Morbid - Episode 552: Marie Robards

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

When thirty-eight-year-old Steven Robards died unexpectedly in the winter of 1993, everyone including the coroner believed his death to have been the result of a heart attack—unusual for someone so young, but certainly not unheard of. It wasn’t until the following year, when Steven’s teenage daughter, Marie, was practicing for the school play, that the girl confessed the truth to her friend: Steven Robards didn’t die from a heart attack, he was murdered by his daughter with chemicals she’d stolen from the high school chemistry lab.In the United States, it’s exceedingly rare for a child to kill a parent, and rarer still for that child to be female. The truth about Steven Robards murder shocked the residents of the Fort Worth area and divided the community between those who were sympathetic to her claims of desperation and those who saw her as nothing more than a craven predator who’d do anything to get what she wanted. Indeed, Marie claimed she had only wanted to make her father sick so she could return to living with her mother, from whom she’d been separated since her parents’ divorce, and she had never wanted to kill him.Ultimately a jury didn’t buy Marie’s story and sentenced her to twenty-seven years in prison, of which she served only seven years before being paroled. Was Marie Robards really just a confused teenager who acted impulsive without regard for the consequences of her actions? Or was she really the calculating self-serving killer some believed her to be?Thank you to David White, of the Bring Me the Axe podcast, for research assistance!ReferencesBlaney, Betsy. 1997. "Trial near for NRH teen accused of killing father." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, August 17: 1.Cochran, Mike. 1996. "Ex-UT student headed for patricide trial." Austin American-Statesman, May 6: 11.—. 1996. "Teen says she didn't mean to kill dad." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 6: 1.Hanna, Bill, and Kathy Sanders. 1994. "Daughter appears in court." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, October 20: 21.Hollandsworth, Skip. 1996. "Poisoning Daddy." Texas Monthly, July 01.Hood County News. 1994. "City staff's reactions mixed on poison suspect's presence." Hood County News, November 2: 1.Vozzella, Laura. 1996. "Accused dreamed of being coroner, prosecutor says." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 8: 50.—. 1996. "Chemistry student gets 28-year term in father's death." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 11: 1.—. 1996. "Teen is found guilty of poisoning her father." Fort Worth Star-Telegram, May 10: 15.—. 1996. "Teacher says chemical hidden from police." Fort Worth Star-Telegraph, May 9: 21.2001. Forensic Files. Directed by David Wasser. Performed by David Wasser.Alaina's 2nd book in the Dr Wren Muller Series, THE BUTCHER GAME will be released on September 17th, 2024! To Pre-order go to (https://zandoprojects.com/books/the-butcher-game/) PLUS! If you preorder the book, get an autographed poster while supplies last by visiting (http://thebutchergame.com/)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Morbid early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. You're listening to a Morbid Network podcast. A bloodbath tonight in the rural town of Chinook. Everyone here is hiding a secret. Four Morbiddoms found scattered. Some worse than others. I came as fast as I could.

I'm deputy Ruth Vogel. And soon, my quiet life will never be the same. You can listen to Shinoke exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify podcasts. Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Elena. And this is Mor morbid. I almost did the thing where I say, and I'm Alina.

I almost said I'm Ash. No, you didn't. No, I really did because we were just talking about names. What? Yeah. That's weird. I really almost did. I really almost did we were just talking about names. What? Yeah. That's weird. I really almost did. I really almost did too.

I believe you know. I'm being real. Yeah, because we were saying one of my biggest pet peeves in life and Elena was saying hers too, I will introduce myself to somebody and say like, hey, I'm Ash. My name's Ash. And they'll be like, oh my God, Ashley. So nice to meet you. Yeah.

And you're like, that's not what I said. Suck my butt. My name is Ash. Like, of course, legally you're like, that's not what I said. Suck my butt. My name is Ash. Like, of course, legally in the government, in the eyes of the government, it's Ashley. See, mine has been my entire life. And it's been like, hi, I'm Elena. And they're like, Alana, that's great.

Okay, see you later. And you're like, that's a different name. That's a completely different name. That's spelled different. It's said different. It's different. It's a different name. Yeah, that's stupid.

There are people named Alana. Correct. There are people named Alana. I'm one of the ones that are named Alana. So why are you calling me? That's like being like, oh, hi, Carl. It's like, that's a different name. I wish they would just do that.

You just said a different name. Hi, I'm Alana. What's up, Carl? Yeah. I like that. Essentially, that's what you're doing. It's a totally different name. I love that a lot. I never understood it. I will never understand it.

No. And that's, you know... I've even had people ask me, like, if my name is, like, Ashley, because of the way that it's spelled, and I'm like, that's stupid. That's as Lee. Or Ashley. It would be Ashley. I like that.

Ashley. Imagine if we had to Ashley. I like that. Ashley. Imagine if we had to start this podcast and I would have to say, hey weirdos, I'm Ashley. No one would continue listening. They'd be like, wrong. I don't think so. Not with the way it's spelled. It's like, no, that's Ashley. I'm Ashley.

It's like, are you trying too hard? I think you are. No. No. I also was thinking the other day, one day I'm probably hopefully going to be a grandma and I'm going to be Grandma Ash. Your grandma's name should not be Ash. There's going to be a whole chunk of people who are going to be wild.

I have no problem with this name, but Grandma Brittany? No. Yeah, right? No. It sounds funny. That's not a grandma name. It's a very normal name. Of course.

But when you think of a grandma name, it's like Jean. You think of those very classic, very great-o. Grandma Sally. Of a certain time names, because that's all we've all ever had. Yeah. But we are entering a phase where we're going to be getting some grandma and some grandpas. Yeah.

Like we're going to have like grandpa cruise. Stop floating around in there for going with the same family there. And like, wait, grandpa cash. Cause people are named their kids cash, which honestly is pretty flex, but. Well, that's the thing. Like these names are fine. Yeah. Like name your child, whatever the hell you want. But grandpa cash. I'm obsessed with that. Well, that's the thing. Like these names are fine. Yeah, I love them. Name your child, whatever the hell you want. But Grandpa Cash, I'm obsessed with that actually. I think it's going to be awesome. It's going to be a whole new world. It's going to be a fun

generation of grandparents. If we make it that far. We will. I'm not going to, I'm not going to elaborate because I have a therapy appointment tomorrow to talk about my end of the world anxiety. I'm taking care of it. That's right. Self care, you know? But we're going to be fine. But Grandma Ash. Grandma Ash. That's crazy. Grandma Elena is not that crazy. No, it kind of sounds like it. You have it all day.

No, I'm just kidding. No, I think it just works. Yeah, I know it. I think it's just- Elena is like a timeless name, I feel. Wow, thanks. You're welcome. I like that.

I'm just named Ashley for no fucking reason. Literally none. My middle name doesn't even mean anything. Who named me? Dad, Mom, what the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck? Truly, what the fuck?

But yeah, all that to say names, you know. Nothing really. Nothing really. It was like an echo. Nothing. It was like an echo. That's what I was going to say. All right, well, it's my case today. It's like an echo. That's what I was going to say. All right. Well, it's my case today. It's Ash Centric.

It's Nana Ash Centric. Nana Ash Centric. And I have a wild case. I have been loving Texas lately. You have? I know. You've been in a place of Texas. I'm a Texas girl.

And today we're going crazy. We're going to be in Texas and Florida. What a fucking trip. Wow. What a fucking trip we're taking together. You didn't prepare me ahead of time. I didn't. But here we are. So, yeah, I have I don't want to say too much about it right off the bat, because if I say too much, it'll just kind of give it away.

So I'm just going to start. I'm just going to go right into it. Yeah. So it starts with Dorothy Marie Robards. She was born in Texas in 1977 as the only child of Stephen and Beth Robards. Stephen and Beth, they were high school sweethearts. That's where they met. And they were both super duper popular in high school. Oh my god. Oh my god. Beth was a standout athlete and also the president of the school's National Honor Society. So she was young and doing it. And then when they graduated and each of them turned 18 in 1974,

they decided to get married right before Stephen entered the Navy and actually started a four year tour of duty that would end up relocating him to a base in San Diego and then eventually Florida. OK, so they got married. They did the whole Navy thing and being newly married, Beth didn't want to separate from Stephen. So she moved from base to base with him. And in 77, obviously, that's when they had Dorothy Marie, who actually just went by Marie. Cute.

Speaking of names, hey, look at that. Names everywhere. People go by their middle names sometimes. They do. Such as Marie. It's true. Now, once Stephen was finished with the Navy, finished up his time there, the family moved back to the Fort Worth area. But within just a few years, things between Stephen and Beth became very strained. Beth ended up saying, "'Stephen's behavior had always been a little erratic,

but I was a naive Catholic girl, caught up in this whirlwind teenage romance with this suave guy.' But not long after they moved back to Texas, Stephen started going through a bit of a mental health crisis. He was experiencing kind of periodic bouts of depression, but they started getting more and more frequent and lasting longer.

He was getting jealous over Beth a lot. Like if she was talking to other people or just like going off and doing her own thing, he was getting jealous of that. And really just he overall seemed to be struggling emotionally. Okay. So that said, there came a point when I didn't know how to act around him anymore. He had temper tantrums, he couldn't hold on to a job. And then there were times where he would get so tired and feel like everything was so bleak and dark and that nothing was worthwhile. Geez. Which that's awful. And you have to think, this is at a time where, again,

and we say it all the time, but people aren't necessarily going to therapy. Men especially are not taking it upon themselves to sign up for therapy willy nilly. So it's not like this is an easy fix here. Exactly. So by 1980, the mental health crisis had really taken a toll on the two of them.

And they actually decided to separate and ultimately ended up divorcing. The next year, Beth got remarried to a man named Frank Burroughs. He was also a Navy officer. And she had actually met Frank while she and Steven were stationed in Florida. Oh, when they met, they were just friends. There was like nothing weird about it. Yeah. Because obviously they were both married, like no affair or anything. But Frank had also been recently divorced and moved back to Texas and taken a job as a police officer. So they kind of like rediscovered each other. Yeah. And he also had a young son of his own.

And he kind of really relished in his protective fatherly authority figure identity. So he happily and eagerly took on the role of a father figure, like a bonus father figure to Marie. Because Marie was only four years old when Stephen and Beth ended up getting divorced. Stephen, meanwhile, he ended up moving into a one-bedroom apartment in Fort Worth, and at this time, because remember, he's really trying to get his mental health in check,

during this time, he was only seeing Marie like twice a month, once or twice a month. So after the divorce and all the custody matters had been settled and were behind them, it became clear that separating was actually really the best thing that Stephen and Beth had done for their family. It took some time, but by the late 80s, Stephen really prioritized his mental health. He started taking medication and that made his symptoms of depression really easily manageable. He like really figured it out. Oh, nice. Yeah. So once his mental health was in check, he also started dating a new person. Her name was Sandra Hudgens.

And she also had children. They actually met at a parents without partners meeting. Oh my God. I didn't even know that was a thing. Yeah. I, it took, I feel like it was like a little detail in one of my old cases. I was going to say, because it sounds a little familiar, but yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, I think it was like another case that I did, but I think it was a bad, like not the organization, but I think it ended up like not being great that these two people met there.

Didn't work out. I'll let you know. And then this time it's great. Like it's cool that they met. Yeah. They realized that they had a lot of things in common. So things really blossom between them from there. But most importantly, Stephen had also, uh, managed to find a really steady and sustainable job with the postal service. Sandra, his girlfriend said he was very proud of his job, which was just a rural

route, a rural root postman, but he liked his job and he liked being outdoors and he felt some pride in it. Nice. So he really found his stride. Yeah. Although he definitely struggled some after the divorce, he had finally pulled his life together by like, I would say the early 90s. Oh good. But unfortunately, at Beth and Frank's house, things weren't really going as well as one would hope. Daily life had become much more of a struggle as Marie entered her teen years. A private psychologist that his name is Randall J. Price, and Marie ended up seeing him later. He said, when Marie has described those days, I've sensed there was some jealousy or possessiveness about her mother's relationship to Frank. And according to the psychologist Price,

Marie seemed to perceive Beth's marriage to Frank as a way of taking her mother away from her. Like Frank taking her mom away. Yeah. And that jealous feeling really only deepened the older she got. And I think it had a lot to do... You know what? I'm actually going to say that. I think you'll see what it has a lot to do with.

Huh. And you can form your own opinion. I love that. But at the same time, according to Price, Frank also likely harbored some of his own jealousy when it came to Marie and Beth's relationship, which had always been a really strong relationship. He elaborated, when I saw them, they were quite affectionate in an overt fashion, hugging one another, finishing each other's sentences. They acted more like contemporaries

than mother and daughter. They were like sisters who had grown up together. Beth had always been really, really proud of Marie and would always gush to friends and family about how intelligent Marie was, how well liked she was, just really spoke her up, of course, which like, you wanna do that, it's your daughter. But whether he was conscious of it or not, Frank seemed to have some kind of resentment due to how close Marie

and Beth were. Like there was some jealousy of the relationship, which in my opinion is strange because she should love her daughter and you should love that she loves her daughter. Yeah, that's my opinion. Absolutely. But the tension between Frank and Marie came to a head in the summer of 92, when Marie came home one afternoon and actually discovered Frank with another woman. Ooh. So this is like, she's finding her stepfather with another woman. So she literally just found her stepdad cheating on her mom, who she's super close with. Whoa.

So she's fucking outraged and immediately goes to tell Beth, her mom. But Marie was surprised when she didn't really get the reaction she'd been expecting. Beth was obviously deeply hurt and upset when she found out that Frank was having some kind of affair. But if Marie thought that was going to be the end of her mom and Frank's relationship, she was about to be very disappointed. Later Beth told journalist Skip Hollinsworth, who he writes about a lot of Texas cases and I love his writing. But Beth told Skip Hollinsworth,

I loved Frank and I knew that he just didn't have his head on right. He felt neglected because of all the time I was spending with my own job. And this was his way of reacting. Wow. Yeah. So Beth was willing to give Frank's indiscretion there. But Marie, Marie had no intention of doing so. She was insolent. She talked back. She disobeyed him constantly. At this point, she was like, you don't respect my mom.

I don't respect you. Yeah. And I mean, she lost respect for him. Absolutely. That's just the way it is. Yeah. I mean, I think I can understand that. I can understand that. I feel like I would probably feel the same way. Yeah. And again,

she's also a teenager. So now she's just like kind of going out of her way to defy his rules. Of course, she's already in that phase anyway. Yeah, she already didn't really love you to begin with or like you very much at least. And this just gave her all the more reason. Exactly. Did you know Fast-Growing Trees is the biggest online nursery in the US with more than 10,000 different kinds of plants and over 2 million happy customers in the US? They have everything you could possibly want, like fruit trees, palm trees, evergreens, houseplants, and so much more. Whatever you're interested in, they have it for you. Find the perfect fit for your climate and space. Fast Growing Trees makes it easy to order online, and your plants are shipped directly to your door in 1-2 days. And along with their 30-day Alive and Thrive Guarantee, they offer free

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an additional 15% off at fastgrowingtrees.com using the code morbid at checkout. Fastgrowingtrees.com code morbid offer is valid for a limited time terms and conditions may apply. In May of 1980 near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down

to discuss a new case, covering every angle in theory, walking through the forensic evidence and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. So finally, after a few months, Marie just couldn't stand living with Frank any longer. And she told her mom that. Beth said she withdrew from all of us. And then one day she came to me and said, I think you should divorce him. And I said, but Marie, I love Frank. I know him. I know he'll change. Marie looked at me and she said, I have to leave. So it literally got to the point where Marie was like,

"'I don't know how you're with this man and I'm not gonna stand around and watch you get treated like this, so I gotta go.' And like, I don't really like him." So not wanting to make the situation any worse, Beth didn't really challenge Marie's decision to move out. And instead she just helped her make arrangements to go live with her grandparents about 45 minutes away in Fort Worth, and she enrolled her in a new school

district. But it wasn't long because she's a teenager, she just made a pretty rash decision. It wasn't long before she regretted that decision. And after just about five days of living with her grandparents, Marie used all the money she had saved to get a cab back to Beth and Frank's house in Granbury. She's like, I want to come home. Of course. Now, as a strict disciplinarian and the usual target of Marie's teenage attitude, Frank wasn't necessarily excited to see his stepdaughter returning so soon after Beth had gone out of her way to accommodate what he saw as Marie's demands. And he had actually established this house rule

a long time ago, like right when they first met and became a family. And this rule was that it was set up with both Marie and his son. And he said, should either one of them leave the house, move out of the house to go live with another parent, they were not going to be allowed to move back with him and Beth. Like once you made that decision, it was a done deal. Okay.

Yeah. Later in his court testimony, he explained the rule was an important tool for two divorced parents trying to meld two families. He said he didn't want the kids to think they could go back and forth between parents whenever they wanted to get their way. Okay. Which I totally understand. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know what it's like to have to navigate that kind of household to families. So I'll withhold any kind of judgment on that because I don't. Yeah. Seems like when he what he's saying is logical, it seems. Definitely. You know, I feel like if it were me, because I like I've dealt with divorced parents. Yeah.

If it were me, I feel like it should be situational. That's kind of, that was kind of my thought. But again, I've never experienced, my parents aren't divorced, I am not divorced. So it's like, I'm speaking from a place of total inexperience. So I will rely on you for this one. I don't know what it's like to be the parent of a divorced child. I just know what it's like to be the child.

And I feel like, I mean, I wouldn't say that my parents did a great job at it. No offense if you're listening, but I think they know. I think they probably know. Shouldn't come as a surprise. I don't know. I think that if I ever found myself as a parent in this situation, one, it would be situational, and two, I could see it working better as like a one strike and you're out.

Like, you get one chance to do this, and if you don't like it, you don't get to make that decision again. I could see that. You know what I mean? Yeah, that makes sense to me. Like, you get to come back this one time, but if this ever happens again, you don't get to come back and do this again. I can definitely see that being a smart way to go about it. Yeah. Yeah. So feels less

harsh. It does feel less harsh in my opinion. Because everybody's again, I'm just going off of what I'm looking at. It's like, feels like everybody's trying to navigate a situation that nobody really should know how to navigate. Divorce is, I imagine, not easy on anyone. So it's like everybody's just trying to navigate, including the kids, and the kids are trying to navigate it while also being kids and having a million different hormones and other emotions and all this going on. So they're not going to be able to make like rash decisions, or excuse me, rational decisions. Yes. You know, so it's like, there needs to be a little bit of bending, I feel.

And also, might I point out Frank, you got another chance. Well, thank you. So that was going to be my next thing was like, pretty rich coming from Frank. Right. Like that's to give you another chance, but then you got, you get to decide together that she doesn't give her daughter another chance. That's pretty shit. The kids don't get two chances, but you get two chances. I don't know about that. After what could be construed as a much bigger indiscretion, judgment here. But I will say, just to give you all of the facts, Frank wasn't just taking out some maybe like feelings of yuck on Marie. Actually, his own son had moved out to live with his mom a few years earlier. And Frank did the same thing.

He wouldn't let him move back. Okay. So he was like, I'm not going to treat... So he was at least consistent on that. He was consistent. And he said, oh, he's consistent. Oh, good. And he said, I'm not going to have Marie be treated differently like when I did this to

my own son, you know? Whether it's good or not. Lauren Henry Exactly. Beth Dombkowski Consistent. Lauren Henry Totally opinion based. But Beth, this whole thing was a nightmare. She remembered the day that Marie tried to come home and said, it was this terrible scene, all of us outside screaming and crying at one another. Marie was crying for me to take her back and Frank was shouting at me, you know the rule, you can't break it. The same thing that applied to my son should apply to her. So this was just a fucking mess. Yeah. And that's a therapist should have been involved. Yeah. And again, I don't know, it just sounds

it's like screaming at, you know, at the mother. Like, this is what you're going to do with your kids. Yeah, because I did it with mine. It's like, ooh. I just feel like you guys, like, and obviously, like, I don't know. I don't know. So it's rubbing me the wrong way, but I'm not gonna... No, I agree. You know?

Who knows? The other thing is, you're... It doesn't feel good. You're allowing children to make life decisions and like helping them make those life decisions by like saying like, okay, if you want to move out, I'll help you figure it out. But then you're not allowing them to be the child one and making those decisions or deciding they regret those decisions. That's okay. That's part of the thing that always gets me and for like the portion of

people who like can't stand when I talk about parenting trigger warning, but I, but cause like, I don't know everything. What the fuck? I'm just doing the best I can. Nobody does it. But it bothers me when parents don't realize that their kids are human beings as well. Yeah. And when they don't look at your kid and go, well, well me as an adult, sometimes I get to say, well, fuck, that was a stupid

decision. I'm going to go do this now. Yeah. Like let me fix it. But I'm not going to allow you to ever have that luxury. That's not fair. Why is that fair? Like to me personally, you do, you do whatever you want to do. Totally. Again, but to me personally, I don't get that. Like I'm like, it's the same thing of like, small little things like, you're hungry close to bedtime. I get hungry close to bedtime. So like, again, do what you want with your own kids. But I never, if the kids are hungry close, like last night, for example,

this is funny that this came up last night, for example, all three of them, literally we got through bath time, brushed teeth, and then all three of them were like, I'm kind of hungry. Yeah. And I was like, do you want like toast with butter? So they're like, do you want toast? Like what do you want? Like we just made something small. I was like, you're hungry. That's what you would do for yourself.

Sometimes I'm hungry before bed. You know what I mean? It's like I just to me, I'm not I'm of the mind of like why you're you're not allowing your kids to change their mind. When you are allowed to change your mind. Obviously you wanna teach them to make wise decisions and to think through decisions, to think of all the consequences of those decisions. Hopefully 90% of the time, those are good solid decisions

that they are going to stay with. Cause in life, sometimes you don't get to change your mind. True. And I think that is what like maybe he was trying to set up. I'm sure that's maybe the mindset he was coming from is like that. It was so all or nothing. That's the thing. And it's like life is an all or nothing.

So it's like, there does need to be a little gray area. But again, parenting is hard. And it's hard to figure out. It was so different. And it's hard to figure out. It's so different. And it's such a different time. And it's like, so this is all very like, it's easy to look back and be like, that's wild. And like, and it is, it is. But like, it's, it's hard. And I think especially not everybody's going to get it. I think especially in like the 70s and 80s, it was probably even harder for divorced parents

because there weren't a lot of divorced people. Like there wasn't really a blueprint. You know what I mean? No, it's so true. It's not like it is now where there's support groups and there's divorced people, you know, like divorces vary. It's more common than not really.

More marriage, more common than staying married. So it's like, you have a lot of things to look at as like you said, a blueprint, right? Where they didn't necessarily have that. But I never get the like all or nothing. I don't either. At least in my house. That's not yeah, not how I understand the thing to be things. Things can fluctuate. Yeah, that's the thing you again, you want to make them stand on their own two feet and like make decisions, but at least have a little wiggle room. And this just created like a really tension-filled awful relationship between everyone. Yeah, it kind of feels like it's just a lot of... Yuck. Negative energy that doesn't need to be spent this hard, you know what I mean? Like you can maybe

figure out a way to make stuff work. And honestly, talking about blueprints, this was the blueprint for like a fucking disaster. Yeah. I'll tell you. Like ultimately, this results in disaster. Well, it sounds like it's kind of eken up to that. Yeah. So Beth obviously felt terrible for her daughter, Marie, but ultimately she did stand by Frank's decision and she called Steven, her ex-husband, and was like, can Marie come and live with you? And he was like, oh my God, totally. Like, I have this great job. I've gotten my mental health in check. I love Marie. I would love to see her more. Totally. To

Beth, it seemed like the best decision at the time because one, it would allow some space for everyone to cool down. And two, she also hoped that Frank would eventually change his mind and let Marie come move back in with them. But Marie would maybe, she wasn't having like the best time at her grandparents' house. So she was like, maybe she'll have a better time at Steven's in the meantime, and we can all figure this out.

Yeah, and we can get to something that makes sense for everybody. I do feel for Beth at this point in time, because I think she was just between a rock and a hard place. Well, and that's tough when you're married to someone who is making decisions for the entire family. Yes, and like that's tough. And like I said, he really reveled in his position

as an authority figure. Yeah, and see, and it's like, that's not marriage, man. No. Like marriage is making decisions together. Together, 50-50. Both of you need to be comfortable with those decisions, and if one of you isn't, then you need to figure out a different way. Exactly. Like that's how it needs to be. It can't be, I'm uncomfortable with this decision, but he's

dead set on it. So I just have to go along with it. It's like, no. And again, different times. So like, this is just, yep. It's, it's looking at it in hindsight with our 2020 glasses on. True. But to Marie, this felt like the ultimate betrayal. Yeah, of course. She wasn't allowed to move back into her home. She was like, what the fuck? And Frank had already betrayed her mom and now her mom in her eyes and realistically was siding with Frank.

Well, I think that is the big thing here is also you put like, like you said, put together that she walked in on him cheating on her mom, disrespecting her mom. So it's like, so then for this guy to be making proclamations about your family, right after he has betrayed your family. That's rough. That is rough. Like that's a, that's a, I imagine as a kid, that would be a rough pill to swallow. And imagine you're looking at this through the eyes of, I think she was like 15 or 16 at this point. Oh my God, I was a nightmare. Yeah. And I was a nightmare. I was a nightmare of just emotions and just like being a shit and like, you're mortal as fuck. So it's like, I can't fathom that.

Right. So Randall Price, the psychologist, said that Marie thought that Frank was relieved to have her gone, which I do wonder if part of him was. Yeah. And he said, Marie's constant presence and her friendship with her mother were hindering him from putting his marriage back together with Beth. That's how Marie felt. Okay. So there's that.

But even though the circumstances for Marie's move were not the best, Stephen Robards was super happy just to have more time with his daughter and immediately started looking for a better living situation. He was looking for a two-bedroom apartment so that she could have her own space and like they could coexist together. Now, after all the positive changes

he'd been making to improve his life, his sister Stephanie Elder told Skip Hollinsworth, Marie's coming back to him was like the icing on the cake. Stephanie Eddington Oh, that like really, I hate that there's going to be a bad thing happening here because I'm like, this sounds nice. SIDNEY Yeah, it sounds awesome. Marie, on the other hand, was obviously far less enthusiastic about this move. She hated her new school. In the meantime of Stephen looking for a new apartment, she had to sleep on a rollaway

bed in the dining room. And she was constantly frustrated with just her father's lack of domestic skills. He's a, he's a man. He's a single man who's been living on his own. He wasn't great at cooking. He wasn't great at cleaning. And that's not what she's used to. No, she's grown up with, you know, with a mama. Yeah. But most of all, she missed her mama. She missed being with her mom and now being so far away from her. So Stephen did his best to make the transition easy for Marie, but his attempts typically fell flat or were somewhat unwelcome. Remember,

this is a teenage girl. Well, and a very angry teenage girl. This transition didn't happen because everybody decided it was going to happen. It came out of anger in her feeling like she wasn't welcome in her own home. So she's going to be angry no matter what he did. I don't think that guy had a chance at making this okay. He sure didn't. Steve's girlfriend, Sandra, told Hollinsworth he was very anxious about pleasing her. But I know that those first few weeks, Marie was constantly on the phone calling her mother. She was pleading to get back home, which is really sad. That is really, it breaks your heart. So the first few months after the move, obviously were

difficult for both Marie and Stephen, but eventually Marie did appear to adjust to the new living situation. Okay. When she got settled in her new school, her grades went right back up. She was once again a straight A student. She started making friends. She started becoming more sociable. Her chem teacher, Tracy Arnold, said, I do remember hearing her say she wanted to move back in with her mother, but she was always a nice bubbly girl. A few months later, Marie actually even started to warm up to Stephen's new girlfriend, Sandra,

and the quote unquote tantrums and desperate pleas to return back to Beth and Frank's home became more infrequent as 1992 came to a close. Okay. It was only later that the adults around Marie would learn that what they thought was an adjustment was really just an act. She was putting on an act like everything was okay,

but inside she was still absolutely depressed and absolutely desperate to get back to her mom. Oh no. So in reality, her desire to return back to her mother was just as strong as it had ever been like I just said. And now desperate to get out of the situation that she put herself in by challenging Frank's authority, she started brainstorming ways that she could get out of her living arrangement. And at one point she actually even considered burning down the apartment complex while her dad was out. And she figured that if the apartment no longer existed, her mom would have no choice but

to let her move back in. Oh, wow. So she got this is desperate. She got beyond desperate. She, I think she had somewhat of a break. Yeah. I mean, if you're thinking that far. Like that's on another level. The psychologist she later saw said, it's one of those mysteries, a teenager's desperation. For whatever reason, Marie did feel permanently trapped. And being a teenager, she had little regard for the consequences. But of course, arson would cause a great deal of destruction and would most likely be easily traced back to her. So what she started to feel she needed was a plan that would be disruptive enough to

reunite her with her mother, but seemed to everybody else like an unfortunate fluke. And in February of 1993, she got an idea that seemed like the perfect plan. I don't think it's going to be. It's not. On the evening of February 18th, Stephen Robard sat down at the dinner table with his daughter for a quick little Tex-Mex dinner before he had plans to head out to an evening church service at the nearby Christ Church. Okay. He returned less than an hour later though, after he had finished dinner and gone out to the church, he came back and he said he was having severe, severe stomach pains. Not long after returning home, he started vomiting. And in the hours that followed, the cramps got increasingly more

painful. So unsure what to do, Marie ran to Sandra Hudgens' apartment. That's his girlfriend who actually lives in the same apartment complex. She told Marie, just stay put here in my apartment. And she went over to find Steve in a terrible state. Sandra said, he said he couldn't swallow well, and I saw saliva coming up through his mouth. I went into the other room and called an ambulance. As she was on the phone with the paramedic, she could hear Steven struggling in the other room.

And when she looked in on him, she saw that now he was foaming at the mouth, and eyes had become fixed and glassy and he was staring off at nothing. Oh my God. It was an incredibly bleak, violent situation. Like he was violently ill. Holy shit. By the time the paramedics arrived, Stephen had slipped into a coma and wasn't breathing. They tried to get an oxygen tube down his throat to keep him alive, but his throat had

completely closed at that point. In the meantime, Marie, who was supposed to be waiting at Sandra's apartment, had wandered over and was watching as the paramedics tried in vain to save her father's life. Sandra later said, she didn't tell the paramedics anything. She only stood there. What? In an interview with the Associated Press a few years later, Marie recalled the incident. She said, I was in shock. My whole body just heated up. My God. So the paramedics, they rushed even to the hospital with Sandra and Marie following behind them in Sandra's car. But despite the

doctor's best efforts, Stephen was in horrible shape by the time he got to the emergency department and he did die a short time later. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. Like just when he had gotten his life really together. And was thinking that he was getting, you know, his daughter on like the right, like feeling good, feeling comfortable. Yeah, being a bigger part of her life.

Yeah. Oh, that's so sad. It is. It really is. Oh, that like breaks my heart. I know. Sandra recalled in an interview with CBS, I didn't want to believe it. How could it be that bad? He was 38.

He's my age. 38 years old. Holy shit. Isn't that crazy? Wow. That's so young. That's really, thank you. You're welcome.

That is very young. Like. And to's so young. That's really, thank you. You're welcome. That is very young. Like, and to die that violently and honestly have gone through everything that that he went through to get to where he was getting. Yeah. 38 years old. He's had a whole career with the Navy. He's got, he's had a child. He's gotten divorced. He's gotten his gone through depression, battle depression. Yeah. like got it in check, got his life back on track, like... Was like moving forward. Got a new girlfriend.

Welcoming his child into the home to like really like get her back on track. Yeah. Like it just feels like everything was falling into place and... Damn. And then it... And what a horrible end. It all just exploded essentially. Oh.

But the medical examiner, Dr. Mark Krause, declared Stephen's death a heart attack. Very unusual for somebody so young, but not unheard of. The doctor recalled, his heart was mildly enlarged. It was probably 25% too large for a man his age and size. Somewhat uncomfortably, I signed it out as a natural death. And he acknowledged the somewhat unusual circumstances but something was pulling at him. Like he was like, he signed off on it as a natural death, but something in the back of his mind was like, I'm not so sure.

Yeah. But it feels a little suspish. Yeah, but we'll leave that there for now. Okay. Funeral services were held for Stephen Robards on February 22nd. And during them, Marie stood by her father's graveside in an absolute daze. Once the service ended, Beth took her aside to tell her some news. She said she really hoped that her and Frank could work things out, but they were still having issues and they decided to separate. And Beth said, I found a good job in Florida. I know it's not ideal timing, but I'm going to take you and move to Florida. She said once she shared that news with Marie, Marie stared at me like you had this plan all along to take me to Florida. She looked like she couldn't breathe.

That's rough. That's rough. Especially if you catch what's going on here. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So a month later, Beth and Marie had settled into a new apartment in Panama City where Beth started a new job as an administrative assistant at the state division of motor vehicles. Marie, meanwhile, was enrolled at a new high school, but she was going through her own mental crisis. Some days she was so depressed and despondent

that she couldn't get out of bed, much less go to school. So now worried that Marie had inherited some kind of depression from what her father went through, Beth immediately set her up with a therapist. But even counseling did little to help Marie's mood. And to make matters worse, a few months after they arrived in Florida, Frank showed up at Beth's door promising to work harder to repair their marriage. And

not ready to give up on their marriage, Beth agreed to take him back. Wow. Now despite her words, some decisions happening. There are some decisions as Tatiana says choices, choices. So despite her worsening depression, the loss of her father, and the disruption of the move, Marie actually seemed happy for her mom, and she was even willing to make amends with Frank for the sake of the family. But unfortunately, it wasn't long before Marie found a note from Frank's mistress among his fucking belongings, which proved that he was still carrying on a goddamn affair that had caused her to move out in the first place. What the fuck? So he goes

all the way to Florida and is like, I want to work on this and actually never ended things with a mistress or at the very least got a new one while he was there. I will never understand these people the way I'm going to junk punch this man who go out of their way to try to get back someone and while they're cheating on them still it's like no just be go off be who you want to be constantly trying to drag this other person into your shit why are you fucking up other people's lives wild to me I don't get it Marie didn't get it either no and at that point she was like listen I've actually really never felt at home in Florida

because we moved here so suddenly. I also really miss my friends back in Texas. And she pretty much went and told her mom that she said, Mom, you can put up with him if you want to, but I don't have to. I miss Texas. I'm going home. So once again, Beth chose to stay with Frank and helped Marie make arrangements to return to Texas where she moved in with Stephen's father, Jim Robards, to Mansfield, a small city near Fort Worth. So once again, in Marie's eyes and the eyes of I'm sure many others, Beth has chosen her husband over her daughter. Yes.

That's just That's the unfortunate truth here. That's what's happening. Damn. So back in Texas, Marie enrolled in Mansfield High, I was going to say high school. High school. High school to finish her senior year,

where by all accounts, she flourished socially and academically. She joined the yearbook staff. She actually, like her mom, ended up becoming president of the school's National Honor Society. Jeez. And also quickly became the star of the volleyball team. Look at her go.

Yeah, she started doing a bunch of stuff. The school's yearbook advisor, Leonidas Patterson, said she impressed all the teachers because here she was, a brand new student, and she had this hunger to get involved. But when it came to her father, Marie became unusually cagey, if not outright bizarre, whenever he got brought up. She told her grandfather and the rest of the Robards family that she couldn't visit Stephen's grave because she quote unquote couldn't handle it emotionally. Which you can understand. Absolutely. But when anybody at school would ask about her family, she would make up a lie about her background, specifically like where her

dad was. Sometimes she would say he died, other times she would say like he lived somewhere else. She would... It was always a different story. When it came to friends, Marie was generally friendly, but she didn't really go out of her way to make new friends. But there was one girl who Marie actually formed a really close relationship with, and that relationship in her life would become very consequential. Like Marie, Stacey High had also lost her father under different circumstances. He was still alive. He was just incredibly absent from her life. So they kind of bonded over the fact that they didn't really have a father figure. Stacey said, I had come from an abused background. I'd been to plenty of psychologists.

I could tell that Marie had gone through something too. I thought I could help her come out of her shell, teach her to have a little more fun in life. So senior year, they meet each other. They come from different backgrounds. They get close. They bond over it. Sounds like a nice reason to get close to someone. You're like, I've been through it. Yeah, help you get through it without going down a bad path. Exactly. So not long after arriving in Mansfield, the two girls became really inseparable. Stacey said, I would say we were best friends. We kind of fell in love with each other. We had so much

in common and she just means I'm like a French. Yeah. They would, they would spend afternoons working together on yearbook. They would drive around town. Remember when you were a teenager and you just drive around. I miss that. I miss that so much. Sometimes you would like go to Wendy's. Yeah, that's really the only part I miss. Drive around listening to music. Yeah. On the weekends, they would use their fake IDs to get into local country Western bars. They're just doing like typical teenager shit. Yeah. And throughout that time, Stacey could sense that something was weighing on Marie, like weighing very heavily on her, and she would try to get her to

open up. But every time it just went nowhere. The attempts were completely unsuccessful. But Stacey said, I pride myself on asking really good questions, and I tried to get Marie to talk about her past and her dad's death, thinking it might help her, but it was like a dead end street trying to get her to talk. So she's like completely closed up.

But toward the end of the school year, a secret Marie was keeping was starting to weigh on her in ways she had likely not anticipated. But it wasn't Stacey's persistent questioning that moved Marie to share her secret. It was actually a passage from one William Shakespeare that finally brought the truth to light. One day while they were rehearsing Hamlet together for school, Stacey was reading out of her copy of Cliff Notes, and she turned to Marie, and she started a dramatic reading of Claudius' soliloquy from Act 3, Scene 3. "'My fault is my past, but, oh, what form of prayer can serve my turn? Forgive me my

foul murder. That cannot be, since I am still possessed of those effects for which I did the murder." Oh. So turning to her friends, Stacey expected a positive reaction from Marie. She was like, I just slayed that passage. Yeah. But in turn, Marie seemed very lost and dazed. The scene where Claudius expresses his very deep remorse over his blind ambition and impulsive decision to murder the king seemed to affect Marie very deeply. Kind of hit her. Kind of hit her in a place she hadn't been hit in a while.

Oh no. Whether she was inspired by the text, as she would later claim, or she just simply couldn't carry the burden of her secret anymore, she turned to Stacey and asked her, Stacey, do you think people can go through life without a conscience? And as if to confirm, Stacey pointed out that there were a lot of people in the world who were capable of killing somebody without remorse. And Marie backed up to the wall and then collapsed to the floor and started sobbing uncontrollably. Oh my goodness. So Stacey's like, what's wrong? Like, I don't understand what's going on here. And all Marie could say in response was, yes.

So without hesitation, Stacey just ran through a list of teenage fears. She was like, are you pregnant? Did you wreck the family car? Yeah, like all the- Coming up with every teenage crazy thing you could possibly do. And when she had run out of all the hypothetical tragedies she could possibly think of, she said jokingly, well, you didn't kill somebody, did you? And in between her sobs, Marie answered, my father, I poisoned him. Holy shit. Yeah. I mean, I like sensed this a little bit, but hearing her, it's like, oh. And the fact, it's just so haunting to me

that that scene in Hamlet was what finally broke her. My whole body is just chilled. And it just makes you think like, oh my God, you're a fucking teenager. Yeah. Like I remember senior year having to go up in front of the class and reading Hamlet. Yeah.

Can you imagine your- your hitting home like that? Like I didn't relate to Hamlet in any way back then. I still don't actually. And the whole thing with like her mom being like, I'm gonna take you to Florida. This is the plan. And she's like, you had this plan. It had been the plan.

She just hadn't had a chance to, she was finishing it up, like finishing the plan up. But if she had told Marie a little bit sooner, this wouldn't have happened. And it's like, what? And that's not on Beth, obviously. No, it's like, what a fucking mess. What a mess.

What an absolute mess. Oh, that's awful. Did you kill Marlene Johnson? I think you're one of the first people to have actually asked. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair, a new podcast about an unsolved murder that will leave you questioning everything. Somebody should be in jail for murdering my sister. A woman who's never been believed. As long as they think I have done this, then they're not looking for who actually did this. And that's what makes it a cold case.

No, it's a botched case. And a search for the truth, once and for all. Wow, it just gets more interesting. Beyond all repair. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Be careful. You're digging in a place that's been very peaceful for a while. Do it anyway. Dig. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run dark. In this new crime thriller, religion and crime collide when this small Montana community

is rocked by a gruesome murder. As the town is whipped into a frenzy, everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager. But local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Laro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. She and Ruth form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone's watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy Award nominee Santa Leighton and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran,

Shannouk plunges listeners into the dark underbelly of a small town where the lines between truth and deception are blurred, and even the most devout are not who they seem. Shannuk is available to listen to now exclusively with your Wondery Plus subscription. You can subscribe to Wondery Plus on the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Holy shit. And it only gets worse. And she did it in such a horrific way. Yeah.

And also, and I know I'm hoping we're going to find out what happened to her. Holy shit. And it only gets worse. And she did it in such a horrific way. Yeah. And also, and I know, I'm hoping we're gonna find out, why did you choose him? You, I mean, you shouldn't poison anyone, but why did you poison that man? We find out, but... But it still doesn't make sense?

But we don't really, like... It's so... You want to say it's like such a teenage decision, but then it's not at the same time. No, it's a very, but the rationale behind it. The rationale behind it is such teenage rationale, but you're like, you killed your father. Because was she, and again, I'm sure I'm skipping ahead, but it's like, all I can think of is that she was thinking like, well, if I don't have a place to stay with him,

then I have to go back to... That's pretty much what it was. And it's like, oh my God, but that is not the way. No, and we'll get to it. Holy shit. There is debate over whether or not she intended to kill him, but we'll get to it. I, we'll get to it.

We'll get to it. Okay. So she just admits this horrible secret to Stacey while they're literally just getting together practicing Hamlet. And Stacey is completely taken aback. And Marie made her swear that she wouldn't tell a soul and reminded her that if she told anybody Marie herself would get arrested and sent to jail for the rest of her life. So she's like, you can't tell anybody. Like I can and sent to jail for the rest of her life. So she's like, you can't tell anybody.

Like, I can't go to jail for the rest of my life. And because they're seniors in high school, Stacey was like, OK, I'll keep quiet. Had they been adults in the same situation? I'm sure Stacey probably would have gone to the police with this information more or less immediately. But they're children, teenagers. And they, you know, teenagers live by their own set of rules.

That's different from adults. So Stacey would later tell Skip Hollinsworth, when you're in high school, it's like so important not to betray your friends. So while it pained her to do so, she kept Marie's secret like she promised. Sort of. Sort of. We'll get there. Okay. Keeping Marie's terrible secret had never been easy, but the more and more time passed,

the more completely unbearable life became for Stacey. She started having these vivid and incredibly distressing nightmares where she would hear Stephen calling out to her from the grave, or she would have nightmares where Marie was chasing her through the night. The stress had her doing poorly in school. She started... I mean, that's intense. It's intense.

I can't fathom that. That's the wild... I never had to go through that. I can't imagine being 17, 16, 17 years old. And having a whole... Like, see your friend breaks down and tells you they poisoned their father? Like what? The fuck do you do? Like, my brain would not be able to handle that at 16.

No, but in the so she's she's doing horrible in like every part of her life. And now she's she's drinking heavily. I don't remember if I said that part, but she's drinking heavily. OK, she also at the same time was trying to put some distance between herself and Marie. So she quit the yearbook. She started spending time with new friends, but everything was getting to be too much. And now thinking that she was pretty much headed toward a nervous breakdown, she took

it upon herself to start going to an afterschool program at a private mental health clinic. But even there, she couldn't bring herself to tell them the truth. So it really didn't do much good. But finally, after eight months, Stacey couldn't stand the strain any longer. And she went to the school counselor for help. Wow, good. I mean, I'm glad she did something, but I'm, I feel bad that she had to go through all that. You're about to feel even worse. Yeah, incredibly. The guidance counselor actually wasn't the first person that Stacey told about this.

The night that Marie had told her, Stacey went home and told her mom, Libby, what Marie had confessed. At first, Libby was like, no, Marie's probably making things up until like, you know, she's feeling all this grief over her father's death. There's no way that she could have killed him. But then she started thinking more and more about it and was like, well, could she have? So she called a poison control center to ask whether barium acetate, which is the chemical Marie claimed to have poisoned her father with, could have caused the symptoms like those that killed Stephen. And the operator confirmed, yep, there were several that could have. Oh boy. So while she knew that now it was definitely possible that Marie was telling the

truth, Libby did nothing to help her daughter, who was clearly suffering as a result of keeping Marie's secret. Later in an interview, she explained that she wanted Stacey to be ready for the real world and said, I wanted Stacey to know that I trusted her to make her own decision about Marie. I guess I knew this was the moment in which Stacey was going to have to grow up. She's 17, 18 at the oldest. What's happening with these parents? You're her fucking mother. You're not preparing your kid. You're traumatizing your kid. Her brain is not fully developed. If her friend came to her and said, I cheated on my boyfriend at 16 years old. You guys figure that out. And she's like, I'm really struggling with the secret, mom. I don't know what to do. my boyfriend at 16 years old. You guys figured that out.

And she's like, I'm really struggling with the secret, mom. I don't know what to do. That's when you go, honey, you got to figure that out. I can give you some advice. I'm going to listen to you. We can talk this through, but you're going to ultimately have to make that decision of what to do here. When her friend comes to her and says, I murdered my father in cold blood.

The only correct decision is we're calling the police. And it's like to be like, hmm, I don't know. I feel like she couldn't have done that. Let me call poison. That's not on you, man. That's not up to you to call poison control and find out if that would actually kill a man. You call the police and you say, I don't know if this is true or not. Here's the information we got. You go do your investigation because that's what they're fucking paid for. And also what are you doing? Call in trend to find out if things actually can kill people. No, call the police. Exactly. What's going on here? What real world are you preparing your daughter for? That's the other thing

where people are confessing murder. Never in my life has someone confessed murder to me. That is not the real world. Like sure it's possible, but I'm sure hoping that your daughter isn't walking out into a real world where people are openly confessing murder to her on that regular of a basis that she's going to have to have a like set way of dealing with it. Right. And also I'm going to be honest, I'm 38 years old. If someone confessed murder to me, I would lose my mind, call the police and then I'd probably call my mom. Let's come on. What? I'm just like, I can't get, I mean, whoa. Yeah. Whoa. So, uh, well, Stacey's mom didn't necessarily help this situation in any way, shape or form. She didn't have it going on at that time. Stacey's mom did not have it going on at this point in time. That's the main takeaway from that.

The only levity you can find out of that whole situation. Damn. Yeah. I have a feeling Stacey, like she said that she had like gone through a lot at this point. I have the feeling she probably didn't have the best home life and I feel really hard for her. Yeah, I feel for, that's the thing I feel for Stacey here. Like that's too much. Your child.

Too much to have on you. So luckily, like I said, she went to the school counselor after she went to her mom eight months later. Cause that's the other thing she's like, okay, so am I supposed to keep this secret? Like I have no fucking idea what to do because I had zero guidance. You need guidance.

That's what your parents are for. Well, apparently that's what the school counselor was for. The guidance counselor. The guidance counselor took her seriously and together they contacted the police, which should have happened. And far before this, we won't harp on it, but it should have fucking happened. Finally, an adult made a smart decision here. Yes.

So the police were actually skeptical, but they did take the report and said they would investigate. Everyone stop. If someone's saying they killed someone, skepticism shouldn't be your first thought. It's like, investigate it. I understand being skeptical, but. Investigate it.

And they do. They do. They're skeptical, but they investigate. But while they had the blood and tissue samples that could have been tested for the barium acetate, they didn't have the gas chromatography mass spectrometer, GCMS, necessary to do the tests. Well, you don't just have one of those?

I also really wanted to say it more like, gosh, chromatography mass spectrometer. I want to say like that. You don't just have one of those lying around? No, you don't have that. But fortunately, the medical examiner, who was just days away from destroying the blood and tissue samples per protocol, because it's been like over a year at this point, he remembered the case being somewhat suspicious

and agreed to find a lab in Texas that had the equipment and expertise to test these samples that literally were days away from being thrown. The ME coming through. Like these were going to be destroyed in a matter of days. Tell me that's not some kind of fucking divine intervention. That's something. That's something. I think that's like Stephen from wherever he was being like, please figure this out.

But it took the medical examiner actually almost three months to find a lab that had the GCMS technology and another three months for the test results to come back. So in the meantime, Marie and Stacey had both graduated from high school. They'd gone their separate ways. Marie used the $60,000 she got from Stephen's life insurance policy to enroll at the University of Texas in hopes of becoming a medical pathologist, someone who would literally study bodily tissue. Wow. It's also said that she may have wanted to become a medical examiner.

Wow. Yes. But Stacey went to Sam Houston State University about three hours away. So they didn't talk really ever again. OK. But after months of no contact with either Marie or the police, Stacey assumed nothing had come of the report.

So she just refocused on her schoolwork and tried to put that entire part of her life behind her. But then one day in October, she got a call from a detective in Mansfield. The test results of Stephen Robart's blood had finally come back and showed that he had 250 times the amount of barium acetate typically found in a person's blood, which was 28 times the amount necessary to kill. Holy shit. Based on those results, detectives were opening an investigation into his death

as a possible homicide. You don't say. And they wanted another statement from Stacy. Oh, man. So they got one. And on October 18, 1994, detectives arrested Marie on the UT Austin campus on suspicion of murder. Tarrant County prosecutor Mitchell Poe said, she was pretty forthcoming with information

fairly quickly. She didn't try to hide. She was either guilt-ridden or had thought a lot about what she had done and come forward with the information. She told detectives – and this blows my mind – she told detectives that she had actually stolen the barium acetate from her high school chem class. What? After the teacher had warned the students how dangerous and toxic the chemical could be. She said, I took the chemical because I knew it would make him sick. I just wanted to be with my mom so bad that I would do anything to be with her. I'm also like, wow, why wasn't the barium acetate under better controls? Why was it possible that she could just take that much

barium acetate? What? Adults do better. So on the night of her father's death, Marie offered to prepare his plate for dinner and she mixed the barium acetate in his food, which he ate, then went to church, where he started experiencing those terrible stomach cramps. She later told the jury, I knew I had done something very, very wrong, but I did not think of myself as a criminal. Wow.

She claims... That's sick. ...it's sick. She claims she only wanted to make her father too sick to care for her, which she believed would have allowed her to move back in with her mom, and that at no time had she intended to actually kill him. She said, I think for a long time I did a good job of pretending it didn't happen.

For a long time I tried just not to think about it. This is so fucked up. It is. In so many ways. Like, I don't even know how to... This is so fucked up. It is. In so many ways. Like I don't even know how to... This is just wild. It is because all of the things that we've previously said are true. Like she was in this terrible situation.

She felt rejected by her mom. All of these, she's going through all of these awful teenage things. But then at the very same time, she makes a decision to murder someone. A very adult. A very adult decision. Monstrous decision to murder someone. A very adult. A very adult decision.

Monstrous decision. And it's premeditated. It is. Like completely premeditated. And she admits that she wanted to make this poor man violently ill. Yeah. Too ill to care for her. That's sick.

That's twisted. And it's also, that's also the amount of desperation there for her mother. And it's like, that's also the amount of desperation there for her mother. That she and it's like, that's sad. It is like there's so much here. There's so many layers of like, like that's monstrous what she did. And it's monstrous what even her intention was, if her intention was to make him sick. That's monstrous. Yep.

But there's also so sad. It is. That this is a child desperate for their for a different situation for their mother. So while Marie had framed the murder as the impulsive act of a desperate teenager, the district attorney disagreed. There's a lot of debate here. Like I said, there was going to be the thing. There's so many layers. And honestly, I don't know where I sit at the end of the day. Yeah. Like,, this is fucked up regardless. Yeah, I know I sit in the seat of, holy shit, this is fucked up.

I don't... I do wonder whether or not she intended to kill him or make him sick. I can't really make a decision either way. Yeah, I mean, so far, I'm where you are. I can't decide that either. But the district attorney said, anybody who is going to go to medical school is probably above average as far as the science department. And as a matter of a fact, that

was part of my investigation. I collected her grades and she had very high marks in school and the sciences. Yeah. So you see that. And that's the thing. You see that side of it. You intelligent and you you said yourself, your teacher told you how dangerous this particular poison is to a human. And yeah, that's the thing, because it's like, you know, there's a potential and you also don't. If you're like he said, if you're planning on going to medical school, it's like, you know that everybody is different, and that everybody takes differently to different poisons or toxins or illnesses or diseases, everyone handles it different.

And remember, there was 28 times the amount in his body. So you gave him way too much. If you were thinking you were going to make him sick, it would have been this tiny little dip. That's what I would think. You would start with a little. No matter what, this is monstrous because you claim you wanted to make him sick, but you overdid it.

28 times. And either way, that's monster behavior. Mm-hmm. So despite her having been forthcoming upon her arrest, the district attorney told reporters that Marie knew exactly what she was doing when she poisoned her father. And had she not told her best friend about it, she would have committed the perfect murder. He said, in my opinion, she gave him a death sentence

and she fully intended to do what she did. So following her arrest, Beth used her portion of Stephen's life insurance payout to hire Bill Magnuson, I believe, and Ward Casey, veteran criminal defense attorneys from Fort Worth. She had confessed to the murder Marie had. When she appeared for her arraignment the next day, though, she pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder So she confessed but then pleaded not guilty Instead her lawyers argued she was a confused teenager and had no idea that the chemical would have been fatal So because she was still a minor at the time that the crime was committed

She was no longer a minor, but she was when the crime was committed She was held in a juvenile detention center for nearly two weeks until a judge did agree to release her on bond. Wow. Once out of the facility, she got a job at a local TGI Fridays and even ended up in one of their commercials. I'm sorry. Roll, roll back that tape.

Excuse me. What? She got a job in a restaurant at the TGI Friday when she's out on bond for poisoning food poisoning somebody with dinner. Yeah. The irony is not lost on me. The reckless abandonment is not lost on me. I don't know. Texas. Um, I'm without. Wow. I don't know. She ended up in one of the TGI Fridays in Texas. I think they're closing right now actually. What the fuck? They're like under new ownership or something. I should hope so. Why do I know that much about TGI Fridays? I don't know, but my goodness gracious.

Yeah. That's not great. Yeah. Holy shit. Imagine knowing that she was your server. Knowing you went to that place during that time. Yeah. And being like, oh, that was my waitress. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah. OK.

Didn't see that one coming. On the days when she wasn't working inside of a restaurant where she had access to food, Beth brought Marie to work with her at the Granbury City Hall, so she could keep watch on her. I think she was worried that she might have done something to herself. You know? Whatever her intention, Marie's presence was a big disruption to the office workplace,

and city manager Bob Brockman had to limit Marie's presence in the office. He said, I just think it could be a disruptive force, noting that some city employees were very disturbed by her constant presence. Yeah, if I'm working and somebody's like, oh, here's my daughter, she might have killed her father. I don't want to hang out today. I'd be like, no, I'm going to work from home.

Like it's just like, I don't know about that. That would be a little distracting. Yeah, I could definitely see the distraction. Yeah. be a little distracting. Yeah, I could definitely see the distraction there. But more than a month passed before Marie was back before a judge on January 26, 1995, where she was certified to stand trial as an adult for the murder of her father. If she was found guilty, she could face as many as 99 years in prison. Her lawyers indicated to the judge and to the press that she intended to plead her innocence, which presented a challenge seeing as she had already confessed to the

crime. But as a result, her lawyers knew that their only viable strategy was to convince the jury that Marie's actions were those of an emotionally distraught teenager, which they hoped would inspire some sympathy among the jury and lead to a lesser sentence. Her defense team knew that before setting foot in a courtroom, they needed to win over the public though and convince the public that Marie was no criminal. So in order to do that, they actually arranged for her to be interviewed by the Associated Press, which would go out on the wire and be published in newspapers all over all across the country. Wow. Like what a fucking choice. I was just gonna say choices.

Tatiana. But Marie told the reporter, I never thought anything through. I didn't realize what I was doing. She explained that her father had never abused her, generally treated her very well, but she had always been much closer to her mom and desperately wanted to move back in with her.

She said, I feel so guilty about what happened. I know I hurt a lot of people. That's what's even sadder is like my father did nothing. He did not abuse me. He did not mistreat me. He treated me very well. But I violently murdered him. Violently.

Like this man did nothing wrong. All like really breaks. Like thinking of that like really, that's the part that really gets me here. And that's the scary part of like, okay, rash, teenage decision, you killed the one man that was willing to take you in, in your time of need. This is the parent that is actually like, you know, putting everything aside and being like, I wanna concentrate on you. And it's like, that's, and I'm sorry, like rash, it's like poisoning someone is not a rash teenage decision.

No. You know, like her logic behind this saying like, I was just so desperate for my mom. Yeah, that's really sad. You don't fucking kill someone for it. No. And you should know better. Right?

Like why don't you know better? Right? Like, why don't you know better? Right? Like, that should never be part of your choices is, or I could kill him. That should never be up for thought. No, there's gotta be something missing. Something's off. Something off. There's something off there.

Because I've been upset, I've been sad, I've been desperate, I've been this, I've been that. Never has murder been on the docket for a possibility. And the fact that it was and then she followed through with it makes there's an issue. Absolutely. I've been in a very similar situation and never thought of murdering anyone involved ever. Yeah. But that's just me. Hey, weirdos!

After seeing our celeb-lebs turn up in old Hollywood glamour at the Oscars and other award shows, I am craving more from this golden era and I'm feeling a bit more nostalgic than usual. If you are too, you should scroll down our feed just a bit and join us for the unsolved murder of Georgette Bauerdorf. After a night of dancing, Georgette's lifeless body was found in her bathtub, face down in a shallow pool of water, and the police investigation concluded this was no accident. Georgette was the daughter of a Wall Street financier and an independent oilman who often went out of her way

to help those less fortunate than her. But was her generosity her undoing? And does her murder set the stage for another high profile Hollywood case? Hold on to your butts for this story. You can find this episode by following Morbid and scrolling back a little bit or by searching Morbid Georgette wherever you listen to podcasts.

But perhaps anticipating the defense's intentions, the prosecutor's office actually gave their own interview to the press where they emphasize their belief that Marie hadn't simply acted impulsively but had in fact planned to kill her father. District Attorney Poe told reporters she was fascinated with figuring out how people die, pointing to her dream of becoming a medical examiner. And he emphasized the same points in his opening statements when the trial did end up beginning in May of 1996, reminding the jury that she was a very intelligent girl who excelled in science class and all in all her other classes and had been present and alert when her chemistry teacher gave a very clear warning of the dangers of this specific barium acetate.

Yeah. So it's like, I don't know what what's to be confused here. Right. Marie's awareness of the dangers of barium acetate became the linchpin to post case. To support the argument, he played a section of her confession to investigators where she admitted to knowing the dangers of the chemical. In the recording, the interviewing detective asks her whether or not she knew what the effect the poison would have, and she said it would make him sick. But when the detective pressed her for a more detailed response, Marie admitted the chemistry teacher explicitly told them it would close up someone's throat. I mean, you know someone's going to die. So when you know that, yeah, when she was cross-examined

by the defense, Marie's chemistry teacher, who now had to fucking testify in all of this, Tracy Arnold, claimed she never informed the class that barium acetate would have that effect. So the defense is like, oh, cool. Like she never said that. But rather than help the defense, this admission only supported the argument that Marie had to have done her own research of the drug. Otherwise she never would have known that effect. Oh, shit. Fuck. Fuck. Exactly. So according to the prosecution, this is also really haunting. The page on barium acetate poisoning in the emergency handbook that was kept in the classroom

had been torn out of the book. Wow. Which they believed also supported their theory that Marie had fully intended to kill her father. Holy shit. This is so sad. It is. So her lawyers rejected the prosecution's theory pointing out that Marie always maintained she did not intend to kill her father. She just wanted to make him sick. And they played their own section of the taped confession where Marie tells a detective she put the barium in her father's food because it was the only thing, and this is from her. She said it was the only thing I could think of to be able to move back to where I wanted to be. They said, far from the cold-blooded killer the prosecution was making her out to be,

that she had never been properly warned of the dangers of barium acetate, and if she truly knew what she was doing, she, quote, would not have put so much barium in her father's food, since he would be far more likely to taste the salty substance and not eat it. But this argument doesn't work, because she did put so much on and he did eat it. That doesn't work at all. I guess that's probably why they're retired at that point. Yeah, probably.

Now, after a relatively short trial, the jury retired for deliberation on May 9th and returned less than an hour later to deliver their verdict. The jury found her guilty. I saw that coming. I would have too. Yeah. When the judge asked if she had anything to say to the court, Marie broke down just saying, I'm sorry, I'm so very sorry, before bursting into tears and pushing the microphone away from her. Once she composed herself, she continued her statement, explaining that she becomes so scared once her father had become so seriously

ill and was just too frightened to say anything. But Mitchell Poe, the DA, interjected to ask whether she was scared for herself or her father. He was like, who were you really afraid for? And she said, I was scared for both. So he stood silent for a few seconds and then said, but more scared for yourself, right? So yikes. Shit. But the next day during the penalty phase, Poe argued for a harsh sentence for Marie despite her age and her displays of remorse. He said, if she gets probation, she can go down on the elevator and serve your next meal. I was like, shit. Wow. Ultimately, the judge sentenced her to 28 years in prison with eligibility for parole after seven years.

So Ward Casey, one of her defense attorneys after the sentencing told reporters, of course we were disappointed. I just kept thinking about my own kids and she really is a real, real, real nice girl. She was just in a hell of a trap. I just got chills saying that. Yeah. So while serving her sentence, which she did, Marie was by all accounts a model prisoner. She was fully compliant with all the guards, all the staff. She volunteered to do chores in prison. She helped out where she could. And they said she did seem to express a great deal of remorse for having killed her father.

And after serving seven years in prison, she was granted parole and has since changed her name and gone out of her way to start her life over in complete obscurity. And there's nothing crazy related to her like this ever happened again. Wow. But the case completely captivated the public, due at least in part to the fact that it actually seemed to be a larger trend in the United States in the 1990s. Parasite, which is the murder of a parent by their child, obviously is pretty exceedingly rare, and rarer when the child is a girl, actually.

In a study completed in the mid-1990s, only about 10% of children who killed one or both of their parents was female. But because the bond between parents and children is so strong in Western culture, obviously these killings are incredibly taboo. According to Paul Bones, who studies the phenomenon, it only occurs in extreme situations and often after years of physical, sexual or psychological abuse. But she said her father had never been abusive toward her. That's why this one's so shocking. And in the case of Marie Robard, Skip Hollinsworth believes she was the symbol

of what modern divorce has done to our society. Desperate to hold on to the attention and affection of a mom who pretty much always seemed preoccupied with her own life and very fragile marriage, Marie resorted to extreme measures without regard for the consequences of her actions, and just only cared that she would maintain her position of significance in her mother's life. This is such like, there was such a disconnect. There really was. Where there needed to be a connect.

And there was such a crazy series of events where, and I think we talked about this in my most recent case that I covered the society murders, where had one thing not happened, maybe this person wouldn't have ended up being killed. And it really is just absolutely bonkers how like one, and it's not a small decision in this case, the fact that she wasn't allowed to move back, but one decision can completely alter the course of multiple people's lives. Because then it goes back into like, you know, her stepfather and her mom's marriage, where it was like a marriage where he got to make the decisions regardless of, you know, what

she thought. Yeah. And she went along with it. And he betrayed that family. And Marie was angry. Super angry. And obviously not respecting him and to see her mother putting him on such a higher pedestal

than her relationship with her is tough. And it's like, that's not to say... What she did was okay. him on such a higher pedestal than her relationship with her is tough. And it's like, that's not to say what she did was okay. That is anyone's fault either. Like anyone's fault outside of Marie's for doing that, because it's like, you make a decision to do that and you're old enough to know that that is not a decision that you even consider. But it's like so many things led up to this moment that should have been handled

differently. And then if you think about it actually, like, because obviously, like, you want to say you're old enough to make a decision to know that that's right from wrong. But then if you look at it like psychologically, her brain was not developed. Like, don't they say like the hippocampus is the part of your brain where like, decisions are are made and, like, you say, like, yes or no? Because she was, what, 15? When this happened, she was either 15 or 16. Yeah.

So, it's a weird argument that you can make. And then you look at the fact that she went to prison and then went about the rest of her life and then nothing like this ever happened again. But the, I mean, like, yeah, you have try, you know, you're not fully ready to make decisions at that time. You're ready to make a decision of whether to murder someone or not. I think so too.

I think that decision should be a fully formed one. I definitely think so too. By that point, like at 15 or 16, like that shouldn't be one of those gray areas where it's like. But isn't it weird how like that can be part of it, you know? And like people can make that argument. Well, they can make that argument for sure.

I don't know if I fully buy into it, but they can make that legal argument. Legally, it's an argument too. And it is interesting that if you look at, there are cases where like teenagers do these fucking horrible things and you're like, holy shit, how did you do that? And then they go and they serve time

and then nothing like that ever happens again. It's so true. And I think that's why it does need to be studied more. For sure, yeah. And there was like the cloud of desperation on this. There was the cloud and it's like, so many influencing factors. I can't state enough that the decision that was made

should have never even been a decision that was considered. Never, ever, ever, ever. So there's no overstating that. I can't say that enough that there's no way that you can justify that in any way, shape, form, nothing. No. Especially to this man who didn't do anything. That's the other thing.

Other than take you in. It's not like he was abusing you and like you were at a point of no return. Those are the times when you can be like, you know what, like, obviously you don't murder someone, but it's like, you can almost understand that someone's been pushed so hard to a point. Right. And it's like, but this is just one of those things that I think there was so many factors outside of this man completely outside of that led to him being

the one to get punished. That it was as soon as I found this, I was like, we have to tell this story completely outside of this man. That led to him being the one to get punished. As soon as I found this, I was like, we have to tell this story because it's just one of those stories that I think should be told. Yeah, you just can't wrap your brain around it. And that's it. It makes absolutely no sense that he was the one that got... I hope she had true remorse.

I hope, again, it doesn't change the fact of what she did or that she's taken this man out of this world. Yeah, can't bring him world, this man who did nothing to her, except take her in. And it's like, so it's like, I hope, yeah, I'm glad she's, you know, that she went through and hopefully, fuck, like that's a really fucked up case. It is. That's really fucked up. I don't even know what my closing thoughts are on that. That's a really fucked up case. It is. That's really fucked up. I don't even know what my closing thoughts are on that. That's the thing.

I don't even really know what my closing thoughts are. And I've been going over this for the past few weeks. That you can't take back. You've taken someone out of the world permanently. Because of a rash decision that came together through many, many other shit decisions around you and by you. That were made for you. Like made for you and by you.

All of them together. It was like such a shit storm of shit. It was the complete opposite of a perfect storm. No, it was a horrible storm. But I think it's good that we can't wrap our brains around this and that we don't have any... We don't need to wrap up with thoughts because there's no thoughts. This is just wild.

No thoughts, just bad vibes. We don't need to wrap up with thoughts because there's no thoughts. This is just wild and awful and sad and tragic and shocking. Very shocking. Wow. But yeah, that is the case of Marie Robards and the very tragic death of Stephen Robards. Wow. So we hope that you keep listening. Yeah, we do. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that any of this.

And definitely not so weird that if your kids comes to you with like a crazy ass confession, you're just like, yeah, call the police. Figure that out on your own, hun. Like come on, help out. Don't give it that way. Do a little work. Do a little something something. Yeah. Bye. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey.