True Crime Campfire - Episode 37: Inferno: The Story of Dante Sutorius, Part 1

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

Happy Valentine's Day, campers, and welcome to the Season 3 premiere of True Crime Campfire! We went round and round about which case to cover for our new season premiere, because you want those to be special. And after briefly considering a few other bananapants stories, we realized it HAD to be Dante Sutorius. This woman was a Tazmanian devil, leaving a trail of destruction and bafflement wherever she went—from childhood onward. We talk about stranger than fiction stories—well this one would probably get laughed out of the room at any Hollywood studio as waaay too over the top. “This woman is a cartoon villain,” they’d say. Nobody’s really this bad. Oh, campers. You’re about to find out. There’s a murder in this story, it’s true, and that is the sad, probably inevitable endgame in this case. But the reason we named the episode after the villain rather than the victim is that the story is about so much more than its gruesome, tragic ending. It’s a road trip through Thunderdome. It’s the path of a hurricane. It’s one damn thing after another. Sources:Book: Della's Web by Aphrodite JonesOxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Dante Sutorius"The Canadian Global Television Network's "Pretty Dangerous," Episode "Della Dante Sutorius"https://murderpedia.org/female.S/s/sutorius-della.htmFollow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): 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. Welcome to the season three premiere of true crime campfire campers. We went around and around about which case to cover for our new season premiere because you want those to be special. And after briefly considering a few other banana-pants stories, we realized it had to be Dante Sitorious. This woman was a Tasmanian devil, leaving a trail of destruction and bafflement wherever she went, from childhood onward. We talk about stranger-than-fiction stories. Well, this one would probably get laughed out of the room at any Hollywood studio is way too over the top.

This woman is a cartoon villain, they'd say, nobody's this bad. Oh, campers, you're about to find out. There's a murder in this story, it's true, and that is the sad, probably. inevitable endgame in this case. But the reason we named the episode after the villain rather than the victim is that the story is about so much more than its gruesome, tragic ending. It's a road trip through Thunderdome. It's the path of a hurricane. It's one damn thing after another. This is Inferno, the story of Dante Sitorius. So, we are in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 19, 1996.

It was around 7.30 or 8 in the morning when a call came into the 911 dispatch from a worried-sounding woman. She said she was the secretary for a Dr. Daryl Satorius, and the staff at the hospital were concerned about the doc. He hadn't shown up or answered his pages, and this was hugely out of character. Plus, the secretary knew that Dr. Sotorius had been having some serious. problems at home. Some personal things going on, as she put it. In fact, he was in fear for his life. He'd even been wearing a bulletproof vest to work lately. That must have gotten the dispatcher's attention, right? Like, how often do you hear that? Dr. Satorius' co-workers wanted a welfare check. So the cops showed up at his big, beautiful house in one of the nicest neighborhoods in

suburban Cincinnati, and they were greeted at the door by a petite, pretty woman who was still in her bathrobe. This was Dr. Satorius's wife, Dante. Dante said she hadn't seen her husband yet today. She figured he'd already gone into work. They slept in separate bedrooms most nights. She didn't always hear him come in or leave for work. So the cops asked if they could come in and take a look around, and Dante said, sure, you can.

They immediately discovered Dr. Satorius's Lexus still in the garage, and then they proceeded to search the house. And Dante said, I'll go look downstairs. Would that help? The Satorius has had a finished basement, so the cop said, Sure, go for it. and Dante headed down the basement stairs, and a few moments later, they heard an ear-bleeding scream. Darryl, oh my God! So, of course, they rushed downstairs to find Dante Satorius sobbing and pointing at a couch,

on which lay the bloody body of her now-late husband, Dr. Darrell Satorius. There was a handgun next to the body, you know, blood everywhere. Suicide? That was the initial sort of first-glance impression, but obviously they needed to investigate further. So the cops called in evidence texts and detectives, and after they'd taken pictures and measurements of Dr. Satorius' body and whatnot, and a couple of texts wheeled him past her on a gurney, Dante burst into tears and said, Are you mad at me, Daryl? Are you mad at me? It was all a bit bizarre, a bit much, but then again, her husband was dead, and there was blood, and that would be a lot for anybody to take. So the crime scene texts continued their investigation at the scene, and detectives brought Dante Satorius,

down to the station to give a statement. And very quickly, the grieving widow turned into a total nightmare. She kept saying she needed to eat. She hadn't had any lunch or breakfast, and she would not let it go, and she was not nice about it. She basically treated the officers investigating her husband's death like she was a Roman emperor, and they were her servants, like waving a hand, and she bitched and moaned about wanting a Big Mac

until finally one of the officers went and got her one. Um, excuse me, officers. May I please be served your finest. Big Mac as soon as you interview me. And then after she got her Big Mac, she bitched and moaned about how cold it was in the police station and how dirty it was and how, ew, there are bugs in here. Like, no mention of like, oh, my poor husband or anything like that. And despite her brief bout of histrionic sobbing at the house, she didn't seem at all concerned

for Daryl. You know, nothing. But she was quick to tell the detectives that Daryl had been really depressed lately. He'd been talking a lot about suicide, there was a gun in the house, and she said it had gotten so bad that she'd been afraid of him lately. Which is interesting because you remember what? His secretary had told the 911 dispatcher that he had been afraid for his life and coming to work in a bulletproof vest. Now, his wife is telling them, I've been afraid of him lately. She said she'd been sleeping in a separate bedroom, trying to avoid him as much as possible.

And she said she wasn't at all surprised that he had done this to himself. She thought he might. She said he'd been seeing a psychiatrist, and she told him he told a psychiatrist he'd been thinking about taking his own life. So the cops wanted to know where did the gun come from? And Dante said that she had bought it for protection. She had a longstanding fear of waking up in the middle of the night to find a strange man standing at the foot of her bed, which is understandable. I think probably most people have a longstanding fear of that. but when Daryl found out she had the gun he'd freaked out and demanded she handed over

and so she had so he had the gun not me says Dante but the detectives were getting some hinky vibes off the imperious Ms. Dante not only did her affect seem all wrong but why hadn't she heard the shot that killed Daryl? She said she hadn't

she said she'd woken up at about 3 a.m. to hear what she thought was a door shutting but she just figured it was Daryl coming home Gunshot isn't exactly quiet, so this was weird. And it was also weird that she kept bad-mouthing Daryl during the interview. Like, everybody hates him at his job. He's always grumpy, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, although that was odd and off-putting, they didn't have any real reason to hold her. There was no hard evidence against her, and the autopsy hadn't been conducted yet.

But then, back at the Satoria's house, evidence text found a big old box of cocaine in Dante's bedroom. Oopsie-doodle. Was this some sort of 1990s trousseau? Like instead of wedding stuff, it's just cocaine. Maybe it was part of her dowry. Excellent point, excellent point. So now they had something that they could, like, hold her on. So they booked her on a drug charge.

And when Dante found out she would be spending the night in jail, she freaked out. She insisted they rush her case and let her bail out immediately. She couldn't possibly stay overnight in the Justice Center. It was germy. It was full of bugs. It was cold. No Big Macs either. Poor, poor Dante.

And I imagine she spent a terribly unpleasant night in the clink, but a friend was able to bail her out soon, and by the time she got out, Daryl's death was headline news. And the detectives started getting phone calls, multiple phone calls from multiple people who knew Dante and Daryl, and were saying stuff like, you need to look into her past and talk to her ex-husbands. One of those callers was Dante's own mother, Olga.

Campers, when your own mom thinks you're a wrong in, things have gone very seriously awry in your life most likely unless your mom is just a shit show yeah yikes so investigators started hunting down della's four ex-husbands not to mention a slew of ex-boyfriends and other family members and y'all they were about to get an earful we're gonna need you to buckle your safety belts for this one campers because you know we picked a wild one for our season three premiere so you ready okay so let's put a pin in the rapidly warming police investigation for a bit and get some background on Dante and Daryl Satorius. Dr. Daryl Satorius was a big presence.

He was a prominent thoracic surgeon in Cincinnati, and he had a formidable reputation. People respected him enormously, but a lot of people that he worked with feared him, too. He could be a nightmare to work with by all accounts, like bellowing orders at people and throw in a surgical sponge at a guy in the middle of an operation once, apparently. I wonder if it was a bloody one. That would be so gross. He could be incredibly intolerant of even. small mistakes. He had a quick temper and wasn't afraid to show it. So he could be a bit of a bear.

Sure. But he had a softer side, too. He was a loving father to his three grown children. And many of the doctors and nurses who worked with him said he did a lot of things to make up for his temper tantrums. For example, he bought the nurses a microwave when the hospital refused to get them one. And he brought in food he made himself. He asked about people's families. And he seemed genuinely care about his patients and feel like protective of him, which is where some of his anger came in. Yeah, exactly. And by 1995, he'd built an illustrious surgical practice and accumulated quite a bit of wealth, though he grumbled about having to pay alimony to his ex-wife Jan and at the high cost of college tuition for his kids. And HMOs had cut into his finances quite a bit. He was

super pissed about that. Oh, I'm weeping. I know. I'm sorry, I can't pay for my heart surgery out of pocket, sir. So he and Dante met through a dating service in 1995. Darrell had just gotten out of a tumultuous relationship with a much younger woman named Lisa, who's basically using him as a sugar daddy while cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend. Now, Lisa was a gold digger, and it apparently really stung Darrell when he realized it. He'd gotten together with Lisa after divorcing his wife. of 30 years, Jan, who had been devastated when he left her. And Daryl had been all mopey and

depressed about the divorce, too, even though it was his idea. That's all we can say about that. Yeah, he's like, I have an apartment outside of the home, but how dare you serve me divorce papers? Come on, dude. So, Daryl was a man who needed a woman to take care of him. And that's not just our opinion. That's what people in his life have said. I get the impression that he was very much aware of it himself. He did not like being unattached. He was insecure about his looks, by all accounts, and dating hot women seemed to feed his self-esteem.

It's why he took up with Lisa, who was young enough to be his daughter. And I will say this. I've seen pictures of him, and he wasn't a bad-looking dude. No, I know I'm puzzled by it as well. Like, I don't get why he was insecure about his looks. It looks fine to me. He had a tendency to date much younger women who were out of his league. He'd spend a ton of money on them and then be furious and hurt when they left him.

And then he'd complain that all women were bimbos and gold diggers. Okay. Well, Darrell, honey, if those are the only types of women that you're pursuing, then, you know, maybe that's all you're going to attract. If you're going for women young enough to be your daughter, who on the first date, ask, you know, hey, can you buy me something? like what do you expect? How about dating somebody who doesn't need your money, man? Bless your heart. Yeah, for example, Lisa was like, I'm looking to quit my job. Like what? Yeah, exactly. Like right

away. It's like that that's not a love connection, okay? You can say what you like about an arrangement if both people are on board with it, whatever, if you're both cool with that. But Darrell like wanted, you know, he wanted a connection. Right. Maybe don't go out with somebody who's your daughter's age and asks you if she can quit your job on the first date or whatever. So now Lisa was gone and Darrell was lonely again. Unfortunately, he was right for the picking for another woman who was more interested in money than a love connection. But when he met 44-year-old Dante Britton, she didn't seem like one of those women. Not at first.

When the dating service introduced them, she seemed like a sophisticated, educated woman with money of her own. She seemed independent. And Dante was hot. She was blonde, petite, with a banging body and a kind of softness about her face. Early in their relationship, Daryl showed off a picture of Dante and a bikini. Which, okay. And she told him she had a PhD in psychology from UCLA. And she seemed sophisticated, always dressed in designer-related.

labels. She was soft-spoken and she stroked Daryl's ego. She was always talking about how brilliant he must be to be a surgeon, how much she loved his big, strong hands. Yeah, yeah, gross. Sorry. So, Daryl fell hard and fast. He wrote her love letters. And one afternoon, he showed up at her place with a brand new lexas and he went if you marry me it's yours and she kind of laughed it off but then they were soon engaged and y'all they'd only known each other for a little less than two months this shit again so campers what do we always say let's not marry somebody we just met okay let's just let's please not do that let's make sure we wait till that honeymoon phase is over at the very least. If there's food in your fridge that's older than your relationship, let's not be

buying anybody a flipping engagement Lexus. Okay? Let's just not do that. Yeah. So after they were married, Daryl had bought her a big old McMansion in one of Cincinnati's nicest neighborhoods and let her fill it with antique furniture. All had been rosy for a while. But then it started to go bad, and boy did it. Colleagues, friends, and family noticed that Daryl seemed wary and depressed, and he'd shared some disturbing things about his new wife. She'd lied to him about everything, and he was starting to wonder who the hell he was married to. And she had some scary skeletons in her closet. But we'll get to that. For now, let's go back to 1950. Kentucky, when Delah Faye Hall, who would someday be known as Dante Satorius, was born.

Her dad died of cancer when she was six, and her mom, Olga, quickly met and married her stepfather, Jean, whom she hated immediately and never stopped hating. Little Della hated her mom and stepdad, but she idealized her what she called her real daddy in heaven. That's sad. It's really sad. And she kept a photograph of him next to her bed. And that's understandable, really, for a kid who'd lost her dad that young.

Definitely. At least the stepdad hate is understandable. Why she hated her mom is a lot less clear. Olga and Jean tried showering her with extra love. They spoiled her even. Olga dressed Della up in beautiful clothes. Treated her like a princess, but nothing seemed to work. Della was a sour kid.

She was obsessed with the book The Bad Seed by William March about a murderous little girl. Oh, that book is creepy. It's so creepy. And it was later made into a equally creepy movie. And Della loved it. She read it again and again and again, hold up in her room, scowling at anybody who tried to interrupt her. What a delight. It wasn't until.

much later that her mother Olga learned what the book was about and realized she probably shouldn't have let a kid like Della read it. But Olga had seven kids so she had shit to do. She couldn't be worrying about her daughter's reading material.

Yeah, and Little Della loved that evil little girl in the bad seed, and it's not hard to see why. She clearly related to this murdery little shit. Whose greatest hits, by the way, include drowning her best friend and setting a neighbor on fire. Wow. Yeah. Della was the oldest of Olga's seven kids, and her sister Donna, who I believe was the next in line,

tells some bonker stories about Lil Della's childhood shenanigans. When the little pumpkin wasn't lurking in her room and reading her creepy books, she amused herself by tormenting her siblings. For example, Della hated her baby sister Cheryl and once threatened to smother her in her crib. And we're going to throw you a quick content warning on this next part because it involves animal stuff. I know some of y'all won't want to hear that. So if you fast forward about 30 seconds, it should take. is past that bit, but if you can handle it, do, because this is a clear warning sign of what was to come with Ms. Della, and there's not going to be any specific details about animal cruelty

or anything like that. So, when Della was about seven or eight, there was a dog in their neighborhood who barked a lot, and Della used to tell her younger sister Donna that the dog was going to tear her hands off. Charming. And then one afternoon, she took Donna to an abandoned lot in their neighborhood and showed her the dead body of this dog, and she said, I killed it. Do you like what I did to it? Can you smell it? Heck and yikes. And she said, Donna, you're my sister.

So I saved the best part for you. And she handed Donna a stick and said, poke its eyeballs out. Now, this dog was dead at this point. And Donna's response to this was to throw up, reasonable, and threatened to tell their mom. And Della told her if she breathed a word to Olga, she'd end up just like the dog. Like, dead serious. Now, did seven or eight-year-old Della actually kill this dog? Maybe, maybe not.

But the fact that she wanted Donna to think she had and the delight that she seemed to take in showing her the body, those are massive red flags. That is not a normal thing to do for a child. Donna said Della seemed to delight in tormenting and scaring her. One time she choked Donna to get her to stop talking, and sometimes they'd be playing with their dolls or something, and suddenly Della would just change.

her face would take on a totally different expression her voice would change and she'd say stuff like I'm not Della, I'm Sally, you have to call me Sally and she'd say stuff like you told mom what I did last week and now you have to be punished and then she'd just snap right back and be normal again or as normal as Della ever got I mean I'm practically wet and I'm just thinking about this

so I can only imagine how terrifying this was for little Donna oh my God and then there was the creepy story of the monster upstairs. Now, this is all according to Donna, and I should preface this by saying that based on the book Della's Web by Aphrodite Jones, which is quite good and is one of our main sources for this case, Donna does seem to have some issues of her own. So I don't know if we can take everything she says at face value, but anyway, here goes. So Olga and Jean rented out the upper floor of their house for extra income, and when she was seven, Della became enthralled with

the tenants. She told Donna there was a man up there who was was a monster. He had fangs. He could bite little girl's legs off and eat them, which I guess made him tops in Della's book. Sure. Now, according to Olga, the upstairs tenant was a single woman who lived alone and there was never a man living there. So she just discounts the story entirely. But Donna says the tenant had a boyfriend and that she would sneak him in after hours, which to me does not sound far-fetched at all. So anywho, Della was fascinated by the sky and she used to sneak up there all the time, according to Donna. And when she came back, She would threaten Donna not to tell Olga anything about it.

And one night she snuck up there to, quote, look at the monster, and she was gone for, like, hours. And Donna started to worry that the monster was, like, doing something to her sister. So she went up there to rescue her, which, in my opinion, is pretty damn cool of her, given the way that Della used to treat her, right? Yeah. I guess in Donna's world, blood is thicker than water. So, anyway, Donna swears that when she got up there, she found Della and this man together. And she says she tried to, like, grab Della's arms. arm and pull her away, and that the man pushed her back and grabbed Della and said,

leave us alone. And she said, while all this was going on, Della just had like a huge grin on her face and seemed to be enjoying it enormously, like the attention and the drama of it. And she said, eventually the man gave up and just said, oh, screw it, get out of here or whatever, and the two girls went back downstairs. Now, this is obviously incredibly creepy for many reasons. It's creepy on its face, and it also seems to kind of smack of something really uncool. going on with this man upstairs if he in fact existed.

Donna doesn't mention seeing anything overtly inappropriate or sexual. She doesn't mention anybody being unclosed or anything like that. But why would a grown man and a seven-year-old girl be hanging out together? You know, and why when that seven-year-old girl's sister tries to pull her away, would the guy react like that? So that, I think, is a really chilling, creepy little story. so Anywho

Also around this time A whole family was murdered In Della's neighborhood Now it was a huge case It was all over the news It's still unsolved And Della was obsessed And she told everybody she had done it

She killed the family Which is obviously a bit of a stretch Given that she was just a child at the time But she really enjoyed telling people That she had done it She's like the antagonist in a horror movie man She really is And Della absolutely

hated having sisters, especially when she entered her awkward preteen and early teen stage. And she'd been a beautiful little girl, and Olga used to, like you said, dress her up like a princess. But now, when she hit those awkward years, her blonde hair turned brown, her skin broke out really badly, and she didn't like her looks anymore. I mean, her and just about every other girl in the world at that age. But her sisters got a lot more attention than she did. They had more friends. They had boys interested in them. They were better at interacting with the other humans. and Della just hated it. And she dealt with that pretty much by being passive-aggressive.

She would do whatever she could do to avoid doing her chores, mostly just whine a lot and screw up on purpose so Ogle would get exasperated and do it herself, which is so annoying. I've known people who do this before. Don't do this, Camper's. It's really really irritating, like just to do something badly so somebody else will say, oh, screw it, I'll do it.

Just do your damn chores. Come on. So, like with her chores, Della didn't try at all in school. Olga put her in an expensive private school. They really couldn't afford because she was so worried about Della's terrible grades, but Della couldn't have cared less. She was pretty much allergic to any kind of work. She spent most of her time in front of the TV, obsessing about the characters.

Soap operas were her favorite, and the characters she admired were the villains. especially the rich bitches. She wanted to be just like them. Goals, right? Gotta have goals. Della's high school years were tumultuous. She finally came out of her shell a little bit and became more social, but not in a way that improved her attitude towards school.

She and Donna started sneaking out at night and hanging out with older kids, drinking. And once or twice, the cops brought Della and Donna home in the middle of the night, stuff like that. And then, teenage Della got pregnant. She had a little girl named Sean, and this led her at age 19 to marry husband number one. Sean's pops, Joe. Not surprisingly, Della wasn't exactly a natural-born wife and mother. She was miserable with Joe who liked to cheat on her, and she quickly set about making his life a living hell.

she barely seemed to notice baby Sean she never cooked she never cleaned she didn't want to get a job she had to have an operation for scoliosis around this time and this was her golden ticket for a while she milked it for all it was worth saying she was in too much pain to do anything she wheedled mom Olga into waiting on her hand and foot and taking care of the baby and the housework Olga still had elementary school-aged kids of her own at home, but that didn't stop Della. When Olga finally burnt out and refused to do anymore, Della talked her 17-year-old sister, Cheryl, into taking over. You know, the one she threatened to smother in a crib when she was a baby. Cheryl moved in for a while to help take care of the house and the baby, and she later said that the house was disgusting.

Oh. And Della was a horrible, neglectful mother. Gross. And I know this is going to make you give up on love, campers. I know. But after two years, Della and Joe filed for divorce. Let's all pour one out for this match made in heaven. Cue sad breakup song.

Their love was too pure for this world. That it was. I'm so sad. And despite Della's apparent lack of interest in her child, the divorce kicked off a nasty custody battle that would last for years. Della's not the type to let somebody else win, you see. Joe eventually married a woman named Valerie, and they wanted full custody of Sean. They cited Della's neglect and CPS got involved. Della remarried four or five years after she and Joe broke up.

and she and husband number two, Jim, fought Valerie and Joe tooth and nail over custody. It was in ugly battle, but the court eventually sided with Della, which so frustrating. So sucks, but probably wasn't unusual at all in the 70s. The courts were likely to side with the mother even when she sucked on toast. Yeah. And people who knew Della at the time said she'd fix up the house just in time for the CPS visits. And she made sure Sean knew she'd better tell the caseworker everything was just fine. It's so disturbing.

Yeah. But all Della wanted was to beat Joe. And when Sean was nine, Della met a guy named Sid. And she decided she was done with the mom wife. thing. She handed, Sean over to Joe and Valerie, moved into a studio apartment that didn't allow kids, and ditched husband number two. Katie, I know you're not going to tell me this horribly sad story. Husband number two was my favorite so far. I really thought this one was going to make it. Yeah, no, no, it wasn't meant to be. It's so sad. Yeah. I mean, she got to Sid now, so don't worry

about it. Poor, Sid. You have no idea what Sid's in for. So she was soon getting hot and heavy with Sid and decided to sign over custody so she could concentrate on that. Oh, God. And on getting serious about her long-term goal of landing a rich husband. She was sick of not having anything. And Delo was not screwing around about this shit. this bitch signed up for classes at the Barbizond School of Modeling. Are you shitting me?

No, I am not. Oh, my God. This woman signed up for classes. She learned how to dress, how to do her hair, how to carry herself, how to do her makeup. But not so she could be a model. Oh, no, she did all of that so she could land herself a rich fella. Holy shit. You think they made her walk around with a book on her head?

had like in the old movies? We can only hope. I'm almost certain of it. And Camper's, if you look up pictures of her, she has the same face in every single picture. Oh, she totally does. She makes the same face. And it's really not a very pleasant face at all. No, but I'm positive.

It came from the Barbizon School of Modeling because they were like, you got to know your angles. Well, it makes it look like she's eating a bad clam is all I'm saying. It is not a pleasant face at all. No. Soon, the ugly duckling who hadn't been noticed in junior high had transformed herself. Her daughter, Sean, says the first time she saw her after her modeling course, she didn't recognize her own mother. So while Dante was studying up on how to be a sugar baby or trophy wife or whatever, she entertained

herself with this Sid dude. And Sid was a character. In the 70s, when he met Della at a disco, of course, he was gorgeous, kind of a Chris Hemsworth type. Meow. Blonde and musly and rough around the edges. He had women lined up around the block. So the kind of dude who didn't have to show off, he just had to show up. Like he just shows up at the club, raises one eyebrow, and the hottest girl in the place falls into his arms.

Hot like that. Oh, Lord. So we like Sid so far, right? Yeah. Yeah. So Sid was a railroad worker, a blue-collar guy, not the rich daddy warbucks type that Della was after. But it didn't take her long to get hung up on him. In addition to being smoking hot, Sid was affable and easygoing and fun. He grew up in a rough neighborhood in Cincinnati, and he'd always been kind of on the fringes of criminal circles. but he was a good guy, really. The kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with. Mm-hmm.

He seems like he had a good heart. And Sid was into the drug scene, mostly cocaine and weed, and Della soon threw herself into it with him. Oh, goody. This is just what her personality needs, right? Stimulance. That's what Dante needs, or Della at this point. Lots and lots of speed.

Yeah, she's like 5'1. I just imagine the cocaine made her talk like Alvin the chipmunk. What was it you called her earlier, a little insane chihuahuas? I've called her a lot of road names. I like the chihuahua one, though, because they're so high octane. You know, wombat seem kind of chill. Yeah. Because wombats are huge.

I found this out recently. I was like, how are they this big? They're deceptively huge. Yeah. So, yeah, she's a chihuahua, though, because chihuahuas are pretty aggressive, too, because they got them. Exactly. They're so small. They're high octane and can be kind of skimptively.

Gary. So, yeah, Chihuahua and cocaine. Jesus. So Della and Sid were going hot and heavy. Della had a way with men. There's no doubt about that. Her schick was to make herself seem vulnerable and in need of a big, strong man, take care of her. Jinks. She even had this, I'm going to try to do it. This little baby. voice she'd use. Oh, Sid, you're such a bad boy. I told you to come home by five. Oh, my God. Ew.

So, when Sid tells the story of his time with Della, he often starts by saying that his friends tried several times to talk him into hiring a hitman to kill her, because those were apparently the kinds of circles that Sid was on the fringes of. So we already know we're talking about true love here. No shit. He says multiple people he knew in the drive. drug scene offered to kill her for him for like three or four grand. Wow.

And he told author Aphrodite Jones, I was abused. Nobody could believe what she put me through. And he ain't kidding, campers, as you're about to see. But despite this, Sid couldn't bring himself to have Della whacked. She had a hold on him. It was probably the baby voice. And like you said, despite his usual no falling in love, no strings policy, Della got him to be faithful to her for the first time in his life.

Like she was the first woman that he was ever monogamous with. and she moved into his place bit by bit kind of before Sid knew what hit him she would do that like George Costanza from Seinfeld thing of like leaving stuff over at his house and then leaving more stuff just little by little until she was just living there one day and he's like oh shit she's living here now

Sid found her needy clingy he felt sorry for her her little baby act worked on him like a charm and there's the scene in the Aphrodite Jones book that seriously has to be seen to be believed where Della's tape recording, like one of their makeout sessions for some reason and doing that little baby voice

and it is disturbing. Like, she's talking about his wang and singing camp town races and accusing him of talking to an ex-girlfriend. It's just a hot mess, just on toast. But Sid seemed to eat it up. It is gross, seriously. Like, do you want to head on over to Katie's kinkshaming

corner for a minute for this one? Yeah, okay, listen. I can think of no better turnoff than a folk song about horse races, juxtaposed with that crazy little wombat's baby voice. But, okay, if that's your thing, fine, whatever. But please, for the love of God, when the relationship dissolves, dispose of the recording. Or at least don't give it to famed true crime writers when your ex murder someone.

Or do, whatever. I'm not your mom. So she told Sid all about her allegedly abusive childhood, which was a story she'd tell every man she got involved with, and she would embellish it more and more over time. And I just want to say all of her siblings, all six of them, say it's total horseshit and never happened. And Sid fell for it.

He wanted to take care of her. So, men, a bit of advice. Don't do this. It's a trap. Go find a kitten up a tree you can rescue instead. Okay? It'll end much better for you. Yeah, you're not winning any medals for putting up with this shit, friends.

No, no. And despite Sid agreeing to be exclusive with her, Della didn't trust him as far as she could throw him. She was insanely jealous. She accused him of cheating constantly. I mean, the man had game coming out of his eyeballs. Women fell all over him. So in some ways, this is kind of understandable. But she was way, way, way more possessive than, you know, your average person.

And Sid says on two or three separate occasions, she tried to have. have him killed like had it all arranged had a guy waiting to jump him on his way to the car but somebody warned him ahead of time every time like the bouncer at the bar would say hey man don't go out the back door of the bar she got somebody waiting for you out there like and he'd be like okay great and he'd go out the front door instead it's astonishing that these two crazy kids didn't work out right I think after the first time you would think but I understand it's fine Yeah. Well, you know, she did have her a certain charm. And one night, Della cooked Sid a romantic dinner, and she brought over a kerosene lamp that she'd bought just for the occasion so they could have mood lighting. Now, this should have been a red flag right from the get-go, because this woman never lifted a finger to do any kind of cooking or cleaning or manual labor of any kind if she could avoid it. And she brought over a ton of wine and weed and plied him with both all evening. And he kept wondering, why she wasn't partaking in any of it, which was unusual for her, until finally Sid was

blitzed and went to bed and the last thought he had before he fell asleep was, why does Della still have all her clothes on? Why did she have her shoes on at bedtime, right? And the next thing Sid knew, he was waking up on fire. Like, the man was actually his butt and the backs of his thighs were burning. And fortunately, he was able to put himself out. He just got, you know, singed, basically. But if he had been passed out instead of just to sleep, which is what I suspect she thought he was after all that wine and weed, there's a good chance you would have burned to death. And Della had left an empty whiskey bottle and an ashtray with a lit cigarette in it,

and the kerosene lamp was overturned on the bed. Della was nowhere to be found. So, yeah, again, heck and yikes. She set the man on fire, campers. And when he confronted her about this the next day, I mean, obviously he was super mad. Tella just laughed and was like, I don't know what you're talking about. well I'm sorry you fell asleep with a lit cigarette but it's not my fault etc etc I mean he knew perfectly well she was lying and at that point he's like I'm

done with you we're finished yeah right you would think that that would be the case that this would have been the end of the relationship but no Sid bless his heart soon fell for her little baby act again I'm sick today or I need you to help me move some heavy boxes and blah blah blah and before long she wormed her way back in So, you know, sit, dang it, honey, we're worried about you. But, of course, this is a common enough dynamic and abusive relationships, isn't it? Mm-hmm, absolutely. It doesn't matter what the gender is of the abused party.

People go back, and they go back, and they go back. So there wasn't much of a honeymoon period before Della started up her big bag of bullshit again. The jealousy and keeping tabs on him. So Sid made her move out. She stalked him. And then one weekend, Sid went out of town on a trip. And when he came home, oh my God, he had this huge aquarium full of angel fish. It was like his pride and joy.

And he came home to find this thing smashed. Water and dead angel fish all over the floor. All his pictures ripped off the wall and smashed. Every single one of his electronics and appliances that like a person Della's size could lift was plugged in and put either in the full bathtub, the toilet, or a sink full of water. So obviously this had blown the electricity out. so all the food in the fridge had rotted and he just lost everything he owned like she destroyed everything

in his apartment including his pet parrot whose cage by the window had been opened and the window opened too so his pet parrot flew away too like literally she just leveled this man's life the only thing that he still had

was the car that he had driven away in and that was it and yet sis still took her back after all this I mean this was some toxic shit. And, you know, after he took her back again, there was more of the same for a while.

But then Della finally went a step too far. She called the police and turned him in for drugs. And then testified against him in court for, like, possession of cocaine and weed. And there was also some tax stuff, apparently, that she turned him in for. So, Sid actually ended up serving several years in prison. And he didn't want anything to do with her after that. which I'm sure drove her crazy even though obviously she brought it on herself

and when he got out he started his own business which took off and one night he bumped into Della at a party for the Bengals and when he didn't act all glad to see her she had the guy she was with push him into the pool like a friggin child

and as he was like splashing around trying to climb out she yelled I should have finished you off when I had the chance I should have finished you off when I had the chance so campers this lady i think we're beginning to see has got some issues yes the other momentous thing that happened at that party was that della told sid not to call her della anymore she changed her name to dante y'all want to know why this is super charming she decided that the name della sounded a too poor and b like a black girl's name wow yeah she thought dante sounded rich and sophisticated ugh because Bug Nuts wasn't enough for her. She had to add racist to the mix now, right?

And that name does sound like a villain in a soap opera that she liked so much. Yep. Like, she's going to have her identical twin murdered and replace her with a name like that. Absolutely. You could completely see, like, an old soap opera with an identical twin pair named Della and Dante. And, like, one is the good twin and one is the evil twin. Yeah, I can see it. It's rights itself.

So, anywho, having left a big smoking crater in the personal history of poor old Sid, it was onwards and upwards for Dante. She even got more serious about landing the rich husband she was convinced she deserved. She read books on how to marry a millionaire. Books like that exist? Give me just a, hold on, give me a quick second. I'm just going to place a order on Amazon. Yeah, apparently, or at least they did exist in the 70s, which is just incredible and gross. I'm sure they exist today, actually.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. So Dante didn't waste any time. She dated scores of men after Sid, including, according to her, Jerry Springer, who was actually mayor of Cincinnati for a while, which seems to me absolutely plausible and appropriate. Yeah, and apparently Aphrodite Jones did find a few people who corroborate having seen them out together once or 12. But Jerry Springer says he doesn't remember. Now, he doesn't explicitly deny going out with her, like, once or twice, but he just says he's not sure.

Yeah, and to me, Jerry's not really the type to deny dating, like, a famous murderer if he really did that. Like, I'd think he would embrace that and brag about it. But by all accounts, other than Dante's, it was, like, one or two dates tops. But Dante would forever after claim that it was a way bigger deal than it was, and that they were really, really close, and she'd compare all future men to Jerry. Well, Jerry always says this. And Jerry would never wear that.

And Jerry wears this kind of boxers. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Lord have mercy. I love this little tidbit. So Dante's friend Connie once walked in on her, standing in front of a mirror, making different facial expressions and studying herself. And when Connie was like, uh, what the hell are you doing? Dante was like, I'm just practicing looking interested.

That is some psychopath shit right there. That is fascinating. Like, I don't understand emotion very well, so I got to practice in the mirror. Yeah, it's just one of those. And the fact that she was just so casual about like, oh, I'm just practicing. Like, that was a perfectly normal thing. Like, everybody does that. And maybe she didn't understand that everybody didn't.

Right. And I'm sure she didn't. It was a little scary, knowing what we now know. So when Dante set her sights on a man, She was relentless and always wildly possessive and jealous. One ex-boyfriend talks about her stalking both him and his new girlfriend after they split. She tailed them in her car. And finally, he was like, this is enough.

I will meet you for a drink. And he was planning on begging her to leave them alone. And Dante showed up, dishevelled, and smelling of smoke. And later that evening, the guy got home to find his house entirely engulfed in flames. Dante's Inferno. There it is. The fire marshal quickly determined that the fire had been intentionally set, and the neighbor said he'd seen a car like Dante's on the street right before the fire started.

But Dante was full of sympathy and offers to help. Oh, no, your house got burned. down? How can I help? And investigators didn't have any solid proof that she'd set the fire. However, they did say that the fire seemed to be started with accelerant on a pile of clothes. And the arson expert said that in his experience, that was a typical way for women to start the fire. It just seems like on its face weird to me, but I mean, if that's the arson experts experience, I don't know. That could be legit, I guess, that men and women might start fires like differently, typically. I'm sure there are exceptions, but it's interesting.

Women be shopping. No, I'm joking, obviously, but I can actually think of a couple cases off the top of my head where an arsonist, female arsonist, started it with clothes or fabric instead of something else, which I think is interesting. Then shortly after the fire, she told this dude she was pregnant and the baby was his. Now, he did some quick mental math, and he realized that wasn't possible. And when he challenged her, she said, I should have killed you when I had the chance, which is quickly becoming homegirl's catchphrase. She said, I held the butcher knife to your throat while you were sleeping.

And I just didn't have the nerve to do it. And I assume the poor dude wed himself on the spot and sainted. No, damn, right? That's what I would do. Yikes. Dante continued to call this poor guy and threaten him until finally he got her on tape, played the tape back to her and threatened to turn her into the cops if she didn't lay off. So she finally left him alone.

So we're going to leave it there for Part 1, Campers, but because we release both parts of an episode on the same day, you can go right ahead and listen to Part 2 now if you want, or save it for later, whatever floats your boat. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe. we get together again around the true crime campfire you can follow us on Twitter at tc campfire Instagram at true crime campfire

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