicted of, they can't sit there and be contrite. They can't be remorseful because they didn't do. Right. Now, it's proven later that they didn't do it, but there's instances where the parole board will not let them out because they refuse to admit what they've done.

It's hard to admit something when you didn't actually do it. Yeah. Now I'm not saying that about Susan Polk. Right. Kind of going off on a tangent. But I don't know. This one just kind of grabbed my attention because there's a lot going on here. When you start at how the two came together, right?

Felix Polk and Susan, no matter how that went down, there was a crime committed. whether there was sexual contact by itself or, as Susan claims, she was drugged and raped. Yeah. You know, however that went down, it was inappropriate, it was wrong, it was criminal. But then these two get married are married for 20 years, have three kids. And I didn't really get into their life a lot. But, you know, most people looked at them as, oh, you know, here's this great family, respected doctor, a housewife who's doing it all.

They hosted parties. They did all that stuff. And then, you know, I think as some marriages do, it just deteriorated. And then it got to the point where it was just horrible. Yeah, went down a quick. Past the point of no return. Right. But that's it, Gibbs.

That's it for the case of Susan Polk. Got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Let's hear them. Hey, Gibby and Mike. I just want to do. spice things up a little bit with naming you in the reverse order. My name is Lilia and I'm calling from Iceland. I am a victim of rape and attempted murder and I just want to give you a special shout

out because of the way you talk about victims in your episodes. You do it in a very respectful manner and you portray all the victims in a very beautiful light so that's very much appreciated. I just caught up with all your episodes and I felt like I was about to cry yesterday when that happened because I can't get enough. Here in Iceland we have very low crime rights about one or two murders usually a year and often it's due to domestic violence. Anyway, I hope you're doing good in these times and you're. You keep your own time taking.

Goodbye. So I'm pretty sure Gibbs. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure Lillia was part of the duo that sent us in that huge box of snacks and drinks, the one that had the malt in it with the apple and orange. You were supposed to mix it all together? Yeah. Pretty sure. Yeah.

So now I do, I feel horrible that she was, you know, a victim. I mean, that's tragic. I'm glad that it seems as though she's doing very well. Do you ever get over it or do you just figure out a way to deal with it and move on with your life in a positive way? I don't know the answer to that because I've never been a victim of that kind of crime. Right. I think only the people that have been can can answer that question.

And it's probably different for everyone. I agree. But I will say that you and I are very. committed to trying to be as respectful as possible for victims. And it's kind of one of the issues I had with this case because, like I said, there were two victims who also did some things that weren't right. Exactly. And that was a little hard for me. But we appreciate the kind words very much. Hi, Mike and Gibby. It's Ebony from Yorkshire in England. I've been listening for a few years now. and you are genuine with my favourite podcast.

I just wanted to say thanks to Gibby for wishing me and my family well after my mum passed away a few weeks ago. You're both genuine people and thank you for getting me through some tough times. Gibby, I'd love to hear you try my accent, but I think you may lose all of your British viewers. But anyway, stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Seriously, I don't know what you're talking about. So two things.

Yep. Three things. Three. First of all, that wasn't bad. Wasn't great, but it wasn't bad. Kept it short. We're definitely sorry to hear of the passing of her mother. Sure are.

Oh, and the third thing is, have we ever really been concerned about losing listeners over something like that? We've had the carnies. We've had the Ford Fiesta drivers. Yeah. If somebody is not going to listen because you're bad accents, the show would have been over a long, long time ago. Oh, hey now, be easy. Be easy on me.

I think it's actually something that most people, not everyone, but most people get a kick out of. Maybe we'd have lost our Aussie friends, you know. Not our Italian friends are spotted. They're like, he could be here right now and we would not know the difference. Yeah. I think people have said that about you for years. He could be here or not be here right now.

We would not know the difference. Oh, I walked into that one. Hey guys, my name is Ryan from Ogden, Utah, home of the brutal high-fi murders. I just wanted to thank you guys. Because of COVID, I recently lost my job, and so I've been having to do like Grubhub food deliveries, and you guys have just made every day a joy. I know the list is extremely long for people to do, but I just wanted to add one more. His name is Mark Hoffman, bomber, forger, murderer from Salt Lake City.

The story is fascinating. Anyways, thank you guys. Hey, do you ever break into the Grubhub bag, you know, snatch a fry or two? No, most people don't do that. I just wonder. So my two favorite groups of people right now. Yeah. Nurses and Grubhub.

Yeah. Slash doordash. I use DoorDash quite a bit too. Drivers. Yeah. Because without them, the last, you wouldn't survive? A few months would have been much rougher on me. Now, my waistline would be better without the Grubhubhub.

and door dashes and all that. Sure. But we appreciate it because, you know, not everybody wants to get out. Not everybody wants to go to a restaurant. There are some areas where I think people probably still can't. Right. We can with some very stringent restrictions. I don't really want to sit in a restaurant even six feet apart from other people.

Right. I would just rather eat at home. And I've kind of been that way. I was that way before Coop. Yeah, that was that was done. not a COVID thing for you. Yeah, I don't like to go out that much anyway, but I certainly in this environment would rather, you know, have somebody deliver it, sit down with my family, relax, we don't need to be worried. So I definitely appreciate the drivers that are out there

making that happen. Absolutely. Hey guys. Love the show. I've been listening to every episode and a couple twice. Come from Rochester, New York, the notorious hometown of Kenneth Bianchi, Arthur Shawcross, the Alphabet Killer. Not as many as Ohio, but quite a few. Love the job. Love the humor. Keep it up. Keep your own time ticket.

Have a good one. Oh, it's Steve Seidel, Colin. Have a great one. All right. Thank you, Steve. Boy, you mentioned some dozzies, though. Yeah, he did. You know, Bianchi and Shawcross and the Alphabet killer.

Those are all right there. Those are some doozies. All right. Mailback. Oh, yeah. Our good friend Lottie. I actually sent my daughter a huge get-well Teddy Bear.

Awesome. My daughter was so over the moon. She wanted me to make sure I told Lottie, thank you from her. So thank you Lottie. Yeah, thanks, Lottie. All right, Gibbs, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time.

So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Your math skills have global potential. As an actuary, you'll solve some of the world's most pressing problems while helping people to live better lives. Become an actuary through. the Society of Actuaries and work anywhere in the world.