Snapped: Women Who Murder - Nancy Siegel

Episode Date: August 27, 2023

The mysterious disappearance of a beloved nurse leads Arkansas investigators down a twisted path of familial betrayal; as detectives hunt for the missing woman, evidence upturned along the wa...y points toward deadly foul play.Season 28 Episode 09Originally aired: November 1, 2020Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Mike Williams set off on a hunting trip in a North Florida lake, or it was thought he met his fate in the jaws of a vicious alligator, except that's not what happened. And after the uncovering of a secret love affair, the truth would finally be revealed. Binge all episodes of Over My Dead Body, Gone Hunting, right now, add free on One Drey Plus. When we think of sports stories,
Starting point is 00:00:21 we tend to think of tales of epic on the field glory, or incredible against all odds, come back stories. But the new podcast Sports Explains the World brings you some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you've never heard. Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondering app or wherever you get your podcasts. A gruesome discovery on an isolated road in Virginia brings an unthinkable crime to light. He was a very small man. He was folded up like a pretzel. He died from an asphyxial death.
Starting point is 00:00:56 No one had ever left any type of clue that he was gone. Where was the family? Why didn't they report him missing? As the mystery unravels, detectives pinpoint a killer consumed by green. There was nothing left of the house because of the way he remorgaged everything. You sell a home for $90,000, and you're getting $4,000 checked back.
Starting point is 00:01:19 He's destroyed, basically. I mean, he's done. Can investigators solve the case before another victim is targeted? When it was said and done, there were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from people. How bad do you have it when you're following your own children?
Starting point is 00:01:40 Your house of cards is tumbling in at this point. The charade is over. May 14, 1996, Loudon, Virginia. Around 3am, Deputy Clark Jackson with the Loudon County Sheriff's Office, pulls into a remote overlook located in Harper's very park. I always go to the overlook because I found several stolen cars. And I found kind of a couple of people who
Starting point is 00:02:22 wanted to have warrants for their arrest. There are no cars parked at the overlook tonight, but Deputy Jackson notices something strange just sitting by a dumpster at the end of the parking lot. I parked my cruiser up by the barricade and I got out. I noticed there was a huge steamer truck. And I kind of kicked it with my foot and it wouldn't budge. I'm like, man, what is in this thing?
Starting point is 00:02:48 There's duct tape wrapped around each end, so I had to cut the duct tape off, and it wasn't locked, but I opened it up. It looked like a brand new Duffel bag. I had to zip the whole zipper on the first Duffel bag, and when I opened it up, there's another Duffel bag, the same color, same description. I tried to lift the Duffel bag out with one hand
Starting point is 00:03:08 I couldn't budget. I'm going there must be pieces of iron must be scrap metal inside this steamer trunk Then deputy Jackson unzips the second bag I unzipped it. I see this one eyeball looking at me I'm going holy, it is a body. Deputy Jackson radios for backup. And within minutes, investigators arrive at the scene. They are quickly able to determine that the body inside the trunk is that of an elderly male.
Starting point is 00:03:43 The body was emaciated. The victim did not appear to be deceased for a long period of time. It appeared to be some drag marks on the ground, where the chest would have been drugged over to the final resting place near the trash can. There was no identification in the trunk at all. It appeared to look like blood on the outside of it. While the medical examiner prepares to transport the body for autopsy, deputies speak with a
Starting point is 00:04:13 park ranger to find out whether they've noticed anything odd at that evening. Park ranger approximately 8.30 pm was driving by the area. She didn't notice anything unusual or suspicious. At approximately 10.30 p.m., she came back through to make sure the gate was locked, and she noticed a trunk that was setting at the overlook near a dumpster. At that point, she thought that she would come back the next day and address it.
Starting point is 00:04:44 We did not appear that he was killed there, and for a couple of reasons, one with a park rangers timing. It had been almost impossible for someone to kill them and put them inside the bag and in the trunk. But the other part was his body was decomposing. With no clues pointing to the killer, detectives focus on identifying their victim. We took his fingerprints.
Starting point is 00:05:08 They were submitted to an FBI lab and to try to identify him. Unfortunately, that was inconclusive at the time. We had his DNA, but there was nothing said to match it against. And DNA was just in its beginnings back in 1996. Without him being either an offender of some type or being entered in for a serious crime, the database was very limited at that point.
Starting point is 00:05:39 While loud and county detectives wait for autopsy results, they scour missing persons records from surrounding states. No one had ever reported him missing. No one had ever left any type of clue as to that he was gone. He would have been apparent to someone. And certainly either siblings or children, stepchildren, grandchildren, we were really interested
Starting point is 00:05:59 as to why there was no equalries at all. is to why there was no equalism at all. On May 16, 1996, detectives received the results of the autopsy on their John Doe. He died from an asphyxial death, either manual compression of the neck, or suffocation, or a combination of both. The medical examiner also discovered that before the victim was suffocated, he was drugged. They discovered he had high levels of dothin-hydramine,
Starting point is 00:06:34 which has basically been a drill in his system. The substance spotted on the outside of the trunk, originally suspected to be blood, is identified by the lab. When the exams were completed on, we realized it weren't blood at all. That material was tested and identified as fingernail polish. After hitting a dead end with the presumed blood evidence,
Starting point is 00:07:00 investigators find another promising lead from the autopsy results. It was discovered that he had had heart surgery at some point where he had had a ring installed, which did have a serial number. The investigator who originally had the case contacted the company and said, where would this serial number have been issued to?
Starting point is 00:07:20 It was by hospital. And at that time, John Hopkins was the distributor of that particular heart piece. They did not track them by patient at that point in time, so they could not go back and find the specific patient. After months of trying to trace the idea of their John Doe, detectives are desperate for leads, and they turn to the public for help.
Starting point is 00:07:47 One of the issues was that the face was somewhat decomposing, so therefore in order to try to get photographs out to identify him, his face had to be digitally enhanced so that he could be recognized better. There was a forensic sketch that was put out into the media to attempt to identify the victim. They aired that on several episodes of Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted, so there was efforts to identify him there. We got calls. It just wasn't the right phone calls for the right person in this particular case.
Starting point is 00:08:23 Is the Harper's Fairy, John Do Doe doomed to be another unsolved mystery? The body could not be identified for years and years. Loud and County Sheriff's Office tried really hard over and over again, and they could not identify the fingerprints, because that's all they really had. During the time period of when the body was found in May of 1996 up until early 2003, there were no major leads developed during that time period and it wasn't until it was opened as a cold case by investigator Oxman that it really started to move along.
Starting point is 00:09:07 Coming up, after six years, investigators finally put a name to their jaundole. We hear Bobby give kind of a war hoop and I look, what's going on. But new information brings to light new questions. There was someone out there still cashing Social Security checks for him. We needed to focus in on who was picking those checks up. January 2003. It has been almost six and a half years since the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office found the
Starting point is 00:09:48 Amaciated Body of an elderly man stuffed in a trunk. It was an older man in his mid-70s who, I guess some of us might consider that the prime of our golden years. No one had ever reported him missing. No one had ever left any type of I just might consider that the prime of our golden years. No one had ever reported any missing.
Starting point is 00:10:07 No one had ever left any type of clue as to that he was gone. From 1996 to 2003, there was a tremendous amount of effort by particularly Detective Bobby Oxman, who I got to know really well through this case. In 2003, a new avenue opens up to detective Bobby Oxman when the FBI fingerprint database receives files from the Department of Defense, including the fingerprints of every veteran who has ever served in the military.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Detective Oxman is one of those guys who doesn't give up on anything. And she was convinced that this guy's identity would have been somewhere in some of the military paperwork because he was that age. Very few people ever at that time didn't belong to some civil service or in the military. And she was just convinced that his fingerprints would have been on file. With her tenacity and determination to identify this person and give them a name, she made contact with the federal authorities and it was determined that she would travel to West Virginia
Starting point is 00:11:13 where they maintained the military fingerprint records. In January 2003, Detective Oxman and a few of her colleagues go to West Virginia to sort through the archives. We were both sitting and talking to each other, and we hear Bobby give kind of a, you know, a war hoop. And I looked, I said, what's going on? They had matched the John Doe's fingerprints with the World War II veteran. The victim was identified as Jack Watkins.
Starting point is 00:11:47 We were tickled to death that we got that point, that we were able to identify. It's just one of those things that really just made your year, really. When detectives enter Jack's name into the missing persons database to track down his next of kin, the search comes up empty. There was no missing persons report to be found, even once the victim had been identified. Did he have friends? Why did the friends not report him missing? So we
Starting point is 00:12:16 had many more avenues to pursue at that point. And you have to proceed carefully because you don't know who may or may not have been involved based on the fact that he was not reported missing. With no relatives to contact, detectives turn to public records to learn more about their victim. Jasper Jack Watkins Jr. was born on March 21, 1920 in Richmond, Virginia. In November 1941, Jack enlisted in the Army. He voluntarily joined the Army just a week or two before Pearl Harbor. He spent four years in a military. You know, he devoted four years of his life
Starting point is 00:13:05 to serving the country. I just have all the respect and admiration for that generation, and he's one of them. That certainly was something else that tugged at everyone's heartstrings, that we're investigating the homicide of someone who's a, in my mind, a war hero. After he got out, you know, he lived a relatively simple life.
Starting point is 00:13:27 He worked for an auto store, and he works throughout his career. In 1964, 44-year-old bachelor Jack married 40-year-old divorcee Mary Triplet. Mary had three grown daughters. They were much older. They had families of their own. And they loved Jack. Jack lived in Rice's Town in Montes Little Home,
Starting point is 00:13:56 beautiful yard. He loved to garden and take care of his vegetables, talked in neighbors. care of his vegetables, talked in neighbors. In 1989, after 25 years together, 64-year-old Mary passed away from a chronic illness, leaving Jack alone. With the case of Jack, he basically had no real close family members. Jack eventually retired from the auto store and began living on a fixed income
Starting point is 00:14:28 from his retirement and social security. He was living out his golden years on his social security pension and his Western auto union pension. He had a very modest home and lifestyle, but he was alone. By January 2003, investigators are finally armed with Jack's life story and must piece together how he ended up dead in a trunk seven years ago.
Starting point is 00:14:57 Detective Sapina Jack's financial records from the last decade of his life. We noticed when I was pulling the records, the credit card receipts that he was very frugal in his spending. He had a gas card, had a few charges on that each month, and the only thing we could find on his credit card was where he purchased a couple shirts. I believe it's AC Penny.
Starting point is 00:15:20 That was all that the gentleman had. So he had excellent credit. He had no bills at that point. Bank statements show that he kept his spending frugal up until 1995 when Jack's spending took a sudden turn. Jack withdrew equity in the house. And in addition, Jack purchased a BMW for $44,000. The vehicle was in Jack's name. The vehicle was in Jack's name,
Starting point is 00:15:45 the insurance was in Jack's name. He also opened up 26 new credit cards and maxed out most of them. On April 9, 1996, 76-year-old Jack even sold his house. Out of the $90,500 that it sold for, I believe, the amount that Jack actually received back was only a little over $3800. There was nothing left to the house because of the way
Starting point is 00:16:15 he remorgaged everything. Here you have a home that is paid for, and now you sell the home for $90,000, and you're getting $4,000 check back. He is destroyed, basically, and you're getting $4,000 check back. He is destroyed basically, and he was done. What was behind Jack's sudden spending? And where had the now homeless veteran gone
Starting point is 00:16:34 after selling his house? We then attempted to locate where he had lived. This can be done through driver's license records, employment records, Social Security records. Detectives reach out to the Social Security Administration and quickly make an unexpected discovery. We identified that there was someone out there still caching the Social Security checks for Mr. Watkins.
Starting point is 00:17:04 And since we had the victim and he'd been deceased since 1996, it obviously was not the victim that was caching these checks. So at that point, we needed to focus in on who was picking those checks up. He did not have an extra kin, so it was not like an immediate, relative. Obviously, no one's reporting a missing, so it was not like an immediate, relative. Obviously no one's reporting a missing, so everybody's a suspect, so to speak. Records requests had shown that Jack had three step-daughters. But detectives decide not to contact Jack step-daughters for now.
Starting point is 00:17:40 We don't want him to know that he's dead necessarily because we're not trying to spread that out that we have that we still have a ball in our court Nobody else really knows his dead except whoever killed him Instead they asked Social Security where Jack's checks are being sent Social Security agents say that in 1996 Jack's address was changed We were able to track the checks going to Ellicott City, Maryland, to a postal facility. They were being sent to a PO box. Whoever maintained the post office box in Ellicott City
Starting point is 00:18:16 was responsible for checks, demise. Coming up, detectives uncover their first suspect and another crime. It was immediately discovered she had a tremendous history of fraud. He had $100,000 debt in his name that she had charged up. Over six years since Jack Watkins was found dead in an abandoned trunk, detectives with the Loudoun County Sheriff's Department discover someone is still caching his social
Starting point is 00:18:56 security checks. They have traced the checks to a PO box in Ellicott City, Maryland. We found the social Security check was going there and being cashed, well, then we could find out who was actually on that box. And we found out that Jack was on that box. But Jack Watkins wasn't the only name on the box. The woman named Nancy Siegel was on the box.
Starting point is 00:19:21 And her two daughters were on the post office box. None of these names match Jack's step-daughters or their families. The question detectives need to answer now is who are these people? And how are they connected to Jack? At that point, of course, we got a special agent involved on the Social Security Inn. We also had the FBI working with us as well as the Postal Inspector's Office. Together, the three agencies come up with a plan for one
Starting point is 00:19:53 of the Postal Inspectors to pose as a post office employee on August 5, 2003. I put a notification in her PO box. With a note on it saying, please come to the window, the front window for your mail. We were able to subsequently set up surveillance and watch to see who was picking up those checks. And we were able to identify a female individual
Starting point is 00:20:18 going to the post office. She was petite, blonde hair, bleached shoes wearing a baseball cap. You know, she was middle age in her 40s. She was what I would consider, you know, an attractive woman. When the woman finds the note in her mailbox, she goes to the counter and identifies herself as Nancy's sequel. She was mild mannered, very friendly. Someone that I found easy to talk to at that point.
Starting point is 00:20:51 Not nervous. He asked her for additional identification and who was receiving mail at that box. She just as pretty matter of factly listed her name, the name of her daughter, and Jack's name. She listed Jack Watkins, whom with some pride, and she described as someone who's authorized to receive mail there because he was her father.
Starting point is 00:21:18 Well, we knew that wasn't the truth, but we wanted to hear it from her. The postal inspector keeps pressing Nancy. He started asking questions, where are these people? Then she told us Jack was still alive, and he was in Pennsylvania. With his point, Inspector Carnew that Jack was already deceased, we knew that she had to have some knowledge,
Starting point is 00:21:41 whether she actually committed the murder or not. That we still didn't know. After the postal inspector hands Nancy her mail, Agents tail Nancy's car. We followed her to a nearby bank where she then went and immediately negotiated the checks. At that point, we knew that Nancy was pretty heavily involved, at least from the fraud standpoint.
Starting point is 00:22:05 All we really had proof of at that point was that she was forging a checks. But who actually had committed to homicide, we didn't know that. Investigators need to know more about Nancy Siegel, so back at the station, they run her name through the system. Nancy Siegel, also known as Nancy Schweitzer,
Starting point is 00:22:27 Nancy Geisendoffer, and Nancy Kaczarski. It was immediately discovered she had a tremendous history of frog. Nancy Schweitzer was born on March 30, 1948, and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. Her mother had abandoned her from early on, and she was left to be raised by her father. She seemed happy. She loved her father, and she loved living with him,
Starting point is 00:23:01 and he was so nice to her, and she made sure he was taking care of, you know, she was like a little mother. They were very close. Nancy's father enjoyed a rough and tumble lifestyle in Baltimore's taverns. Meanwhile, Nancy seemed destined for a more wholesome, all-American future. She was a dancer in a Baltimore TV dance show. I think it was called the Buddy Dean Show. She just danced and kibbits and interacted with people well. I mean, you had to interact with the guest. And she'd had a great personality.
Starting point is 00:23:36 She was fun. She was so much fun and laughed all the time. She had a great laugh. She was just sweet. and laughed all the time to a great laugh. She was just sweet. In 1964, tragedy struck when Nancy's father was jumped by a group of men while leaving a tavern. He died from his wounds two days later.
Starting point is 00:23:59 At the age of 16, her father was killed. He was murdered and bought to more. When we heard it was tragic, I really felt badly for it because I knew that that was her only parent. After losing her father, Nancy went to live with an aunt and uncle across town. In 1968, 20-year-old Nancy married her high school sweetheart, Charles Kucharski. The couple soon had two daughters.
Starting point is 00:24:34 He seems like a very professional kind, successful, good-looking man. He seemed like he loved her very much and she'd say, they seemed very happy and the daughters, you know, she doated on the daughters and she had a great life, you know. But as investigators scour her background, it appears Nancy's perfect life was built on a lie. In divorce papers filed in 1985, Charles accused Nancy of ruining everything he had worked for. She developed a tendency to gamble and go to Atlantic City and these casinos. She got herself, apparently, into a lot of debt. She stopped paying the bills and started basically
Starting point is 00:25:26 defrauding her own husband using his identity. During the course of that marriage, she was taking their personal information and money, running up credit card bills. When they divorced, he had a $100,000 debt in his name that she had charged up. Records show that in 1985, the same year she divorced Charles, Nancy married Ted Geesendoffer, and in 1993, Ted also served her with divorce papers.
Starting point is 00:25:58 She did the same thing with Ted, ran up credit card bills. She was moving the mortgage payment into her account and not making the mortgage payment. She was using that money, presumably, to gamble. That kind of activity led to the demise of the second marriage. And so that was the pattern with her two husbands. It appears to detectives that throughout both of her marriages, Nancy also racked up a series of petty white collar charges.
Starting point is 00:26:31 She would steal mail from mailboxes, wallets. You know, they contained people's personal identities. They're drivers license, credit cards, social security information. This was all in various investigative arrest reports. She was getting caught at all these different jurisdictions, which created some coordination problems, because none of these other agencies
Starting point is 00:26:52 knew quite exactly what she had been doing in the other local jurisdictions. When it was said and done, there were hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars that Nancy had either defrauded from people or stolen from people. Despite Nancy's lengthy criminal record, she never served more than two weeks in jail for her crimes. Nancy was very good about talking with people
Starting point is 00:27:18 and being able to smooth them over. She was a attractive woman. She was very good on her feet. She was able to sweet talk her way out of any significant jail sentence. She kept getting suspended sentences and probation. So in her case, crime was pain. She was getting away with it.
Starting point is 00:27:37 Detectives also discover marriage records for Nancy's third and current husband, Eric Siegel. He was a very successful mortgage type banker, marriage records for Nancy's third and current husband, Eric Siegel. He was a very successful mortgage type banker, doing very well for himself. So we needed to find him and interview him as well. We wanted to make sure we had the best we could, and nothing else we were going to have a great fraud case,
Starting point is 00:28:00 but that's not what we were after. We wanted Jack and Jack's family to have justice, period. Detectives have proof that Nancy had stolen Jack's identity, but they don't know if she was behind his murder. Here's a woman that's fairly small. How is she crushing someone's throat? We weren't sure if somebody else was involved, but we were excited to find out what she was going to say
Starting point is 00:28:28 because Jack was on the post office box. So we knew that the question was going to be asked, what would she say? Coming up, detectives confront Nancy. She told us, I want to tell you everything. I want to tell you everything. I want to tell you everything. I will tell you everything. She had come back to the residence
Starting point is 00:28:50 and found him with a cord around his neck. And when detectives tracked down more people from Jack's past, the flood gates opened. They just assumed Jack had managed to stay retail ride until we knocked on the door and let him know what was Jack and what happened. MUSIC The lifelong con artist Nancy Siegel is the number one suspect
Starting point is 00:29:16 in the murder of 76-year-old Jack Watkins. When you say somebody's alive and you know they're dead, I mean, obviously they're a key factor to the case. When investigators question Nancy again, they decide to finally spring their trap. I produced a photograph of the trunk. Very generic. It was just the trunk. No graphic Pictures involved.
Starting point is 00:29:46 She immediately dropped her head and started to cry. We informed her that she knew, and we knew that Jack was dead. And special agent Mola, at that point, told her, Nancy, your house of cards is tumbling in at this point. The charade is over. Then she told us that I want to tell you everything. I will tell you everything. Nancy claims that she met Jack in 1994
Starting point is 00:30:18 at a Children of Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. She said Jack was a father figure to me, and I helped to take care of Jack. She said that he had been diagnosed with dementia, which according to the medical records that we had obtained, there was no evidence of dementia. Even though detectives know Nancy is lying, they allow her to keep digging herself deeper.
Starting point is 00:30:44 I was thinking maybe get her bound up with another story, the more, you know, lying stories she told the better off we'd be. As Nancy continues, she admits that she briefly cared for Jack in her own home in 1996, but taking care of a dementia patient proved more difficult than she expected. She did try to calling him off on a number of different places. I think there was two nursing homes, and she tried at a hospital a couple of times
Starting point is 00:31:10 and maybe he didn't commit it. Through tears, Nancy says that something devastating happened in May, 1996. She had actually come back to the residence and found Jack with a cord around his neck. She said he hung himself with an extension cord off of a ceiling pan. Well, you know, that's not going to happen. I mean, you know, you're going to pull the ceiling pan down.
Starting point is 00:31:37 You're not going to be able to hang yourself. But when detectives ask for more specifics, Nancy clams up. She never, ever gave us the full detailed explanation of how she disposed of the body. She kept saying the phrase, I'll tell you everything. But in fact, she didn't tell us a whole lot, if anything. She was trying to manipulate and control the interview and, you know, all the information that we were trying to obtain.
Starting point is 00:32:10 She was trying to manipulate death. Finally, after hours of interrogation, Nancy asks to step out to clear her head. She said, I just need 10 to 15 minutes to clear my head, think about some things, and I'll come back. That was about 5.50 pm. I waited to 7 pm that night, and she never returned. Although Nancy's interview ended with few answers,
Starting point is 00:32:38 detectives are hopeful they'll learn more by canvassing the neighborhood where Jack resided before moving in with Nancy. We were going to go hit as many people as we could. Again, we were still concerned somebody else had knowledge other than the Nancy of Jack's death. We learned before his death, Jack had folks that he ate breakfast with, they called the breakfast club. He would go out to different social events. Loud and detectives talk to Jack's friend from the breakfast club Ralph Hodge. Ralph says that in 1994, Jack
Starting point is 00:33:11 brought a new girlfriend by an attractive blonde woman that matched Nancy's description. Jack referred to her as man. Jack met this Nancy and was just head over heels for her. Ralph says that alarm bells started to go off when Jack described his new lady's expensive taste. She had Jack purchase her a BMW for $44,000. He was concerned about the relationship and one of Jack's stepdaughters told Jack that she was only after his money.
Starting point is 00:33:49 He confirmed that Jack was naive, and Jack had his guard down. Jack didn't want to hear that. He wanted to follow his dream of marrying and having her take care of him. I think he was just, you know, he was trusting to a fall. Detectives track down Jack's stepdaughters to get more information about his relationship with Nancy. The stepdaughters said he had become very distanced
Starting point is 00:34:16 from them during the courtship. So his stepchildren, when they didn't hear from him, they made efforts to call Jack. Jack was never available. He was not able to talk to them. He was away. He was this. He was at, it was always an excuse
Starting point is 00:34:32 that they couldn't actually talk to Jack. His step-dotters say that Jack finally reached out at the beginning of 1996. He had told that he was moving away. She was going to marry him and take care of him. According to his step-daughters, it was the last time they ever saw Jack. The family assumed that he had moved away
Starting point is 00:34:54 and did not want to contact them. They just assumed that Jack had met his fairytale bride, and he was living a life full of joy and peace. Until we knocked on the door and let him know exactly what happened. This should have had no idea. When investigators speak with Nancy's daughters, it's clear their mother's troubles were no secret. The whole family was aware of her gambling problem.
Starting point is 00:35:23 In addition to all the other persons, Nancy defrauded, she also utilized both her own daughters' identities and ruined their credit by opening accounts in their names and charging and not paying the bills. How bad do you have it when you're defrauding your own children? I just don't understand that process. The girls say they don't know much about Jack Watkins, other than their mother's brief relationship with him.
Starting point is 00:35:54 During the course of the interview, one of the daughters shown a picture of the trunk. Her response was, hey, that's my trunk. When asked how she could identify the trunk as hers, she said, the nail polish. I used to paint my nails on top of the trunk, and that's nail polish on top of the trunk. For investigators, her daughter's statement
Starting point is 00:36:24 is the nail in the coffin for Nancy. It just cemented our initial hints that she was totally involved in the ultimate death of Jack. He was kind of a point of no return for her. She was arrested that night. Coming up, detectives discover the depth of Nancy's addiction. She was stuck between a rock and a heart place. coming up, detectives discover the depths of Nancy's addiction.
Starting point is 00:36:46 She was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Another shame, really, but another victim, if you will. On August 15, 2003, professional conwoman 55-year-old Nancy Siegel is arrested for Jack Watkins murder and 19 other counts of fraud. She kind of went off the deep end a little bit. She had contacted her husband, and he kind of knew what was going on.
Starting point is 00:37:19 And her husband actually went out and got an attorney for her. And from there, he was done with her. It was what we were told. With cracks appearing in the Seagull marriage, detectives sit down with Eric Seagull for an interview. That's when Eric reveals that Nancy's crimes go much deeper than they expected. While married to Eric Seagagull or third husband,
Starting point is 00:37:46 she actually incurred over $300,000 debt between them in their names. And when confronted, Eric instead of contacting the police actually paid the debt off. It was an amazing amount of money and another shame, really, but another victim, if you will. Eric also gives police a clue to Nancy's potential motive in Jack's murder.
Starting point is 00:38:12 Eric tells police that he was dating Nancy in 1996, the same year that she was supposedly engaged to Jack. She had a relationship going with Eric. She took everything from Jack. She had a relationship going with Eric. She took everything from Jack. His home, all his credit, his money, he had nothing. She had found another subject, another host, and she needed to make that leap. She could not let Jack report to anybody what had happened.
Starting point is 00:38:41 She was facing significant jail time, and she saw Jack as a tremendous obstacle from getting married to Herrick. She had to do something with him, so based on the findings of the autopsy, I think the premise was that Nancy had been sedating Jack for quite some time with the Duff and Hydermine. That she had kept him sedated both to keep him in the house
Starting point is 00:39:10 and from reporting what was happening. She seemed to be starting to just starve it because he continued to drop weight in that. And the coroner basically said he weighed about 111 pounds when they found him. Basically, he said he weighed about 111 pounds when they found him. When Jack wouldn't die from starvation, investigators believe that Nancy strangled him
Starting point is 00:39:35 and dumped his body. The gambling, it caused her a character to obviously deteriorate to the point where she felt desperate enough that she had to murder someone. In May 2007, Nancy's trial begins. Prosecutors argue that Nancy convinced Jack to finance her gambling addiction so he took out a second mortgage and eventually sold his home for her.
Starting point is 00:40:08 Jack, Toley was in a daydream kind of status and just fell in love with the idea of thinking he was going to marry Nancy. And I'm sure that a good portion of that logic came from Nancy's ability to manipulate him. She took total control from him of his life, of all his finances first. And while she was doing that, was able to cut off
Starting point is 00:40:36 and sever all his ties that he had with his family members by controlling the calls that come into the house, the calls that go out, and eventually relocating Jack to a place no one knew where he went, which was her condominium or apartment in a like a city. After Jack was dead, prosecutors say that Nancy continued to cash in on Jack's social security and retirement pension. Jack was never reported to be deceased, so she just continued to take those checks that
Starting point is 00:41:11 were coming through the mail, forge his signature, and then get the money for all those years. It wasn't a lot, but it was money that Nancy could gamble with. That's how bad she had the addiction. Not denying their clients financial crimes, the defense argues that Nancy is not a cold-hearted killer. What the defense was trying to do was show that, although Nancy might have been a white collar criminal, that she had defrauded many people throughout her life.
Starting point is 00:41:45 They wanted to show that she was not a killer. I mean, I know I hadn't seen her in years, but I couldn't believe I could possibly be true. She said he hung himself with an extension cord off a ceiling band. Of course, that also wouldn't give you drugs in your system. So there's a number of things that didn't match up. On March 16, 2009, the jury announces its verdict,
Starting point is 00:42:12 finding Nancy guilty of second-degree murder, and several other fraud charges relating to her financially motivated scheme. On April 23, 2009, 60-year-old Nancy Siegel receives her sentence. The little over 33 years at Nancy ultimately received, in my mind, is a death sentence. It was just a great ending to a trial. We want to jack, and jack's family to have justice, period.
Starting point is 00:42:42 Our investigative group, we're all just ecstatic. It's ecstatic for Jack. We were able to finally bring justice for Jack and maybe send a message that you don't always get away with this type of behavior. On August 14, 2009, 13 years after his body was found folded into a steamer trunk, World War II veteran Jack Watkins is finally laid to rest.
Starting point is 00:43:13 We were able to give him a burial at the International Cemetery, with military honor guard, 12 guns, salute, folded flag. It was definitely an emotional moment, and it was a proud moment for all of us. You should definitely be remembered for your service to our country. Jack, by all accounts, was a nice, gentle, kind soul, and that's how Jack should be remembered. Nancy is housed at FCI Hazleton, a federal prison in West Virginia with no possibility of parole.
Starting point is 00:43:50 She is scheduled to be released on January 7th, 2032. She will be 83 years old. you

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