True Crime Campfire - Episode 12: Tracey Richter: Trust Games, Part 2

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

Join us for part 2 of the Tracey Richter story. The cold case investigation heats up as Special Agent Trent Vileta and Prosecutor Ben Smith take over, and Tracey starts to sweat. And when Tracey sweats, she tends to engage in some truly bizarre behavior. Sources: Book: Beautifully Cruel by M. William PhelpsInvestigation Discovery's "Pandora's Box," Season 1, "A Murder, She Wrote"https://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/tracey-richter-wrote-to-wis-sex-offender-in-attempt-to/article_90c1d272-5258-5b01-9e77-d7ad9b85ff19.htmlhttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/hero-claim-rejected-iowa-mom-guilty-of-murder/Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie and I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So campers, last time we brought you part one of the Tracy Richter Pittman Robert's story, the first case in our bad bitches category. Part one began with the story of Hero Mom. Tracey, who had to defend herself and her children against two intruders, one of whom had supposedly fled into the night, and one who now laid dead on her bedroom floor. The dead man was Dustin Wheatie, a 19-year-old family friend of Tracy and her husband Michael, a kid who had never shown the slightest violence toward anyone before. Police felt sure someone had hired the intruders, and Tracy agreed, steering them towards her ex-husband, Dr. John Pittman, with whom she was involved in an ugly custody dispute. We also learned a bit about Tracy's history with men,

And I think you'll agree when I say, who boy, Tracy's history was one of sextortion, temper tantrums, at least one of which that involved a gun, and manipulation. When we left you, the police investigation into the home invasion that left Dustin Weedy dead had stalled, and Dustin's family was feeling baffled, certain that Dustin would never do anything to hurt anyone. Tracy's hero mom story didn't fly for them. Today, join us for the second half of this bizarre story,

as the investigation flames back into life. So, as we said earlier, the investigation stalled, and it stayed stalled for a number of years. And in the years after Dustin's death, his family had to deal with some pretty heavy-duty aftermath. For example, Dustin's dad, he and Mona had divorced a few years before Dustin's death, and he and Dustin didn't always relate to each other very well. It's not like it was a serious estrangement, but they just didn't have a lot in common, and Dustin was bad at relating with people anyway, and I think his dad maybe just didn't understand him very well, and so they were kind of semi-estranged at the time that this happened. But, of course, Dustin's dad loved his son, and his death just devastated him. He grieved really hard, and he just couldn't seem to climb out of it. And this is so sad on Thanksgiving Day, the year after Dustin died, his dad committed suicide on his grave, which is just one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life.

Yeah, that's the worst thing I've ever heard. It just breaks your heart. He left a note that said, I've cried every day since December 13, 2001. Oh, it just kills me. Bless his heart. Yeah. And this is just such a start. example for me of the ripple effect that murder can have on the people who love the victim.

I mean, it's not just the victim who is a victim. It's everybody who cared about them. It just ripples out and it can have a ripple effect for years and decades. I mean, it's people just, I wonder if people who commit murder ever think about that at all. I'm guessing no. No, they don't. Because they wouldn't do it. They think the murder happens in a vacuum, basically. And it's a means to an end for them. And it's just. just such a, it's such an incredibly selfish act. Just, yeah. That's the peak, that's peak selfishness right there.

I don't like you. You're in my way, therefore, screw all these, you know, dozens of people whose lives are going to be devastated. Yeah. And think about this, too. Not only had Dustin's family lost their son, their brother, their nephew,

but they also had to deal with the fact that the whole town now thought of him as a criminal. As a home invader, an attempted murderer. So really, Dustin was killed twice. And if they'd lost him to an illness or a car accident or something like that, it would have been easier. But dealing with this where your reputation is ruined along with, you know, your life being taken. It's just really, really sad for his family.

And unsurprisingly, Michael and Tracy's marriage started to fall apart before long, too. Is anybody shocked? Oh, I know I am. Yeah, I'm incredibly surprised, yeah. Because Tracy really strikes me as the kind of person. that would just be a really great, level-headed, even-keeled partner who would understand the give and take of a relationship. Yeah, uh-huh.

Not. So, yeah, not surprised to hear that their marriage started to fall apart. Their business wasn't doing well. They were having money problems. They were fighting a lot. And, of course, the police didn't really think Dr. Pittman, her ex-husband, had anything to do with the home invasion. They suspected Michael.

And he'd failed that polygraph test, remember. But the interesting thing about that polygraph, he failed on one specific question. Michael failed the question. Do you know for sure who the second intruder was? Now, we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves with this, but my theory on why he failed that question was that he was already starting to doubt Tracy's story. And he probably doubted that there was a second intruder. And I think that's why he failed that question.

Yeah, that's very possible. Yeah, that's what I think, because that was the only question that he failed. so their relationship was starting to suffer and one night you guys just seriously buckle in settle in because this is bananas so one night tracy told michael i don't think you trust me i think that's why our marriage is falling apart you think that i think you were involved in the home invasion don't you and no matter how much michael denied this like no no i know you would never suspect me i know you know i'm innocent Tracy and did no you don't trust me you don't believe that i believe in you in our marriage and she told him look

we need to do a trust exercise to strengthen our relationship which to me for grown adults is a really weird thing to suggest yeah when i think trust exercise i just think like seventh grade church camp you know like where you fall backwards off the table and ideally they catch you sure i've seen it go south i feel like i feel like therapy would be a great option therapy would be in fact a great option, but I suspect Tracy didn't want to get within a country mile of anybody trained in psychology. And therapy doesn't work if one person is abusive. So it doesn't matter. So Michael thought this was a bit bizarre, but he said, well, you know, if that's what it takes, then sure. So Tracy said, great. And she brought out this big fluffy comforter. She had Michael lie down on the bed,

and she proceeded to roll him up like a giant burrito in this comforter. And, I mean, she really swaddled him like a baby, like pinned his arms down to his side so he couldn't move. And then she got a bunch of those really giant-sized safety pins. And she pinned all along the side of the blanket and secured Michael even tighter in this thing. Now, at this point, he is a human burrito and he cannot move a muscle. So just picture this, okay? A grown-ass man rolled up in a blanket and pinned with his arms down to his sides. And now, Tracy brought out a bottle of Zolpidem.

Now, if you're not familiar with drug names, that's Ambien. And that shit doesn't mess around. That is a very strong sleeping medication. Heavy sedative. And she said, Michael, do you trust me? Which, by the way, just pro tip, if somebody says, do you trust me, the answer is always, hell no, get back. What the hell are you suggesting?

No, I don't trust you. Do not. When somebody says trust me, don't. Okay, pro tip from True Crime Campfire. You're welcome. So anyway, Michael bless him, says, Sure, babe, I trust you. And she gives him this Ambien pill to swallow.

Gives him a sip of water, the whole thing. Down goes the ambient. Then she did the same thing with, of all things, a drug used to treat schizophrenia. Now, how the hell she got hold of that? God only knows. And Michael, bless his heart. That one, too, just swallowed it like a good little boy.

So now, picture this. He's wrapped up and pinned into a heavy blanket. He's starting to get woozy from two extremely strong, prescription drugs and Tracy just left the room for a little while and every now and again she'd be like washing dishes in the kitchen or something and she'd call out to him Michael you okay and Michael the human burrito zombie would say uh-huh getting progressively woozier and after what felt like an hour or more and the reason why I suspect she did this is to give the drugs time to work Tracy finally came back into the room and she said Michael do you trust me and Michael nodded

and by this time he was sweaty he's out of it from the medication he's starting to get a little nervous but he felt like you know if this is what she needs to be happy in our marriage if this is going to help i will play ball and tracy brought out a plastic bag and in one quick motion slipped it over his head and twisted it tight christ yeah and as you can imagine michael freaked out he couldn't breathe he started getting lightheaded and he started to realize like i I'm going to lose consciousness. Like, she's trying to kill me. So he started frantically trying to get free of the blanket and kind of, you know, moving from

side to side. And he finally managed to get an arm free. And when she saw that he had his arm free, she let up on the bag. So, holy shit, right? So Michael realized, like, this bitch just tried to kill me. And at that point, as you can well imagine, he decided to get the hell out of this marriage and he filed for divorce. Now, this, in my opinion, makes him a little bit better at this than Dr. John Pittman, who even after having a gun pulled on him was like, let's try to make it work.

Michael was like, oh, hell no, I'm out. Yeah, because I wonder if those two drugs have like a negative reaction record or something. And then she would have suffocated him and then made it look like, oh, he accidentally overdosed. Yeah, I think that's very likely that that's what she was planning to do, is to try to make it look like an accidental death or a suicide or something like that. very scary and it is it is difficult as you know those of you guys who are true crime aficionados will probably know from watching forensic files and stuff like that that suffocation can be hard to pinpoint for medical examiners sometimes when it's only after they've ruled out every other possible cause of death that they say it was probably suffocation so yeah i mean

it's not a bad way to if you're god forbid going to do something like that so he got out of Dodge, filed for divorce, and now that Michael had filed for divorce, Tracy, who had adamantly defended Michael when the police had first accused him of being involved in the home invasion, quote unquote, home invasion, now decided that Michael was involved. And her focus totally shifted from Dr. Pittman to Michael Roberts. Just, wow. That's pretty convenient, I think. It is, isn't it?

Yeah, it's like whoever she's actively battling at the time. Yeah. He did it. And interestingly enough, once Michael dumped Tracy, Bert, Tracy's son with Dr. Pittman, started talking suddenly about what a bad stepfather he had been. Now, he had never said anything like this before. He and Michael had seemed to get along fine, but suddenly, Bert was full of stories about how abusive Michael was and that he'd always thought Michael was involved in the home invasion and et cetera, et cetera. By now, Bert's a teenager. Now, why didn't any of this come up before Michael and his mom had split up? I mean, it is certainly possible that Burt just didn't feel comfortable speaking out until Michael was out of the house. But it is also possible that Tracy was coaching him or influencing him or that Burt had just developed a worldview that what mom says is the truth. And that's, I think, the closest thing that, for me, that's the closest to the truth is that Burt just grew up in an environment where truth was whatever mom says. Exactly. And she and like other liars tend to do this thing to the people that surround him. say, oh, don't you remember this?

Yeah, absolutely. Don't you remember how this happened? And somebody will be like, you know, I don't remember it perfectly. But yeah, sure, that's probably what happened. Let me help you remember what happened. Yeah. Yes, exactly. So also, Tracy had a friend named Mary Higgins.

And she's going to become really important to the story a little later. She had a lot to say about Tracy's treatment of her kids. Mary said Tracy would punish Bert harshly if he pissed her off. For example, Bert used to show up to school. in the like 50 below zero freezing Iowa winters without a coat on. And it was just because he hadn't hustled fast enough for Tracy's taste that morning. So she would just send him to school with no coat in that kind of dangerous cold. And y'all remember how she treated him when he had trouble breastfeeding as a baby.

Remember, suck, suck, suck, damn it suck, right? So I just enjoy saying that. Anywho, that's a fun little playlet for me to act out. and Mona Weedy and her daughter can back a lot of this up as well since Mona's daughter used to babysit the Roberts slash Pitman kids quite a bit and when she would go over to watch the kids a lot of the time there would be zero food in the house like nothing no milk no cereal no fruit nothing so she'd have to call her mom and say mom

what do I do like there's nothing to feed the kids so more than once Mona had to go to the grocery store and actually buy food and bring it over to the Roberts house just so they could feed Bert and his siblings, which is atrocious. They weren't, like, struggling financially like that. You ought to see their house. Their house is gorgeous.

And they had their own business and everything. It's just ridiculous. So, according to friends of the couple, it wasn't Michael who was treating the kids badly. It was Tracy. But to hear Bert tell it, Michael was the abusive one. And Michael, by the way, has denied this vehemently.

He said he was strict sometime, sure, but he certainly never abused anybody. And I have been saving this. story for you. So buckle up yet again. Michael Roberts has said in an interview that on the night of the shooting, so the night that Dustin Wheatie died, he picked Tracy up from the hospital once he got back into town. The kids were with friends. They were going to spend the night at the friend's place while the police were searching their house and conducting their investigation. And Michael says as soon as they got in the car and started driving over to the friend's house, Tracy started pawing at him

and, like, urgently insisting that he'd pull over and have sex with her right there in the car. And he said he had never seen her more sexually aroused. Now, this is less than two hours after she'd pumped Dustin Wheatie full of bullets. Now, at the time, Michael had thought it was sort of a, like, hysterical, like, shock-type reaction to the trauma. But in retrospect, he wondered, was she getting off on having just killed a man? And I find this absolutely, A, creepy, and B, fascinating because it's really rare for a woman to get a sexual thrill out of killing, right? Oh, totally. Yeah.

So when women kill, it's usually for other reasons like profit, jealousy, to escape an abusive situation. Right, right. And for sure, for some women, especially female serial killers, you know, they have killed because they enjoyed power and control. Right. But it's not like a sexual. thing. They're not getting, they're not getting off on it. Not usually, no. It's not that it never happens, but it's just, it's as far as I understand it anyway, vanishingly rare for women. Right. Because there's situations like, um, she, uh, the, the Texas, she, she was a pickax murderer or

not an axe murderer. Uh, Carla Faye Tucker. Yeah, Carla Faye Tucker. That's a really good example. Good call. She did say that, didn't she that she got a thrill. Later said it, she, she was saying it to, to get attention, but, you know, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. Because she became a born-again Christian on death row. Yeah, that's a really interesting case, actually, the Carla-Fa-Tucker case. She said that she had an orgasm while she was killing that man with a pickax. And as Katie said later, retracted that. But we have had instances of female sexual sadists.

Rose West comes to mind. Yes. But it is rare, rare, rare. So this is fascinating that we seem to have at least some evidence here that Tracy was sexually aroused by having just shot a man. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. It's, the way she acts is frightening.

Yeah. The way she lured Michael into that situation with the blanket burrito. Oh, my God, right? She's a manipulator to the core, most definitely. Just imagine you're laying there and you're slowly realizing that the person you love, the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with. Yeah. Does not have your best interest at heart.

And you are trapped. have no way to get out of the situation. That's fucking terrifying. And drugged. Yes. Really. I mean, absolutely horrifying. And good for him that he, you know, as most of us would, but I don't know about Pittman. Like, if that had happened to Pittman, he might have stuck it out a little while longer. But good for him that he was like, and I'm done at this point, right? Tap out. So anywho, fascinating stuff. So in 2008, a special agent from the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation by the name of Trent Valletta

came on to the scene. Yay. Valita had been a homicide detective in New York before moving to Iowa, so he had quite a bit more experience than the early cops, and he'd been asked to take a cold case as part of, like, the DCI's push to get more cold cases solved. They each had to take, like, one cold case a month. So he took the Richter case. He wanted to see if he could get any info on the second intruder. And right away, special agent Valletta was fascinated. As soon as he saw the crime scene photos, he knew right away that Tracy's store didn't make sense. The shots pumped into Dustin Wheatie were strategically placed

for maximum damage. Not the kind of hits you make when you're firing blindly and in a panic as Tracy claimed to be, especially since she claimed to have fired the first two shots over her shoulder, not even looking at her target. Which, come on. Seriously, Tracy? Like, that's really not that believable. If she had, oh, God. Here's the thing. If she had even, said, I was standing my ground. This case wouldn't even been broken, I don't think. Like, to just keep it that simple. Yeah. This was the kind of marksmanship, though, that you'd expect to find in someone that was highly skilled with firearms. Plus, he could tell, both from the crime scene picks and the medical examiner's report, that she couldn't have been standing

where she said she was, house she said she was, while firing at Dustin. And he was troubled by the amount of overkill. She'd unloaded on this kid, way more shots than she needed, with two guns. So he felt like something hinky was going on. He was suspicious of Miss Tracy. Sack County had just gotten a new prosecutor, a guy by the name of Ben Smith, who, by the way, looks a little bit like Michael C. Hall from Dexter. He does. I think so. Yeah. And Valetta made it his mission to get Smith interested in this case. Smith took a little bit of convincing at first, but Valletta had been digging into this case for a few years now,

and he felt it in his bones that Tracy was a wrong in. So he was persistent. He said, look, Ben, this is not a case of self-defense. Three of the shots were to the back of Dustin Wheatie's head, and the forensic evidence suggested that he was pursued to the floor. This, plus the weirdness surrounding the Pink Notebook, got Ben's attention. And once he looked into the case file, Ben Smith was on board.

Now, over the next year or so, both men became obsessed with the case. And, okay, I kind of love this. I love this, too. That's cute. They used to play Call of Duty at night and talk about the case over their headsets. It reminds me of us, actually. Yes. Yeah, we do this all the time.

That is totally a thing we would do. Yeah. They started looking to the case hard. They found that the original investigation, was pretty shoddy. The early cops had pretty much taken Tracy at her word, and they hadn't looked into her background. If they had, they would have found out about the time she pulled like a gun on Dr. Pittman. They would have found out about Dr. Lesbisa. Would have been good to know. But of course, they didn't do any of that. They didn't even talk to many of the people

that were involved in Tracy's life. Good God, guys, really? For example, Mary Higgins, Tracy's now ex-best friend. Why was she an ex-best friend? Well, because in recent years, she'd become terrified of Tracy. It was during an interview with Mary that Valletta and Smith realized, to their shock, that she knew about the Pink Notebook. It was a Perry Mason-style moment, like something from an episode of Law & Order. Ben Smith was just about to wrap up the interview, and he said something like, you know, Mary, there's more to this case than people know. And Mary said, oh, you mean that stupid pink notebook? Ben was floored. How did she know about the pink notebook? The police hadn't released anything about it to the media. Only a few people close to the

investigation knew it existed. And when Ben Smith asked her how she knew about it, Mary Higgins said, because Tracy told me, I thought it was in the paper or something. And Mary was able to quote chapter and verse from that notebook. Now, how the hell did Tracy know about the notebook? The police sure as hell hadn't told her. There was only one way Tracy could know about that piece of evidence if she was involved in writing it. Boom. This was huge. Smith and Valletta had been puzzling over the notebook all along. Why would Dustin Wheatie, who despised writing and was notoriously terrible at it, write that journal in the first place? A realization of starting to start. started to dawn on the investigators.

Tracy had coached him to write it. That is so creepy. And once you start thinking in that direction, the story starts to come together. Why would Tracy do such a thing? They started to think that Tracy had set this whole thing up as a way of getting a leg up in her custody battle with her ex, Dr. John Pittman. They found out that Tracy was supposed to go to a deposition with Dr. Pittman two days before Dustin Wheatie was killed.

Now, this was an important deposition. Tracy was supposed to give testimony about Dr. Pittman's alleged sexual abuse of their son burned. So it was a big deal. Yeah, that's not something you miss. Yeah, and she just kind of just didn't show up, as you do. Yeah. Now, why didn't she show? Was it because she didn't think she needed to?

Was it because she knew that she was going to have this whole custody thing locked up in a couple days because she was planning on framing Dr. Pittman for a home invasion and attempted murder for hire? See, that's what we like to call strong circumstantial evidence, campers. Absolutely. And Smith and Valletta were beginning to think that this is exactly what happened. At the time that the shooting happened, Tracy knew that the Department of Family Services in Chicago, where she'd lived with Dr. Pittman, was looking into the sexual abuse allegation hard. They'd already informed her that they hadn't been able to find any evidence of the abuse. There had never been any reports to the police, any police.

doctor's visits, anything at all to corroborate Tracey's claims. Even worse, the department had found out that when Tracy first hooked up with Michael Roberts, she had sent Bert back to live with Dr. Pittman for a while. This was after she'd accused him of abusing Bert. That's a big red flag. Yeah, because why would a mother intentionally sent her child back to a man she believed had been sexually abusing him? Willingly. Yeah. She wouldn't. No. The logical conclusion was that Tracy had never actually believed that her ex-husband had abused their son. It was a ploy to win the custody battle.

And it looked like the Department of Family Services were starting to figure that out. That was not going to do her any favors in the custody fight. She had to know she'd be grilled about all of this at the deposition. Oh, definitely. Yeah. So the investigator's theory was that Tracy had come up with a better plan. Oh, man. Fuck. So, Smith and Valletta wondered, how the hell did she get Dustin to write the journal?

And it was looking increasingly likely that she did. One of Special Agent Valletta's gifts as an investigator was getting people to open up to him. He was great at it. He could get anyone to talk to him. Even someone is guarded and intelligent as Tracy. Of course, the fatal flaw for someone like Tracy is her narcissism. The ironclad belief that she's smarter than you. Valetta picked up on that right away and used it to play her like a fiddle. During his cold case investigation, whenever he communicated with Tracy, he made sure to come off like a dumbass. Like a country bumpkin, a Barney Fife. He wanted Tracy to feel safe in the knowledge that she had him wrapped around her little finger. I love that. Because when people feel comfortable, they tend to slip up. And during one of Tracy's email exchanges with Valetta, she had described Dr.

pitman in language that mirrored, almost word for word, the language in the pink notebook, that he'd bowed to family pressure to become a surgeon, for example. Not smart, T. Ricks. Not smart at all. It was obvious that Dustin hadn't come up with the phrase like bowed to his family's pressure. Dustin had trouble stringing a sentence together. He had different strengths, like computer programming and mechanical stuff. But how the hell she'd gotten him to write out all that stuff? Smith and Valletta suspected that Tracy had reverted to her go-to tactic. Sex.

Dustin never had a girlfriend, according to his mom. And the investigator strongly suspected that she'd lured Dustin to the bedroom that night with the promise of a little something special. That convinced him to help her write a story first or something like that. Oh, my God. That's so creepy. Yeah. I mean, it's either that or she held a gun on him and made him write it.

We can't know for sure. But I think we can probably draw some conclusions based on her previous behavior. I mean, what do you think? I think the sex thing is very likely. Yeah. Because that has been her go-to in the past when she was committing her sex-stortion and, you know, all that good stuff. So I could see it for sure. And, you know, it wouldn't be that difficult to coax a 19-year-old young man who's never been with a woman before.

And she was, you know, very pretty, pretty woman, Tracy. So, I mean, it's possible that she just put the gun. on him and said, write this, but my guess is, I agree with the investigators. It was probably sex, not forced. Well, I mean, as soon as Michael posed a physical threat to her when he was, when she was, I think, attempting to murder him, she immediately backed off. Right. You know what I mean? Is that I don't think, I don't think she was a physically, or she is not, because she's still alive, she is not a physically imposing presence. She's more of a manipulator. Yeah, she's a manipulator. She's not so much about brute force, although obviously she did certainly pump him full of bullets

when she had the chance. Yeah. So, anywho, for a while, Special Agent Valletta played this kind of cat and mouse game with Tracy playing dumb, asking her questions and hoping she'd slip up. And at some point during all this, Tracy ended up in trouble for something totally unrelated to Dustin Wheatie's death. Passport and government benefits fraud. She had moved to Nebraska, and she changed her name to Sophie Edwards, and she was

getting food stamps fraudulently. And this campers is freaking weird and also hilarious. People who knew her in Nebraska said that she was putting on a fake British accent while she was living there and claiming to be from England, which is just utter nonsense. Like, it's just so bizarre. So often when I'm researching this case, I find myself just thinking, like, who does this shit? Like, it's the kind of stuff you see in movies, but literally in real life, who does this. Yeah. Tracy does.

Yeah. And I really wonder what kind of a British accent it was, because there are lots of different ones. Like, was it that posh BBC radio presenter one? Or did she go more cockney like, hello, governor. Like, which one was it? I would love to know.

Oh, you know it was the posh one. Of course it was. Marthy. We've got to play croquet in the garden, Marthy. Because I think she was pretending to be wealthy. Yeah. I bet it was an awful accent. She also pretended she was a student.

student at Cambridge previously. Charming. Because part of the, yeah, part of the investigation, they just fucking called Cambridge. They were like, hey, you know this bitch? And they, they did know a Sophie Edwards, but it wasn't her, I think is how it worked out. She stole somebody's identity. And they were like, yeah, she went here, but like, that's not her. She's like 20 years younger. And by the way, she completely denies that she ever faked a British accent, but like multiple people who knew her out there said she did. And I believe them. Yeah.

So, anywho, Tracy Richter Pitman Roberts had reinvented herself as Sophie Edwards out in Omaha, Nebraska. I think we should just say TRPR from now on Terper. Not, like, legally or anything. She just started going by Sophie Edwards, which, you know, you can't do without going through the proper channels for obvious reasons. And, in fact, she'd forged a divorce decree in Iowa with the full name, hold on to your butts. It's Sophie, Corrine, Teresa, Barronen, Von Richterhausen, Edwards. I fucking cannot with this bitch. I cannot deal with her.

Von Richterhausen. It's just the... Barronin. What the fuck? I've never even heard of Barronin. I have no idea. Like, I've never heard of that surname before. Does she think she's a fucking character on Downton Abbey?

I think that was what she was going for. And she was probably hoping that people would assume that she was royalty of some sort or a member of the peerage. Because she feels like she's royalty. I fucking hate her. God. Sophie Corrine, Teresa Barronin von Richterhausen Edwards. Ooh, that's a mouthful. But then again, so is Tracy Richter Pittman Roberts.

Lord have mercy. It's all a mouthful. She is the worst. So she was being investigated for all that by the folks out in. Nebraska and at some point the FBI got involved. And when those investigators searched her apartment in Omaha, oh my God. Those of you who listened to season one of our show might be thinking Jay Smith in the initial search of his creepy basement because they found some similar stuff. Yep, yep.

They found in Tracy's apartment different IDs with different aliases, a passport in the name of Sophie Edwards, we'll just say the short version for the sake of, yeah. information on how to make ricin, which is a poison so deadly that it is considered a weapon of mass destruction, a copy of the poor man's James Bond, which is a book that's popular with survivalist and militia types, terrifying, priceless for various chemicals, credit cards and various names, a stun gun, a stamp of her ex-husband Michael Roberts's signature, and buckle up, campers, a stash of what Trent Valletta called murder porn, which again, I find fascinating. Now look, we are not here to judge anybody's kinks as long as nobody's getting harmed in the process, but there's a difference between kink and snuff movie. Absolutely. And especially

when you have somebody with a background like Tracy's, and then you go into her computer and you find pictures of naked women with guns, tons and tons of weapons, and worst of all, snuff porn, which is obviously not okay. That is worrying. And again, fascinating because it's vanishingly rare for women to get sexual thrill out of murder. And I think we really have some evidence to suggest that

she did. Especially given that story about driving home from the hospital with Michael and wanting to have sex hours after she shot a man. Y'all scared yet? Because I am. I am endlessly scared. Like, J. Smith and, yeah,

Jay Smith, again, if you listed as season one of true crime campfire Jay Smith and Bill Bradfield I guess they're scary but they were more cartoonish. If I saw Tracy Richter in a dark alley I'd know my life was over. Run like hell. She's a scary individual.

So now in addition to this creepy murder porn and like anarchist cookbook type bollocks, we've got passport fraud and identity theft and when Smith and Valletta found out about this, they wondered if she was planned on running. And this was worrying and

and surprising in a way, because Valletta had certainly never let on that he was investigating Tracy. Like, all he would say in his various communications with her was that he was assigned to investigate her case. He was leading her to believe that he was focused on finding the second intruder and figuring out who hired Dustin and his supposed accomplice to attack her. So she had no way of knowing that he suspected that she'd orchestrated the whole thing. So the fact that she'd changed her identity and moved out of state and had aliases and stuff was interesting. Very possibly, this was evidence of what they call consciousness of guilt, which again, circumstantial evidence, right?

The idea that an innocent person would not be getting ready to flee. But Tracy claimed that she just wanted to change her name because of all the hubbub with the home invasion. And by the way, at one point she was on the Montel Williams show. Oh, my God. Which is hysterical. What the hell? Oh, my God. Anyway, I'd love to like find that if it's out.

If any of you guys find that episode of the Montel Williams show with Tracy Rick. please oh my god please post it on our social media because we want to watch it so bad. We'll give you so many shoutouts. Yeah I saw like a little clip of an interview that she did on like an old episode of Dateline which I now cannot find but I would love just to have more you know of her like actually talking and stuff. So this was her claim but it made no sense really since she had been hailed as a hero after the shooting and it's not like it had even been in the news for years but this was her claim that that was why she wanted to change her name. So now there was another investigator involved in all this by the name of Lieutenant Mark Gentile. He came into the story one afternoon

in March of 2009 when Tracy called the Omaha police, all hysterical and panicky, because supposedly she had found a photo of Dustin Wheaties, like, poor bullet-ridden body in her car. And by the way, her mom was there, like she made sure her mom was there for all this, so her mom could vouch that they just discovered this picture in the car. And she suspected her ex-husband, Michael, of planting it there to threaten her because they had an upcoming custody hearing, right? And by this time, Michael had pretty much taken Dr. Pittman's place as Tracy's arch nemesis, and she was in the process of fighting him for custody and trying to get a protection order against him.

Oh, and by the way, this is bananas, she told FBI agents during the fraud investigation that Michael was involved with Julian Assange, like WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, for God's sake. Like, there is no evidence of that whatsoever. it's absurd. Yeah. This is the kind of shit she comes up with. Yeah, her evidence of it was that like she printed out a male label with Julian Assange's name on it. It was like nonsense.

It's horseshit. Anyway, so Lieutenant Gentile showed up to investigate this photograph thing. Like how did this essentially like crime scene photo of Dustin Wheatie get in her car? And he very quickly began to suspect that Tracy planted it herself. Because first of all, how would Michael Roberts even have access to something? something like that. I'm not sure how Tracy had access to it either, but she would be more likely to have it than he would. And she had a bigger motive to plant it than he did. And she had a long history of this kind of manipulative crap. So anyway, I'm not actually sure if that investigation

with the photograph ever got resolved, but Tracy was really mad that Gentile didn't believe her story about Michael planting the photo and that he was accusing her or in her mind accusing her of doing it. Yeah, and I think it's indicative of what a scary, dangerous person, Tracy is, that on more than one occasion, she threatened this guy's family. They were very thinly veiled threats, at least. She left angry messages on his answering machine, and at one point, she said in an email to Trent Valletta that Lieutenant Gentile hadn't acted professionally, and she said,

one day, Mike is going to hurt someone. When he does, I will have the joy of sitting back and saying, I told you so. At this point, even if it is me, it will be worth having his true character exposed. I just pray he never hurts our children. Wouldn't it be lovely if Mike hurt that, expletives, kids? That expletive was Lieutenant Gentile. Yikes. Yeah.

Later on, they found another investigator's, unlisted home address in Tracy's address book. That is so scary. Gosh, she is scary, man. Yeah. It always, and like everything, it always gets worse. Everyone in the investigation ended up being worried for themselves and their families, because Tracy is a fucking nightmare.

Yeah. But fortunately, Ben Smith soon felt he had enough evidence to go to the grand jury. They had that dynamite tit for Mary Higgins about the Pink Notebook. that Tracy had told her about it when she should have no way of knowing it existed. They had her emails to Trent Valletta, which mirrored the language Dustin had written the notebook. They had forensic reports about bullet trajectory, which contradicted the story Tracy had told the police about the shooting. They had the overkill. They had the horror stories from Michael Roberts and Dr. Pittman about all of Tracy's manipulations and threats.

They had a doctor who said the ligature mark around Tracy's neck could have been self-inflicted. and so on. They were confident that Tracy had lured Dustin Wheatie to her house that night, coerced or forced him to write that junk about Dr. Pittman hiring him to attack Tracy and Burt and killed him in cold blood, all to get a leg up on Dr. Pittman in the custody battle. Jeez, Louise. Unbelievable, but true. And fortunately, at this point, they had enough to take her to trial.

Tracy tried to argue her old story about a home and invasion and a shooting in self-defense, but it didn't work. She was convicted. Phew. Thank God. Because this broad has given up her right to mingle. Amen to that. Tracy was sentenced to life in prison. And I think we're all breathing a sigh of relief about that right now.

However, Tracy is one of those people who's likely to be dangerous even behind bars. and there's a gross little PS to the story that really bears that out. This is so awful, you guys. So after she was convicted, which, by the way, she made a big weepy show in the courtroom when she was convicted. Boo fucking who. Oh, smallest violin. Yeah, so she struck up a pen pal correspondence with a convicted child sex offender named James Landa, who was serving a sentence for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl.

A real charmer. This guy had written Tracy a letter after her trial. Apparently, a prison buddy of his was from Iowa and subscribed to an Iowa newspaper, and Landa had been following Tracy's story. He wanted her to know how much he supported her, guys. Oh, so nice. So Tracy wrote back, and they began a correspondence. Tracy immediately started trying to manipulate the guy into getting his Iowa buddy to say he knew

the second intruder was. She kept asking and asking if the guy knew anything about the crime. It was a thinly veiled suggestion that he should say he did. Yeah. She'd say things like, I'm definitely interested in having a relationship with you and you would not be disappointed. But my trust has to be earned and actions speak louder than words to me. So you would have to prove you really care about me in order for me to trust you. Quid pro quo. Quid pro Clarice right like you do something for me I'll do something for you and by the way I really enjoyed your like there are horny ladies in your area waiting to speak to you just call one nine nine see I'm old enough to remember those ads I remember those ads I was a teenager I think

when they stopped oh one 900 I don't know I can't that's when I knew it was time for me to go bed I was like oh no turn it off turn off dirty ads are on yeah yeah y'all Cambers. She sent him diagrams of her house and early. Detailed information about the shooting and about Dustin Wheatie. All stuff you could easily use to make up a false but convincing testimony to exonerate Tracy. And Campers, here is the creepiest part. Oh, it's so awful. She included a picture of her own children in one of these letters, one of whom was, at the time, a 12-year-old girl. Landa was in prison, as I'd like to remind you, for sexually assaulting a girl that same age. That is just off the chain. She wrote on the picture. Kids are cute, huh?

Oh, God, what is wrong with you? This woman is despicable, folks. I cannot imagine a mother doing something like that. I am incandescent with rage about this. that's your kid yes what is wrong with you this woman is a fucking danger to society she belongs in a concrete block for the rest of her fucking life yeah she is a nightmare like to use your child in that way i know it was just a picture of the child but still seriously like you know what this guy is in prison for what is wrong with you kids are cute huh oh my god yeah and like

ostensibly he'd be like with her so he'd have access to this child just get the fuck away. You're disgusting. I don't think she would have given him the time of day once she got out of prison. But like, yeah, that's what she's promising him clearly. Like, look what I have for you. It's just absolutely disgusting. She's disgusting. Blach. And, and even scarier than that, her letters to Landa included really personal information about her ex-husband Michael, who by now was trying to get full custody of the kids so he could move back to Australia with them. A move Tracy and her mom were trying to block in court. Stuff that someone could use to track him down.

Stuff like his social security number, date of birth, physical description. Prosecutor Ben Smith was freaked by this. He got in touch with Michael to warn him. Fortunately, prison guards eventually found out about this correspondence and put the kibosh on it. But for the millionth time in this episode, can I just say, yikes. Yikes. So Tracy's terrifying and a damn good one to choose for our very first bad bitch's case, don't you think? I definitely do for sure.

And campers make note of the cases that you listen to because later on we're going to do some fun stuff with badges and contests and stuff with these case categories. Our next episode, just to give you a little teaser, will be in the Sinister Ministers category and it's going to be a doozy. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And tonight we want to shout out a few more of our wonderful Patreon angels. Thank you so much to Allison, Callie, Camille, Bill, and our moms, Linda and Tammy. We love y'all so much. Thank you so much.

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