Going West: True Crime - Patsy Wright // 74

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

In 1987, a successful, 43-year-old businesswoman was found poisoned to death in her home. After having medicine found in her bathroom tested in a lab, investigators felt more than certain that someone had spiked it in hopes of killing her. As the details unfold, the whole story sounds more like a mystery novel than a real case. So, who did it? This is the murder of Patsy Wright. Bonus Content: patron.com/goingwestpodcast Sponsors: Lumi CBD: lumicbd.com (use code goingwest20 for 20% off your order! _________ CASE SOURCES https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/52846941/patricia-virginia-wright facebook.com https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34438664/patsy-wright/ https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1989/august/t-h-e-wax-museum-murder-mystery/ https://unsolved.com/gallery/patsy-wright/ https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Patsy_Wright Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Tee. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is definitely more of a who-done-it murder mystery type case, so make sure that you pay attention to all the little details and help narrow down the best suspect. Yes, it's gonna be a wild case today, and also on top of that we wanted to let you guys know that your June

bonus episodes for our patrons are coming out this week. We're gonna drop them before Friday, so be on the lookout for that. If you guys wanna give us a nice review and get a shout out on the show, head on over to Apple Podcasts and don't forget to leave your name and your location. Yeah, it really helps out the show. It helps us become more noticeable in the charts. And we love giving you guys shout outs as well. So make sure you head over and do that and without further ado guys this is episode 74 of Going

West so let's get into it. In October 1987, a successful 43-year-old business woman frantically called her sister, explaining that she had taken Nyquill and something was really, really wrong. When paramedics arrived to her house, they found her dead, along with a bottle of medicine that was later tested in a lab. Turns out, the medicine had been poisoned. So what happened to her and who wanted her dead? As the details unfold, the story sounds more like a murder mystery novel than a real life case.

This is the murder of Patsy Wright. Patrisha Bolton was born on February 24, 1944 in Highland Park, Texas, to parents William and Virginia Bolton. Highland Park is a gorgeous and very affluent town located in central Dallas with a population of under 10,000 people. So it's very small but also very nice and definitely a more wealthy area. And they have this lifestyle thanks to her father, William's powerful position in the oil industry. And a little more family history,

Patricia was the grand niece of a very well-known Texas politician and house speaker named Sam Rayburn. And by the way, Patricia went by the nickname Patsy, so we're just going to refer to her as Patsy from here on out. So Patsy attended Hillcrest High School in Dallas alongside her sister Sally, and then Patsy went on to study at Texas Tech University. During the early 1960s when Patsy and Sally were teenagers, their father William took a trip to London England and visited Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, which is a very popular and touristy spot with wax figures of different celebrities and film characters.

And you may actually be familiar with Madame Tisad's if you live here in the States because there are a lot of locations in different major cities across the country. So back to William's trip to London, he absolutely loved the Wax Museum. And it inspired him to go home to Texas and purchase 72 original wax figures from a local sculptor with a dream of opening his very own wax museum right there in Dallas, Texas. Even though he had just bought all these figures, he needed to get a loan to open a storefront, which took him a few tries, but finally, he was able to get a $250,000 loan to open up his shop.

And even though he had originally been inspired by Madame Tussauds with lots of pop culture figures, he was a lot more interested in having a museum that represented Texas history, which was a huge passion of his. So he had figures like Lawman, Batman, Masterson, and Outlaw, Billy the Kid, and other real-life gunslingin' Old West characters. In 1963, William opened the museum in Central Texas, and it was a massive success. I mean, people absolutely loved it. I mean, you're talking about cowboys, wax sculptures of cowboys in Texas.

Of course, that's gonna be a huge hit. Yeah, it did well. And he even had Patsy and Sally, his daughters, come work there over the summer when it was extra busy, things to the local state fair. So this state fair brought in a lot of foot traffic, obviously, and the kind of summer touristy season did that as well. And we've actually talked about that Texas state fair before, right? Yes, in the Angeles, a motor case. So if you haven't listened to that, that is also a very interesting and very sad case that we covered a couple months ago. So the reason that Patsy only helped out during the summers at the museum is because she was

going to college about five hours away in Lubbock. And it was there that she met Bill Wright in one of her classes. And they really hit it off and started dating during college. And once they graduated in 1965, when Patsy was 21, the two married, and Patsy became Patsy Wright. And by the way, Texas Tech University is in Lubbock, Texas. Yeah, so that's where she was going.

So she would kind of come home for the summers, help out with the family business, and then go back to school. So just about four years later, Patsy's mother Virginia passed away at the early age of 53. So her father William ended up remarrying. In 1972, when Patsy was 28,

she became more involved with her father's business. And this was also the time when her father William decided to move the wax museum to grand prairie Texas due to a decline in the popularity in the central Dallas location. So since Patsy and her sister Sally were working with their dad, they decided to move with him to Arlington, Texas, which is just west of Dallas and much closer to the museum's new location. So Patsy and her husband Bill settled into a beautiful colonial-style house in Arlington, where they began raising their two children, Leslie and Wayne.

About four years later, on Christmas Eve, 1976, William, Patsy's father, died at the age of 66. With William dying, came the big question of what was going to happen to his assets and who was going to own his business. And that caused a huge battle between Patsy and her sister Sally and their stepmother. Even though their stepmother had only been in the picture for about seven years, she wanted her fair share. And this really upset Patsy and Sally because they didn't understand why their father hadn't made a more clear and obvious will of who would receive his estate.

And Patsy even mentioned to her financial advisor at the time that she would never make things this difficult for her kids when she passed. In the end, Patsy and Sally were granted their father's business and they became co-owners and eventually they acquired a second wax museum that was equally as successful. So at this point, they're in their early 30s, both of their parents have passed and they now own two successful businesses. And you can imagine that a lot of times when a business is handed down to the offspring of the owner, things usually get messed up or changed drastically.

But Patsy and Sally did a great job at running things despite their dad being out of the picture. And they did this for many years as they went through their own personal troubles. For example, in 1980, about 15 years into their marriage, Patsy and her husband Bill got a divorce. But this wasn't too difficult for Patsy, who at this point had teenage children, because she was beautiful, she was vivacious,

and just all around attractive between her looks and her personality. And this even got on her sister Sally's nerves a bit, because about a year after Patsy divorced, Sally and her husband also divorced. So now both Patsy and Sally are in their late 30s and they own a business together and they're single and ready to mingle. The following year in 1981, Patsy met a man named Bob Cox, who was 14 years her senior, so about 51 years old. He was a gambler and a poker player, and he even had his own wax museum, funnily enough.

So he was a very wealthy man who spent much of his time at the Dallas Country Club card table. And he wasn't just wealthy from his wax museum, which was specifically for figures of US presidents. He had previously owned a fabric company company which he sold for over a million dollars in 1970. After this, he became an investor and bought a bunch of companies with his wife at the time. This was before he met Patsy. But his wax museum really started to lose business during the late 70s. So he contacted Patsy and Sally to see if they wanted to buy it from him for

$500,000, because he knew that they owned two successful wax museums in Texas, so he kind of figured they were the right people to call. But they weren't really interested, and Patsy only made him an offer for $14,000 for some of the more antique pieces, and Bob was shocked and pissed by this. He was kind of insulted. Right. He's probably thinking that his wax museum is unsuccessful. If he can just sell it off, maybe he can cut his losses. Right. But obviously they didn't want any part of it. So then Bob and Patsy got to know each other after this. And they began dating after he officially divorced his wife Kitty in the early 80s. So a little bit later, they got married, and Patsy loved the kind of lavish social lifestyle

that he provided her. You know, they went to a bunch of parties and fancy charity events, and he treated her really well. In early 1983, Bob took Patsy on a trip to Galveston, Texas, which was about four hours away by car, to show her his new wax museum. It wasn't renovated or fixed up yet, so all the figures and sets were strewn about and stacked up, and the building looked a bit like a mess. And he already owned this building at this point, and he'd even planned to remodel it in time to have a grand opening within six months when summer hit. But that wouldn't happen, because just two weeks later, around midnight, someone set the building on fire. It wasn't completely engulfed in flames, but the fire started from inside the building and a good chunk of his inventory was destroyed. Once the fire was investigated, it was ruled in arson, and his insurance company

believed that Bob Cox himself set the fire to collect on insurance money. And this is important to discuss, because during this time, Patsy had no idea how much money trouble he was actually in. He tried to start new businesses and get funding, but everything kept failing. And once he and Patsy were married, things got a lot worse, because Bob became incredibly angry towards Patsy and her family. So he really stopped treating her well, like it was polar opposite from when they were dating to when they were married. He first was treating her like a princess, and then they they got married and he just treated her like garbage. And he was incredibly verbally and emotionally abusive to her and her family constantly. Not only that, but Bob didn't pitch in on any of their bills. Like we know, Patsy owned businesses that were very successful and paid for their lifestyle,

he paid for their food, their home, everything. A big reason why Bob's earnings depleted so fast was because of his addiction to gambling. And this was a big reason why he and his first wife, Kitty, divorced because she constantly worried that he would gamble away all their family's money. And then, of course, this was a big issue in his marriage with Patsy. So not only was he a total jerk to her, but she had to pick up all the pieces.

And this included her almost having to pay $300,000 to the IRS because of his tax debts. Luckily, she got out of having to pay this, but she still tried to save their marriage. They began seeing a marriage counselor and the therapist apparently told Patsy in private that she believed Bob was a sociopath and that she should get out while she could. In the fall of 1984, about three years after they married, Patsy and Bob Cox were officially divorced,

but Bob was incredibly upset by the whole thing. He didn't want things to end, but he also wasn't working to save their relationship. So after their divorce, he began stocking Patsy, and even staking outside her house all night. He also began making threats to her, saying that he was going to ruin her, and during their marriage, he had casually brought up in a non-threatening way that he knew people who could get rid of people if he needed. And at the time he said this, Patsy just thought he was kind of bragging about being a hot shot and having a lot of power, but once he began following her and threatening her, it started to really worry Patsy, so much so that she filed a restraining order against

him. But this just meant that he couldn't come within a hundred feet of her. And with that, she installed security systems so she would be able to tell if he continued to stalk her. And shortly after this, he eventually stopped coming around. There was a civil trial coming up involving Bob Cox's business fire. And the attorneys for the insurance company reached out to Patsy for information regarding the valuables inside the building. The information she gave them made them even more confident that Bob had either set the

fire himself or had hired someone to set the fire for him so he could collect. They already knew about his money problems, so there was motive, but Patsy discussed the items that she knew were inside and those that were not. There was one particular very expensive antique item that Bob had mentioned was destroyed in the fire. But since Patsy was very interested in antiques, she knew exactly where that piece was. It was in Bob's Dallas office and not destroyed in the fire. Bob was just trying to collect on this to ensure a bigger paycheck from the insurance company. The problem here was that Bob knew that Patsy was going to

testify against him regarding the information that she gave the insurance company's attorney. He begged her not to testify, but she told him that she was going to tell the truth and that he couldn't stop her. This was in September 1986, but the trial wouldn't take place for more than one year. After things with Bob ended, Patsy began dating a man named Leo Fikes. They had previously met at the Dallas Country Club when she was with Bob Cox, and he even expressed interest in her then, but Bob told him to get lost, because she was his. But when they divorced, Leo Fikes asked Patsy out, and she was thrilled

after she learned how interested in horses he was. Horses were one of her main interests, they were her real passion. So this struck a chord in her and she continued to date him. But he didn't really take their relationship too seriously because at this point he was still dating other women. Patsy wasn't looking for a super serious relationship, but she didn't like that Leo dated around on her so much. And when she confronted him about this, he told her about his interest in settling down with a wife, but she didn't want that at all. After two divorces, she wasn't looking for marriage.

She just wanted someone to spend her life with without all the paperwork. And in 1987, they continued to see each other casually, but it didn't go so well. So they split up for good. Around this time, she began casually dating a man named Larry Todd, who worked for a state agency. On October 22nd, 1987, 43-year-old Patsy Wright spent her day writing her beautiful, well-trained, $26,000 horse, hoping to prepare for a future competition, which was something that she dreamed of doing. She had won previous contests thanks to her award-winning horses, but in late 1987, she was working with a horse trainer to become the best rider that she could be.

Later that evening, Patsy took some Nyquill cold medicine to help her get to sleep, something she did whenever she had trouble resting. But around 3am, she frantically called her sister Sally, and sounding very faint as if she was dozing off. Patsy said, I took some nightquill and something's really, really wrong. She said she felt nauseous and she could barely breathe. Suddenly, Patsy stopped responding. So Sally and her newer husband, Steve Horning, sped over to Patsy's house since they lived pretty close by. Since her front door was locked, they were able to climb in through a window and rush to Patsy's side. But she was unresponsive on her bed. Sally desperately dialed 911 while Steve tried to save Patsy's life using mouth-to-mouth

resuscitation. All that did was cause green liquid to come out of Patsy's mouth, but she still wasn't responding. Within minutes, the paramedics arrived in hopes of saving her life, but they were too late. Patsy was dead. When paramedics arrived to Patsy's home, they were unable to revive her, and they noted that she had no pulse, but she was rushed to the hospital anyway. When they arrived, she was declared dead at 4.15am. It was originally believed by those close to Patsy

that she had died from natural causes. But investigators were on the case to try and figure out if this was just an accident or a suicide or if somebody had killed Patsy. They first had to start by making sure that the night-quill wasn't tampered with in the production facility, and they quickly ruled that that wasn't the case after speaking with the manufacturer.

But no one else had reported any issues or fatalities with that batch. They then took the Nyquil to a lab to get it tested, since it didn't seem she took nearly enough to cause death or overdose. In the meantime, an autopsy was also conducted, and they showed that her cause of death was death by Stric9. She had been poisoned to death, but they still didn't know how or why or by who. That's when the lab tested the medicine against 4,000 compounds, and the results showed that her bottle of Nikewil contained large large amounts of strict 9, meaning that drinking

that nycule before bed is what killed her. And this shocked the medical examiner, because he had never seen anything like that. Strict 9 is basically rat poison. It's a very strong, very toxic, bitter tasting poison. Even when used in small amounts by humans, it's deadly. And it's not like this is a drug, you know, there's absolutely no reason someone would just drink, strict nine, and it certainly wasn't an ingredient in Nyquil. For many, the idea of suicide pops into your head. But not only did Sally say that her sister Patsy was in no way

suicidal and was, in fact, thriving. Patsy was so excited about her plans to buy a 30 acre ranch to breed horses. She had even frantically called her sister in the middle of the night telling her that she couldn't breathe and that she took some cold medicine. So, to me, it doesn't seem likely that she would have made this call if she had attempted suicide. And heres said that she sounded scared and worried on the phone. Also, on the morning of her death, Patsy paid a $1,500 down payment on a horse.

So she was one step closer to living her dream life out in a rural country with what made her the happiest horses. She would be living alone since her children were away at college, but she didn't mind that. Oddly enough, one of her good friends from childhood called her on the morning of the day she died to make sure she was okay, because she had a dream that two men had murdered Patsy. According to this friend, Patsy laughed about it. Oh man, that's actually very spooky. Isn't that weird? Because then hours later she would die.

Very, very strange. And the reason why it was so shocking that Strychnine was found in the bottle and in Patsy's system is because it's so rarely used in homicides since less than 100 companies in the US at the time sold it. So it was more of a rare poison to obtain, and since then it's actually become more rare, and it's regulated by the federal government, so investigators have no idea how someone would have obtained it unless they may be broken to a lab or a lab in a college and possibly stole it. Another thing is that almost the entire bottle of medicine contained strict 9.

This particular bottle contained enough to kill almost 10 people, and she probably took a good shot of this just thinking that it was nothing more than Nyquil. There was no other form of strict 9 found in Patsy's house, which made investigators believe that someone had brought it in for the sole purpose of adding it to her Nyquil. And it was in a white powder form, so it was very concentrated. Another troubling detail is that only those who were really close to Patsy knew that she took Nyquil when she had trouble sleeping, meaning that she was likely poisoned by somebody who knew her well.

But that didn't narrow it down, because Patsy had been using Nyquil for years to help her with all sorts of things. Every one of her friends and all of her family knew that she took it. Here's what happens when a person ingests Stric 9. Once ingested, it takes about 15 minutes for your body to really react to it, which makes sense because we know Patsy called her sister Sally around 3am, so she had likely taken it very soon before since it was pretty late and she still hadn't been able to get to sleep. First, your muscles begin cramping and twitching before you feel as though you're being suffocated.

As your face begins to turn purple and your mouth turns up almost as if to form a smile, your head and your feet experience spasms that cause them to bend backwards. Then come the convulsions, which basically come and go until you die very shortly after when your body succumbs to complete paralysis, including paralysis of your respiratory system. So you just stop being able to breathe. Wow, that's so incredibly cryptic. Isn't that grim? And it's really scary to think about the fact

that that's how she died, you know, hearing that description and knowing that she went through that and she had no idea what was happening to her. Yeah, that's really, really sad. Like, she just took some night well, thinking that it was gonna help her sleep. she just took some night well thinking that it was going to help her sleep, she'd been using it for years, and then suddenly she has this horrific reaction and dies. The investigators pointed out that it didn't seem that killing Patsy was of much urgency

to whoever spiked her medicine, because she didn't take it every single day. But whoever did this knew that she would be taking it soon enough. This wasn't a brutal killing, which also makes it a bit easier to get away with because there's no rush, there's no real evidence either. All they had to do was get into her house, poison the medicine, and then get out. And whenever Patsy took it, her death would ensue. Since Sally and Steve Horning were at the scene that evening, they were questioned first. They explained that they had gotten a call from Patsy at about 3am, which records proved to be true, and that she said that she had taken some Nyquil

and that something was wrong. Then when they arrived, she was unresponsive. Steve Horning noticed that there was two dinner plates on a tray next to her bed, which could have suggested that she had someone over for dinner. Steven Sally also noted that when they entered through the window, the security alarm didn't go off, meaning that Patsy didn't set it that night. She had gotten into the habit of always setting it since someone had recently broken a few windows in her home. Nothing appeared

to be stolen, but this still made her worried for her safety, hence the security alarm. As investigators began digging, they had reason to believe that Steve Horning, and possibly Sally, had something to do with Patsy's death. It's always hard when you have to question someone so close to the case, especially the sister of a murdered woman, but it's worth mentioning. And we're mostly talking about Steve anyway. Steve Horning was running a small construction company and it wasn't doing very well. So most of the family earnings came from Sally's share of her and Patsy's wax museum income. Steve told police that he had a decent relationship with Patsy, but Patsy's friends

would later tell the investigators that that could not be further from the truth. Steve was apparently thought of by many as being a phony. He also had an aggressive side, because in 1970 he was charged with assaulting a woman, but those charges were later dropped. Patsy hated that Steve used all of Sally's consistent income and inheritance to support his own business and his own hobbies, particularly his hunting hobby. His office was strewn with stuffed or skinned cougars and elks, etc. and Patsy even went so far as to make sure that Steve would never inherit from her if she died before him. Patsy and Sally both had $500,000 life insurance policies, and they agreed that when one of them died, they would use that money to buy out the other sister in their business

so that the remaining sister would be the sole heir to the business instead of keeping the money. This would ensure that $500,000 didn't go into Steve's pocket, but nothing was signed just yet. In 1985, Sally was diagnosed with cancer and it wasn't looking good. So at this point, Patsy worried even more about Stephen Herring's life insurance money if the cancer killed her. A couple years passed and Sally showed improvement, so Patsy and Sally scheduled a meeting to put their new life insurance slash inheritance agreement into play. But this meeting wasn't scheduled until November of 1987, two weeks after Patsy's death. Thus Sally received a big chunk of Patsy's stocks,

and Steve Horning received 25% and her stocks were worth a lot of money. So Steve did end up profiting from Patsy's death, and a friend reported that the day before she died, Patsy told her, I don't want Steve horning near me. Steve was questioned further by police and was also given a polygraph test. The first one he took came up inconclusive, so technically a fail. Then he took another any past, but Steve had been known to be very cooperative with police

and even suggested they hire a private investigator to help solve his sister-in-law's murder. It's also worth mentioning that Steve was the one who gave Patsy mouth to mouth, and by doing that, he apparently got green liquid, aka the Nikewell Poison mixture, in his mouth, which he had to spit out. If he was the one who poisoned Patsy, why would he risk getting poison into his own mouth? And on top of that, the bottle of Nike will was sitting in her bathroom when the paramedics and police arrived. So you would think maybe he would have either taken the bottle with him or gotten rid of the evidence, or maybe at least tossed it somewhere dumped it out.

But I will say that the paramedics at the scene stated that, before they arrived, no one had performed CPR on her successfully. Because when they got there, the first thing they did was perform mouth to mouth, and Patsy immediately regurgitated a bunch of clear liquid, not green. And paramedics don't believe that Steve got any green liquid to come out of Patsy at all. And they think he made it up after seeing the green bottle of medicine on the bathroom counter. So basically he was like, oh, that bottle is green.

So if I tell them that green liquid came out of her mouth, then that'll seem kosher. Well, I think it was, I saw a picture of it and I don't know if it was a real photo, but I don't know why it wouldn't be. It was a clear bottle with green liquid in it. And I think we all kind of know that Nyquil is like this greenish sea, sea bluish color, you know? Yeah, yeah. But when they got there, they did CPR, like I said, and she regurgitated clear liquid. So that immediately told them that CPR had not been performed before they got there and so that made them question, why did Steve tell us he performed CPR if he freakin didn't? Exactly, and why would paramedics lie about that? So basically we can conclude that Steve is foolish.

Yes, because the paramedics would know because that's their job. So investigators started believing that maybe Steve made that up, that he performed CPR to point suspicion away from him, but all this did was make investigators believe that maybe he was the one who killed her and lied about trying to save her life. Right. So anyway, let's talk about Patsy's kids. At this point, Patsy's children, Leslie and Wayne, were in their late teens or early 20s. And they inherited their mom's estate, which was pretty big considering she did well for herself with the family business. The investigator noticed that both Leslie and Wayne were very close with their mother and had a great relationship with her. Both

of them took a polygraph test and they both passed, and then Bill Wright, who was Patsy's first husband of 15 years, also passed his polygraph. Bill Wright, oddly enough, was the executor of Patsy's estate, meaning that he was in charge of appointing who her estate would go to once she passed away. And the reason that investigators were a bit surprised by this was because they'd been divorced for seven years, and she had gotten remarried within that time. So they wondered why Bill was still the executor. And they didn't have a good relationship.

So it's not like they had a fine divorce and they remained friends since they had kids together. There was some animosity there. So of course that's why they wanted to make sure that they questioned him in case Bill was the one who killed her. But they're like, why is he the executor if they didn't have a good relationship and it's seven years after their divorce? The only thing that I could say about that is it's possible that this was, he was the executor when they were

married and she had forgotten or just didn't change that within those seven years that after they were divorced. And I thought about that too, but because of this whole other life insurance inheritance agreement that she was going to have changed with her sister Sally. That makes me feel like she was very organized and very in charge of what would happen after she died, especially because when her own dad died, she had told her financial advisor at the time, I'm never gonna leave shit this messed up after I die. But it's also possible that maybe she she didn't have a great relationship with Bill, but because he was the father of their children, maybe she trusted him, and it's possible that she didn't have a great relationship with Bill, but because he was the father of their children,

maybe she trusted him, and it's possible that she didn't appoint this to Sally because she was afraid that then Steve would get her money. That actually makes a lot of sense. You know, just remembering the fact that they had kids together, it's possible, like you said, yeah, that she would want Bill to be the one to be the executor and I just don't trust Steve and so I get why she doesn't want that title to go to Sally. And it doesn't really seem like she had that many trustworthy people in her life because like I said if it goes to Sally then it goes to Steve so she didn't want to trust Sally with that and then she obviously couldn't appoint her children because who knows how young they would have been when she died kind of thing she had to plan ahead. And she's definitely not going to

trust Bob Cox. Right. And then she wasn't in a serious relationship with somebody at the time of her death. And so it kind of seems like the only real person that she could probably trust with that money is Bill. So the day after Patsy died, someone placed an eerie phone call to her daughter Leslie, who remember was about 20 years old at the time. When Leslie picked it up, the person told her that they needed to speak to Patsy, but Leslie informed them that her mother was dead. Then the caller stated, good, I wanted her dead, and then hung up the phone. It's unclear who this person was and why they were calling Leslie and how, but Leslie believes that either someone had heard about her mother's death and pranked her, or that it was the killer trying to

make sure that Patsy was really dead. And I don't know if they really investigated this, I couldn't find anything in my research. I don't know if they called from an unknown number because that's something that I wondered about. When I read about that, I'm like, okay, so did they look into the number? Did they check the records? But I didn't find anything about that, so I'm assuming no. And it's also possible that this person called from a payphone as well. And we have to consider the fact that this was before the age of DNA testing, or like basically right before the age of DNA testing.

So they probably weren't able to pull any DNA prints off of the NICOLE bottle itself, probably just made the whole situation a lot harder. Well, that's actually a really good point about the DNA because I wonder and assume that they probably still have that NICOLE bottle in evidence locked away somewhere, but there's also the chance that the person was wearing gloves and that they came in all stealth and they didn't leave any DNA. So it's a bummer for sure.

Yeah, especially if it was a murder for higher type of situation. Somebody like that usually doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes. Exactly. There's a few more incredibly mysterious and curious things in this case that happened both before and after Patsy died. In 1984, so about three years before Patsy's death, her 26 year old secretary and museum receptionist named Lori Ann Williams died suddenly.

After an autopsy was conducted, the medical examiner ruled her death as viral pneumonia. However, they also believed that alongside this, Laurie Ann was poisoned. The day that Laurie died, she went home sick saying that her stomach was hurting, but it was never determined what Laurie was potentially poisoned with, and they didn't end up exhuming her body to do another autopsy, and see if Lori's case could somehow be linked to Patsy's. And this is so weird because if you really think about it, if she was purposefully poisoned for whatever reason, this was a whole three years before Patsy died, so that means that

this scheme, if they were connected, was a long-running scheme. But it just seems almost too strange that potentially Laurie Ann is poisoned, who again is the receptionist and secretary, and then Patsy's poisoned. It's just weird. You don't really hear about that happening. Exactly. Even stranger, the year after Patsy was killed, one of her wax museums burnt to the ground. Now, this is suspicious because this could lead us to believe that her death could have

possibly been business-related, and someone just wanted to take it all down. There were no immediate suspects, but it was ruled in Arsene, so someone purposefully put fire to her business. And who in this story has already possibly committed arson? Bob Cox, exactly. Two weeks after the museum went up in flames, a man named Stanley Lester Pointer was caught at the scene trying to steal a ledger from what was left of the museum.

And for those who don't know, a ledger is a book that is used to record and total transactions, so it's essentially used in accounting and... Yeah, basically your financial records for your business. Exactly. Which is incredibly suspicious, and it turns out Stanley Pointer had previously been arrested for a different arson.

So police began to think that he could be behind Patsy's murder too. But after they brought him in for questioning, they realized that they didn't have enough evidence to charge him, so they had to let him go. About three years later, in 1991, Dallas police decided that they would try to question him about Patsy's death and her museum arson again to hopefully get more answers. But when they found him, he fled the scene in his car and a high-speed chase ensued. While Stanley was driving, he almost hit a police officer with his car, so police decided to start firing their guns at Stanley, and that's what killed him.

So unfortunately, we weren't able to get any more answers, but we'll come back to this in a bit. As we mentioned, Patsy was dating a man named Larry Todd at the time of her death. He spoke with her on the phone the night that she died, and he originally stated that he couldn't make it to her memorial, but he did show up. Leo Fikes' name came up to the police as well,

but he insisted that he had nothing to do with her death. He did admit that he was really upset when she broke things off a few months before she died, but not enough to end her life. He also knew that she took Nikewell when she couldn't sleep, but they apparently hadn't spoken or seen each other in months. He still took a polygraph test and was questioned heavily by police, though. But he passed and even appeared on her 1989 episode of Unsolved Mysteries. So, investigators don't really think he did it. Also, of course, investigators are looking at this and thinking who would benefit from her death, either financially or otherwise, and they're looking at Leo

Fikes and they're like, what would he possibly gain from her being dead? Yeah, he couldn't really gain anything other than possibly revenge for breaking things off, but doesn't seem all that likely. Which brings us to Patsy's most recent ex-husband Bob Cox, who is a big suspect in the murder case. We know that he was stalking her after their divorce, and that she had to get a restraining order against him. We know that Bob knew she was going to testify against him in court, and to make things even more cryptic, her death took place just 10 days before the scheduled civil trial for

the Fire Set Te his upcoming wax museum. This struck a chord with investigators because they felt like Patsy had the very information that would seal the deal. Her testimony would have helped prove that, beyond a reasonable doubt, Bob Cox set fire to his own business to collect money from insurance and get out of his very deep financial rut. So investigators got the idea that maybe Bob Cox killed her or had her killed, so she would be unable to testify in court, and therefore, he would potentially win the case and get that insurance money. Bob Cox was suing the Hartford Lloyds Insurance Company for the amount of $400,000 for not paying him the

original damages from the fire to his business. So not only was he trying to get the initial insurance money, but he actually wanted more. And now Patsy wasn't around to speak her side and show the court how conniving Bobcox really was. So in turn, the insurance company's attorneys couldn't prove to the court that Bob had set the fire himself, and Bob Cox won the trial and he was given a whopping $1.3 million. Bob didn't make this case well known to his friends or fellow community members. In fact, not many people even knew about it at all, or many details about Patsy's death

and tell they saw the whole thing being discussed on unsolved mysteries. Many locals didn't realize that Patsy's death was being investigated. They just thought that she had tragically died of natural causes. So after locals, particularly those who had known Patsy and Bob Cox through the Dallas Country Club started talking. And apparently, shortly after Patsy's death, Bob Cox threw a murder mystery party at the Dallas Country Club. Of course, at this time, no one thought that this was odd,

they just thought it was fun. But someone at the party remembers Bob suggesting that the murderer hired a hitman. And this is just kind of creepy because we know that Bob had mentioned to Patsy that he knew people insinuating a hitman. And then he throws this murder mystery party and puts out there that he thinks

the murderer of the party hired a hitman. It's just weird. Really not helping you look innocent at all. I feel like it's almost a little sneaky, like a little secret. You know, and he's just giving you a little almost a little sneaky like a little secret. You know, and he's just giving you a little little something, something a little clue. Like a breadcrumb maybe. Exactly. So even though Patsy and Bob were married for three years, Bob gave almost no information to investigators

after her murder. Obviously his interview was of great interest to law enforcement, so when they brought him in, they hoped that they would get some answers or even hopefully a confession. But all Bob said was that they were married and they got a divorce, simple as that. He wouldn't talk about the trial, or the stalking, or the nasty divorce, or his incredible money troubles. He refused to take a polygraph test and has also refused to say a single word about Patsy's case to both law enforcement and the media. And some people would say that, okay, that makes sense, he's just being smart because maybe he is innocent and by taking a polygraph or giving a further interview, he would be looked at as a suspect. But you could also say it the other way around that it kind of makes him look guilty by not

giving any information to help with his ex-wife's murder. So it can go both ways. It's hard to forget that Patsy's friends mentioned her telling them about Bob knowing people who could get rid of or ruin people. And it's also hard to forget that Bob continuously stalked Anne Threaten-Patsy after their divorce. Anne, that she died just 10 days before the trial that could have financially destroyed him, but that he ended up gaining from. Since we know that they were married for years, we also know that Bob definitely knew just

how often Patsy took Nyquill, because they lived together for a good chunk of time. He would also know at least somewhat of her schedule enough to either break into her house and spike her medicine or have someone else do it for him. And for some reason, a big part of me kind of feels like he wouldn't have hired a hitman just to poison her, maybe because I feel like hitman jobs are usually more violent, but it's definitely possible that he wanted it to be done by poison, hoping that there wouldn't be an investigation. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I agree with that.

And also, I mean, if you've ever seen the movie Weekend at Bernies, the hitman in that movie injects this dude with a lethal overdose of drugs and then puts the drugs in Bernie's pocket. So it's like, people have their own ways of doing things. So I can't really rule that out. That's actually a really good point. And I feel like it's probably, I hate to say this, the best way to murder somebody

because they could have done it by themselves. They could have committed suicide. There's so many things that could point to the person, which is why this case is unsolved. Maybe if she had been brutally murdered, we would have more of an idea of who did this, but it does make sense.

Right, there actually could have been more potential DNA evidence if the murder was done in a brutal fashion. So as far as a hitman goes, let's talk about Stanley Pointer. The fact that he was trying to steal a ledger from the remains of Patsy's purposefully burned down Wax Museum is insanely suspicious because it just makes me feel like it was business related and for whatever reason somebody wanted her financial records and considering Stanley had committed Arsene before I personally have strong beliefs that he could have been behind everything from Bob Cox's Museum Arsene to Patsy's death and to Patsy's museum arson, because it just seemed so probable, and meaning that he was hired by Bob Cox to do it all. Yeah, and I totally agree with that. I think the fact that when investigators went to go question him

about Patsy's death and he ran from police and then was killed by police, I feel like that was a pretty big clue into what was going on here. Exactly, because he had gotten away with it three years earlier when they question him originally, they didn't have enough evidence, and now they're coming back again, and Stanley might have freaked out and thought that they had real hard evidence that was going to put him away for all this, so he ran.

I mean, as a lot of people say, innocent people don't run. Right, and at the same time, I mean, you're caught stealing this ledger. So he knew that he was already in hot water years before. So it's like, now he's thinking, oh, shit, they're coming after me again. Like, like you said, they must have solid evidence to put me away. You know, I was reading what the investigator said about this. And they think this case is almost so obvious that it's crazy it hasn't been solved. So they kind of have a feeling that there's more behind the story that we don't know.

And their biggest person of interest is obviously Bob Cox, but they're keeping their options open and saying, well, it could have been anybody. You know, maybe she was dating somebody else at the time that we don't know the name of. Right. And we can't directly point our fingers at Bob Cox. I mean, we can't say without a doubt that this is what Bob Cox did it because if that was the case, he would be in prison right now. But I do think that we have to look into this case

and really consider the key players and all of the evidence that we've just talked about. And to me, that points in one direction. Bob Cox. I'm going to have to agree with you, and that's why in this whole story, we tried to give you the rundown of each suspect in this story and why it's possible that they could be looked at, which is why we heavily discussed even Steve Horning. But to me, personally, I think Bob Cox is a little higher on my list than Steve.

Yeah, and I would agree with that as well, but you know, if you guys have different theories after listening to all the details of this case, you guys can let us know head over to our Instagram at Going West Pod and let us know what you guys think. Yes, because to this day, investigators haven't been able to pin Patsy's death on any particular person and the case remains open. But they are more than confident that this wasn't an accident and that Patsy right was purposefully poisoned and murdered. If you have any information regarding this case, please call the Dallas Police Department homicide unit at 214-671-3661. And like Heath said, let us know who you

think did it. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone. This was a great case to cover and next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. I just want to say really quick, a big thank you to Glenna Whiteley at D Magazine for doing such an amazing detailed article on this case. I used a bunch of different resources but I was able to pull a lot of useful information regarding this case thanks to her investigative research back in 1989. So as always our case sources are in the episode description to properly credit where we find the details for these episodes. So thank you Glenna. And I think it's now time for the shoutouts. It is now time to give you got some shoutouts. Thank you so much to Bonnie

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