Till Death

Summary

Buried Bones - "Till Death" (Dec 17, 2025)

Podcast: Buried Bones
Hosts: Kate Winkler Dawson (journalist) & Paul Holes (retired investigator)
Episode Theme: Examining a mid-20th-century series of suspicious deaths linked to one man, Dale Archer, and questioning whether he was a serial killer motivated by financial gain.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, "Till Death," Kate and Paul delve into the chilling case of Dale Archer, a man whose multiple spouses, relatives, and associates died under mysterious circumstances between the 1940s and 1960s. With a background in medical work and a penchant for scams, Archer’s weapon of choice was insulin overdoses, often combined with barbiturates. The hosts explore how outdated forensic techniques failed to catch him earlier, the psychology behind his crimes, and whether he fits the definition of a serial killer.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Scene (Covina, California, 1956)

• [09:17] Kate introduces a 911 call from Dale Archer, reporting an alleged home invasion with two "Mexican men" who assaulted him and his wife, Zella.
• The details immediately seem odd: both Dale and Zella are injected with a hypodermic needle, but valuable items are left untouched except for cash.
• Paul: “The use of hypodermic syringes is interesting... They're just trying to plunge blood glucose levels down in the victim” [13:22].

Death of Zella Archer

• Zella exhibits severe symptoms after the attack—sweating, labored breathing, and convulsions—dying within days.
• Toxicology is inconclusive due to limitations of the era; the cause is listed as bronchopneumonia due to a coma of undetermined origin [16:16].
• Paul: “If her glucose levels are just being absolutely plummeted down to zero because she has such high insulin and then you throw a sedative on top of that...could that induce a coma? I would think that's a possibility.” [16:42]

Dale Becomes a Suspect

• Investigation reveals inconsistencies: Zella only ever saw one masked intruder, and Dale’s account is uncorroborated.
• Sergeant Andre of the LA County Sheriff grows suspicious as it emerges Dale has a pattern of marrying women, draining them financially, and moving swiftly between relationships [21:37].
• Dale's history: multiple marriages, work in hospitals, convictions for drug possession and scams.

A Pattern Emerges: Serial Matrimonialist?

• New wife, Juanita Plum (wealthy), suddenly falls ill during their Vegas honeymoon with symptoms akin to Zella’s and dies. Doctors attribute it to barbiturates and alcohol, but the pattern repeats [28:54].
• Paul: “Now...he’s taken out a guy.” [41:58] Referring to the mysterious death of Frank Stewart, Gladys’ ex-husband, whose symptoms again align with insulin overdose.

Expanding the Victim Profile

• Dale benefits from life insurance policies or inherits from each death.
• Bernie Archer, Dale's nephew, dies after a supposed hit-and-run that is never substantiated. His grandmother and guardian, too, die suddenly; it's suspected Dale has access to their insurance/payouts [46:54].

Medical Knowledge as a Weapon

• During the trial, it's revealed Dale had extensive experience with insulin shock therapy from working in hospitals—a skill set he used to execute his crimes undetected [53:36].
• Paul: “Most certainly what it tells me is Dale is extremely comfortable with...the injection of insulin, but what its response is going to be.” [53:36]

Legal Outcomes

• Dale is eventually charged with three murders (Zella, Bernie, Mary Brinker Post) in 1967.
• Despite pleading not guilty, expert witnesses and patterns in autopsy findings secure his conviction on all counts in 1968.
• Dale dies of pneumonia in prison in 1977 before the death penalty is carried out [59:45].

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On forensic limits:
  “No tests at the time that can reliably indicate excessive insulin in the blood or tissues of deceased people...” — Kate [15:16]

• On Dale’s pattern:
  “He’s got this formula that has worked on the women, and now he’s taken out a guy.” — Paul [41:58]

• Defining serial killer:
  “It’s having killed three or more with a cooling off period in between...and this is a type of predator. Now, this is a predator that is financially motivated.” — Paul [42:21]

• On Dale’s mindset:
  “Dale's all about Dale, and he's going to eliminate and financially drain the assets of anybody in his life.” — Paul [40:29]

• On medical expertise:
  “He’s extremely comfortable with...the injection of insulin, but what its response is going to be. He has a skill set, he has an expertise, and that is what he is relying upon in order to commit his crimes.” — Paul [53:36]

• The final tally:
  "So not the traditional sense of a serial killer, but this guy destroyed everyone around him." — Kate [60:53]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 09:17–14:48| The "home invasion" and Zella’s death | | 21:37–25:19| Investigation shifts to Dale as primary suspect | | 25:19–28:54| Swift remarriage to Juanita Plum and suspicious arson | | 28:54–31:32| Juanita’s suspicious illness and death in Las Vegas | | 40:19–44:12| Death of Frank Stewart and discussion of serial killer def. | | 46:54–48:41| Nephew Bernie and family members die under suspicious means | | 53:36–57:31| Testimony about insulin expertise and early suspicious deaths | | 59:45–61:00| Dale’s conviction, death, and episode wrap-up |

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Analysis and Reflections

• Financially Motivated Serial Killing: The hosts agree that Dale fits the clinical serial killer definition, though his motives are greed rather than sexual gratification or psychological compulsion.
• Forensic Evolution: The case highlights how the limits of 1950s-60s toxicology—and a killer’s medical knowledge—allowed Archer to avoid detection for years.
• Predatory Charm: Repeated manipulation of partners and authorities shows a high degree of social cunning, with Dale escaping suspicion despite being the common denominator in each incident.

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Conclusion

Paul and Kate close by marveling at Dale Archer’s manipulative prowess and fatal greed, noting how many lives he destroyed without ever facing ultimate justice. While not a “traditional” serial killer, his deliberate, repeated, and profitable pattern of lethal exploitation secures his place in the darker annals of American true crime.

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For Further Evidence & Visuals

• Visit @buriedbonespod on Instagram for case images, diagrams, and additional sources.

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[End of summary – all ads, show credits, and non-content sections omitted.]

Transcript

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is exactly right.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the last 25 years writing about true crime.

[Paul Holz]

And I'm Paul Holz, a retired cold case investig. Work some of America's most complicated cases and solve them each week.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I present Paul with one of history's most compelling true crimes.

[Paul Holz]

And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring new insights to old mysteries.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime cases through a 21st century lens.

[Paul Holz]

Some are solved and some are cold. Very cold.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This is buried bones. Hey, Paul.

[Paul Holz]

Hey, Kate. How are you?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm doing well. Happy Christmas. Break. We're going to go away for a little bit for some much needed rest. I think you need rest more than I do, probably.

[Paul Holz]

Oh, I'm not sure about that. You've got your hands in a lot of different things.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I do. I do. It's hard for me to take a vacation, and we've talked about that for you, too. But I was thinking of taking the fam to maybe Vermont to do some skiing. But I have, as an older adult, a fear of hurting myself skiing, even though I skied a lot when I was younger. And when I went to Boston University, we would go to Burlington and, you know, ski there. So I just love Vermont in general. But have you done a lot of skiing? I don't know if we've talked about that.

[Paul Holz]

I haven't done a lot of skiing. Having spent most of my adult life kind of sort of in the Bay Area, I've skied a handful of times up in Tahoe. I can get down the side of a mountain. It's not pretty. I. I've gone on black diamond slopes, and I've. I've survived, you know, but I've also left some gouges in the side of mountains, you know, so I'm. I'm not. I don't consider myself a good skier, but I can ski. And, you know, of course, I live in Colorado now.

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[Paul Holz]

It's sort of ski heaven. And I will tell you, I do notice the difference. You know, we skied once. Took the family up to Breckenridge, and that's when I was like, oh, I now understand what powder is. It's.

[Sprite Advertiser]

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[Paul Holz]

Yeah, it's so different than what I experienced during the handful of times I skied out there in the Tahoe area.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

When I was at Boston University, they would take us on a bus up there in the winter for. I mean, I feel like it was every weekend. It was almost like a shuttle. And you could go to Burlington, Vermont, and ski. And it was my first time really skiing. I had skied in Breckenridge when I was a kid, but I decided to go when I was in college. But I got pretty far. And I remember the person who was operating the tram or whatever we were on, saying, okay, well, watch out for the weather. And I thought, what does that mean? And I kid you not, I hit every weather system available going down that mountain. It was like. It started with snow, and then it literally started hailing part of the way through. And then it was rain.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And I just thought, I don't Know if I can, how many times I can do this might be it for me.

[Paul Holz]

Sure.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

It's the weirdest thing. And it was ice. It felt like ice.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. You know, and that's at least that's been my experience in Colorado. You know, that's when I skied in Breckenridge. When we first started, it was like white out, blizzard conditions, you know, and you're going, how are we going to make a day out of this? And then it ended up clearing up and becoming very nice, you know. But the weather up in the mountains, of course, can change on a dime.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, I love the mountains. I was thinking about my favorite landscape and I think it is mountains and it is agricultural land. Just like vast amount of land, almost like the marshes that I showed you in one of our episodes, you know, just like green for acres and acres and acres.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

But I have friends who live by oceans and that. And that's all there is for them. So there you go.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. You know, I, I love the mountains. I love rugged ocean coastline, like Northern California, you know, like the Mendocino going up north from there. I'm not, I'm not a big ocean beach person. I don't like to just lounge on a beach. If I'm going to be by the ocean, I'd rather at least be in the ocean. Now, I will tell you, you know, your love of agricultural land, I've seen like in Iowa, I was shocked at this. Beautiful rolling crops and old barns. I mean, just amazing beautiful. But then I had to drive home from Madison, Wisconsin to Colorado Springs and there was a stretch from Nebraska to Colorado through nothing but corn fields that flat as far as you could see.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You didn't like that?

[Paul Holz]

Not my thing at all. The most boring drive I've ever done.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, sorry. Nebraska. Well, I understand that. I mean, my dad was from Missouri. I've said that before and I love Missouri. But it felt very flat to me. Okay, too. But I have a good friend who adores the desert and I'm. I don't know how I feel about the desert. I have been intending to go to West Texas forever, which is supposed to be just unbelievably beautiful. So I'm going to try to keep an open mind. But I was doing a shoot for one of my documentaries in Pahrumph, Nevada. It's tiny. I know. You have that quizzical look that I.

[Paul Holz]

Had never heard of it. But if it's somewhere in Nevada, I can only imagine what it looks like.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Pahrumph, Nevada. And it was gorgeous. I mean, just hills, dunes, mountains of really white sand. But again, going back to every kind of fear I have. Driving through it by yourself when you don't. I was alone. When you don't see people for hours, you know, on these roads, because we were really deep into the Mojave Desert, it was a little scary because I thought, what happens if I break down? What happens, you know, in every scenario? But that's the scaredy cat in me. You.

[Paul Holz]

You mummify. That's what happens.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Oh, okay. Anyway.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a big desert person, but, you know, like a Tucson, Arizona.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. You know, with those amazing cacti that you see and the Roadrunner Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons. I mean, I thought that was really cool.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let's shift over to California, where I know at least one bit of your heart is because I know that you were an army brat and moved around everywhere, but I think you glow the most when we talk about California.

[Paul Holz]

So I was an Air Force brat, but you were close.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Air Force brat. Pardon me. Okay, let's just jump right into this. Okay? Let's set the scene. We are in Covina, California, which is 22 miles east of downtown LA in the San Gabriel Valley. Are you familiar with that or.

[Paul Holz]

No, I. I know of it. I can't say I've ever been there.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So we're starting with a 911 call, and it is 1956 is our year. It's July, around 10pm There's a sergeant with the LA County Sheriff's Office named Harry Andre, and he's responding to this call from a guy named William, his middle name, Dale Archer. He'll go by Dale.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So he and his wife, who is named Zella Austin Archer, have been assaulted and robbed in their home. So it sounds like a home invasion. I have in my note here, Paul, it literally says, let me get through this story. And it's a note to. You got it.

[Paul Holz]

You got it.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Put up your hand if it drives you crazy. So this is what Dale says when the sergeant shows up. He says that the offenders are two Mexican men. One is armed with a knife, the other one has a gun. They broke into the house about 30 minutes earlier, and he immediately called 911. When they left, they detained him in the living room and injected him with a hypodermic syringe. And then he says one of the men covered his face with his own bathrobe. And then they went into Zella's bedroom. For the record, she's 48, he's 44. Dale seems to be seemingly a normal 44 year old man, perfectly capable of defending himself if needed. So Zella just also for full transparency, the end of this. She is not sexually assaulted. She is not murdered. She can tell this story. She says that there was one man who went into the bedroom. He was disguised, he tried to incapacitate her. She fights back and the man in disguise leaves the bedroom. Dale is yelling at the guy, you know, to stop and he is yelling to Zella, just let him have whatever he needs to have and then he'll leave. He's essentially begging her to just not fight this guy again. So the guy comes back into the bedroom. She allows him to put a pillowcase over her head and to bind her arms. And he injects her with a hypodermic syringe. And then they made off with about $100 from Dale's wallet. They found about another $500 in the house. They took that, they took a revolver. This is all worth about $7,000 today. And like I said, Zella said that she was not seriously assaulted. This seems bananas. The hypodermic needle or the hypodermic syringe is what alerts me the most, I think, to this whole thing being just really off the wall. Do you want to comment now or do you want to hear more, a little bit more about what's happening in this case?

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, I want to hear more.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. Sergeant Andre takes a look around after he hears the story. He tells Zella to sit down because she's really dizzy and totally freaked out. He looks at her wrists and there are rope burns on her wrists. There are two puncture wounds in her buttocks, but nothing has really been ransacked. You know, there's some cash that was taken. As I mentioned before, there's no signs of forced entry that we know of, which of course you know, we've talked about. If you have a gun, there's not going to be any signs of forced entry. Jewelry is in plain sight. Nobody takes it. They find a syringe in a nearby vacant lot. They also find a vial of long acting NPH U80 insulin. And half the bottle has been used. There's also a 20 gauge hypodermic needle that is found in their bathroom like not one of theirs. It's laying like it had been tossed. Then Sergeant Andre calls a doctor. The doctor comes and looks them over because Zella is feeling very dizzy. The doctor prescribes Seconal and it's a very potent Barbiturate to calm her nerves. Then he leaves. Is there something to say now, or do you want to keep learning more info.

[Paul Holz]

You know, maybe just a brief comment. You know, right now, up front, this sounds like a standard home invasion. 211 home invasion robbery. The. The use of the hypodermic syringes is inter. Is interesting. And if. If they're injecting insulin, the only thing I can think of is they're just trying to plunge blood glucose levels down in. In the victim so that they're not, you know, kind of like she's feeling dizzy. So in essence, she's going into this. This hypoglycemic state to where maybe it. I don't know if it would render her unconscious. Depending on how much insulin is there, energy levels would go down. That's odd. I. You know, I'm not sure what the offenders are thinking if in fact, that's all they're injecting. It's kind of a very interesting twist to a typical home invasion.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And they don't find evidence that Dale was injected, which doesn't make sense to me either, if you're gonna. So to me, at first I thought this was a sophisticated chloroform, almost kind of thing like, you know, incapacitator she knocks out. Why not do that to Dale also? And I'll tell you, let me point this a little bit out. Zella, throughout the night, is sweating profusely. Her breathing becomes labored, she starts salivating. And 8 o' clock the next morning, she starts convulsing and she dies within a day or two.

[Paul Holz]

Well, now it's going to get to where. What does toxicology show? What's the autopsy results show? The offenders are very superficial in terms of the financial gain. They're just taking cash, they're not taking other valuables that they would have to put effort out, like the jewelry, in order to be able to sell it. You know, maybe this is more targeted against Dale and Zella than an actual financially motivated crime.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, let's go. Because you had requested the coroner's report. Here it is. The report says there are four puncture wounds in Zella's buttocks, two more injection sites than what was noted at the crime scene, which I was surprised, but remember, Dale called out to her, just let them do whatever they're going to do. And so she complied. There are no poisonous substances in Zella's body. They think that this was an overdose of insulin, but there are no tests at the time that can reliably indicate excessive insulin in the blood or tissues of deceased people. Chief of Toxicology also sees no reason why Zella would have been taking any kind of insulin. There were no cell tumors in her pancreas. There were no signs of a pathological disease that would have been treated by insulin. At the end of the day, the cause of her death is reported to be bronchopneumonia due to coma of undetermined origin.

[Paul Holz]

I guess I have to assume that, you know, a high dose of insulin could potentially do that. She had four puncture wounds and there was multiple syringes possibly found at the scene.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

They found one 20 gauge hypodermic needle. And remember, they found a vial of long acting. I don't know what U80 means, insulin. And half the bottle had been used.

[Paul Holz]

This is where I would be wanting to talk to a toxicologist about exactly what's going on. She just doesn't have insulin in her system. She. I mean, she also has the carb in her system, you know, which is a sedative. You know, so if, if her glucose levels are just being absolutely plummeted down to zero because she has such high insulin and then you throw a sedative on top of that, is that, could that induce a coma? You know, I would think that's a possibility.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And remember, you know, they found the insulin bottle in a. In like a parking lot. Yeah, a vacant lot nearby. I don't think they're finding that at 11pm at night the happened, which is when Sergeant Andre reported to the scene. They must. I have to imagine they would have found it the next morning. So he's. The doctor's giving her barbiturate, not knowing it sounds like what she's been injected with. Nobody knows what she's been injected with because nobody's found the bottle yet. So that seems haphazard to me, not knowing when you've got a woman saying they poked me with a needle. Not knowing what she was shot up with.

[Paul Holz]

No. Well, for sure. I mean, you could. I mean she could have been shot up with a different barb or she could have been shot up with another sedative and now the doc is giving her another barb on top of it and it just is now crashing her system into a very depressed state.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So what Sergeant Andre comes up with, I mean, the things that he's trying to piece together are interesting. He had asked Ella to describe the masked man because remember there was another one in the other room with Dale. She kept saying things like my husband's build, my husband's height. But she did not say this was my husband. And Sergeant Andre really starts to suspect Dale of something. Because, you know, if you remember the story, Zella is alive and is able to recount all this stuff. But she does not see two men. She only sees one man who's in disguise. Then that man leaves. Dale screams out, just let him do what he needs to do, Zela. And then the masked man comes back inside. So she can't confirm. There's nobody can confirm except Dale. There's two men. And Sergeant Andre is kind of calling BS on this. And I don't think it's anything about Dale specifically. I just think he doesn't think the pieces are coming together very well.

[Paul Holz]

He may be onto something. You know, did Dale set up some sort of ruse to eliminate his wife and try to get away with it? You know, this is a very interesting twist, I would say.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me tell you a little bit about Dale, since Sergeant Andre is keeping a close eye on him. He was born on an Arkansas ranch in 1912, and he's been married numerous times. He got married at 17, then he left that woman after a few years and moved to California. He bopped around a little bit. He ended up working at several hospitals. He was an orderly. He was also an attendant at a different one. But hospitals he married at 23. He left her, too. And then there was a big gap. He got married again when he was 37, this time to a nurse. This is when the legal stuff starts to happen, and it will lead up to Zella, which will then lead to quite another host of interesting things happening. He and his nurse wife were charged with illegal possession of morphine, and they were sentenced to five years probation. But a second drug offense landed Dale in a minimum security prison in Chino, from which he promptly escaped. Then he moved over to san Quentin in 51. He finished off his term at San Quentin, and that finished off his third marriage to the nurse. Then he gets out in 53, and he goes back to Southern California and he starts running scams. So Dale is not a good guy is what Andre is figuring out. There are a lot of scams. Women he dated for their money. And then in 56, he meets Zella. Within six months, they get married, and now she is dead. And we find out that they had been married two months, that she had sold her house for $10,000, which is now 118,000 today. And escrow closed on July 13, 11 days before this home invasion, he had written two checks on the shared account and basically took all her money and he bought a Thunderbird. He collected $7,000 today, 600 then from her life insurance policy. This is not a wealthy woman, but it sounds like wealthier than he is. And you know, all of this is to say it doesn't mean that he killed Her. But Dale has a history of loving and leaving women. This appears to be the first one that he left who has ended up dead shortly thereafter.

[Paul Holz]

Well, Dale has that medical background, you know, and so now you have this, this oddity of these Hispanic males injecting Zella, apparently with, with insulin, you know, so there is overlap with Dale's skill set, if you will, and you know, this whole set of circumstances around, you know, zealous selling the house, getting blocks of money, Dale being involved in scams. You know, things are really starting to stack up that maybe this was a ruse. I. I just wonder, the injection of insulin, how confident could an offender be that the insulin would actually kill Zella? So, you know, that's, I think, something that, you know, was there an intent to kill or was this an intent to disable? Interesting to see how this plays out.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So in this case, Zella is pacifying herself because her husband is saying, stay still and let him do whatever he needs to do. So she is not willingly, but she is receiving four shots, according to the coroner.

[Paul Holz]

Well, you know what, I guess one of the things, because there's this one theory that Dale is actually the offender. He's the one that's injecting Zella. But if, if Zella, while she's still cognizant, has a male in the room with her and she's hearing Dale's voice outside of the room saying, let him do whatever. Now, do we have an accessory to Dale helping Dale out?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

What I believed happened and the way Dale described Anzella is she fought this guy, he backed off and left the room. And then Dale is saying, honey, just let him do what he's gonna do, like yelling back toward her when she's by herself. She's not running out of the. So she never sees anybody but this one masked man. And I think Dale's probably around the corner. So that's the issue. She does confirm there's somebody who's masked there, but when she hears Dale, the guy is out of the room. And of course, I think Andre thinks it's suspicious when she's sort of like, yeah, he was my husband's high. Yeah, I mean, she is not expressing suspicion.

[Paul Holz]

Sure. Okay. So I thought possibly the scenario suggested that there was somebody else present, but the way that you just explained it, Dale could have done this whole thing himself.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So Dale has a quick rebound because he just. A few months after Zella's death, he moves in with a 46 year old woman named Juanita Plum. They met in Tijuana doesn't sound like a grieving husband, but whatever. She is a very well off divorcee. She owns a $40,000 house in Monrovia, which is in LA County. And she has a lot of expensive furniture, a car, $14,000 in notes and bonds. Lots of money, essentially. So her estate these days would be worth $765,000. So this is a big, for him, a much bigger jump to go from Zella to Juanita. In five months of being with this woman, Juanita, he cashes out all of her assets and they file insurance claims for two incidents of arson in 1957. They collect between $11,000 and $12,000, which is hundreds of, you know, $150,000. Ish. Today, the money runs out in late August of 1957, and they separate, then they reconcile, and then they marry, and bad things are going to start happening. But running through that much money, an estate that is, you know, almost $800,000 today in what looks to me to be about a year, even less than a year, seems incredible.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. Well, and this is where investigating this, even though you have what appears to be, you know, robbery slash homicide going on, this is a white collar type crime. And anytime you have something like this, it's follow the money. So if. If Dale is, you know, in essence, embezzling money from ultimately this, this next wife of his, you know, where is that money going? How is he spending it? Is he gambling it? Is he hiding it? Is he tucking it away? Does he have a different life in which now he's got a fancy house, cars, and maybe another wife on the side? You know, there's all sorts of possibilities going on here.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Let me tell you what happens to Juanita. They go on a honeymoon. They go to Vegas. She falls ill in their hotel room. She is. Here's the description. She's incoherent. She's slipping in and out of consciousness. She is sweating, which sounds very similar to what happened with Zella. Her face is bloated. At the Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital, Dale tells doctors that Juanita has been taking barbiturates and drinking bourbon to go to sleep. At first, they discharge her. They tell Dale that she should just drink some black coffee and stay on her feet. I mean, that seems like terrible advice. But by that afternoon, her condition has significantly declined. He takes her back to the hospital, and when she gets back to the hospital, she is comatose. She's hardly breathing, and she is cyanotic, which you said is a lack of oxygen. Right.

[Paul Holz]

Kind of like if she has this Pinkish hue. Almost as if she's been exposed to carbon monoxide.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay, her pupils are dilated, her body temperature is subnormal, and her pulse is extremely low. They prescribe glucose. Does that make sense?

[Paul Holz]

Well, are they suspecting that she's hypoglycemic?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, I don't know, because what he had said is barbiturates. Is that a tonic for barbs and bourbon?

[Paul Holz]

I don't know. You know, that's. That's. That's interesting. You know, I. I think what they're seeing is, is that she is, you know, somehow in. In a sedated state state, and they're trying to infuse her with the glucose to provide her sort of like kind of an energy source for her body to recover from. But they must be suspecting that. And maybe they did some blood tests and they're going, oh, geez, she's hypoglycemic. We need to get her glucose or blood glucose up.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, I think this bit will be helpful. She starts convulsing and then she dies. And the. Which is, I think what we knew would happen. The doctor says that he believes she died of cardiac failure resulting from an overdose of barbiturates. So they believe Dale. Okay, and Sergeant Andre from LA County. This is not his jurisdiction. This is Nevada. This isn't California. But he finds out about Juanita's death, and he informs the Clark County Sheriff's Department in Nevada that Dale's previous wife had also died just, you know, a year earlier. But it's too late for an extensive autopsy because they believed Dale. And Dale said cremator.

[Paul Holz]

Of course he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But at least, you know, the LA detective is on it. He obviously has tremendous suspicions about Dale, and so he's. He's like a dog on a bone.

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[Paul Holz]

And he's going to take advantage if he sees that Odale's involved in another case. Well, now, potentially, we can get him for something.

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Them.

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[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Hey audiobook lovers.

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This week on the podcast I'm sitting.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove.

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We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir, Night how to Be a DJ in 90s New York City.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

All right, like we talked about before.

[IBM Advertiser]

Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment in the studio or on stage that.

[Paul Holz]

Gives you the most control? So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. Like the Beatles broke up in seven and a half years and we're going on 35. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or.

[Paul Holz]

Wherever you get your podcasts. My favorite thing about Shipt since I signed up for target circle360 no price markups when I order same day delivery from tons of of local stores, only a handful of alcohol retailers and items don't count. I won't lie, I've had too much fun being like markups on groceries not in my fridge. Markups on pet food, not for my dog. Markups on tools, electronics, home goods, meds, not in my house. Anyway, it's awesome. Order [e-mail] 360trees apply.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You know, I usually say this is what the story is about. The insulin part of the story is really interesting. We have talked about people who target, you know, their spouses for money, but kind of the way of thinking, you know, saying that this is an accident or trying to set it up like it's an accident. It seems to actually work in Dale's case, if this is where we're heading. Because so far you have doctors who have returned the sick patient to him, presumably for him to make her more sick. I mean, there's no bones about it. Obviously, Dale is not a good person here.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, well, and these doctors, you know, they don't know Dale's history. They don't know what's going on. They're not even necessarily suspecting that there's a crime that happened. They're just now dealing with a sick person, and they have the husband saying, you know, altering. You know, at least offering up a plausible reason why she is exhibiting the symptoms that she is. You know, and whether. Whether she died of barbs and bourbon or she died of insulin right now, I think is still a toss up in this case.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, when Nita dies and her estate is divided among her living relatives, she was getting life insurance from her husband's, you know, her previous husband's death. So she was getting some money in. So it gets divvied up, and she leaves Dale $1. Well done, Juanita.

[Paul Holz]

Oh, so there was some marital strife before she died.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I'm sure she knew he blew everything the first time, but then they ended up getting married. She left him, and then she went back to him, and they got married. But this is what happened. I mean, you know, you're. Don't trust your spouse. Obviously, she left him a dollar, which I'm sure just pissed him off beyond belief. Okay. Moving on to another person. A year passes. He doesn't spend very much time. It just seems like he's going so fast, and I don't know if that's money or what that is, but it seems like he. He's not using a lot of common sense about suspicion, but he's gotten away with two so far.

[Paul Holz]

Sure. And. And of course, I think money is a. Is a big deal when you think if he had the equivalent of today, $800,000 that he just completely blew in a year. You know, he's needing to have income coming in in order to do whatever he's doing with that money.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And we don't know what he's doing with it yet. We don't know. So he gets smart, and he starts to use an alias, probably because that pesky Sergeant Andre is floating around in May of 1959. So we started in 1957. So this is just two years. He uses an alias, Jim Arden. So this is a little confusing, but when Juanita and Dale separate, there's no need for, like, a legal separation because they were never married. They are separated for about a year in that year he marries somebody else, a woman named Gladys Stewart. They end up divorcing when Juanita, the rich woman, decides that she'll take him back. So he divorces Gladys within that year and goes back to Juanita. So this is like a real quickie wife in between. So after Juanita dies a year later, Dale decides he wants to remarry the woman whom he married when he was separated for about a year from Juanita. So remember, that woman's name was Gladys Stewart. I don't know why Gladys agrees to this. Who knows? But Gladys is the ex wife of one of Dale's friends, who is a guy named Frank Stewart. This does not seem to be a problem at all for Frank or for Dale. And, in fact, they are kind of going into business together, and they are planning a combined business and pleasure trip to Vegas for the next year. You know, Gladys will come along. So she was married to Frank, divorced him, then married Dale, then they got divorced, and then she remarries Dale after Juanita dies.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, it's hard to stay on top of that.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

It sounds exhausting for everybody involved.

[Paul Holz]

Yes.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So Dale and Frank decide that they're going to go to the airport, which is now the Harry Reid International Airport, before It was called McCarran International Airport, and this is in 1960. So before they get on the plane, they stop in the bathroom. Frank slips on some debris, which it sounds like was a banana peel. And my reaction was, seriously, a banana peel. But he slips, and he strikes his head on the countertop in the bathroom. So I know that this is convoluted. Dale is scared that Frank might be concussed. He takes him to the Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital emergency room. That is where Juanita had been. By 10:30 that night, Frank is dead. And these are all the same symptoms. He does have a contusion on his head, but, you know, all the same symptoms. And the doctors say it is a cerebral hemorrhage, possibly related to a history of cardiovascular disease. No charges.

[Paul Holz]

So is it possible when Frank is in this bathroom at the airport, that Dale, from behind, strikes him with some sort of weapon? Right?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah.

[Paul Holz]

Or grabs him and hits his head against the counter or something, you know, so Dale's all about Dale, and he's going to eliminate and financially drain the assets of anybody in his life?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I agree, and I think. I think that is a good way of thinking about it. So he hits Frank on the head, because Frank is not going to be someone who's going to voluntarily, you know, take a syringe to the butt yeah. And then he goes to the hospital, and in the meantime, you know, because he's concussed, he, you know, gets these syringes. He gets a syringe full of insulin and then same thing. And then dies. I mean, is the hospital must see this every once in a while or some. I mean, these are, I guess. Are these normal symptoms? The one I've been describing? Having a hard time breathing, you know, dilated pupils? It's just the same thing with all of these people. It sounds like.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, well, it'd be interesting because I could see where there's a variety of different medical conditions that all have the same symptoms that, you know, these medical professionals see, you know, day in and day out. You know, I. I'm thinking Dale hits, you know, Frank in the back of the head, you know, in. In this airport restroom. And while he's tending to Frank, he's injecting him in that, that bathroom, you know, because he could do that right through the clothes.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah. And he's in a trauma, so he's not feeling anything. Most likely.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. Frank is like, oh my God, you know, whether he's even still conscious, you know, but at the same time, you know, Dale's just got this. This formula that has worked on the women, and now he's taken out a guy.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I mean, this is just. It kind of. It's kind of crazy. Is this a serial killer? Because we've talked about this definition before. It's not for sexual gratification, but it is multiple people.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. Well, you know, when you take a look at the definitions of a serial killer and they have a tendency to be, I feel, kind of too vague, you know, but fundamentally it's having killed three or more with a cooling off period in between. The definition doesn't discuss the. The psychology of the offender. It's just, do you have. You killed three or more and there's time in between each homicide, then yes, you have somebody that is by definition a serial killer. And this is a type of predator. Now, this is a predator that is financially motivated. So this is very different than, you know, your Ted Bundy's or your Jeffrey Dahmers, you know, your sexually motivated, your fantasy motivated predators. But it is a type of serial killer. This is very different than your mass killer or your spree killer, which people often convolute with serial killer. Your. Your mass or spree killers are in essence, in one event, which can be extended over a period of time, but they're going out and killing multiple people, such as going into A schoolyard or going into a fast food restaurant and killing multiple people. Completely different psychology than a serial killer because that serial killer, over an expanse of time is now committing these crimes for their own personal gain. For Dale, it's financial. For d', Angelo, Golden State killer, there's a sexual component.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This story keeps getting wilder and wilder. As far as I'm concerned, Dale in the wake of Frank's death is, I'm presuming, excited because he's attached to two different life insurance policies. Now my notes say that Frank took them out on himself. I don't know about that because one of these policies is for Gladys as the beneficiary, who is of course you know, Frank's ex wife, Dale's current wife, but also Dale's mother, Ginnie Mae Archer. And I have no idea why that would have happened. I think it must have been Dale, must have been the one that took those out. Right? The policies in today's money would have been about $900,000 total.

[Paul Holz]

Pretty good money.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So he says, yippee. He files claims for the insurance money, but they are dismissed. And I think that Gladys finally says we're getting a divorce and she took the money. So in 1961, there is an officer in charge of all traffic related deaths in LA County. He's called to investigate the death of of a young man named Bernie Kirk Archer. He's 15 and he is Dale's nephew from his brother. And Dale is also one of Bernie's guardians because the brother has died. Dale is a guardian. According to the police, the reason why this sergeant is showing up is because Bernie had been injured in a hit and run accident a month earlier. He died 13 days later at the Long Beach Memorial Hospital. There is no evidence that he was ever involved in a hit and run accident. So I think that this was reported by somebody, we presume Dale. And when they came out to investigate, there's no any report. So let me just tell you about the circumstances real quick. Bernie's mother, the teenager's mother, had deserted the family when he was a child. His father, who is Dale's brother, was Everett Archer. I told you that he had died. He was an engineer at an oil refinery. He had died of a heart attack in 1960, which was almost two years earlier than when the son died. Before his death, Everett had warned women to not marry his brother. He said he's a lying bastard. And when Everett died of that heart attack, Dale was right by his side. And now Everett's son is dead from a car accident. That never actually happened.

[Paul Holz]

And is there a life insurance on Bernie and Dale, the beneficiary?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Since Everett died, Bernie had been living with Ginny Archer, who is Dale's mother, who had received money, remember, from Frank Stewart's life insurance policy that we're presuming Dale took out on him thinking he would get that money from his mother and it didn't happen. So Bernie had been living with his grandmother in Long beach and Dale was stealing Everett's life insurance policy that was left to their mother. And then it gets worse because Bernie is hit, quote unquote by a car. He goes into a coma. Before he dies, Dale's mom, Ginny has a massive cerebral hemorrhage and she dies and she's immediately cremated. And then her grandson dies four days later. His official cause of death is terminal broncho pneumonia. He is also quickly cremated. So, you know, I'm sure that this is driving the investigators crazy. All of whom, although these are so these are different. Well, we're back in LA county, so we're back with Sergeant Andrew. So we've really only hit Nevada and LA County, I believe, so far.

[Paul Holz]

Sure. But by the time Sergeant Andre becomes aware of anything, these bodies are cremated. You know, Dale's receiving life insurance policies, you know, because unless somebody is suspecting a crime up front and reporting that back to the authorities, Sergeant Andre is not. He's completely unaware of this. He's got a whole caseload elsewhere. Right. And so Dale is now picking off his own family members and financially benefiting from it. And law enforcement has no idea what's going on.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, I think you're right because no one is making a move on Dale. And he continues on. Now there is a four year period that I thought was interesting. I don't know what he was doing in this four year period, but he resumes using the name Jim Arden. And he meets a woman who is named Mary brinker, post. She's 60, he is 53 at this point. She is a famous author. She's a best selling author. She wrote a book called Annie Jordan in 1948. I read a bit of it. It's pretty good, but it was a best selling book. They marry after two months. He burns through her money, which is about $200,000 today. And he racks up about $14,000 in debt then, which is about $144,000 today. She, about a year and a half after meeting him, files for bankruptcy. He leaves her because of course, bankruptcy, no money. He goes back to Gladys, who he had killed her ex husband, I'm sure she doesn't suspect that but I mean Gladys, they had divorced already, so this is twice divorced.

[Paul Holz]

Dale, he's, he's a con man. He's got the gift of gab. It seems like he has the ability to socially interact with people to keep them where they don't suspect him of these crimes that he's committing.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I mean it's unreal. So now we're going to be back to Mary. After he leaves Mary and I have to presume, starts divorce proceedings. He's with Gladys. Two weeks after that, Mary is in a minor car accident. For real. She's in Montclair. Her face is bruised and her nose is injured and she gets like a 2 inch bandage. She is shaken up and she calls Dale and he visits her on October 31st and then she ends up in the hospital. Blood tests indicate a low blood glucose level in the presence of barbiturates. They do an EEG because this has been a car accident and it shows severe depression of cortical activity with no localizing features. She dies the next day. Dale says, you know, a car accident, she had head injuries. But this time the investigators who are in LA county get an autopsy. They act quickly. Her cause of death is listed as bronchopneumonia secondary to hypoglycemia. But he is arrested. I don't know if they see the pattern and they feel like I don't know why he's arrested. I don't know how that changes anything.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, I'm not sure because you know, at this point it's got to come from these autopsy results and a pathologist rendering an opinion that somebody had injected her or forced her to be ingested. The barbs and the insulin. And of course they're looking at Dale.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So he is arrested in 1967 in his LA home. He's charged with three counts of first degree murder for the deaths of Zella the first wife, his nephew Bernie and Mary the author. He pleads not guilty to all counts. So he is called. I had not heard of this before. He is called a serial matrimonialist killer. Have you heard that phrase?

[Paul Holz]

No.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I mean, I guess we would say like the low term would be a Bluebeard killer, but I don't, I don't know. This is what they're calling him.

[Paul Holz]

Well, you know, I, I would like, you know, he's the male version of what is typically called the black widow.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yeah, right.

[Paul Holz]

Where females are scamming and, and killing men for financial gain. He's doing the same thing. And of course there's many examples of men doing those to women.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, he waives his right to jury trial and he goes with a judge and testimony starts in December of 1967. So first I think they're establishing the fact that Dale could have pulled off the insulin. Now of course, they say he has been shooting people with insulin to put them in a coma and then they die. There is a head psychiatrist at a state hospital where Dale worked in the early 1940s and they, he details this procedure that they had used at an insulin shock ward. So I did not know anything about this at this time. In the 40s, insulin shock therapy was a common psychiatric treatment for schizophrenia. So you would inject a patient with large doses of insulin to induce daily comas for a period of months. And so he was well trained to give insulin injections. What do you think about that?

[Paul Holz]

Yeah, no, well, you know, I don't know anything about that for the schizophrenia. But most certainly what it tells me is Dale is extremely comfortable with, you know, not only the injection of insulin, but what its response is going to be. He has a skill set, he has an expertise, and that is what he is relying upon in order to commit his crimes. And I suspect that in some of the cases, he's not just injecting insulin, but he's also combining it with the barbs. The barbs seem to be a consistent thing, you know, throughout this entire series. And so he probably recognizes that the combination of high insulin levels plus this potent sedative, the barbs, which many people have overdosed on and died, you know, he, it, it gives him the confidence that his victim is going to ultimately die from it.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Well, remember I told you he was married to a nurse in the 40s? So this was before Zella's death. She testifies her name is Dorothea and they got into trouble together for, you know, illegally possessing morphine. She testifies that after she met Dale, he roped her into a fraudulent scheme. I mean, this scheme designed to obstruct criminal proceedings against their mutual friend. Listen to this. In 1947, their friend, who was a guy named William Edward Jones, was facing child molestation charges for raping a 13 year old girl. Dale goes to William and says, let's feign a motoring accident and a head injury to delay this litigation. And he tells William that we can make this more convincing if you let me inject you with insulin. Then he would bribe the girl's family to drop the case. And he tells William it would cost about $10,000. William says, this sounds great. I mean, $10,000 in 47 would have been a massive amount of money. So Dorothea gets the insulin from a hospital and gives it to him in 47. She remembers telling him that insulin would be the perfect murder weapon. I don't know why Dorothea would have told him that, but she did. The men staged a car crash. William posed by a nearby tree, and Dale injected him with insulin. Then Dale calls the police anonymously to report the wreck. When the police get to the scene, they find William discombobulated and hungry. They take him to a nearby hospital where doctors say that he had a. You know, they note that he had a headache and subnormal temperature. Shortly after his arrival, he begins sweating. I mean, the whole thing, the muscles are twitching. His breathing, his pulse, everything is bad. They perform a spinal puncture around 11am they find that his blood pressure and his sugar levels were dangerously low. He was given 50% glucose. He falls into a coma the next day, and he dies. Doctors listed the cause of death as undetermined. In the meantime, Dale goes to the family of the girl who William had raped. He offers them a $300 used car on the condition that they leave town immediately. Now, what's probably missing from that story is, remember the $10,000? William hands him $10,000 to create all of this so that the girl's testimony goes away. So William dies, Dale gets the money, and then he gives up $300 to the girl's family, who, I'm presuming, must have been impoverished. And so that solves that. I mean, yeah, that's a lot. And so Dorothea lays that all out for the judge. You're taking a drink. Is that bourbon?

[Paul Holz]

No, actually, this is just red wine. It's cabernet.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Just red wine. As I always say, I would be curled up on the floor if I drank alcohol at all during the afternoon.

[Paul Holz]

Yeah. No, well, this, you know, Dorothea's testimony just underscores how far back in time Dale has been committing these crimes. You know, and it's stunning when you think about his success over and over again and the amount of money, because at times he's receiving large sums of money from his victim or his victim's estate. And it kind of comes back to, well, where is that money going? How is Dale Sweet. Spending that money?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So Dale takes the stand. I don't think he does a great job. He blames Dorothea, no surprise, and says, I divorced her. She's just trying to get back at me. He also says, which to me makes sense. You know, many of these people were alcoholics and the ones who weren't were in all of these car accidents. You can't prove that I injected anybody with anything. But you have some experts, doctors who take the stand and they say all of these people who at least he's being tried for, these people all exhibited symptoms consistent with hypoglycemia. And Bernie, the nephew and Mary, the ex wife, have slides that contain their slices of their brains. And it showed. Those slides showed uniform damage, inconsistent with trauma, but consistent with massive doses of long acting insulin. So that's part of the trial. And I think, no surprise. In 68, the judge finds Dale guilty on all three counts of murder. He is sentenced to death in the San Quentin State Prison gas chamber in the early 70s. The Supreme Court isn't sure, vacillates back and forth on the legality of the death penalty. It delayed his execution. But in 77, before his sentence is carried out, Dale dies of pneumonia in Vacaville State prison at age 65. Another one gets away with it.

[Sprite Advertiser]

Wow.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

He's convicted in 68, and so he dies nine years later for the deaths of. I can't even keep up with how many people he killed. A lot of people.

[Paul Holz]

Oh, yeah. Well, you know, it's funny you mentioned Vacaville. That was my rear neighbor for much of my life, you know, or a neighbor, if you will. Both California Medical Facility, as well as, you know, the Solano State Penitentiary was right there in Vacaville. And at one point in the early 90s, literally, I could look out my back window and I would see those two facilities.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

We've talked about somebody who was housed in Vacaville because I remember you saying that, oh, it was right there. And I can't remember who it was.

[Paul Holz]

But I don't remember who we talked about. But most certainly, like, I think to this day, Ed Kemper is housed at cmf. Charles Manson was there for a long period of time. Many of the most notorious offenders that you can think of out of California would have passed through California Medical Facility because they're being evaluated and then classified as to where they could be housed within the California prison system.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

So not the traditional sense of a serial killer, but this guy destroyed everyone around him.

[Sprite Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Paul Holz]

You know, and it just. There are these types of people, you know, greed is controlling them and they're willing to kill anybody, including their close loved ones, in order to get that financial gain.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

I will see you in two weeks because we are off for winter break.

[Paul Holz]

I have to wait two weeks to see you again, Kate.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Yes, sir.

[Paul Holz]

All right, well, I'll suck it up and I'll see you then. How's that?

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Okay. Bye. Bye.

[Paul Holz]

Bye.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

This has been an exactly right production.

[Paul Holz]

For our sources and show notes, go to exactlyrightmedia.com buriedbones sources.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our senior producer is Alexis Amorosi.

[Paul Holz]

Research by Maren McClashan, Ali Elkin and Kate Winkler Dawson.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.

[Paul Holz]

Our theme song is by Tom Breyfogle.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac, executive.

[Paul Holz]

Produced by Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook @BuriedBones Pod.

[Paul Holz]

Kate's most recent book, all that is a Gilded Age Story of Murder and the Race to Decode the Criminal Mind, is available now.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

And plus Paul's best selling memoir, My Life Solving America's Cold Cases, is also available now.

[Paul Holz]

Only one movie answers the call. Hello, it's me, SpongeBob. For the biggest comedy event of the holiday season, do you know what the best part is? What is it, Patrick? No, I'm asking. The SpongeBob movie rated DG.

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Friday.

[Paul Holz]

It's football season and now you can get anything you need for game day delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost. Almost anything. You can't get a running back, but baby back ribs. Yes. Uber Eats official on demand food delivery partner of the NFL.

[Kate Winkler Dawson]

Sometimes you just need to be comfortable, you know? But that doesn't mean you don't want to look good, too. Well, Old Navy, the kings of cozy have done it again with Bounce Fleece. It's soft, stylish, and comes in elevated colors that look good anywhere. Basically, it's fleece reimagined for real life, made for moments when you want to be cozy but still need to look good. Call it airport chic. Call it errand elegance. Either way, Bounce fleece nails it. Find Bounce Fleece and other holiday goodies [e-mail].