Trace of Suspicion - Ep. 1: A Death in the Family

Summary

Dateline Originals – Trace of Suspicion

Episode 1: A Death in the Family (May 22, 2026)
Host: Josh Mankiewicz, NBC News

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Episode Overview

The first episode of "Trace of Suspicion" explores the sudden, mysterious death of 23-year-old Marine Sergeant Todd Sommer in 2002. Framed in classic Dateline style, the story probes not just the night of his demise but the ripple effects: how his wife Cindy Summers coped (and how others perceived her grieving), the investigation’s twists and turns, and the persistent lingering questions that would haunt his family and friends for years. With signature narrative and interviews, the episode sets up a true crime case that is as much about family, community suspicion, and the nature of grief as it is about forensics and motive.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Night of Todd Sommer’s Death (01:03–04:49)

• Setting the Scene:
  Josh Mankiewicz draws listeners in with evocative narration—Todd had been battling a "bug" for over a week.
  Quote: "Death comes for us all eventually... The Grim Reaper is always out there waiting." (01:03, Josh Mankiewicz)

• Cindy’s Account:
  Cindy describes Todd getting out of bed, struggling to breathe, and collapsing.
  Quote: "He got up and he walked towards the bath, turned around... just couldn't catch his breath." (02:21, Cindy Summers)

• Desperate CPR and Call for Help:
  Cindy recalls attempting CPR, despite only knowing the basics from a middle school swimming class.
  Quote: "I'd never done it before other than on a dummy. So I really wasn't sure the exact sequence." (03:14, Cindy Summers)

• Neighbors' Involvement:
  Susan Beach, a friend and neighbor, is called to watch the children as paramedics arrive.

• Initial Emotional Reactions:
  The house is tense and chaotic, with Cindy bewildered by medical protocols and fearing for her husband's life.

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2. Aftermath and Early Investigations (07:28–09:30)

• Paramedics Arrive:
  Cindy is removed from the room as paramedics work on Todd. She’s in shock, clinging to hope.

• Life Insurance Comment:
  Notably, outside as Todd is taken away, Cindy turns to a military police (MP) officer and, seemingly offhand, mentions her husband’s military life insurance—something that will later be scrutinized in the investigation.
  Quote: "It was then she turned to an MP... and blurted out a comment about Todd's military life insurance policy, worth about a quarter of a million dollars. An innocent comment? Sure... Well, years later... that comment... would be remembered and written down as evidence." (07:28–08:19, Josh Mankiewicz)

• The Untouched Scene:
  A friend remembers two half-full wine glasses in the bedroom, never tested, as first responders did not consider it a potential crime scene.
  Quote: "The only thing I really remember was two wine glasses sitting on one of the dressers near bed. They looked like they were half full." (09:21, Susan Beach)

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3. Cindy’s Immediate Response & Family History (12:24–21:42)

• Cindy’s Turmoil:
  Cindy details her frantic mindset post-collapse: concern for Todd, their kids, her financial survival, and her own growing panic.
  Quote: "I'm just like, I just need a cigarette." (13:34, Cindy Summers)

• Notification and Hospital Scene:
  Cindy waits at the hospital, then learns Todd is dead. She describes numbness, even detachment.

• Another Life Insurance Query:
  Cindy again brings up finances, asking an officer if she’ll have to return Todd's re-enlistment bonus—fueling later suspicion.

• Marriage Backstory:
  The relationship’s origin is unpacked—an online connection, long distances, quick romance, and blending families.
  Quote: "I think for me, the allure of that was great... I think that he was drawn to kind of the instant family." (23:01, Cindy Summers)

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4. Medical Details and Last Days (23:30–26:32)

• Todd’s Recent Illness:
  Account of Todd’s food poisoning-like symptoms after a work trip, treatment at the base clinic, and the subsequent feeling of improvement.

  • Weekend trip to Knott’s Berry Farm with the family, Todd’s energy not at full strength.

• The Final Night:
  Todd lets Cindy drive home from the park—rare, but seemingly explained by recent illness.

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5. Investigative Process and Grieving Behavior (27:00–36:19)

• NCIS Initial Review:
  Standard death investigation process: interviews, autopsy attributed cause of death to heart failure, no initial suspicion.

• Financial Settlements:
  Cindy receives $6,000 and then $250,000 in death benefits; half is placed in trust for the children.

• Cindy’s Coping Mechanisms:
  Cindy admits to compartmentalization ("put it in my brain that he was on deployment") and rapidly resumes socializing.
  Quote: "I'm really good at avoiding and, you know, just compartmentalizing." (32:44, Cindy Summers)

• Perceived Indecorum:
  Cindy’s partying, spending, and sexual openness provoke neighborhood and family scrutiny, and sound the first alarms of community suspicion.
  Quote: "She went to the strip club down the road the day of her husband's service." (34:34, Chandra Wells, Cindy’s friend)

  Quote: "Multiple lovers. Some were male, some were female. Some were marines who had known Todd." (36:19, Josh Mankiewicz)

  Quote: "I'm not ashamed. I mean, having a threesome isn't anything that's out of the ordinary..." (36:34, Cindy Summers)

• Family Confrontation:
  Todd’s mother, Yvonne, recounts disagreements over Cindy’s grieving style.
  Quote: “She told me to mind my own business, that she would grieve her way and I could grieve my way.” (33:53, Yvonne Summers)

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6. Case Reopened: Analytical Red Flags Emerge (38:05–39:17)

• New Investigator’s Instinct:
  A year later, a new NCIS agent reviews the file and is unsettled by a healthy young Marine dying suddenly, with insurance benefits and atypical widow behavior.

• Renewed Focus on Toxicology:
  Decision is made to run new tests on Todd’s preserved tissues for heavy metals and poison, as the original post-mortem had only screened for basic drugs, not toxins.
  Quote: "This was really strange for a 23-year-old, seemingly healthy Marine to die. So why don't we run one more test?" (40:27, NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger)

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7. Cliffhanger & Teaser for Next Episode (39:38–40:06)

• Potential Poisoning Theory:
  Cindy floats her theory: "somebody put this colorless, odorless, tasteless substance into something he ate or... drank. And it killed him." (39:38, Cindy Summers)

• Celebrity and Media Intrusion:
  Hints that aspects of the case (like Cindy’s breast implants) will generate sensational and possibly prejudicial media coverage in future episodes.
  Quote: "This case started because of the breast implants." (40:01, Cindy Summers)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Quote & Context | |-----------|-------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:03-01:29 | "Death comes for us all eventually..." – Opening narration (Mankiewicz) | | 02:21 | "He got up and he walked towards the bath..." – Cindy Summers recalls the collapse | | 08:19 | "It was then she turned ... mentioned her husband's military life insurance..." – Mankiewicz | | 09:21 | "The only thing I really remember was two wine glasses..." – Susan Beach | | 13:34 | "I'm just like, I just need a cigarette." – Cindy Summers (aftermath) | | 23:01 | "I think that he was drawn to kind of the instant family." – Cindy Summers (on Todd's motivation) | | 32:44 | "I'm really good at avoiding and, you know, just compartmentalizing." – Cindy Summers | | 34:34 | "She went to the strip club down the road the day of her husband's service." – Chandra Wells (friend) | | 36:34 | "I'm not ashamed. I mean, having a threesome isn't anything that's out of the ordinary..." – Cindy Summers | | 38:41 | "Why don't we have the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology run one more test? Because poison could have been an option here." – NCIS Agent Terwilliger |

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Important Segments with Timestamps

| Time | Segment | |---------|------------------------------------------------------| | 01:03–04:49 | The night of Todd’s collapse and immediate aftermath | | 07:28–09:30 | Paramedics at work, Cindy’s life insurance comment, wine glasses clue | | 12:24–16:12 | Cindy’s mindset, family notification, hospital experience | | 20:29–23:30 | Cindy and Todd’s marriage and family blending | | 23:48–26:32 | Illness progression and last family outing | | 27:00–32:44 | Military investigation, financial disbursement, Cindy’s coping | | 33:32–36:54 | Cindy’s perceived misbehavior and neighborhood chatter | | 38:05–39:17 | New investigation, toxicology retesting ordered | | 39:38–40:16 | Cindy’s poison theory, breast implant media angle preview |

Tone, Atmosphere, and Speaker Attribution

• Josh Mankiewicz adopts a characteristically atmospheric, inquisitive, and slightly sardonic tone (“...like some bill collector on commission”).
• Cindy Summers is candid, raw, often defensive but vulnerable about her grieving and controversial post-death choices.
• Friends, family, and neighbors supply both empathy and the seeds of suspicion, highlighting tension between private coping and public expectation.

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Summary

"A Death in the Family" skillfully sets up the mysterious circumstances surrounding Todd Sommer’s shockingly early demise. Through vivid storytelling, interwoven timelines, and honest (sometimes uncomfortable) first-person accounts, this episode builds multiple layers of tension: between Cindy’s personal reality and public judgment, between accidental death and the specter of foul play, and between simple answers and haunting doubts. The cliffhanger points toward a complex investigation simmering beneath this family tragedy, primed for revelation in the next episode.

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Transcript

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

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[Cindy Summers]

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[Cindy Summers]

Was she brave?

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[Cindy Summers]

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[Cindy Summers]

Was it scary?

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[Cindy Summers]

Did the car have a sunroof?

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[Cindy Summers]

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[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Death comes for us all eventually. We can never know exactly when, where or how. What is known is that the Grim Reaper is always out there waiting, checking our names against a list. Like some bill collector on commission. United States Marine Sergeant Todd Sommer had every to think his appointment with death was still decades away. After all, he was only 23. Except sometimes the years don't matter. As he got ready for bed that night in February 2002, the Reaper was watching. Todd had been battling some kind of bug for more than a week. Nausea, diarrhea, stomach pains, chills, fever. The full menu of misery. The doctors at the Miramar Marine Base in San Diego thought this might be food poisoning. Maybe that gas station egg roll he had eaten. We do not know how much sleep Todd Summer actually got that night. We do know that at about 1:30 in the morning, his wife Cindy was awakened by the sound of her husband gasping for breath.

[Cindy Summers]

He got up and he walked towards the bath, turned around and just looked at me and like, just couldn't catch his breath.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Years later, the memory of that night is still fresh for Cindy.

[Cindy Summers]

I went over to him. I'm like, what's the matter? He just looked at me and he said, I'm all right. I'm okay. I'm fine. And then he just fell down. And I just kind of freaked out.

[Neighbor (Denisia Vivia Parra)]

Vomiting.

[Cindy Summers]

AM I?

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That is Cindy back in 2002, on the phone to 911.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

911.

[Cindy Summers]

Let me help in this class.

[Susan Beach]

What happened to him?

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Okay. The parameter on the way

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

right now.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy remembered the basics of CPR from her days as a swimmer in middle school and says she did what she could.

[Cindy Summers]

I'd never done it before other than on a dummy. So I really wasn't sure the exact sequence of how things should go.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

A platoon of paramedics, EMTs and cops were only minutes away, but by then it seemed the grim reaper had her husband in a death embrace.

[Cindy Summers]

Then police and fire got there and it was just. They had taken me out of the room and it was just all a blur from there.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

This story is about the why and the how of Todd Summer's death that night.

[Cindy Summers]

What I want am I going to do?

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It is about the wife he left behind and the questions that have persisted for more than 20 years.

[Cindy Summers]

Well, we learned that they had some money issues.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It is a story about private behavior and public shame.

[Neighbor (Denisia Vivia Parra)]

She started having a lot of people over and a lot of parties shortly after his funeral.

[Carvana Spokesperson]

I understand everybody says it's the sex. We understood how it doesn't look good.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

The experts say that people do some

[Cindy Summers]

pretty strange things in the grieving.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And it is the story about investigators who found reasons to believe Todd Summers sudden death was really a cold and calculated case.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

This was really strange for a 23 year old, seemingly healthy Marine to die. So why don't we run one more test? Because poison could have been an option here.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Trace of Suspicion, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 1 A Death in the Family. The phone woke Susan beach from a dead sleep. Without her glasses, she couldn't tell what time it was, but she knew the voice on the other end of the phone. It was Cindy Summer, the mother of one of her daughter's friends.

[Susan Beach]

She told me that her husband had collapsed on the floor, that she called the paramedics and they were on their way and she needed somebody to stay with her children.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Susan quickly dressed, woke her two kids and hustled them out to the car for the 10 to 15 minute drive to the Summers home.

[Susan Beach]

Noticed that the ambulance and the MPS hadn't arrived yet and I had to figure out where to park. I didn't want to park near her house to be in the way of the paramedics.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Susan did not see Cindy when she and her kids arrived. So she walked in past the stairway that led to the upstairs bedrooms. She assumed Cindy was up there with Todd. Straight ahead, Susan saw Cindy's four kids in the living room, the kids are talking.

[Susan Beach]

I talked to him, but I just can't remember the conversations. I eventually sat on the floor because there was no place to sit.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Although Susan did not see the first responders arrive, she says the children heard them coming through the door.

[Susan Beach]

They were curious, and I think they heard them come, and I had to tell them to stay out of the way.

[Cindy Summers]

I was relieved when they were there because I felt like they could fix everything. That's Cindy, I guess, because they didn't put him on a stretcher and take him right away. You know, I'm like, why aren't they taking him? You know? And I didn't realize that he wasn't stable, that they had to transport when they were stable.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Todd Summer was far from stable. Cindy says she was ushered out of the room, never saw the EMTs frantically performing CPR. She didn't see defibrillator paddles applied or the intravenous drugs paramedics pumped into Todd's body, hoping to restart his heart.

[Cindy Summers]

I didn't know what to do, you know, And I guess I grew up thinking that once the paramedics have them and they go to the hospital that things turn out okay.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

After about 45 minutes, Todd's body was strapped to a gurney and taken out the front door to a waiting ambulance. Cindy was outside chain smoking nervously when the gurney rolled by. It was then she turned to an MP who was standing there and blurted out a comment about Todd's military life insurance policy, which was worth about a quarter of a million dollars. They joke about it a lot, but she never thought that she would actually see it. An innocent comment? Sure. I mean, probably. Well, years later, when Cindy's life went under a microscope, that comment and some others she made that night would be remembered and written down as evidence.

[Cindy Summers]

I'm not thinking I need to cover anything up. I'm not thinking I need to have a filter for anything. I'm not thinking along those lines at all.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Shortly after the ambulance pulled away, Cindy walked back to the house and told Susan beach that one of the MPs was going to take her to the hospital. The house was chilly, and so once Cindy left, Susan went upstairs in search of pillows and blankets for the children.

[Susan Beach]

I looked in the kids room, and I noticed there was no sheets or blankets or anything. And then I walked over to Cindy and Todd's room and I peeked in.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

The room was just as first responders had left it. Lights on an unmade bed, the place littered with discarded medical packaging from the trauma that had played out on the floor. It was a desperately sad scene, made all the more haunting by some evidence of life the way it had been.

[Susan Beach]

The only thing I really remember was two wine glasses sitting on one of the dressers near bed. They look like they were half full.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Because none of the first responders who were there that night had the slightest notion that Todd Summers death might one day be considered suspicious or that his home might have been a crime scene. No photos were taken of the room where he died. The contents of those half empty wine glasses were never tested. And Susan beach was never questioned. As it turned out, more than a year would pass before investigators and some others would realize that doing those things on the night Todd Summer collapsed might have made all the difference.

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[Cindy Summers]

Hey, everyone.

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[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

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[Cindy Summers]

Well, that's cool.

[Carvana Customer]

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[Carvana Spokesperson]

So what's the problem?

[Carvana Customer]

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[Carvana Spokesperson]

Maybe there's no catch.

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That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.

[Susan Beach]

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[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy Summers mind was racing when she climbed into the front seat of an MP's patrol car. Her husband had just collapsed. She had to notify family. What about the kids? What to tell them? And if Todd did not pull through, how would she survive? So many thoughts flashing like Morse code, like an sos.

[Cindy Summers]

I was working at Subway at the time, part time, while the kids were in school for three or four hours a day. You know, do I have enough to eat tomorrow?

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And Todd, she thought, what about Todd? He'll be okay. Sure. Yeah, he'll be okay.

[Cindy Summers]

I remember feeling like they were gonna. They were gonna fix him. And when he got to the hospital, that I wouldn't be able to go right into the room anyway, you know, it wasn't. You don't follow the person into. Into the er, into, you know, the trauma room.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy dug around in her purse for a pack of cigarettes. There were only a couple left.

[Cindy Summers]

I'm just like, I just need a cigarette.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

You ask the MP who was driving you to get.

[Cindy Summers]

If I could get some cigarettes. I'm adhd. I like I am, and I need something to focus on. My brain needs to have. It's not wired right.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

After the cigarette stop, Cindy's mind slowed a bit. She called Todd's mom, her mom, various sisters and brothers, close friends of the family. Todd had collapsed. She told them she did not know why. Yes, he was unconscious. We're on our way to the hospital now. Yes, I'll let you know.

[Cindy Summers]

Get to the hospital. And I remember he was still in the trauma room, and they had put me in, like, a room off to the side. All I knew was that they had said, come in here. You know, a doctor will come and speak with you shortly. And you just sit and wait, and

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

you don't know whether that was five minutes or five hours.

[Cindy Summers]

It seemed like an eternity.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Yeah, you remember the doctor telling you that Todd was dead?

[Cindy Summers]

But, yeah, I remember them coming in and, you know, telling me that they had tried everything they could. I don't know if I asked them why or how. I. I don't. I don't remember any of that anymore.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It had only been an hour since Cindy first called 9111 hour. And in that time everything had changed. Cindy asked to have a few moments alone with her husband's body. She told Todd she loved him. Then she took the wedding band from his finger and placed it on her thumb. As she was leaving the er, a senior Marine officer approached and asked if there was anything the Corps could do for her. That's when Cindy said the second thing that would later come back to haunt her. She asked the officer if she would have to give back Todd's re enlistment bonus.

[Cindy Summers]

Thinking back now as to why I would have said things like that or thought things like that would just really be. I've lost basically our only source of income. I have four kids. We can hardly make ends meet now.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Indelicate, perhaps, unbecoming under the circumstances, maybe. But Cindy Summer didn't need to be clairvoyant to see that she had no hope of supporting her family on what she earned working at a sandwich shop. Once assured that no, she would not have to return Todd's re enlistment money, Cindy called Susan beach, who was still at her house watching the kids.

[Susan Beach]

She told me that Todd was gone. And there was a pause of silence because I was, you know, I was pretty shocked about it. And the next thing I remember is asking her how she was. And she told me she was fine at the moment and that she had come to terms with it or she has accepted it. Something to that nature. She sounded normal.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy told Susan she was coming home. Home to the children and home to the new realities of a world quite different from the one that had existed when she climbed into her own bed just a few hours earlier.

[Susan Beach]

The only thing I recall when she got back is that she wanted to hold the youngest child. And she's holding him and she sat down in a chair and she was staring at a picture of Todd.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

One can only imagine what Cindy must have been thinking as she looked at that photo of Todd.

[Cindy Summers]

Got married barefoot on the beach. It really wasn't a very big wedding.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It had been a true whirlwind romance beginning in January of 1999. Cindy was living in Dearborn, Michigan at the time. She had three kids, ages 8 to 3, a girl and two boys. And she was in the midst of divorcing her first husband, Dan and Todd. Well, Todd was a young Marine stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Cindy had gone down to North Carolina to visit a different Marine she had met online, but ended up falling for that guy's roommate, Todd Sommer.

[Cindy Summers]

We were all hanging out And I met Todd, and we just. There was an instant connection, and we just spent that weekend together.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Soon, Cindy found herself driving 400 miles south from Dearborn to meet with Todd, who was himself driving 450 miles north from Camp Leun. They would rendezvous in Charleston, West Virginia.

[Cindy Summers]

I think we both had like an eight hour trip or, you know, seven hour trip or whatever, but that was like kind of the closest that. Yeah. And we would only really get. I mean, he would leave Friday after work and I would leave and we would meet there late Friday night, and he would leave on Sunday morning. So we would. We didn't have a whole lot of time.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

You know, when you're. When you're in that kind of relationship where you're only with the other person for this little tiny, focused amount of time, that can make things pretty intense.

[Cindy Summers]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

These days, Cindy looks much as she did back then, still slender, still with long brown hair parted in the middle and still brimming with restless energy. Cindy no longer smokes. To help her maintain focus, she does have a close relationship with a vape pen. You remember when he proposed, he didn't

[Cindy Summers]

do a get down on one knee and propose. I think it was more of a we're going to get married kind of a thing. And I think it was, you know, this is what. This is what we're going to do. I mean, we. Within a couple of months, we had started talking about it. We didn't. We weren't dating for that long.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

In July 1999, just weeks after her divorce was final, Cindy and Todd married in the Florida Keys.

[Cindy Summers]

His family was from Islamorada, Key Largo area. So.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

So they, they were all.

[Cindy Summers]

So, yeah, there was. They were there. And then some. Some of his friends from high school were there.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And your side.

[Cindy Summers]

The kids were there.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It had been a glorious day. Cindy radiant in her blue satin dress. Todd decked out in his marine dress blues.

[Cindy Summers]

I mean, I don't know a whole lot of girls that don't think a man in his dress blues is not sexy.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Unfortunately, Cindy did not get to spend much time with that sexy marine on the beach.

[Cindy Summers]

I was still living in Michigan. He was still living in the barracks at Camp Lejeune. Once you get married, it takes a while for housing and for all of that stuff to go through and all that. And he was getting ready to be deployed when I found out I was pregnant.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

It is a tough way to start a marriage. But Cindy says each separation was met with a surge of affection. While Todd was aboard ship in the Mediterranean. They kept in touch with passionate letters and emails, fervent imaginings of how perfect their lives would be once they could all live together. The baby, another boy, was born in April 2000, a month after Todd returned. Seven months later, Todd deployed again. That is the job. Cindy's new life involved living on a Marine base far from home and raising four kids on an enlisted man's salary.

[Cindy Summers]

Groceries, insurance, you know, when we had cell phones, I think that we lived as much as we could within our

[Liberty Mutual Bird Owner]

means,

[Cindy Summers]

but it's hard to do on that type of salary.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Shortly after Todd returned from that second deployment in the summer of 2001, he was handed transfer orders to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. So the family packed up again and moved to Southern California. And it was there, in that pink stucco house on the Miramar base, that this young family finally seemed to find their groove. By all accounts, Todd loved hanging out with the kids and being a dad. He was so close to with Cindy's children from that first marriage that Todd even talked of adopting them.

[Cindy Summers]

He loved them. He. From the minute he met them, he loved them, and the kids loved him, and he looked at them as his own and treated them as his own.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

A lot of guys, particularly guys in their early 20s, would not be so anxious to marry a woman who came complete with a family.

[Cindy Summers]

Right. I think for me, the allure of that was great. You know, I was coming out of a terrible relationship, so meeting somebody that was interested in the things that I was interested in and loved the family and loved the kids, I was drawn to that. And I think that he was drawn to kind of the instant family.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Then came February 8, 2002, 10 days before Todd died. On that Friday, Todd and some other Marines went to el Centro, about 100 miles east of San Diego. The assignment was to scout a location for an upcoming training exercise.

[Cindy Summers]

This wasn't something that he had never done before or anything. Came home and was not feeling well and thought they stopped at a roadside gas station and he had gotten egg rolls, and.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And he thought maybe that made him sick.

[Cindy Summers]

Thought maybe that made him sick.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Do you remember what he said about his symptoms?

[Cindy Summers]

His symptoms were food poisoning. He just. He had diarrhea, vomiting. Then it turned into almost like a flu to where he had fever. And I couldn't. I remember I called my mom because I couldn't get the fever down, and I couldn't get him to hold down any liquids.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Had it been that egg roll that made Todd sick, or had it been something else? Maybe something he came in Contact with while in El Centro. Hard to say. None of the other Marines on that trip got sick. Whatever the cause, for the next 10 days, Todd felt lousy. He missed a few days of work when he went to the base clinic. The doctors did some tests and gave him a prescription.

[Cindy Summers]

And he had started to get better. After, I believe the second trip to the clinic, he had started to get better and was feeling well enough that he wanted to take the kids to Knott's Berry Farms in la.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Knott's Berry Farm is an amusement park. Rides, roller coasters, the works. The summer family made a weekend of it. Cindy says Todd and the kids had a ball.

[Cindy Summers]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He seemed to. Yeah, he seemed to kind of be over that hump. Wasn't 100%, but enough to where. I mean, it wasn't like I had to drag him out of bed.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And he was into it.

[Cindy Summers]

He was into it. He was ready, he wanted to go, he drove. You know, we kids had a great time. They rode roller coasters.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Sunday, February 17th was their last day at the amusement park. And as it turned out, the last day of Todd summers life. That trip had taken a lot out of him. He asked Cindy to take the wheel on the drive home.

[Cindy Summers]

Yeah, he always did the driving, but I don't know if that raised any flags just because I knew he had been sick and being a human, you know, like, oh, you've been sick and you just had a big day. Yeah, I'll drive you rest kind of a thing. And the kids fell asleep in the car, drove home, got home and got everybody tucked into bed and went up to bed.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

A few hours later, Cindy woke to the sound of her husband gasping for breath.

[Cindy Summers]

I'm like, what's the matter? He said, I'm all right, I'm okay. I'm fine. And then he just fell down.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy says that's when she made that call to 91 1.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

91 1.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That was the moment her life changed. It was also day one of an investigation that would last another five years.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.

[Cindy Summers]

Hey, everyone, check out this guy and his bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

What is this, your first date?

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

Yeah, the bird looks out of your league.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Anyways, get a [e-mail] or with your local agent Liberty.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson's Partner]

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[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

The day after Todd Sommer died, investigators from ncis, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, came to the summer's home. You might know of NCIS or its reputation for conducting thorough, science driven investigations from the long running TV show. The agents assigned to this case interviewed Cindy, took a look around the house and saw nothing out of the ordinary. This appeared to be a routine death investigation, the kind that is performed anytime an active duty service member dies on a naval or Marine base. Standard toxicology tests showed no sign of illegal drugs or anything else suspicious in Todd's body. The doctor who did the autopsy concluded he had died from heart failure. That is unusual in a man of 23, but not unheard of. With no hint of foul play, all that was left to be done was to have an NCIS review panel sign off on the final report.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

What happens is that the panel will review it, find that all the investigative leads have been followed, and then they would recommend it for closure.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That's Rob Terwilliger, one of at least a half dozen NCIS agents who would Work this case over the next three years.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

With that recommendation, that case would undergo a second tier and then they would close the case in Washington D.C. in

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

the meantime, the machinery of military death and grief ground on. Samples of Todd's organs and blood were preserved for future analysis. The rest of what had been Todd's summer was cremated. Three memorial services were held for Todd. One at Miramar Marine Base where he died, one for relatives in Tennessee, and another in Florida where his parents lived. This is Cindy speaking at one of them.

[Cindy Summers]

I bring in, people,

[Susan Beach]

see me in the morning, say prayers. He would always say that to me.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy's financial fears were also put to rest, at least temporarily, by the prompt payout of Todd's death benefits. She received a $6,000 death gratuity from the military the day after Todd died and a $250,000 life insurance payout a month later. At the time the standard for the armed services. After consulting with Todd's family, she decided to use half the money to establish trust funds for the children.

[Cindy Summers]

There was talk of just buying a house or, you know, what was going to happen, and we decided on setting up trust funds for the children.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

You've heard different people grieve in different ways. That's what experts say whenever someone veers off script and starts behaving in unexpected or unsettling ways after a death in the family. In retrospect, that could certainly be said of the way Cindy Summer dealt with the sudden death of her 23 year old Marine sergeant husband.

[Cindy Summers]

I'm really good at avoiding and, you know, just compartmentalizing. I think really that's what I did after Todd died was just compartmentalize and put it, put it in my brain that he was on deployment.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Compartmentalizing may have been Cindy's way of coping, but over the next three months, her behavior struck many as conduct unbecoming a Marine widow. Some would call it disrespectful, disgraceful, even others called it suspicious. It all started on the night after Todd died. Cindy left the kids with Todd's mom, Yvonne, who had just flown in from Florida, while Cindy went out with her friends.

[Yvonne Summers (Todd's Mom)]

And it got to be late, it was after midnight and I did call her cell phone and I believe I suggested that she come home, which she did.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That's Yvonne Summer, Todd's mom.

[Yvonne Summers (Todd's Mom)]

But when she came home, she came into the room where I was staying and she told me to mind my own business, that she would grieve her way and I could grieve my way.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Cindy's way of grieving it appeared, was the equivalent of accelerating past the funeral procession and flooring it in the fast lane.

[Cindy Summers]

You'd expect her to be depressed and staying at home, and that wasn't happening.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That's Chandra Wells, one of Cindy's friends from the subway shop where she worked.

[Cindy Summers]

She went to the strip club down the road the day of her husband's service.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

She went to the strip club down the street the day of her husband's funeral.

[Cindy Summers]

Alone with other people, with some of her girlfriends.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Once Cindy received the death benefit checks, friends say she began spending money like it was on fire. Designer clothes, fancy dinners, whatever. They said Cindy was picking up the checks.

[Cindy Summers]

Yeah, I bought a Tiffany's ring, and I'm wearing it right now.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

I see. It's very pretty.

[Cindy Summers]

Yeah, I thought that it would make me feel better. I liked the way that it felt. I touch it all the time, you know, and it's. And it's a reminder of where I've been.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

As for her neighbors at Miramar, well, they said Cindy's children seemed always to be outside and largely unsupervised after Todd's death. That while Cindy's home became party central,

[Neighbor (Denisia Vivia Parra)]

once she started having a lot of people over and a lot of parties shortly after his funeral, a lot of the neighbors and people that lived around was just like, you know, what's going on over there? And she got over that pretty quickly.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That's Denisia Vivia Parra, one of Cindy's neighbors.

[Neighbor (Denisia Vivia Parra)]

A couple months after, when it just kept on going. And there's just a lot. A lot of people over there all the time, and other guys driving her husband's cars. And that was just kind of odd for me to have, you know, other men driving his vehicles and coming in and out all the time. But, you know, I never said anything to her about it. I just noticed it and just went on my way.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That is just what people could see from the outside. Behind closed doors, Cindy kept herself busy with multiple lovers. Some were male, some were female. Some were marines who had known Todd.

[Cindy Summers]

I'm not ashamed. I mean, having a threesome isn't anything that's out of the ordinary or that doesn't happen. Why does it matter? I didn't grieve how people thought I should. I didn't do the things that they thought I should. I did things that they didn't agree with. I. My moral compass may have been off.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

According to the medical examiner, Todd Sommer had died of natural causes, heart failure, pure and simple. Still, the case had lingered in part because the cast of NCIS special agents investigating it kept changing. There were transfers, reassignments and retirements. Personnel changes that every few months required someone new to review the file, get up to speed and take the final steps necessary to close the case. Todd Sommer had been dead for more than a year by the time the file finally made it to the desk of the resident field agent in charge for final review. And it was at this moment that the agent in charge balked. A young, healthy Marine was suddenly dead. Insurance money. And based on what investigators had heard from other Marines at Miramar, the wife had not exactly acted as a grieving widow was expected to act. Something about this case, he thought didn't pass the smell test.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

In this particular investigation, the consensus was this was really strange for a 23 year old, seemingly healthy Marine to die.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

That's NCIS agent Rob Terwilliger again, the lead agent there.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

The resident agent in charge of the field office when he reviewed that case on the death review panel. Agree, there's, there's something that just begs the question here. So in his mind, why don't we have the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology run one more test? Because poison could have been an option here.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Remember, the initial toxicology report had only checked Todd Sommers body for street drugs or high levels of prescription drugs, not for poisons. So frozen samples of blood, urine, liver and kidney that had been harvested from Todd Summers body were pulled from cold storage and packaged for shipment to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC.

[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

And so they took the tissues of Sergeant Sommer and tested those for heavy presence of heavy metals.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

And it was then, in the spring of 2003, more than a year after his collapse, that the death investigation of Marine Sergeant Todd Summer took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. Next time.

[Cindy Summers]

My theory is that somebody put this colorless, odorless, tasteless substance into something he ate, or more likely something he drank. And it killed him.

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

Cindy's had a colorful life.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Pretty much some of the things we've

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

found throughout the course of the investigation.

[Cindy Summers]

This case started because of the breast implants.

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Think about it.

[Carvana Spokesperson]

If she had a nose job, would

[Liberty Mutual Spokesperson]

we even be talking about it?

[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

This podcast is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beacham is the producer. Marshall Housefeld, Brian Drew and Meredith Kramer are audio editors. Molly DeRosa is associate producer. Rachel Young is field producer. Adam Gorfin is co executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio sound mixing by Rich Cutler.

[Carvana Spokesperson]

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[Cindy Summers]

a break in, and that's too late.

[Carvana Spokesperson]

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[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

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[NCIS Agent Rob Terwilliger]

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[Carvana Spokesperson]

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[Cindy Summers]

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[Narrator (Josh Mankiewicz)]

Outdoor deterrence requires a Simplisafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection plan starting at 49.99amonth. Visit simplisafe.com licenses for alarm license information. Tennessee2012.