Trace of Suspicion - Ep. 3: Suspicious Minds

Summary

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Dateline Originals – Trace of Suspicion

Episode 3: Suspicious Minds

Date: May 22, 2026
Host: Josh Mankiewicz (NBC News)

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the pivotal phase of the Cindy (Cynthia) Sommer case, as investigators uncover new circumstantial evidence in the mysterious 2002 death of Marine Sgt. Todd Sommer. The narrative deepens around Cindy’s personal history, the investigation’s turning points, and her arrest as a suspect in her husband’s arsenic poisoning. Through candid interviews and investigative insight, the episode spotlights how suspicion mounted and the complicated web of motive, evidence, and perception surrounding Cindy’s apparent guilt.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Cindy’s Early Life & Trajectory

• Background:

  • Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1973.
  • Grew up in upper-middle-class comfort: “We had a garage fridge. We had a pool. My parents vacationed with their friends on sailboats in the Caribbean.” (Cindy Summer, 01:09)
  • Family upheaval at age nine due to her parents’ divorce led to rebellion and early rehab at age 13.

• Quote:

  • “I just, I rebelled.” (Cindy Summer, 01:56)
  • Regarding rehab aftermath: “Her mom made her a spaghetti dinner. She’s a doctor today and I am not... My mom just should have made me a spaghetti dinner.” (Cindy Summer, 02:03)

• Key Insight:

  • Cindy’s formative years set the stage for a life marked by both resilience and disruption—a pattern mirrored later in her tumultuous adulthood.

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2. The Summer Marriage & Motive

• Todd Sommer:

  • Described as an “athlete,” “healthy,” and “maintaining his physical fitness regimen.” (NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger, 05:26)
  • Family tried to dissuade him from marrying Cindy, who already had children.
  • “He loved her, he enjoyed having her kids.” (NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger, 06:09)

• Cindy’s Perspective:

  • She jokes about the Dateline-esque narrative assigned to her: “Healthy 23 year old Marine suddenly drops dead. His wife takes the insurance money, gets implants, sleeps with a bunch of other guys…” (Cindy & Josh, 02:42–03:05)

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3. Investigative Turning Point: Florida Trip

• The Plan:

  • Investigators from NCIS and the San Diego DA’s office fly to Florida, aiming to interview Cindy and arrest her if evidence warrants.
  • Circumstantial evidence mounts, but there’s no concrete proof Cindy poisoned Todd—no arsenic purchase traced, dosage unclear.
  • “They had a theory and a pile of circumstantial evidence... What they did not have, at least not yet, was any proof Cindy Summer actually poisoned her husband.” (Mankiewicz, 08:24)

• Family Notification & Hidden Assets:

  • Todd’s parents are first told their son’s death is being reclassified as a homicide—nearly four years later.
  • Family discloses a previously unknown $30,000 trust fund, later found to have been depleted weeks before Todd’s death. “Until we went to Florida, we had no clue that there was even a trust fund in the picture.” (Terwilliger, 13:13)
  • Investigators speculate if the drained fund—and Cindy’s spending—could be motive for murder.

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4. The Confrontation & Interrogation

• Initial Interview:

  • Cindy, unsuspecting, is called from her call center job for a “routine” meeting—willingly goes to the sheriff’s office.
  • “We have some new information about Todd’s death and we’d just like to discuss it with you.” (Cindy, 18:02)
  • Cindy is brought to a Violent Crimes Unit interrogation room, yet doesn’t realize she’s a suspect.
  • “I’m not being interrogated... I’m not being interrogated.” (Cindy, 19:38)
  • Investigators probe details about her marriage, finances, and breast augmentation.

• Recording Fiasco:

  • No audio or video recording exists due to “corruption.”
  • “How convenient.” (Cindy, 21:34)
  • Raises significant issues for the case as only investigators’ word stands against Cindy’s.

• Aftermath:

  • Cindy contacts her former mother-in-law, Vonnie, alluding to family drama and suspicion.
  • Still, she doesn’t suspect she’ll be arrested.

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5. The Arrest & Second Interrogation (Recorded)

• Public Arrest:

  • The next morning, multiple patrol cars arrive at Cindy’s workplace. She’s cuffed in front of coworkers.
  • “They put me in handcuffs and I was like, I'm like, dumbfounded.” (Cindy, 25:44)
  • Cindy is told she's under arrest for murdering Todd:
    • “Wait one second. They say you’re under arrest for murder and you think out of the blue?” (Mankiewicz, 25:58)
    • “I was floored.” (Cindy, 26:02)

• Interrogation:

  • This time, the interview is recorded.
  • Cindy immediately requests a lawyer; is read her Miranda rights.
  • The topic of arsenic is still not openly named during the interrogation.
  • “I just, I mean, I just, I don't understand what's going on. I don't.” (Cindy, 26:58)
  • “I'm just blindsided, and I don't understand what's going on.” (Cindy, 29:10)

• News Discovery:

  • Cindy learns of the exact cause of death (arsenic poisoning) not from law enforcement, but from news reports while in jail:
    • “I had to ask my mother what arsenic was while I was in jail because I didn’t even know what arsenic was.” (Cindy, 30:03)

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6. Aftermath: Custody, Extradition, and Jail

• Custody Struggles:

  • Cindy’s kids are placed with various relatives as she fights extradition to California.
  • “With that settled, Cindy turned her attention to the case against her.” (Mankiewicz, 30:54)

• Legal Strategy:

  • Her attorney sees a lack of evidence, hopes for dropped charges—unsuccessful.
  • “I knew I was going to lose extradition. But like I said, we wanted to get more evidence and find out what was going on.” (Cindy, 31:11)

• Jail Challenges and Support:

  • Cindy recounts a jail deputy offering pragmatic advice to cope:
    • “She just said, Summer, you’ve got to get it together. You’ve got to suck it up. They’re going to eat you alive in here... Put on just a straight face and stop blubbering... and I did.” (Cindy, 32:04)
  • Memorable touch: deputy retrieving Cindy’s teddy bear for her mother. (32:29)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 02:03 | Cindy Summer | “What happened was my girlfriend and I ... her mom made her a spaghetti dinner. She’s a doctor today and I am not, right? So my mom just should have made me a spaghetti dinner.” | | 03:00 | Cindy Summer | “It would be a great Dateline show. It’s a great story if it happened.” | | 05:26 | Rob Terwilliger | “He typified a standard Marine who is maintaining his physical fitness regimen.” | | 13:13 | Rob Terwilliger | “Until we went to Florida, we had no clue that there was even a trust fund in the picture.” | | 19:39 | Cindy Summer | “I’m not being interrogated.” | | 21:34 | Cindy Summer | “There’s no audio recording and there’s no video recording. They said it was corrupted or some whatever. How convenient.” | | 25:44 | Cindy Summer | “They put me in handcuffs and I was like, I’m like, dumbfounded... I was floored.” | | 30:03 | Cindy Summer | “I had to ask my mother what arsenic was while I was in jail because I didn’t even know what arsenic was.” | | 32:04 | Cindy Summer | “She just said, Summer, you’ve got to get it together. You’ve got to suck it up. They’re going to eat you alive in here... Put on just a straight face and stop blubbering.” |

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Important Timestamps & Segments

• Cindy’s childhood and the start of her troubles: 01:02–02:19
• Framing of the narrative about Cindy’s supposed guilt: 02:19–03:25
• NCIS and DA’s investigation, interviews, and flying to Florida: 04:39–08:16
• Interview with Todd’s family, revelation of the trust fund: 10:27–13:54
• Cindy’s call center interrogation and missing recording issue: 17:09–22:13
• Public arrest and second (recorded) interrogation: 25:17–29:21
• Cindy learning the case specifics from jail: 29:42–31:11
• Jail support and prepping for extradition: 31:23–32:36

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Tone and Presentation

• The episode is narrated with Dateline’s signature mix of journalistic detachment and suspense, balancing empathy for Cindy’s confusion and distress with the relentless march of the investigative process.
• Cindy’s commentary is raw, candid, and often self-deprecating. Investigators remain methodical and procedural.

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Episode Summary

This pivotal episode portrays the tightening net around Cindy Sommer as investigators, acting on circumstantial evidence and a narrative now laced with financial motives, take steps to arrest and extradite her for the murder of her husband. Through immersive storytelling, candid interviews, and revealing procedural moments, listeners are drawn into the uncertainty of the case—how headlines and perception sometimes precede fact, and how even in the depths of despair, small acts of compassion can shape the experience of the accused. The episode ends poised on the eve of Cindy’s high-profile arrival back in California to face trial, with more twists to come.

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Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

The little girl who would become Cindy Summer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1973.

[Cindy Summer]

I had a garage fridge. We had a pool. My parents vacationed with their friends on sailboats in the Caribbean.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

It was a comfortable life, to be sure, one that might have put Cindy on the well trod path to upper middle class affluence. It was when Cindy was nine that her life changed. A lot of us encounter the kind of brutal disruption she went through. Sometimes it's a heart attack, a bankruptcy, a broken heart. The thing you look back on, the thing that changed your life's trajectory. For Cindy, it might have come when her parents, perhaps distracted by their divorce, lost control of their daughter.

[Cindy Summer]

I just, I rebelled.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

By the time Cindy was 13, she was in rehab.

[Cindy Summer]

What happened was my girlfriend and I, we ended up taking acid and long story short, I went to rehab and her mom made her a spaghetti dinner. She's a doctor today and I am not, right? So my mom just should have made me a spaghetti dinner.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Rehab was the second earthquake in her life, but not the last in Cindy's life. They kept coming, kept getting bigger. Pregnancy, marriage, divorce, remarriage, her husband's sudden death, and then becoming a murder suspect. It's an irresistible narrative.

[Cindy Summer]

Absolutely right.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Healthy 23 year old Marine suddenly drops dead. His wife takes the insurance money, gets

[Cindy Summer]

implants, sleeps with guys, sleeps with a

[Josh Mankiewicz]

bunch of other guys, goes to Mexico and enters a wet T shirt contest, right? And she's spending the money as fast as it comes in, right? So let's charge her with murder.

[Cindy Summer]

It would be a great Dateline show. It's a great story if it happened

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Tomorrow we'd be all over it.

[Cindy Summer]

But if it happened tomorrow, I don't think that you could put my story on Lifetime TV and have it be believable. I think there's too many things that just when you put them all together and you go, that's just that. What? That doesn't make sense.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

In this episode, you'll hear how investigators in Florida found new circumstantial evidence that made Cindy seem even more guilty.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Until we went to Florida, we had no clue that there was even trust fund in the picture.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You'll hear what happened when investigators confronted Cindy face to face and told her they had some new information concerning her husband's death.

[Cindy Summer]

I talked to them thinking, oh well, maybe, maybe they've got something. Maybe they've found something out.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And you'll hear how Cindy received compassion and some valuable advice from an unlikely place while she was behind bars.

[Cindy Summer]

She just said, summer, you've got to get it together. You've got to suck it in, suck it up, put on just a straight face.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Trace of Suspicion, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 3 Suspicious Minds.

[Cindy Summer]

Now we need for a check to

[Commercial Narrator]

make sure that your seat belts are fastened. Tray cables and seat backs must be

[Cindy Summer]

all the way forward in their locked position.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

San Diego to South Florida is a long cross country flight. For the investigators on Cindy Summers trail. The time passed quickly. Somewhere over that vast expanse of snow capped mountains and quilted planes that day in November 2005, the conversation between the NCIS special agent and the investigator from The San Diego DA's office would have naturally touched on the purpose of their flight. Their investigation into the untimely death of Marine Sergeant Todd Sommer nearly four years earlier.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Family members described him as always being an athlete, playing basketball and baseball.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

He typified a standard Marine who is maintaining his physical fitness regimen.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yes, Todd Summer had been a healthy guy. Handsome too. That's probably what attracted Cindy to him in the first place. That and maybe the fact that, as Cindy told friends, Todd came from money.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

According to witness statements, one of the first things she talked about was how well off this particular Marine was at a very nice vehicle, very nice car. Again, had parents who were in her mind, very well off because of the business they owned.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

What did he see in her?

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Couldn't tell you.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You ever talked to anybody who talked about how he felt about her or.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Based on a witness statement and interviews that we did with his family, they. They indicated that he Loved her and wanted to marry her. And there were members of his family who tried to talk him out of it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Did he know what he was getting into?

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

I couldn't tell you that. Again, based on what family members were saying, he seemed the main focus was that he loved her, he enjoyed having her kids, he liked having the children. And that was seemed to be the motivation for what he was doing.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

More than two years had passed since stratospheric levels of arsenic had been discovered in tissues taken from Todd Summers body. That was when a routine death inquiry had become a homicide investigation. Ever since, the investigators had done a dicey dance with their sole suspect, Todd's wife, Cindy Summer. It was a dance in which only those who could hear the music knew the steps. And Cindy, she heard only crickets. She still had no idea her late husband's death had been ruled a homicide and that she was the only suspect.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Someone intentionally administered this poison and killed him. Well, who would benefit from that? There was only one name that kept coming up.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And so, with the kind of delicate deliberation one might expect of an explosives expert disarming a bomb, they interviewed people who knew Cindy well, people who had never been interviewed before.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

We didn't know how close knit those family and friends were with Cindy at the time.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

So the minute you talk to one of them, you run the risk that they're going to call her and say.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Exactly.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

NCIS was here and they were asking a lot of very serious questions.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

And that's exactly it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Though the investigators still had more interviews to do, they intended to arrest Cindy Summer on this trip and bring her back to San Diego to stand trial for the murder of her husband.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

We presented the facts to the district Attorney's office. They found that there was significant evidence, enough to move forward.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Significant evidence? Well, they had a theory and a pile of circumstantial evidence to support that theory. What they did not have, at least not yet, was any proof Cindy Summer actually poisoned her husband. Where'd she buy the arsenic?

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

We don't know.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

How much did she use?

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Again, we don't know.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Diligence, they say, is the mother of good luck. And luck was what investigators now needed the most. Perhaps by confronting Cindy cold, they hoped she might say something incriminating, maybe even confess.

[Commercial Narrator]

Flight 608 now arriving at Gate 22B.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

First, though, investigators needed to talk with Todd Summers family. The Summers, like Cindy, had no idea Todd's death had become a homicide investigation. They needed to be notified before anything was reported in the media. So the investigators eased Their rental car onto Route A1A and headed south toward Key Largo, the place where Todd Sommer grew up and where his family still lived. It is easy to imagine the older woman breezing through her Florida home, leveling the blinds, straightening the throw pillows. Yvonne, or Vani, as she was known to friends, would likely have been in motion all that afternoon, making her home, ready for the investigators who were coming in from San Diego. The man who had phoned earlier had said he wanted to talk with the family about Todd. Todd, their youngest, Todd, who had died too young. Heart attack, they said. Strange. Anyway, since that call Todd had been on Vonnie's mind. She could still picture him walking and laughing in these very rooms.

[Cindy Summer]

Todd was an active child. He worked in our church with the four and five year olds.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's the voice of Vonnie Summer.

[Cindy Summer]

He was loyal to his friends.

[Commercial Narrator]

He had many friends and he cared about them. And he was a good son.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Vonnie's train of thought may have been broken when she heard a car pull up. The visitors from San Diego were at her door. She invited them in and waited to hear what the two men had to say.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

We had the difficult task of advising Todd's parents what had transpared, letting them know that of the forensic findings and that the San Diego county medical examiner had reclassified their son's death as a homicide.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Once again, that's NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

And so we had to do those interviews. Sort of cold in the sense of we didn't want to predispose anyone with an opinion of, well, this person did it, this person did it. We wanted straight information without them being tainted by any outside information.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

It was slow going. A step by step process. The investigators covered all the bases. From the first time the Summers met Cindy. They spoke about their initial reservations about the match. Todd was so young and Cindy three children already. However, they said that was what Todd wanted. He could be stubborn like that and, well, they could see he genuinely loved Cindy and her children.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

As we progressed through the interviews, they recognized that Cindy's name kept coming up over and over again.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

So once the investigators finished with their questions, it was the Summer family who had a few questions for them.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

I believe it was Todd's mom who said, well, Cindy's name has come up a lot in our conversation and do you think she had anything to do with this? And that's when we told him that she was going to be arrested the following day.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

If you can imagine that moment, almost four years after the death of your Only son. You've just learned that his death was a homicide. Not only that, but your former daughter in law, the mother of your grandson, is about to be arrested and charged with his murder. The Summers weren't the only ones to be stunned during that encounter. Investigators were also surprised to learn from Todd's family that he'd had a trust fund. It had been worth about $30,000 on the day he married Cindy.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Until we went to Florida, we had no clue that there was even a trust fund in the picture. And once that came to light, we started looking at who was the beneficiary of that trust fund, because again, we were talking about motive. You could speculate that as the spouse, you believed that just like all those other benefits, that she was going to be the beneficiary of that trust fund.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Turns out that was a moot point. Investigators soon learned that by the time Todd Sommer died, that trust fund had been drained.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

Well, we know from our investigative findings that the trust fund had been exhausted on January 31st of 2002, roughly two and a half weeks before he died.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Where had all that money gone? The investigators thought they knew it had gone. To cover the gap between what Todd made and what Cindy spent, the investigators wondered if Cindy knew the trust fund had gone bust. They wondered if she'd been counting on that trust fund money to pay for her breast augmentation. If so, she would have needed a new plan. Special agent Terwilliger wondered if maybe that new plan involved using Todd's life insurance policy. Do you think that was part of the motive, that the truth trust fund ran out?

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

I think that it could have been. Again, it could go two ways. She found out the trust fund was exhausted and so they were in real financial straits. Or she had no clue that that trust fund had been depleted and she believed that as the spouse, she was going to be the beneficiary of that trust fund. So it could go both way.

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

The day after investigators met with Todd's family in Islamorada, they drove north toward West Palm beach and the strip mall call center where Cindy Summer worked. Cindy had no idea what was headed her way. Headset in place, she watched a screen in a cubicle waiting for pickups. It was late morning, almost time for her lunch break, when the call center's manager came to her cubicle and asked Cindy to come to his office. Cindy took off her headset and walked to the manager's office, where two men stood waiting. They looked like cops. Dress shirts and pants, no ties, they said.

[Cindy Summer]

We have some new information about Todd's death and we'd just like to discuss it with you.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Nothing about that felt adversarial, no. When the investigators suggested they continue their conversation down at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office, Cindy says she was happy to go. She followed them in her own car, thinking all the way about Todd and wondering what kind of new information these guys from California might have.

[Cindy Summer]

After Todd died, I mean, I had many conversations with military people that, you know, we all thought it was strange that he had a heart attack, that, you know, he was sick beforehand, that he had gotten food poisoning. Maybe he saw something. Maybe he had seen classified information.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You're starting to think of conspiracy theories here, right?

[Cindy Summer]

Right. So when they came to talk to me three years later, I talked to them thinking, oh, well, maybe. Maybe they've got something. Maybe he was murdered by somebody, maybe who knows.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Her first clue that there might be more to this than just an informational chat came when she arrived at the sheriff's office.

[Cindy Summer]

They took me to Violent Crimes Unit. I mean, I just went in a door, and that's what it was labeled.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Was it a conference room or an actual little interrogation?

[Cindy Summer]

It was an interrogation room. But I, you know, my. My thinking was really, okay, you know, they're from out of town, and this is the room that they got. You know, it's.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I'm not being interrogated.

[Cindy Summer]

I'm not being interrogated.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

She was wrong about that. The investigators wanted to. About her marriage, about the family finances, and about her physique.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

We started to question her about the breast augmentation procedure.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's NCIS Special Agent Terwilliger again.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

She had mentioned that this was something that he wanted to do, and he had went with her to the consultation. And we asked, was he happy about. I mean, he's a sergeant in the Marine Corps. Was he happy about the cost? And she said, no, he wasn't happy about the cost, but he had a trust fund that would help pay for it. He could get money from his parents.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

From the nature of their questions, Cindy knew the two men were implying something. She wasn't quite sure exactly what. What was the new information they said they had? Well, the investigators would only say that a foreign substance had been found in Todd's body. What kind of substance?

[Cindy Summer]

They said, we can't discuss any of that or that's classified or that it's like, whatever. And I. So, I mean, to me, I'm like, well, anything that I can give you, any information I can help, any minor detail that I can think of, I'm going to tell you. That's what I did.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I would expect, having covered a zillion criminal investigations, most of which dealt with murder, that they would say to you in that interview, we think he was murdered, and we know what it was. We know it was arsenic.

[Cindy Summer]

Right?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Right. How did he get arsenic in him, Cindy?

[Cindy Summer]

Right.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That Never happened.

[Cindy Summer]

Right.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

They never said the word arsenic to you?

[Cindy Summer]

They didn't.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Whatever it was investigators were hoping to get on tape from Cindy in that interview, they did not get.

[Cindy Summer]

There's no audio recording and there's no video recording. They said it was corrupted or some whatever. How convenient.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Turns out that was a bigger deal than you might think, because later, without any recording of that interview, it would be only the investigators word against Cindy's about what she did or did not say. And at the end, you got in your car and drove home?

[Cindy Summer]

At the end, I got up and we walked out, shook hands. I told him, you know, there was a strip club that had great steaks and they should go there and eat. And I left and went home that night.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Cindy thought long and hard about what she had been asked by the investigators. From the tone and content of the questions, she could tell somebody had spent a lot of time rummaging around in her past. She wondered who they had been talking to or who'd been talking to them. Cindy says she called her former mother in law, Vonnie Summer.

[Cindy Summer]

I did talk to her and told

[Commercial Narrator]

her

[Cindy Summer]

that they had just come to talk to me, and she said she didn't know anything about it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Was that true?

[Cindy Summer]

No. She did Vani's. She worked at a Christian school. She was very proper, I would say.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And maybe didn't approve of your behavior.

[Cindy Summer]

Right. Yeah. So I think that she fed them a lot of yeast to their bread. Right.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Cindy, of course, had a good idea of what those investigators had heard about her. Embarrassing things, salacious things, things she now regretted. She was right about that. Still, even as her head hit the pillow that night, she says she did not think the investigators actually believed she was somehow responsible for Todd's death. She was wrong about that.

[Commercial Narrator]

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[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

The morning after her meeting with the investigators from San Diego, Cindy Summer got up, got dressed and went to work as she always did. Then, around 10 in the morning, five or six patrol cars from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office descended on the call center as if they had quartered a dangerous desperado. Cindy was cuffed and escorted out in front of co workers.

[Cindy Summer]

They put me in handcuffs and I was like, I'm like, dumbfounded. We'll explain everything when we get to the. When we get to the station. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're under the arrest for murdering Todd Sommer. Yada, yada, yada.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Wait one second. They say you're under arrest for murder and you think out of the blue?

[Cindy Summer]

I mean, I had, I mean, even though they talked to me the day before, I didn't ever think that I was being. I was under any suspicion at. So I was floored.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

For the second time in 24 hours, Cindy was ushered into an interrogation room at the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. In a development you will appreciate this time, the recording equipment worked as advertised. Dan Schmidt, the investigator from The San Diego DA's office, let off.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

And just to let you know, this interview is being recorded. We're going to do another interview with you.

[Cindy Summer]

And they tried to talk to me again, and I said, nope, I, I need a lawyer. I have a friend that is brought as an attorney, by the way. I don't know if I should wait for him.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

I said, wait, okay, which, which is that. Which is absolutely fine.

[Cindy Summer]

I just, I mean, I just, I don't understand what's going on. I don't.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

And I'm going to explain everything to you right now, if. If you want to know.

[Cindy Summer]

I. I do. I want to know. I mean, I don't know what's going on.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Once again, the DA's investigator told Cindy some new information regarding Todd's death had come to light. What information? He didn't say. There was a particular piece of business he needed to take care of first.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

I'm going to read you rights. Okay.

[Cindy Summer]

What am I being arrested for?

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

Okay. And that's what I'm going to tell you. Like I told you yesterday, there was some. A foreign substance that was found in his body. Okay? But before we go any further now and then, starting with murder, you're.

[Cindy Summer]

Oh, my gosh, are you serious?

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

Yes.

[Cindy Summer]

What. What. What. What substance? I don't know.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

Okay. Before we start talking about it, though, I want to read you your rights first. Okay?

[Cindy Summer]

Just not say anything and talk to an attorney, because.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

Okay, it's. And that is completely up to you at this point.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The investigator reminded Cindy that she had voluntarily spoken with them the day before, and he vaguely referred to things she had said that he considered incriminating, like when she told him Todd had accompanied her to the breast implant consultation in La Jolla.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

You did talk to us yesterday. We found a lot of inconsistencies with what she told us yesterday compared to what she told us Two years, That's four years ago.

[Cindy Summer]

I don't really. Honestly, I mean, as far as dates and. I mean, he was sick, and he got better. We went on vacation, he came back, he said he had a heart flutter, and that's. I mean, that's all I really remember. You know, it's been four years, and it's something that I put in the back of my head because it's something that I don't want to remember. That happened because it was very traumatic, and it was traumatic not only for me, but it was traumatic for my kids.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Four minutes into that second interview, Investigator Schmidt finally got Cindy to stop talking long enough for him to Mirandize her.

[Investigator Dan Schmidt]

Having in mind and understanding each of these rights that I've read to you, are you willing to talk to me?

[Cindy Summer]

I really wait for an attorney. I spoke to one earlier, and. Okay, I'm gonna wait, because I really. This is. I'm just blindsided, and I don't understand what's going on.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Cindy was taken from the interrogation room to a holding cell in the Palm Beach County Jail. Her mind was a jumbled mess. So many questions. Who'll take care of the kids? Where's my lawyer? And what exactly am I being accused of? Doing.

[Cindy Summer]

I knew I was being arrested for murdering Todd. I didn't know what I had supposedly done and I only found out from the news what I had done

[Josh Mankiewicz]

from the news reports. Cindy watched on the TV in the lockup's common room. She learned she was accused of using arsenic to poison her husband. She was stunned.

[Cindy Summer]

I had to ask my mother what arsenic was while I was in jail because I didn't even know what arsenic was.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Knowing Cindy would have to return to San Diego for trial, her mother found a lawyer to fight extradition.

[Cindy Summer]

Cynthia Sommer appeared in Palm beach county court to fight extradition to California where the mother of four is accused of murdering her husband. I fought extradition because I had the kids. And so we had to figure out custody and where they were going and what was going to happen with them.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

In the end, the children were scattered among relatives. Todd's son, the youngest, went to live with Todd's mother. Vonnie, Cindy's brother, took the other two boys and Cindy's mother took her daughter. With that settled, Cindy turned her attention to the case against her.

[Cindy Summer]

I didn't know why I was arrested and what the accusations were and what evidence they had.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

As far as Cindy's attorney could tell, there wasn't any evidence. The lawyer even thought the San Diego DA might be persuaded to be drop the charges against Cindy. No such luck.

[Cindy Summer]

I lost extradition. I knew I was going to lose extradition. But like I said, we wanted to get more evidence and find out what was going on, what the case against the case against me was and kind of get a head start on that.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yes. But Cindy says the hundred day long extradition fight bought her valuable time. Time to steal herself for the ordeal she was about to face on the other side of the country.

[Cindy Summer]

I really am thankful that I did that because I was a basket case in Florida. Like, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything. I just cried the whole time.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Cindy says it was in the depths of that darkness that she connected with a compassionate soul. Someone who offered her some valuable advice.

[Cindy Summer]

I had a deputy. I don't remember what her name was, but she was amazing. She pulled me aside and everybody called me Summer. She just said, summer, you've got to get it together. You've got to suck it up. They're going to eat you alive in here. You cannot cry all the time. Put on just a straight face and stop blubbering, stop crying, just. And I did.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And that was very good advice.

[Cindy Summer]

I think she also went to my house and got my teddy bear and sent it to my mom.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's

[Cindy Summer]

so random.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

In March 2006, a little more than four years after her husband's death, Cindy Summer was flown back to California to stand trial for his murder. Next time.

[Cindy Summer]

Everybody knew who I was. I was very high profile. Even like the homeless girls that came in from the street knew who I was. All the deputies knew who I was. When Cindy grew up, her goal in life was to be the wife of a Marine. That's what Cindy wanted to do in life.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

And she married a Marine.

[Cindy Summer]

And she didn't all of a sudden decide to kill that Marine.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

She arrives there and there is no ambulance, there is no fire trucks.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Suggesting to you that Cindy called Susan to watch her kids before she called 911.

[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

I think that's a safe assumption.

[Cindy Summer]

One has to question why somebody would be on an adult singles dating website if one was in the happy marriage that was portrayed by the defense in this case.

[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.

[Cindy Summer]

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[NCIS Special Agent Rob Terwilliger]

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[Cindy Summer]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

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[Commercial Narrator]

Tennessee 2012.