A Deadly Cocktail - Part 1 (David Castor)

Summary

Anatomy of Murder: “A Deadly Cocktail - Part 1 (David Castor)”

Released: July 29, 2025 | Hosts: Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi & Scott Weinberger

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Introduction to the Case

In the gripping premiere of “A Deadly Cocktail,” hosts Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger delve into the mysterious death of David Castor, a seemingly ordinary man from Onondaga County, New York. The episode unravels the layers of a case that initially appeared to be a straightforward suicide but soon revealed a web of deceit and potential multiple homicides.

David Castor's Death: Initial Investigation

On August 22, 2005, Stacy Castor, David’s wife, made an emergency call reporting that her husband had locked himself in their bedroom after an argument and had been unresponsive for a day. Upon arrival, first responders found David deceased, with a suspected cause of death being a self-administered dose of ethylene glycol (antifreeze).

Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi [02:39]: “This was so diabolical, so evil, really, it's hard to put into words.”
Scott Weinberger [02:58]: “And this is Anatomy of Murder.”

The scene was cluttered with bottles of liquor and a glass containing a green liquid later identified as antifreeze. Despite these findings, the medical examiner ruled the death a suicide, influenced by Stacy’s testimony about David’s depression and financial struggles.

Evidence Suggesting Homicide

However, skepticism arose when investigators noted inconsistencies at the crime scene. Notably, a turkey baster was found in the trash, contaminated with David’s DNA and antifreeze, suggesting foul play.

Anasiga Nicolasi [19:53]: “She looked in the trash... finding an almost brand new turkey baster... suggesting there was an effort made to consume, seal it.”
Scott Weinberger [20:34]: “A turkey baster in a trash can is an odd observation.”

Further examination of photographs revealed that while vomitus was present on the carpet, it was absent on the antifreeze jar, indicating possible scene staging.

Anasiga Nicolazi [21:21]: “...the pooling of the vomitus and the trail of the vomitus dripping off the bedspread was the jar of antifreeze. And yet there was no vomitus on the antifreeze jar, indicating that the scene may have been staged.”

These anomalies led DA Bill Fitzpatrick and his team to reassess the initial ruling, suspecting that David Castor might have been poisoned rather than having taken his own life.

Stacy Castor as a Prime Suspect

As the investigation deepened, attention turned to Stacy Castor, David’s wife. Fingerprints on the antifreeze glass matched Stacy's, and the presence of the turkey baster raised suspicions about her involvement.

Scott Weinberger [26:19]: “...the picture of how the poison may have been administered was coming into focus.”
Bill Fitzpatrick [26:52]: “...we don't know where it's going to lead until later. But that's the job of evidence collection.”

Stacy’s actions during the weekend prior to David’s death were scrutinized. Witnesses reported seeing David in a catatonic state, mistaking his symptoms of poisoning for excessive drunkenness, leading Stacy to stage the scene as a suicide.

Linking Mike Wallace's Death

The plot thickened when investigators reconsidered the death of Stacy’s first husband, Mike Wallace, who died at age 38 from a heart attack. Suspicion arose due to the similarity in the manner of death. Upon exhumation and a thorough forensic examination, it was revealed that Mike had also been poisoned with ethylene glycol.

Anasiga Nicolazi [31:03]: “...cause of death ethylene glycol poisoning.”
Scott Weinberger [32:17]: “Two husbands killed by poison, three children left without fathers, and one wife who may or may not be a serial killer.”

This revelation suggested a pattern, pointing directly to Stacy Castor as a potential serial killer who targeted her spouses.

Shocking Revelations and Conclusion

The investigation took a dramatic turn when wiretaps on Stacy’s phone captured a distressing confession. While monitoring her calls, investigators intercepted a 911 call where Stacy reported her daughter Ashley attempting suicide, accompanied by a typed note confessing that Ashley was the actual murderer of both Mike and David Castor.

Anasiga Nicolazi [40:33]: “...the typed suicide note she claims she found in her daughter's room.”
Bill Fitzpatrick [41:11]: “Ashley’s still drooling on herself.”

This twist raised profound questions about the true culprit behind the poisonings, suggesting that Stacy may have been covering for her daughter rather than being the perpetrator herself.

Anasiga Nicolazi [41:11]: “Ashley Flowers is executive producer... Whoever wrote that note killed Mike Wallace and David Castro. It couldn't be anybody else.”

The episode concludes with the anticipation of part two, promising to reveal the ultimate truth behind the Castor family’s tragic deaths.

Scott Weinberger [41:25]: “...could investigators have got it wrong had the elaborate staging of David's suicide been Stacy Castor's attempt to cover up for her teenage daughter all along?”
Bill Fitzpatrick [42:05]: “This was so diabolical, so evil, it's hard to put into words.”

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Key Takeaways

• Initial Appearance vs. Reality: David Castor’s death was first ruled a suicide due to antifreeze poisoning, but evidence suggested possible homicide.
• Evidentiary Anomalies: The presence of a turkey baster and lack of vomitus on the antifreeze jar indicated potential scene manipulation.
• Double Tragedy: Stacy Castor’s first husband, Mike Wallace, was later found to have also been poisoned with the same substance, raising suspicions of a serial pattern.
• Unexpected Twist: A desperate 911 call from Stacy implicated her daughter Ashley as the true murderer, adding complexity to the investigation.

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Conclusion

“A Deadly Cocktail - Part 1 (David Castor)” masterfully dissects the complexities of a murder case that obscured itself as a suicide. Through meticulous investigation and uncovering hidden evidence, hosts Nicolazzi and Weinberger reveal the multifaceted nature of evil and deception within a seemingly ordinary family. The episode sets the stage for a compelling continuation, inviting listeners to ponder the true nature of guilt and innocence in the shadow of tragedy.

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Stay tuned for Part 2 of “A Deadly Cocktail” as Anna-Sigga Nicolazzi and Scott Weinberger uncover the final pieces of this harrowing puzzle.

Transcript

[Delia d'Ambra]

Hi, everyone. I'm Delia d', Ambra, an investigative journalist, avid park enthusiast, and host of Park Predators, a weekly podcast that explores the dark underbelly of beautiful landscapes we all know and love. Each week I guide you through national parks and forests across the globe and share stories that highlight how the most beautiful landscapes can be equally as dark and sinister. So whether you're a park enthusiast or are always diving into true crime stories, Park Predators is your next listen. Listen to Park Predators every Tuesday, anywhere you get your podcasts.

[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anasiga Nicolasi]

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[Bill Fitzpatrick]

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[Anasiga Nicolasi]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anasiga Nicolasi]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Anasiga Nicolasi]

You've heard the expression that there are monsters amongst us and there just are. And we get so carried away sometimes with the why. And I think we lose sight of the fact that there really is evil in the world. This was so diabolical, so evil, really, it's hard to put into words.

[Scott Weinberger]

I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

I'm Anasiga Nicolasi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

[Scott Weinberger]

And this is is Anatomy of Murder.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

What does it take for someone to commit murder? A motive? Sometimes some level of cunning or deceitfulness, Maybe.

[Scott Weinberger]

But whatever traits are required to commit that ultimate act of cruelty, it takes a special kind of evil to perpetrate violence against a family member. And a disturbing lack of remorse to try to get away with it again and again.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Back In September of 2005, a prosecutor in Syracuse, New York, was challenged to answer these very questions when he took on a case that began with an investigation into a local man's mysterious death and ended with a face off against a possible serial killer.

[Scott Weinberger]

Bill Fitzpatrick has been the elected district attorney in onondaga county since 1992. And like many public servants we've met on the show, even from a young age, Bill seemed destined for the job.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

It's actually a lifetime dream. My dad was a New York City cop, and I've always wanted to be a prosecutor. I wish I could say I wanted to be a baseball player or an astronaut or something, but actually, since about the age of 11, I wanted to be a DA and it's a dream come true for me.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

I'm happy to say that I've known Bill professionally at this point for decades. And I can vouch for both his dedication to law enforcement and his many talents as prosecutor, which in part is undoubtedly rooted to his earlier years growing up amongst his father's colleagues in the nypd.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

I used to hang around my dad's station house when my mom was a stay at home housewife. But sometimes, you know, she'd get sick or need a break or something. And so my dad would, you know, stick me and my brother in the back of the 88th Precinct in Brooklyn, and we just sit around and watch stuff that we probably shouldn't have seen and listen to stuff we definitely should not have listened to.

[Scott Weinberger]

These experiences not only exposed him to the unique culture and brotherhood among law enforcement, which is a world I know too well, but those experiences likely instilled an appreciation for what it takes to dedicate your life to the pursuit of justice.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Everybody there was uncle this, uncle that, all my father's partners. It was great. You grew up with 20 uncles. All of them are working in one room. The detective squad. And obviously, experience that had a lot of effect on me.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

When most people think about New York, they picture the city, Manhattan, the place of police procedurals and rom coms.

[Scott Weinberger]

But in reality, the state of New York is huge. And Onondaga county, which sits in the middle of upstate New York, is a mix of farmland, suburbs and industry with a great Diversity of people and natural beauty.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

I came here to go to school and never left. I came from Brooklyn and fell in love with the place. It's a great place to raise a family.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Bill has tried countless cases during the course of his career, but even now, as the elected da, he has never lost touch with the daily grind of investigative and trial work. And I can tell you that it is definitely not common for the elected DA of any larger jurisdiction to continue to try cases themselves. Which to me, as a career prosecutor, says a lot about Bill in the best of ways.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

I love forensics and I love to teach forensics and I abhor, you know, phony experts and junk scientists. And I want to make sure that the best product gets in front of the jury. And the best way to do that, to keep up on it, is to maintain your trial skills and your preparation skills. Honestly, I do it for selfish reasons, but I also do it for practical reasons because I want to experience what my trial lawyers are going through. It's easier for me if they come in and complain to me about a judge's idiosyncrasies, that I can say, yeah, I just tried a case in front of him or her. I know exactly what you're talking about.

[Scott Weinberger]

And all of that experience, from days as a kid in the squadroom to working alongside detectives as an ada, it would serve him well when he was confronted with what would prove to be one of the most memorable cases of his long career.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

On August 22, 2005, a woman named Stacy Castor made a frantic call to police. She said that her husband had locked himself in their bedroom following an argument and she had not seen or heard from him for the past day. Still in the bedroom and now unresponsive, she feared that without immediate medical assistance, he might be in serious danger.

[Scott Weinberger]

When the responding officers arrived on scene, she was distraught, insinuating that her husband had been showing signs of depression and she was afraid that he was at risk of harming himself.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

The initial responding officer, you know, he just, he was unable to get the door open, but he looked in. He eventually went outside, used a stepladder, looked in the window, saw something suspicious, namely a body on the bed, and then just kicked the door open.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

The body was that of Stacy's husband, 48 year old David Castor. The officer approached ready to administer aid, but David was not breathing and his body was cold to the touch.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

He was unclothed, he had a little bit of a bed sheet wrapped around him. There was vomitus on various parts of the bed.

[Scott Weinberger]

Sadly, there was nothing first responders could do. David was declared dead at the scene.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

On the nightstand stood the first potential clues to the cause of David's death. Remnants of what appeared to be a drinking binge. But officers also noted the presence of another liquid that the officer couldn't immediately identify.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

There were several bottles of liquor, and there was a crystal clear glass that had a green liquid in it that later turned out to be ethylene glycol antifreeze.

[Scott Weinberger]

A large open bottle of antifreeze was also found under the bed. The potent chemical is fatal to humans, even in very small doses. And if David had ingested as little as as 2 to 3 ounces, it may have been what killed him.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

We have a system here. I'm sure it's similar to a lot of other offices where unexplained death. We will send an assistant DA out to assist with legal questions, search warrants, witness interviews, whether or not to Mirandize somebody, you know, a thousand things that come up at a potential crime scene.

[Scott Weinberger]

So based on the fact pattern here, the person who dialed 911, which brought law enforcement to the home, indicated that she believed that her husband being locked in the bedroom and two days of binge drinking is what likely led to his death. Now, from an investigator's perspective, seems reasonable, but the inspection of the crime scene is handled still in a very methodical way, no matter what your initial thoughts on a seagull would be from the beginning. Fingerprints on a bottle, spillage patterns or latent trace of evidence nearby. And then obviously, the photographing and video capture of the body's position. That's all very important, but only, as, you know, after the coroner's autopsy and toxicology can an official cause of death be ruled.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

So as they're trying to put those initial pieces together, the ada, as Bill talked about, was being sent out to work along law enforcement initially. And they interviewed Stacy, who explained how the weekend had started on a high note with plans for romantic anniversary dinner.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

And she said that Friday that she and her husband were planning a big celebratory dinner and it was going to be a special weekend, just the two of them, her two daughters, Ashley and Brie from a previous marriage. They were at babysitters, and it was just going to be her and David. Things kind of went south. They got into an argument. According to her, they got into an argument. It continued on Saturday. She wound up spending the weekend at a friend's house.

[Scott Weinberger]

And according to Stacy, David was drinking heavily. And rather than confront him at home, she decided to give him space and let him sleep it off.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

She made minimal efforts to contact him on Saturday evening, didn't have any contact with him on Sunday. And then when she got home Monday to prepare herself to get to work, their bedroom door was locked. And that's why she was calling 911.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

She further explained that David had been expressing signs of true depression over his failing business and the recent death of his father. And the presence of the antifreeze by his bedside seemed to confirm her worst fear that he had taken his own life.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

I did not respond to the scene. The assistant DA that did respond came back and said, based on the interview with a surviving spouse, it appears to be a suicide.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, that conclusion was supported by the medical examiner who reported that David's death was caused by a self administered lethal dose of antifreeze.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Medical examiners opine about cause of death and manner of death, and you've only got five choices. Manner of death, you know, homicide, suicide, accident, natural or undetermined. He put it as suicide, believing the report of Stacy Castor that David had been depressed, that his business was going under, and et cetera, et cetera.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Ethylene glycol, the active ingredient in antifreeze, has a devastating effect on the human body, and it is a drawn out way to die.

[Scott Weinberger]

Which is precisely why some investigators remained skeptical about the Emmys ruling.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Probably within 48 hours, I got a call from some sheriff's detectives who were working on the case and felt very strongly that it was not a suicide. And the things that jumped out at me immediately were the methodology that was alleged to have been used for their suicide. Antifreeze, ethylene glycol. It's a horrible way to die. You don't die instantly by any stretch of the imagination. You die, you know, almost cell by cell.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Even ingesting a small amount of the chemical causes loss of balance, blurred vision, and increasing incoherence.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

The signs of it almost mimic intoxication from what we would consider regular alcohol.

[Scott Weinberger]

So while David may have appeared to be drunk in the hours before his death, in reality his body was shutting down, losing functions of his kidneys, liver, and eventually his brain.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

As I said earlier, you know, a horrible way to die, not something that you would think of using as a methodology of suicide.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

But that's not the only thing that was making investigators suspicious that this was not a death by suicide.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Just statistically, in terms of suicide, most men use firearms and most women will use some type of narcotic or chemical agent. But in this case, we with David Castor. He had a shotgun under his bed and I'm having difficulty why he chooses to kill himself over essentially a 72 hour period as opposed to killing himself in a millisecond by, you know, putting a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. So I was pretty much all in that this had to be very, very intensely investigated as a potential homicide very early on in the case.

[Scott Weinberger]

And so just 48 hours after David's mysterious death, investigators were in search for more than just answers. They were looking for a killer.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

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[Bill Fitzpatrick]

David Castor started his weekend at an anniversary dinner with his wife Stacy. But by Monday morning David was dead, apparently the victim of a self administered dose of antifreeze.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Her story was that, you know, his business was failing, he was depressed, his father had died recently and they took that at face value.

[Scott Weinberger]

But Onondaga County DA Bill Fitzpatrick, he had his Doubts.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Everybody knows of David Castor. He's just a good guy. He was a very successful heat and air conditioning guy. He was blue collar all the way.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

David Castor was a business owner who ran an air conditioning installation and repair company in upstate New York. According to his friends, he was known to be responsible, self sufficient, and committed to his work, and he was also.

[Scott Weinberger]

Dedicated to his blended family. He had been married to his wife, Stacy, for two years, and he was a committed and loving father to both his son from a previous marriage and to Stacy's two young daughters from her first marriage, Ashley and Bri, whose father had died unexpectedly at 38 years old.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

David was a loyal husband and a loving stepfather. But in the aftermath of his death, Stacy admitted that things at home had not always been perfect.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

A little bit of a strained relationship with his two stepdaughters, but according to them, in time, it had grown a little better. I mean, he wasn't their biological dad, who they missed and loved very, very much.

[Scott Weinberger]

Of course, you never know when a person who seems perfectly happy might be suffering from. From mental health issues in private. But the more Bill and his investigators learned about him, the less David seemed like someone on the verge of taking his own life.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

He did lose his father that July, but the grieving process, according to all his friends, was perfectly normal. You know, he was very saddened by his father's death, but it wasn't unexpected. He had been sick for a while. You know, by all accounts, no enemies, no reason to have killed himself, and appeared to many friends and neighbors to, you know, have been in a good relationship with Stacy Castor.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

And by all accounts, his marriage to Stacy appeared to be fine. So it didn't seem like marital discord could have been the cause of his recent depression.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

They socialized. They had lots of friends. They would sometimes entertain it at their house. Wasn't anybody that said, oh, I knew, you know, I saw this coming. They fight all the time. It wasn't anything like that.

[Scott Weinberger]

So while the ME had ruled his death a suicide, investigators were still taking steps to collect as much information and evidence to either confirm that conclusion or completely overrule it.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Fortunately, we had a very smart road patrol deputy made some cursory examination at that point, looking for anything, a suicide note.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

In his search of the Castor's home, he didn't find a suicide note, but he did discover something that seemed just odd enough to be considered relevant.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

He looked in the trash, with her permission. He was looking for some type of note or anything, maybe that the guy had discarded and he winds up finding a almost brand new turkey baster. It was in the kitchen in an area readily accessible from anywhere in the house. It was just a little trash basket that just happened to be in the kitchen and it was buried under some other trash to suggest there was an effort made to consume, seal it.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know what I think if the words that's odd at a crime scene are ever spoken, you know, at that very moment, whatever it is, that's going to require a deeper dive. And so a turkey baster in a trash can is an odd observation.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

So when I was thinking about it, I went both ways, right? Because again, like it doesn't have to be Thanksgiving for you to baste a pot roast, a meatloaf, a chicken, or maybe you're making turkey. So again, I don't think using it or having it is necessarily that odd. However, putting when it didn't seem like it had broken, there was anything odd. Again, like we don't know where it's going, but just this item that seems to be pretty new and in good condition, it being there, if their head is tilting, they're going to recover it. And to your point, Scott, you don't know where it's going to lead until later. But that's the job of evidence collection, is to pick it up and see if it fits into place into a crime later on and collect it.

[Scott Weinberger]

They did. Anasega. And also, according to Bill, there were some interesting and telling clues in the photographs of the bedroom where David's body was located.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

As I looked at the photos several days later, one of the things that I noticed was that there was a trail of vomitus that came from the bed and pooled on the carpet of the bedroom. In between those two events and in between those two events, the pooling of the vomitus and the trail of the vomitus dripping off the bedspread was the jar of antifreeze. And yet there was no vomitus on the antifreeze jar, indicating that the scene may have been staged, that someone put that in there after the fact.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Which meant that perhaps David's ingestion of antifreeze was not intentional after all. And maybe he was not alone, as his wife Stacy had told police. When he finally suggested to the lethal.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Poison, there was a camp in the sheriff's department that believed her. They said no. I questioned her and you know, she came across, she was very candid, she answered all my questions and you know, I believe her. And I think the guy killed himself. And then there was the camp that, you know, said, no, this is not adding up. It doesn't make sense in a situation like that. Let's err on the side of caution. Let's treat it as a homicide until we are convinced otherwise.

[Scott Weinberger]

But if David was the victim of homicide, who was in the circle of possible suspects?

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Most people are murdered by someone they know. So we want to surround ourselves with investigating not only his spouse, but was he having an affair? Was he having a business dispute? Were there people arguing with him about work that he had done? Did anybody have a reason to hate the guy? Was he having an affair? A jealous husband found out about it. So you do what's essentially a psychological, financial, and personal autopsy of a person, not just cutting open the body and finding out how they died, but also finding out how they lived and would something in his life have contributed to his death. And it can be a very time consuming, painstaking process.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

But once again, it seemed that David was no more likely a target for murder than he was in the mindset of taking his own life. He wasn't in any financial trouble. He didn't seem to engage in any at risk behavior or relationships. He just didn't seem like the type of guy or seem to be in contact with anyone that would have made him attract any enemies.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

We looked at his business relationships. Nothing. Most customers raved about him, said he was very conscientious, no evidence of any type of extracurricular activity with another woman.

[Scott Weinberger]

And it seems like Bill's checking all the boxes here. Right. So without an immediate suspect, it was critical to create a timeline of his activities and the whereabouts in the hours leading up to his death, as well as a list of everyone he was in contact with.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

And it became more and more apparent that he was murdered sometime that weekend. The universe of suspect gets much smaller when you consider that they had to have had access to him for a period of time during that weekend.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

And let's just say the obvious, the person he was most in contact with during that period was. Was his wife, Stacy. So it became a priority to scrutinize the details of her alibi for that entire weekend.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, she had already told investigators that she and David had gotten into an argument on Friday night, which she claimed triggered his drinking binge, which continued all day on Saturday.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

And then we found out that Saturday night, Stacy went to the house with another couple that she was very friendly with. And all three of them saw David in a very catatonic state, that he was mumbling, he was stumbling, he actually ripped the towel rod off the wall, in. In the bathroom, because he was trying to steady himself to stand up. The three of them just left him in bed with a conclusion, the false conclusion that he was drunk, that he had been drinking, that he was still upset about the argument that he had and Stacy had had, and that his way to deal with that was to just drink excessively.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

But incoherence, lack of balance, they are also symptoms of antifreeze poisoning, which means that by Saturday night, David may have already been suffering the effects of the poison. And the only person who had access to him prior to this visit, by friends, at least from what they can tell at this moment, was Stacy Castor herself.

[Scott Weinberger]

That theory got legs when investigators lifted fingerprints from the glass on the bedside table, and that contained the antifreeze fingerprints that they matched not to David, but to Stacy.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

And remember that turkey baster the responding officer found in the garbage?

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Turns out it had David's DNA on the tip and antifreeze in the main container of the liquid that you would use.

[Scott Weinberger]

Now, the picture of how the poison may have been been administered was coming into focus. It would seem that the turkey baster was used at some point to force feed the lethal liquid directly into David's throat. But even that seems hard to do to someone against their will.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

That's one of the first things you had to think about. I'm sure it is. What exactly you and I thought about here, too, Scott. I mean, even assuming that David may have been intoxicated or even sleeping, it's hard to imagine that he wouldn't resist. So what was Bill's theory on how David may have been poisoned?

[Scott Weinberger]

Well, I think it has a lot to do with how antifreeze tastes, because, believe it or not, the green stuff that you put in your car's engine, it actually sweet to the taste. And so it may be quite hard to detect if it was mixed with another drink that is also sweet. And Stacy herself had actually already dropped a hint at what that drink might have been when she gave her first statement to police.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

She admitted he was consuming diet Pepsi on Saturday when she went over there, and they continued the argument that they were having. You know, he was in rough shape at the time. As I said, that's a perfect mechanism to disguise the antifreeze. Because both are sweet, the poison would.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Have taken some time to take effect, mimicking the effects of intoxication by alcohol, until eventually, David was rendered unconscious and unable to defend himself.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

And then when he became more and more comatose and more and more disabled in bed, that's when she turns to the turkey baster. She's probably trying to pour it into his mouth with that glass that was on the nightstand. That's why her fingerprints are on it. Just, you know, stick it down his throat. So he might gag a little bit, but eventually it's going to get into his system.

[Scott Weinberger]

But if this scenario was true, it was describing David's wife Stacy as someone capable of planning and carrying out an act of almost unimaginable cruelty.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Absolutely. Because remember, she admitted that she even returned with friends so they could witness David's so called drinking binge, all the while knowing that she had actually poisoned him and he was likely just hours from death.

[Scott Weinberger]

And as his DNA in the turkey baster proved, at some point she even returned when he was unconscious to administer even more antifreeze and stage the scene to make it look like a death by suicide. This was not a crime of passion. This was a meticulous, cold blooded act of murder.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

As you might imagine. Once I became more and more convinced that this was at the very least a suspicious death and needed much more intensive investigation, I was curious what happened to husband number one. The answer I got was, well, he died of a heart attack. Okay, well, so much for that theory that she was a serial killer. But you know, I'm of the old school where I said, okay, the records show he died of a heart attack. I want to see records. I want to see medical records. Well, guess what? There weren't any.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Stacy's first husband and the father of her two young daughters was a man named Mike Wallace, whose sudden death at 38 had been attributed to a heart attack.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

One day, Ashley comes home from school. She finds her dad, Mike Wallace, lying on the couch. She's 12 at the time, very upset. Calls, has enough sense to call the authorities. Ambulance gets there, they make efforts to try to revive him, unsuccessfully, take him to a local hospital. This is a different county. In this county and they have a coroner system, not a medical examiner system. And the coroner writes it off in large part on information from Stacy that he had, you know, he had had.

[Scott Weinberger]

A bad ticker, but no autopsy had ever been done. And given Bill's suspicions about Stacy's role in David's death, he was starting to wonder what kind of person he may be dealing with.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

A DA in the state of New York has almost unfettered discretion in ordering an exhumation if he or she believes that criminal activity can be afoot. Despite the unpleasant nature of disturbing the dead, the public interest is far outweighed by the prosecutor's right to know exactly how the person died. So, as you might imagine, I said, we're going to exhume Mike Wallace and find out, you know, what happened to him. I just had to know. I had to know, you know, concretely and for certain what the guy died from.

[Scott Weinberger]

Wallace's remains were exhumed from a cemetery in the adjoining county. His body was then subjected to a full forensic examination.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

You can just imagine that investigators in Onondaga county must have been bursting with anticipation as they waited for the results.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

You could see the brain tissue, and then, you know, every few milliliters or so, there was a bright spot which was a crystal which shut down his bodily functions.

[Scott Weinberger]

The telltale crystals that formed in Mike's brain tissue told the medical examiner all he needed to know.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Oh, he said without question. Cause of death ethylene glycol poisoning.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Mike's death had been surprising and sudden, and no one had ever suspected murder. But with the new autopsy results, his visit to his doctor in the days just before his death might provide further evidence of his own poisoning.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

He actually went to a GP general practitioner a couple of weeks before he was murdered. And in the physician's report, the doctor suggests that he has an ear infection, and that's affecting his balance and his speech. But he writes a perfect description of antifreeze poisoning. Michael said to the doctor, I feel like I'm drunk, but not when I'm not even drinking alcohol.

[Scott Weinberger]

Two husbands killed by poison, three children left without fathers, and one wife who may or may not be a serial killer.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Foreign.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

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[Scott Weinberger]

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[Bill Fitzpatrick]

And after exhuming the remains of her first husband, Mike Wallace, there was also proof that it may not have been her first murder.

[Scott Weinberger]

What began as a welfare check, then ruled a suicide, was now a homicide investigation. One potential obstacle, however, was the original me's opinion on the cause and manner of death.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

So manner of death is not in any way, shape or form etched in stone. And it can change based on information outside of just a bare examination of the body. So in this case, it wasn't in any way fatal to the prosecution. One of those things that you have to deal with as a trial lawyer and the guy readily admitted, yeah, absolutely, I ruled it a suicide. Doesn't change my opinion about the cause of death. But now, confronted with this new evidence that you have uncovered, I am changing the death certificate manner of death to homicide.

[Scott Weinberger]

You know, anesthesia, there's all kinds of complications in this scenario. You know, we do know that Wallace's death was ruled by natural causes. I think it was a heart attack. And there would have been not many interviews, really not any investigation really done at all. And so in order to really connect these two cases, it would require a whole new type of investigation. And I mean, the roadmap would have to start from square one. And there's so many things to have to go through and be able to get down that road.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

And the first thing that Bill had to do in Onondaga was, remember, his cause of death was also ruled as a death by suicide. But now they have evidence of murder. And the thing that while the medical examiner, and we've talked about this before, is going based on the medical findings, it's also based on the information they're getting from other sources, you know, investigators and other people in the investigation. So that's how it first was death by suicide. But now with this evidence, as Bill said, they'll have to change this back. And like you said, Scott, like, similarly, now you have the death of someone else based on this exhumation. However, that other complication is that Mike Wallace, that death, it happened in another county. So Bill doesn't even have jurisdiction of it, but he's looking at it because, again, I don't want to go too deep down the rabbit hole of legalese, but we prosecutors love this term Molyneux, which is this hearing we can do if we want to use evidence of another crime in our case. So just think, think about this, right? If you can prove, and Scott, we've talked about this, that the other murder of her first husband was also by antifreeze, well, that is a pretty uncommon thing. It's pretty unique. So to link it saying, hey, look, this is going to prove the person's identity being Stacy, because she's the only one that was with both these people at the time. They both died by similar means. Like, of course he wants to pursue it for that reason. Like, it's not going to be a given that he can pursue it in court. But as someone who has had those arguments, and I've used them in cases where someone has committed other similar murders other places, it's just an amazing thing to have in front of the jury, if you can get it.

[Scott Weinberger]

So Stacy Castor was not only married to both men, her fingerprints were found on the glass of antifreeze found by David's bedside. So despite her alibi and her denials, Stacy Castor was identified as their prime suspect.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Based on the evidence collected, investigators requested warrants to place wiretaps inside her home, as well as some well placed video cameras outside her home.

[Scott Weinberger]

And they were betting that with the news of her former husband's exhumation, Stacy might be inclined to make an admission of guilt to a friend or family or otherwise. And we see that all of the time in a way that may reveal.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Her motives and that is exactly what happened, although not in the way that investigators could ever have imagined.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

There's a couple of massive developments in the case that happened very similar in time. I went to a judge and got a wiretap on her phone. I had plenty of probable cause to request that. And it was later sustained by an appellate court that there was sufficient. So we were listening in on her calls, and the timing was important to me because exactly at the moment we went up listening on her calls was when we exhumed the body of her first husband, Michael Wallace, with police listening in.

[Scott Weinberger]

Stacey even mentioned to a friend that police had exhumed Michael Wallace's body. So she must have been aware that police were likely closing in.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

As it turns out, the one week that we had the wire up, with the exception of one very, very significant thing, which I'll mention in a. A minute, there wasn't anything of real value on the wiretaps. Except on this one day in September when we're listening to her, she calls very early in the morning. She calls 911 to report that her daughter Ashley has tried to kill herself. And I got that call within minutes. We were literally listening in real life time to her calling the 911 center.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

I need an ambulance of 4127 Western Road.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Glenwood. And what's the problem there?

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

My daughter, I believe, has taken some pills. Paramedics rushed to the Castors home where Stacy's daughter was barely clinging to life.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

They go in and they find an empty bottle of vodka in Ashley's bedroom.

[Scott Weinberger]

At her bedside, an empty bottle of pills, and in her mother Stacy's hand, a typed suicide note she claims she found in her daughter's room.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Her mother is emotional, but nevertheless, she seems more intent on the note itself. Like, don't forget, don't miss this note here.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

The typed note, signed with Ashley's name, name included a shocking confession that it was Ashley, not her mother, that had poisoned both her father, Mike Wallace, and her stepfather, David Castor, and she could no longer live with the guilt of committing both murders.

[Scott Weinberger]

Wow. It was an astonishing turn in the investigation. Could investigators have got it wrong had the elaborate staging of David's suicide been Stacy Castor's attempt to cover up for her teenage daughter all along?

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

We will answer those questions and more in the exciting conclusion of this story in part two, so be sure to.

[Scott Weinberger]

Listen on the next Anatomy of Murder.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

Whoever wrote that note killed Mike Wallace and David Castro. It couldn't be anybody else.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Ashley's still drooling on herself.

[Anasiga Nicolasi]

That poor kid was exhausted. I just showed that to the jury. As in, does that in any way, shape, manner or form suggest a woman that's about to kill herself? This was so diabolical, so evil, it's hard to put into words.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder.

[Scott Weinberger]

Anatomy of Murder is an audio Chuck.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

Original, produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

[Scott Weinberger]

Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

[Bill Fitzpatrick]

This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean Grande. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

[Delia d'Ambra]

Hi, I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast unlike any other. Why? Because every case I cover comes from the heart of my home, New England. From the rocky Maine coast to the historic streets of Boston to the quiet corners of Vermont and beyond, I investigate stories filled with untold twists, enduring questions, and voices that deserve to be heard. So if you're ready to explore the darker side of New England, join me every week for Dark Down East. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.