← The Binge Cases: My Mother's Lies
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- [00:01]
Cooper Maul
Listen to all episodes of Fatal Beauty ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge. Visit the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access. Wherever you listen, feed your true crime obsession the Binge before we get started, I just want to let you know we do discuss suicide in this episode, so please listen with care it was the kind of afternoon that felt timeless. Suspended in the golden haze of late summer, Highland park stood pristine, a cocoon of manicured lawns and sprawling homes, a place as polished as its reputation.
- [00:48]
John Leake
This is the bubble that's the nickname of Highland park, or the ills and afflictions of most of humanity. They don't really happen here.
- [00:58]
Cooper Maul
Long before John Leake wrote the Meaning of Malice, his book about Sandra, he was her neighbor.
- [01:04]
John Leake
I was friends with her daughter Catherine. Most of the time there didn't seem to be much adult supervision, which made hanging out at the Bridewell house kind of fun.
- [01:14]
Cooper Maul
It was the ideal spot for a teenage after school hanging.
- [01:18]
John Leake
The thing I noticed about Sandra was first and foremost, she just wasn't like other mothers. She drove a Mercedes 380SL convertible, which is a two seater, and at the time I just thought, how come other moms don't drive that car?
- [01:36]
Cooper Maul
He'd only ever caught glimpses of her, but one afternoon she was actually home. Sandra entered the kitchen like a vision from another world, perfectly coiffed, her dark hair glinting in the sunlight streaming through the windows. Her blouse shimmered as she moved. John froze for a moment, his adolescent brain struggling to comprehend the woman in front of him.
- [02:00]
John Leake
The first time I Met Sandra was 1983, so I would have been 13 years old.
- [02:07]
Cooper Maul
She would give even a teenager like him her undivided attention in a way that was disarming.
- [02:12]
John Leake
Whatever I said. As I spoke, Sandra looked at me and she would sort of gaze upon me with these big brown eyes, as though what I was saying was fascinating.
- [02:25]
Cooper Maul
Sandra was sexy, alluring. He couldn't quite understand her power then, but he understood enough to see she was the kind of woman who men couldn't turn away from. She was something of a siren, if you will. Unfortunately for a few unlucky people who got mixed up with Sandra, they underestimated how dangerous she could be until it was too late. Can't blame them, though. Even the police took a good long while to suspect her of crimes, to see what she was truly capable of. From Sony Music Entertainment this is fatal Beauty I'm Cooper Maul. An open secret. Sandra wasn't born into wealth, but from a young age, she aspired to fit into it. She had grown up in Oak Cliff, a world apart from Highland park, but close enough to see the life she dreamed of. Just a river separated her hometown from the bubble. Sandra was the daughter of a man who sold cemetery plots for a living. By then, her mother had died in a car crash. Sandra wanted to catch herself a man who could provide the life she dreamed of. She went to Tyler junior college in 1962, but less so to expand her mind or land a job. She aimed to perfect her allure.
- [03:53]
Glenna Whitley
A lot of people when they're in those college ages, they are not working on this glamorous, sophisticated Persona.
- [04:03]
Cooper Maul
This is Glenna Whitley, an investigative reporter who's been tracking Sandra for the better part of decades. In 1963, Betty Friedan dared women to get out of the kitchen and into workplaces. Friedan's book, the Feminine Mystique, was a call to arms. Sandra wanted no part of it. She wanted to marry rich and rely on her man to get her the life she deserved.
- [04:26]
Glenna Whitley
She had set her eyes from the very beginning on living a glamorous, expensive, almost aristocratic life. And when she married David Steagall, he was successful enough for her to begin living.
- [04:48]
Cooper Maul
David had piercing eyes and high cheekbones and he was a doctor. But he started out as a real Texan cowboy. When David hung up his lasso, he pursued a career in dentistry, the same trade as his father before him. After graduating from a prestigious dental school in Dallas, he headed to California to study under a dentist of the stars in Hollywood. David fine tuned not only his craft, but found his target client base wealthy and elite. So his next move, setting up shop in Highland park, was a no brainer.
- [05:22]
Glenna Whitley
The people that live there are wealthy people who live in gorgeous, huge, very expensive homes. And it's a very tight knit society.
- [05:39]
Cooper Maul
But before he could penetrate the bubble, he rented an apartment just east of it. That's where his paths cross with a neighbor who seemed to have stepped out of a Southern fairy tale. Sandra was David's first girlfriend and also his last. David was just 24 when they met. Sandra was 23. David popped the question just six weeks into dating. In May 1967, Sandra Powers became Mrs. Sandra Steagall, a dentist's wife. Little did David know what he was in for.
- [06:15]
Glenna Whitley
They got as close to Highland park as they could by moving into Greenway Parks, which was a little slice of nice bungalows.
- [06:27]
Cooper Maul
They had to start somewhere she's setting.
- [06:30]
Glenna Whitley
Herself up to entertain people from the world in which they they want to rise. And so you had to have the right furnishings and the right linens and everything had to be the best.
- [06:46]
Cooper Maul
And she got a live in made in short order. She gave birth to two children, Brit and Catherine. She had help raising the children so she was still free to pursue her interests. She hired an interior decorator to the tune of $35,000. Back then, a perfectly good car went for about 4,000. She could have had eight cars for what she spent to make her house enviable.
- [07:13]
Glenna Whitley
She's learning how to get her foot on that social ladder and begin the climb.
- [07:21]
Cooper Maul
Their home became a showpiece featured in interior design magazines. Sandra filled the house with antiques, fresh flowers and an air of untouchable perfection. This lifestyle came at a cost.
- [07:34]
Glenna Whitley
They couldn't afford it. She was spending her husband into the poor house. Even though he was making very good money, she was spending it faster than he could earn it.
- [07:47]
Cooper Maul
David was drowning. They'd only been living in their Greenway Park's home for a year when the IRS issued a lien. That's when the government claims your property if you can't pay your taxes. On top of that, a North Dallas bank was hounding them for 30k they.
- [08:02]
Glenna Whitley
Owed and she couldn't stop. So this began creating a pattern of whatever she had was never enough.
- [08:15]
Cooper Maul
And the more it wore on David, the more Sandra worried for him.
- [08:19]
John Leake
She proposed that he seek psychiatric counseling because he was so stressed out. And she proposed, procured the psychiatrist and made the introduction to David.
- [08:36]
Cooper Maul
Was she being a helpful wife or was she playing some kind of long game? In 1974, about a year after he and Sandra welcomed their third child, Emily, David turned to his dad for a considerable favor.
- [08:50]
Glenna Whitley
David Steagall had to borrow $100,000 from his father.
- [08:55]
Cooper Maul
The money problems were out of control. David kept a lid on it. He didn't let on to colleagues or friends how much he was struggling. Late one night in January 1975, his estate attorney, Jack Sides, got an alarming call from Sandra.
- [09:12]
John Leake
And she said, I'm worried about what David might do. He's got a pistol. Could you come over here?
- [09:19]
Cooper Maul
Jack rushed over and marched right up to the master bedroom.
- [09:23]
John Leake
David, what the hell do you think you're doing? He said, I can't take this anymore. And it was a weird kind of standoff. He was sitting in this closet in the master bedroom and Sandra and a couple of the kids were perched on the edge of the bed with his.
- [09:40]
Cooper Maul
Family and attorney as witnesses, David reiterated the threat. This is truly bizarre. Why hadn't Sandra ushered the kids away?
- [09:50]
John Leake
I'm gonna kill myself. And Jack Side said, no you're not. I'm gonna walk in there and get that pistol.
- [09:58]
Cooper Maul
David had let someone into his inner world. In a society accustomed to keeping up appearances, this was almost a cardinal sin.
- [10:07]
John Leake
He was then kind of mortified. He met Jack Sides for dinner a few nights later and said, I'm really sorry about the drama. I've gotten so lost in this thing. But I wanted to tell you I would never commit suicide. In fact, I've resolved to put this thing in order.
- [10:24]
Cooper Maul
Put things in order? What could that possibly mean?
- [10:28]
John Leake
I'm going to divorce Sandra.
- [10:30]
Cooper Maul
Sandra and David never got that divorce. On the morning of February 25, 1975, Sandra woke early, around 7am to a mysterious sound. She felt uneasy. Something wasn't right, she'd later say. So she telephoned one of David's colleagues, Dr. Paul Radman, to tell him something terrible has happened to David. In no time, Dr. Radman and his wife were on their way. When they arrived, Sandra explained she had been sleeping in one of her kids bedrooms.
- [11:07]
Glenna Whitley
I heard something really weird and I haven't gone in there, but would you see if David's okay?
- [11:15]
Cooper Maul
What could all this fuss be about? Dr. Rodman went to see for himself. He opened the door of the master bedroom and there was David in his.
- [11:25]
Glenna Whitley
King sized bed with a gunshot wound in his head. He's dead. And his wrists had been slashed.
- [11:34]
Cooper Maul
David's body lay lifeless. A 22 caliber pistol rested near his hand, the sheets beneath him meticulously tucked around his body. I immediately have so many questions. Luckily, this is Leake's wheelhouse. In fact, his painstaking efforts are how the photographs from the morning David was found were made public. When a.22 caliber pistol is fired, it doesn't just make a mysterious noise.
- [12:02]
John Leake
It comes in right around 160 decibels. That's louder than a jet aircraft taking off.
- [12:10]
Cooper Maul
Another curious thing. There was no contact wound from the gun, meaning David shot himself from a distance.
- [12:17]
John Leake
Very hard to imagine how you could be lying on your right side, raise the pistol, hold it above the left side of your head. It's just extremely awkward to lie in bed and hold this pistol. The other thing is if you're holding it in that position, you can't be sure about your aim. So the natural thing to do is to rest the muzzle on your temple.
- [12:42]
Cooper Maul
But he didn't do that. He held the muzzle A couple of inches from his head and supposedly shot himself and kept his composure after. Here's the thing that makes the suicide theory quite hard to believe. The gun was found resting in David's hand with the covers pulled over it. You can hear it in Leak's voice. He just doesn't buy that David would be able to do that after blowing a bullet through his head.
- [13:08]
John Leake
If he did this, he then retained sufficient nervous and muscular control to continue grasping the weapon, to lie the weapon down on the bed, and then to lay his hand on the weapon, and then to pull the covers up over it.
- [13:25]
Cooper Maul
Had David taken his own life, or had the scene been carefully staged to point to suicide? If he had been killed, the murderer made a mistake. It turned out David's forearm had been slashed, not his wrist.
- [13:40]
John Leake
So a guy who knows his anatomy knows that you're not going to hit the radial artery with a knife or a razor blade. If you slash away at the forearm, where you hit the radial artery is where you take a patient's pain pulse in their wrist. And, I mean, he would know that as a medical guy.
- [14:00]
Cooper Maul
But if he was murdered, his killer might not have. We've got the benefit of hindsight looking at the pictures of this scene decades after the fact. When the police finally arrived that morning and started processing what might have happened, they did not dwell on the bizarre way David Steagall died. They went with a story that seemed most simple.
- [14:23]
John Leake
So when the investigating officer arrives, there's this inconsolable, pretty young lady, and the immediate perception is that this guy had some debts that he was having a hard time paying and that he was apparently suffering from suicidal ideation.
- [14:41]
Cooper Maul
To them, it seems straightforward. A man burdened by debt, crushed by the weight of his wife's expectations, had finally snapped. The cops went with Occam's razor, the principle that the simplest explanation is usually the best. David's own psychiatrist, the one Sandra set him up with, backed this narrative, too.
- [15:00]
John Leake
The psychiatrist told the police, yeah, the guy was totally strung out and stressed out. The police found the testimony of the.
- [15:09]
Cooper Maul
Psychiatrist persuasive, and the medical examiner sealed the deal.
- [15:14]
John Leake
The indications were the guy had killed himself.
- [15:17]
Cooper Maul
Leak told me the investigation only lasted five days, not even a week, and Sandra was barely questioned. But what she did say was baffling.
- [15:28]
John Leake
She didn't say that there was evidence of forced entry, that someone else came over that night. It was by her own testimony. She was the only other person in the house.
- [15:39]
Cooper Maul
When a wife ends up dead in the home, the husband is almost always looked at. But Sandra, she didn't raise suspicions.
- [15:46]
Glenna Whitley
The overriding feeling was poor, poor Sandra. Here she is with three children, very young children. She is now a widow at a very young age.
- [16:02]
Cooper Maul
David's death was brushed aside as a tragedy. But I still had a lot of questions. David was by all accounts a private guy. Yet when he did manage to confess his worries, Sandra had been instrumental in making sure witnesses heard them. She called up his attorney, Jack, the night he threatened suicide. Here's leak.
- [16:23]
John Leake
I believe that when David said, I've had enough, I'm going to end it all, Sandra called Jack's sides, not just to diffuse the situation, but she understood that he would serve as a witness or could serve as a witness. Meaning if David then is found shot of an apparent suicide, this previous incident will be interpreted or perceived to be evidence that he did in fact finally carry it out.
- [16:55]
Cooper Maul
And it wasn't just Jack she teed up.
- [16:58]
John Leake
She procured the psychiatrist. And I believe that the psychiatrist, his conception of David as being a troubled man, at least initially began with Sandra's representations of it.
- [17:14]
Cooper Maul
Had she led the cops to believe exactly what she wanted them to? I think it's possible, if not likely. For me, that crime scene had too many clues that David had been killed. The strange slashes on his forearm, not his wrist. The covers that had been pulled over, the gun resting in his hand. And there was something else I found truly eerie.
- [17:37]
John Leake
Someone had tucked him in. The comforter on the right side of the bed has been smoothed out. And then the comforter has been tucked in along the backside of his buttocks and the backside of his legs.
- [17:51]
Cooper Maul
Someone else had been there. But it seems to me the biggest oversight wasn't any of these clues. A potential motive to kill was overlooked.
- [18:00]
John Leake
Sandra was the beneficiary of will like, of everything he had.
- [18:05]
Cooper Maul
And a little something extra. A life insurance policy for $160,000.
- [18:11]
Glenna Whitley
And it does pay out in cases.
- [18:14]
Cooper Maul
Of suicide, which Sandra already knew. Because before David's death, Sandra didn't just rope in his psychiatrist and attorney. She called his life insurance broker. She had one question. Would she still get the money if David took his own life? This detail potentially points to premeditation. The cops, incredibly, they never barked up that tree. Between the $160,000 death benefit and the equity in their home, Sandra walked away with far more than she would have in a divorce.
- [18:52]
Glenna Whitley
While there's people that had suspicions at the time it was ruled a suicide, they assume that the police know what they're doing. And most people Felt extreme sympathy for her.
- [19:07]
Cooper Maul
After Sandra got the proceeds from the life insurance policy, she paid off her debts, took the kids on vacation, and moved on with her life. As the weeks turned into months following David's death, Sandra's grief was eclipsed by a sense of urgency. She no longer had a man to support her or her children.
- [19:26]
Glenna Whitley
A lot of the women in this community could put themselves in her shoes, and so they really tried to reach out to her, to help her with her kids, just to treat her as they would want to be treated if such a tragedy had happened to them.
- [19:47]
Cooper Maul
They also encouraged her to date available men.
- [19:50]
Glenna Whitley
She wanted to find a wealthy man who could take care of her in the style that she had dreamed of being taken care of.
- [19:59]
Cooper Maul
She understood the delicate balance of seduction, independence, how to make a man believe that his success wasn't complete without a woman like her to reflect it back to him. Sandra had mastered the art of admiration. The way to tilt her head just so to let her eyes linger for a second longer, to make a man feel as though he was the most important, most powerful person in the room. The hunt was on in Highland Park.
- [20:26]
Glenna Whitley
She researches men who are wealthy, whether they're married or not married, and goes after them.
- [20:34]
Cooper Maul
It's not unlike how nowadays you'd peek around your tinder matches socials.
- [20:38]
Glenna Whitley
For example, one was a very prominent restaurateur, Norman Brinker.
- [20:44]
Cooper Maul
Norman Brinker was the mastermind behind Fast casual, the restaurant he founded. Steak and ale is kind of like the godfather of spots like Chili's, which he also later bought. He was certifiably rich.
- [20:57]
Glenna Whitley
She managed to show up on the day that he was having his car washed at the same car wash and introduced herself and finagled a date out of it.
- [21:09]
Cooper Maul
In her research, it seems Sandra overlooked that Norman was in the midst of a divorce.
- [21:15]
Glenna Whitley
She begins regaling all of her friends with tales about the ex wife, you know, trying to come after her, you know, writing threats in lipstick, even throwing a knife at her.
- [21:30]
Cooper Maul
This sounds like some Real housewives of Highland park kind of shit. Let's just say their romance was short lived, but it certainly got Sandra's name on the tip of everyone's tongue.
- [21:40]
Glenna Whitley
There were people that started after this to think, wow, that's kind of weird. But there were others who said, well, let's introduce her to another person who was quite beloved.
- [21:57]
Cooper Maul
Bobby Bridewell.
- [22:00]
John Leake
He was born in Tyler, Texas, which is in the middle of the east Texas oil patch. His father was actually an independent oil guy for a while.
- [22:11]
Cooper Maul
By all accounts, Bobby Was a work hard, play hard kind of guy. Here's whitley again.
- [22:16]
Glenna Whitley
He's the life of the party. Men like him and women like him. He's one of those guys who's fun to be around. Just well traveled, doing his own deals, and, you know, pretty high flying.
- [22:30]
Cooper Maul
He was quite a catch this time. It was a bit more elaborate Than a meet cute at a car wash.
- [22:36]
Glenna Whitley
It was a dinner party, Specifically held so that she could meet him. People were trying to get them together in an elaborate way, A fun way. And they arranged for her to pop out of this closet in the middle of this party.
- [22:52]
Cooper Maul
I don't know about you. This would be way too over the top for me. But Bobby found her charming.
- [22:58]
Glenna Whitley
He was instantly smitten with sandra.
- [23:07]
Cooper Maul
From that night in the fall of 1977 on, the two were an item. They married In June of 1978, not even a year after meeting. Sandra reveled in Bobby's reputation, His extravagant lifestyle, and most importantly, the way he adored her children, whom he adopted and gave his name. And bobby had succeeded where her first husband hadn't. He bought her a palatial house Smack dab in the middle of highland park.
- [23:35]
Glenna Whitley
She did not realize, however, that bridewell wasn't as wealthy as she had thought that he was.
- [23:44]
Cooper Maul
Bobby's most recent ventures in hospitality were tanking. He'd gone bankrupt and was in debt to the tune of $3 million. His debt, though, didn't drive him to despair. It lit a fire under him. Then an opportunity came knocking at the perfect time. A mansion in the center of highland park, Once owned by a great cotton and oil baron, shepard king, had fallen into disrepair. Bobby didn't see a dilapidated building. He saw the park city's hottest new social hub. Investors got on board. By 1980, his buzzy restaurant was open for business. Bobby was officially the comeback king.
- [24:24]
John Leake
The mansion on turtle creek became the place to see and be seen.
- [24:29]
Cooper Maul
And sandra, she got catapulted to queen of highland park.
- [24:35]
John Leake
Sandra loves to hang out at the restaurant in the mansion. And, you know, she sort of held court there.
- [24:42]
Cooper Maul
Not long after the mansion on turtle creek had become a fixture in the park cities, Sandra and bobby joined friends at the highland park village theater to see all that jazz.
- [24:50]
John Leake
In the midst of the picture, he broke out into the most violent sweat. Like he said, what's going on here? Like, my clothes are soaked.
- [25:00]
Cooper Maul
The sweat opened up the floodgates To a misfortune he could have never predicted.
- [25:06]
Glenna Whitley
Bobby was diagnosed with lymphoma, and he became very sick.
- [25:13]
Cooper Maul
He was 40 years old, even though.
- [25:16]
Glenna Whitley
He was treated with chemotherapy by the premier oncologist in highland park at the time, John bagwell. He got sicker and sicker.
- [25:28]
Cooper Maul
While Dr. Bagwell took care of Bobby, Sandra glommed onto his better half.
- [25:33]
John Leake
He and his family lived just a few blocks away. Sandra took a fancy or took an interest in Dr. Bagwell's wife, Betsy. Betsy was known to be a very open hearted, generous, kind of giving, empathetic lady.
- [25:49]
Cooper Maul
But her generosity would soon be tested.
- [25:52]
John Leake
And she had two children of her own. But one of the things that Sandra did was constantly seek Betsy's assistance In looking after her three kids.
- [26:03]
Glenna Whitley
Then Sandra does something somewhat inexplicable. She moves Bobby out of the house into a hotel and announces that she's remodeling.
- [26:18]
Cooper Maul
She prioritized a remodel over spending her husband's final days by his side. That was cold.
- [26:26]
Glenna Whitley
She parks her kids with various friends who also have children and sometimes doesn't come back for a day or so.
- [26:36]
Cooper Maul
Imagine the kind of sympathy Sandra was garnering at this point to be able to leave three kids with other families for 24 hours at a time. They probably figured she was shuttling Bobby to chemo. She wasn't.
- [26:49]
Glenna Whitley
Bobbi was dying, and she was trying to find her next husband.
- [26:56]
Cooper Maul
The hotel Bobby had built became her hunting ground.
- [27:01]
Glenna Whitley
People start to think this is somewhat callous.
- [27:10]
John Leake
So it was really during this period that Bobby was dying that Sandra, in a very aggressive way, Began to constantly seek the company and the care and the assistance of the bagwells.
- [27:24]
Cooper Maul
Sandra's gauche behavior in the wake of Bobby's illness Had ostracized her from pretty much everyone but the bagwells. And it wasn't like they could really cut ties. While Dr. Bagwell was still treating her husband, Bobby died Mother's Day of 1982 at Baylor University medical center. He was buried in the garden of eternity at sparkman hillcrest cemetery. The prefix engraved before his name on his headstone read, our beloved. After his death, Sandra leaned on the Bagwells Even more than before.
- [27:55]
Glenna Whitley
She's starting to feel some desperation, like.
- [27:59]
Cooper Maul
She couldn't stand to be alone, like she expected others to help her. She needed them, and she wasn't going to take no for an answer.
- [28:07]
Glenna Whitley
It seemed the constant request and the constant leaving of her kids at Betsy's, it just starts to get suffocating.
- [28:19]
Cooper Maul
But by now, Sandra is a widow two times over, no income coming in, and three children depending on her. It must have been a scary time.
- [28:29]
Glenna Whitley
Betsy is Sympathetic, but enough is enough. I can't take this. And John was feeling it, too, I'm sure. But I think that Betsy was just trying to extricate herself as delicately as she could. But Sandra wasn't taking the hints. She just kept insinuating herself into their lives to the point of just making Betsy resent her.
- [28:58]
Cooper Maul
Then 4th of July weekend rolled around. The Bagwells went away to their second home in Santa Fe, and Sandra showed up there uninvited. For Betsy, that was the last straw.
- [29:11]
John Leake
She told Dr. Bagwell, we have to extricate ourselves from this woman. We have to disentangle from this strange woman.
- [29:21]
Cooper Maul
Sandra wasn't just eccentric, she was dangerous.
- [29:26]
John Leake
And it was about 10 days after that fateful last straw in Santa Fe, New Mexico, that Betsy's found shot to death in her car at Love Field.
- [29:40]
Cooper Maul
It began with a favorite, a small, seemingly innocent request. Sandra Bridewell needed help getting to Love Field Airport. Her car had broken down again, and she called Betsy. Their friendship was tenuous at this point, and even though Sandra must have sensed Betsy was pulling away, she bet that her friends still wouldn't be able to say no. Here's Whitley again, recounting this fateful moment.
- [30:05]
Glenna Whitley
Can you take me to Love Field? I need to rent a car because mine won't start.
- [30:10]
Cooper Maul
Despite everything that had gone down in Santa Fe, Betsy agreed to drive Sandra.
- [30:15]
Glenna Whitley
She puts a frozen package of pasta sauce in the sink to thaw, tells her kids not to pick out. They're going to have a big pasta dinner. And that's the last she's heard of by anybody. Sandra is the last person to see her alive.
- [30:40]
Cooper Maul
Hours later, at 8.20pm, way past when she was meant to be home eating pasta with her children, Betsy Bagwell's body was discovered. She was found in her baby blue Mercedes Benz station wagon in the airport parking lot. Betsy had been shot in the head with a small handgun, a cheap.22 caliber known as a Saturday night special. Here's the homicide detective who arrived first.
- [31:04]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
At the crime scene. My first impression was pretty much that it was a suicide. The gun was in her hand. She had what appeared to be a contact wound to the head.
- [31:16]
Cooper Maul
Detective J.J. coughlin was early in his long career with the Dallas pd. He didn't see any signs of foul play.
- [31:23]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
There was no appearance of being robbed or there being any other violence other than the gunshot wound to the head. So it's like she pulled up in there, you know, in her car and put the gun to her head and shot herself.
- [31:38]
Cooper Maul
Soon after, Detective Coughlin went to notify Betsy's husband.
- [31:42]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
We told him what we had found, and that's probably the first time we heard Sandra Bridewell's name. As the process went on, they had more suspicions about her and Bob involvement.
- [31:56]
Cooper Maul
The logical next step was a medical examiner's report and an interview with Sandra.
- [32:02]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
She came to our office, which was down on Harwood Street.
- [32:07]
Cooper Maul
Detective Coughlin remembered Sandra as well. Spoken, pleasant even, but her interview, completely unremarkable.
- [32:14]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
She didn't provide us any information that would implicate her.
- [32:18]
Cooper Maul
Coughlin told the Bagwell family he had nothing on Sandra. It was looking like Betsy had taken her own life.
- [32:25]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
The gun was in her hand. Contact wound to the temple, blood spatter on her hand. You know, I was pretty sure it's going to get ruled a suicide.
- [32:36]
Cooper Maul
And the next day it was. The Chief Medical Examiner, Charles Petty, determined from the autopsy that the gun residue found on Right Handed Betsy indicated a self inflicted end. Detective Coughlin told Dr. Bagwell, the only.
- [32:50]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
Way I could overturn it would be to come up with evidence showing that it wasn't a suicide.
- [32:57]
Cooper Maul
And they didn't have that evidence.
- [33:00]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
The family didn't want to accept any of that. I mean, it really all comes down to evidence.
- [33:11]
Cooper Maul
Here's the baffling thing. People close to Sandra Bridewell kept dying. Their deaths would be ruled a suicide, and yet the cops didn't find that suspicious or even strange. Sandra was the only person in the house with her husband, David, the last person seen with Betsy Bagwell. Detective Coughlan was a homicide detective, and yet he felt Betsy's shooting was an open and shut suicide case and nothing more. But to Glenna Whitley, that journalist who has long been tracking Sandra Bridewell, some clues pointed to murder.
- [33:45]
Glenna Whitley
The fact that she shot with a Saturday night special doesn't make any sense. This is a wealthy woman. If she wanted to have a gun, she's not going to buy a Saturday night special at a pawn store or something like that.
- [33:58]
Cooper Maul
Where the hell did this thing come from?
- [34:00]
Glenna Whitley
Then this gun was traced back to somebody who lived in Oak Cliff. And they said, oh, we haven't seen that gun in years. It was stolen. We never reported it.
- [34:14]
Cooper Maul
Detective Coughlin brought in agents from the ATF to look further. That's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
- [34:22]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
We tried to take our time and look longer and see if we could ever tie anything up on that. Never could.
- [34:33]
Cooper Maul
Then, one month after Betsy was found, Dr. Bagwell got some good news. The Dallas County Medical examiner issued a memo welcoming any additional information that could be obtained about her death. And in that memo, he admitted that he told Betsy's widower he was not sure she died by her own hand. Not sure at all. Here's leaks summing up what the medical examiner said.
- [34:56]
John Leake
I could be no more certain of my manner of death suicide conclusion Than he could be certain of a particular clinical diagnosis.
- [35:08]
Cooper Maul
He encouraged Dr. Bagwell to take action.
- [35:10]
Glenna Whitley
Dr. Bagwell had enough concern to hire a private investigator.
- [35:16]
Cooper Maul
The PI he hired was Al Teal, a former detective and postal inspector for the military.
- [35:21]
Glenna Whitley
He came to believe that it was.
- [35:23]
Cooper Maul
A staged suicide, and he was pulling out all the stops to prove it. Thiel contacted an esteemed forensic scientist in California named Dr. John Thornton. Gunshot residue analysis was one of his specialties. That gunpowder residue on Betsy's right hand could have ended up there because she was close to the weapon, not as a direct result of shooting herself. Dr. Thornton provided John Bagwell with a report that challenged the local medical examiner's findings. This was evidence that refuted Betsy had died by her own hand, that she might have been murdered. And here's where things get strange. Leak explains.
- [36:05]
John Leake
There's no indication that Dr. Bagwell forwarded the report to the Dallas county medical examiners.
- [36:12]
Cooper Maul
This was a report that could potentially reopen Betsy's case, maybe even overturn the suicide ruling. And her husband just never got it in front of the right people who could do something about it. Dr. Bagwell declined to speak to me and pretty much any reporter who has ever reached out to him about his wife's death. Why would he stop pursuing justice now? Who was he afraid of? Was it the same strange woman his wife had wanted out of their life? Lives?
- [36:40]
Glenna Whitley
Now this begins to get very, very weird.
- [36:46]
Cooper Maul
By this point in 1982, more than one person in highland park thought Sandra Bridewell, mother of three, former queen bee of the bubble, was a killer. Betsy's death was the tipping point. And yet people who had their suspicions didn't talk to detectives.
- [37:06]
John Leake
There were two women that had lunch with her at the country club right before she set off on this misadventure. They had no doubt that Sandra murdered Betsy Bagwell. None. Zero. So one of the most intriguing aspects of the story is, well, you believe that Sandra murdered your friend. Why didn't you contact the police?
- [37:30]
Cooper Maul
The two women didn't think it was their place.
- [37:33]
John Leake
They assumed that the proper person to discuss this matter with the police was Betsy's husband.
- [37:41]
Cooper Maul
He talked to the cops, but never about overturning the suicide ruling. Recently, I asked detective Coughlin if he ever pursued the idea that Sandra might have been involved with Dr. Bagwell, he doubled down on his original theory.
- [37:54]
Detective J.J. Coughlin
I still feel strongly the evidence says Betsy killed herself. I don't know what's going on in people's lives a lot of times, but did Sandra do something that sent Betsy over the edge? Maybe she was either the black widow or bad luck. I don't know which.
- [38:12]
Cooper Maul
Up until Betsy's death, the good people of Highland park had thought of Sandra as a nuisance, not the kind of woman you'd want your husband around. But after Betsy died, all bets were off.
- [38:24]
Glenna Whitley
There was a ripple under the surface, particularly among the women, that this woman may be dangerous. Not only dangerous to us in terms of having an affair with our husbands, but in terms of being dangerous to our lives.
- [38:46]
Cooper Maul
Sandra, the single mother twice widowed, was no longer a magnet for misfortune. She was a temptress, a calculating woman who was far more intelligent than people had given her credit for. She might have even been a woman capable of getting away with murder. Not that anyone told the cops that. After Betsy's death, it was an open secret in Highland park that anyone who gets in Sandra's way will pay. And she was not to be trusted.
- [39:15]
John Leake
Here is this lady who's viewed with grave suspicion and I would say, even fear. But nobody says anything to this young fella who's just arrived from Oklahoma. He just has no warning about this. So he has no idea what he's getting himself into when he commences this romance with this lady.
- [39:36]
Cooper Maul
And Alan Rarig would be dead just 12 months after meeting Sandra. Next time on Fatal Beauty.
- [39:52]
Glenna Whitley
You know you're going to take this polygraph test.
- [39:54]
Cooper Maul
If she passed, then you're going to.
- [39:56]
Glenna Whitley
Be able to show the police, look, I had nothing to do with this. She comes out and she's crying, and she says, I failed it. I failed it.
- [40:08]
Cooper Maul
Sa.