Episode 552: Marie Robards｜Morbid

Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.

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Hey weirdos, I'm Ash.

And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid.

this is morbid i almost did the thing where i say and i'm elena 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 too i believe i believe you know like 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 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 spelled It'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 Alayna.

I'm one of the ones that are named Alayna.

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 Alayna. 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.

and that's that's the that on that I've even had people ask me if my name is like Ashlai because of the way that it's spelled and I'm like that's stupid that says Lee or Ashlai I like that imagine if we had to start this podcast and I would have to say hey weirdos I'm Ashlai no one would continue listening they'd be like I don't think so 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 gonna be a grandma and i'm gonna be grandma ash your grandma's name

should not be ash i there's going to be a whole chunk no okay of people who are gonna be wild child's like like I have no problem with this name but grandma brittany no yeah right no funny that's not a grandma name it's a very normal name like course but when you think of a grandma name it's like you think of like those very classic you know very grandma sally of a certain time names because that's all we've all over had yeah but we are entering a phase where we're some grandma and some grandpas yeah like we're gonna have like grandpa cruise stop floating around in there if we're going with the same

family there and like wait grandpa cash because people are getting their kids cash which honestly is pretty flex but well that's the thing like these names are fine yeah i love them name your child whatever the hell you want grandpa cash i'm obsessed with that actually i think it's gonna be awesome it's gonna be a whole new world it's gonna be a fun generation of grandparents if we make it that far we will i'm not gonna continue i'm not gonna 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 yeah

we're gonna be fine but grandma ash grandma ash that's crazy grandma elena's not that crazy no it kind of sounds like you love it all day no i'm just kidding no i think it just works yeah i know it's i think it's just elena's 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 that's what i

was gonna say oh all right well it's my case today it's ash centric it's 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 i'm a texas world and today we're going crazy we're gonna be in texas and florida what a fucking trip wow what a fucking trip we're taking together you didn't prepare me i didn't i didn't but here we are uh so yeah i have i i don't want to say too much about it right off the bat because Because if I say too much, it'll just kind of give it away.

So I'm just going to start.

Just go in. 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.

Cute. And they were both super duper popular in high school.

Oh my gourd. Oh my gourd. 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.

Okay. 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, 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, Steven 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.

Yeah. And really just he overall seemed to be struggling emotionally.

Okay. Okay. So Beth 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.

Jeez. 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 burrows he was also a davey officer and she had actually met frank while she and stephen were stationed in florida oh when they met they were just friends there was like nothing weird about it yeah um 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 okay because marie was only four years old when stephen and beth ended up getting 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. And I just love that.

I didn't even know that was a thing.

Yeah. It took, I feel like it was like a little detail tale in one of my old cases and I think I was gonna say because it sounds a little familiar but yeah I think you're right yeah I think it was like another another case that I did but I think I think it like was a bad like not the organization but I think it ended up like not being great that these two people met there but 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 blossomed between them from there but most importantly

Stephen had also 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 route 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 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, 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 gonna save it 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 Okay.

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 want to do that.

It's your daughter.

Of course. 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 Oh, 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.

So she's fucking outrage and immediately goes to tell Beth, her mom.

But Marie was surprised when she didn't really get the reaction she'd been expecting.

interacting 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 Hollensworth who he writes about a lot of Texas cases and I love his writing but Beth told Skip Hollensworth 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 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. Like, 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.

Yeah. To defy his rules.

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.

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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 no, he'll change.

Marie looked at me and she said, I have to leave. Oof.

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 going to stand around and watch you get treated like this, so I got to go.

And, like, I don't really like him.

Damn. So not wanting to make the situation any worse, Beth didn't really challenge Marie's decision to move out.

Okay. 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.

Yeah. 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.

Yeah. She's like, I want to come home.

Of course. Now, as a strict disciplinarian and the usual target of Marie's teenage attitude, 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 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 of household and like two families so i'll i'll withhold any 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 i've never 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 yeah, I will rely on you for this one.

Well, 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.

I don't know. I think that if, 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.

Messy. On anyone. Yeah.

So it's like everybody's just trying to navigate it, 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, you know, 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 that was gonna 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 the kids don't get two chances but you get two chances i don't know about that after what could be uh construed as a much 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 gonna treat consistent he was consistent and he said oh he's consistent oh good and he said i'm not gonna have marie be treated differently like when i did this to my own son you know whether it's whether it's good or not exactly consistent 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 a therapist should have been involved yeah that sounds all 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 gonna do with your kid yeah because i did it with mine it's like i feel like you guys like and obviously like i don't know i don't know it says it's rubbing me the wrong way but But I'm

not going to, you know.

No, I agree. The other thing is, 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, in 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 because like I don't know everything what the fuck I'm just doing the best I can nobody does 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 I'm gonna go do this now yeah like let me fix it but I'm not gonna allow you to ever have that luxury injury, that's not fair.

Why is that fair? Like, to me, personally, 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, you know, small little things like, you know, 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 brush 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 or something like do you want toast like what do you want like we just made something small right i was like you're hungry that's what you would do for yourself sometimes i'm hungry before bed you know 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.

Yeah. And you are allowed to change your mind.

Obviously, you want to teach them to make wise decisions and to think through decisions.

Right. To think of all the consequences of those decisions.

Hopefully, 90 percent of the time, those are good, solid decisions that they are going to stay with because sometimes you don't get to change your mind.

true and i think that is what like maybe he was trying to i'm sure that's maybe the mindset he was coming from it's like it was so all or nothing that's the thing and it's like life isn't 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 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 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 divorce is very - It's more common than not really.

More marriage, more common than staying married.

I mean, 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 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.

one yeah it kind of feels like it's just a lot of yuck negative energy that doesn't need to be spent yes this hard you know what i mean like you 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 it's kind of eking 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 stephen 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 oh 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 Stephen's in the meantime and we can all figure this out yeah 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 that's 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 go along with it.

it's it's us looking at it in hindsight with our 2020 glasses yeah it's true but to marie this felt like the ultimate betrayal yeah one of course she she wasn't allowed to move back into her home like 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 that i think that is the big thing here is also you put Like you said, put together that she walked in on him cheating on her mom.

Disrespecting her mom.

So then for this guy to be making proclamations about your family after he has betrayed your family?

Yup. That's rough. That is rough.

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.

I was a nightmare. I was a nightmare of just emotions and just like yeah being a shit and like your hormonal life you know 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 oh that like really I hate that there's going to be a bad thing happening here because I'm like this sounds nice.

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. Yeah.

He's a single man who's been living 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.

And a very angry teenage girl.

A very angry teenage teenage girl.

This transition didn't happen because everybody decided it was going to happen together.

It came out of nowhere.

It came out of anger and 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 that is really sad.

It breaks your heart.

The first few months after the move, obviously, were difficult for both Marie and Steven, but eventually Marie did appear to adjust to the new living situation.

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.

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.

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 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 desperation 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 yeah 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 seem 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 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 paramedics, she could hear Stephen struggling in the other room.

And when she looked in on him, she saw that now he was foaming at the mouth and his eyes had become fixed and glassy and he was staring off at nothing oh my god it was a incredibly bleak violent situation like he was violently ill holy shit by the time the paramedics arrived steven had slipped into a coma and wasn't breathing they tried to get an oxygen oxygen tube down his throat to keep him alive but his throat throat had completely closed at that point gosh 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 They rushed Stephen 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.

Oh, that's so sad. It is.

It really is. Oh, that 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.

And to die that violently.

And to honestly have gone through everything that he got 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.

Battled 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 what a horrible end.

It all just exploded loaded essentially oh but the medical examiner dr mark krauss 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 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 when 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 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 huh 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 showed 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 want to junk punch this man who go out of 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 why are you 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 missed 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 in 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.

That's what's happening.

Damn. So back in Texas Marie enrolled in Mansfield High I was gonna say high school high 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.

OK. Like, sometimes she would say he died.

Other times she would say, like, he lived somewhere else.

She would – it was always a different story.

Yeah. 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 with and that relationship in her life would become very consequential okay 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 psychologist. 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.

Stacy 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 in like a friendship way yeah uh 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 were just doing like typical teenager yeah and throughout that time stacy 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 wow so she's like completely closed up yeah 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's soliloquy from act three scene three 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 stacy expected a positive a positive reaction from marie she was like i just slayed that passage yeah but in turn marie seemed very 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.

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 Stacy and asked her, Stacy, do you think people can go through life without a conscience?

And as if to confirm, Stacy 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 Stacy's like, what's wrong?

Like, I don't understand what's going on here.

And all Marie could say in response was, guess.

So without hesitation, Stacy just ran through a list of teenage fears.

she was like are you pregnant did you wreck the family car yeah 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 yes a little bit of course hearing her it's like and the fact it's just so haunting to me that that scene in hamlet was like what finally broke my whole body is just chilled same 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 you're hitting home like that like Like, I didn't relate to Hamilton in any way back then.

I still don't, actually.

And the whole thing with, like, her mom being like, I'm going to 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. I'm not saying that.

What a fucking mess.

What a mess. What an absolute mess.

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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, why did you choose him?

him you i mean you shouldn't poison anyone but why did you poison that man we find out but but it's so 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 it's a very but the 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 and 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 there is there is debate over Over whether or not she intended to kill him.

But 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't go to jail for the rest of my life and because they're seniors in high school Stacy was like okay I'll keep quiet had they been adults in the same situation I'm sure Stacy probably would have gone to the police with this information more or less immediately but they're children teenagers damn and they you know teenagers live by their own set of rules that's different from adults so Stacy would later tell Skip Skip Hollinsworth when you're in high school it's like like, so important not to betray your friends.

Yeah. 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 damn the stress had her doing poorly in school she started 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 no being 17 16 17 years old and having a whole like so your friend breaks down and tells you they poison their father like what the fuck do you do like i did 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 okay 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 Now, thinking that she was pretty much headed toward a nervous breakdown, she took it upon herself to start going to an after -school 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.

Damn. 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 feel bad that she had to go through all that.

You're about to feel even worse.

Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly, the guidance counselor actually wasn't the first person that Stacey told about this.

Oh. 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.

She's like I'm really struggling with this secret mom.

I don't know what to do.

That's when you go honey you gotta figure that out.

That's on you. I'm gonna give you some advice.

I'm gonna listen to you.

We can talk this through but you're gonna 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 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 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 Colin trying 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 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 gonna have to have a like set way of dealing with it right and also i'm gonna be on it 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 yeah a hundred percent i'm 38 like let's come on like what i'm

just like i can't get i mean whoa yeah whoa so uh well stacy's mom didn't necessarily help the situation in any way shape or form going on at that time stacy's mom did not have it going on at this point in time that's the that's that's the main takeaway the only levity you can find out of that whole situation damn damn yeah I have a feeling Stacey definitely 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 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 because 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 so your parents are poor 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 finally should have happened and far 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 they probably killed skepticism shouldn't be your first thought it's like investigate it like i understand being skeptical but investigate it but the and they do they do they're 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 test what you don't just have one of those i

also really wanted to say it more like I want to just have one of those lying around.

Why don't you 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.

With the ME coming through.

Like, these were going to be destroyed in a matter of days.

Damn. Tell me that's not some kind of fucking divine intervention.

That's something. That's something.

I think that's like Steven from wherever he was being like, please figure this out.

Please. 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 Stevens' 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 Stacy went to Sam Houston State University about three hours away, so they didn't talk really ever again.

Okay. 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 Robards' 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 Stacey.

Oh, man. so they got one and on october 18 1994 detectives arrested marie on the ut austin campus on suspicion of murder uh 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 wow she told detectives and this is 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, why wasn't the barium acetate under better controls?

Why was it possible that So that she could just take that much barium acetate.

Yeah. What? Adults, do better.

Wow. 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 a jury, I knew I had done something very, very wrong, but I did not think of myself as a criminal.

Wow. She claims it's sick.

She claimed 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 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 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.

A very 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 that she and it's like that's sad it is like there's 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 that's the thing there's so many layers and honestly i don't know where i sit at the end of the day yeah like i mean this is fucked up regardless yeah i know i know i sit in the seat of holy 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.

I don't know. I mean, so far, I'm where you are.

Right? 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.

She's intelligent. And you said yourself, self 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 every body is different right and that every body 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 his body you gave him you gave him a lot and it's like if you were thinking you were gonna make

him sick you would it would have been this tiny little dip that's what i would think you would start with no matter what this is monstrous because you you claim you wanted to make him sick but you overdid it 28 times and either way that's monster behavior 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 Magnusson, 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.

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 unbombed 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 back that tape.

Excuse me, what? She got a job in a restaurant?

At the TGI Fridays.

When she's out on bond?

For poisoning food.

For 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.

I'm without. Wow. I don't know.

She ended up on 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 okay didn't see that one coming on the days when she wasn't working inside of a restaurant where she had access to food uh beth brought marie to work with her at the granbury city hall quote so she could keep watch on her i think she was worried that she might have done something to herself you know uh whatever her intention marie's presence was a big disruption to the office workplace and city manager bob brockman had to limit uh 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 do that she's just going to hang out today i'd be like no i'm gonna 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 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 uh 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 the wire and be published in newspapers all all across the country wow like what a what a fucking choice i was just gonna say choices in 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 heard a a lot of people that's what's even sadder is like my father

did not 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 that like really breaks my like thinking of that like really that's the part that really gets me and that's the scary part of like okay rash teenage decision uh 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 want to concentrate on you.

I'm here for you. And it's like, that, and I'm sorry, like, rash, it's like poisoning someone is not a rash teenage decision.

No. You know, like her, her logic behind this thing, 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 why don't you know better right like you that should never be there's part of your choices is or I could kill him like that's gotta be never be up for thought no there's gotta be something something's off something off yeah there's something off there because I've I've been upset I've been sad I've 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.

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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 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's to be confused here.

Right. Marie's awareness of the dangers of barium acetate became the linchpin to Poe's 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.

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 yeah 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 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 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, Murray 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'd become 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 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.

male. But because the bond between parents and children is so strong in Western culture, obviously these killings are incredibly taboo.

Yeah. 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 to her.

That's why this one's so shocking.

And in the case of Marie Robard, Skip Hollingsworth 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 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 completely alter the course of and i think multiple people's lives then it goes back into like you know her 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 like he betrayed that family yeah and Marie was angry super angry and like you know obviously not respecting him and to see her mother putting him on such a higher pedestal than her relationship with her yeah it's 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 right for doing that because it's like you make a decision to do that and 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 made?

and like you you say like yes or no 15 when this happened she was either 15 or 16 yeah so is 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 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.

That decision should be a fully formed one.

I definitely think so, too.

By that point, at 15 or 16, that shouldn't be one of those gray areas where it's like...

But isn't it weird how that can be part of it, you know?

Yeah. And 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...

It is. 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, like, 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.

There's not, 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.

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 Like, there was so many factors outside of this man.

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 it makes absolutely no sense that he was the one that got.

I mean, 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.

back this world this man who did nothing to her yeah 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 nothing like this ever happens again but that's a really fucked up case it is that's really fucked up i don't even know what my closing thoughts are that's the thing i don't even really know what my closing thoughts are and i've like because i've been going over this for the past few weeks that you can't take back yeah you've taken someone out of the world permanently it's because of a rash decision that came together through

many many other shit decisions around 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 that 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 yeah this is just wild and awful bad vibes and sad and tragic and shocking very shocking wow but yeah that is the case of uh marie robards and damn the very tragic death of steven 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, figure that out on your own, hun.

Like, come on, help out.

Don't keep it that way.

Do a little work. Do a little something, yeah.

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[십 대의 절망과 비극적 살인: 도로시 마리 로바즈 사건]-[Episode 552: Marie Robards]

📋 Summary

십 대의 비극적 선택: 도로시 마리 로바즈의 아버지 살해 사건

사건의 배경: 이혼과 갈등의 굴레

끔찍한 범행과 은폐

진실의 폭로와 법적 처벌

결론: 비극이 남긴 질문

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript