Fatal Beauty | 6. Hard to Get

Summary

The Binge Cases: Fatal Beauty

Episode 6: Hard to Get
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Host: Sony Music Entertainment

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Introduction

In "Hard to Get," the sixth episode of Fatal Beauty, host Cooper Moll delves deep into the enigmatic life of Sandra Bridewell, infamously known as the "Black Widow." This episode uncovers the intricate web of Sandra's manipulations, the subsequent investigations, and the relentless pursuit of justice by those left in her wake.

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Legal Proceedings and Plea Bargain

Sandra Bridewell, at the age of 63, found herself at the mercy of the legal system despite her ominous history. Despite being dubbed the Black Widow due to the mysterious deaths of those close to her, Sandra was treated as a rookie offender by the legal authorities.

• Detective's Insight (01:13):
  "She had not been convicted of any other crimes."

The system, favoring plea bargains for first-time nonviolent offenders, allowed Sandra to accept a guilty plea for only one count of aggravated identity theft out of five charges. This controversial decision angered investigator Cooper Moll, who felt Sandra's past warranted a harsher treatment.

• Detective's Warning (01:30):
  "If she didn't accept a guilty plea, then we would have to go to trial. And if she was found guilty by a jury of her peers, she would end up probably being sentenced to more time."

Sandra's history, including the suspicious deaths of her first husband David Stegall and friend Betsy Bagwell, painted her as far from a novice criminal. Yet, the legal system's oversight allowed her to enter a plea bargain, leaving many questions unanswered.

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Impact on Victims' Families

The courtroom became a battleground for the families seeking closure. Gloria Rarig, mother of one of Sandra's victims, Alan Rarig, expressed mixed emotions during Sandra's plea.

• Gloria Rarig (03:24):
  "I was so excited that Jane Todd called me to tell me she had arrested her in North Carolina."

However, the justice delivered felt incomplete. Gloria attended the plea hearing, hoping for more accountability, but Sandra's minimal acknowledgment and demeanor left her disheartened.

• Gloria Rarig (04:31):
  "She did not look toward me at all. She walked totally past me."

Despite Sandra's acceptance of the plea bargain, the families remained unsatisfied, yearning for answers about the true extent of Sandra's actions.

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Investigative Challenges and Detectives' Pursuit

Detectives Kyle Eastridge and Ryan Porter spearheaded the reopened investigation into Alan Rarig's death. Their efforts revealed the systemic failures and inter-agency communication issues that allowed Sandra to evade justice for so long.

• Detective Eastridge (08:05):
  "I believe the reason why she's never faced justice is totally and completely because of the incompetence of law enforcement."

Their pursuit was fraught with obstacles, including uncooperative family members and law enforcement agencies burdened by other cases. The detectives' frustration was palpable as they navigated through red tape and lack of evidence.

• Detective Eastridge (14:08):
  "She was convinced her mother was involved."

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Family Dynamics and Potential Involvement

A critical focus of the investigation was Sandra's children—Britton, Catherine, and Emily. Their reluctance to speak about their mother raised suspicions about possible involvement or coercion.

• Detective Eastridge (27:22):
  "Son was old enough. He could have helped her."

Cooper Moll's attempts to reach Britton revealed an unsettling silence, suggesting deeper layers of manipulation within the family structure. The possibility that Britton, at 17, might have been coerced into participating in Sandra's schemes added a complex dimension to the case.

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Inter-Agency Failures and Missed Opportunities

The investigation highlighted significant lapses, particularly within the Dallas Police Department, which failed to cooperate effectively with Oklahoma City detectives. The reluctance to revisit past cases and examine connections hindered progress.

• Detective Eastridge (32:00):
  "Everybody's looking past the buck because murder cases earn money, their resources, and they're taking a lot of responsibility."

This inter-agency disconnect allowed Sandra to continue her manipulative ways unchallenged, as crucial evidence and leads remained unexploited.

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Final Attempts and Sandra's Elusiveness

As the podcast concludes, Cooper Moll reveals his exhaustive efforts to locate Sandra post-release. Despite numerous leads, including a reported incident at Boston Logan International Airport, Sandra remained elusive, embodying the very essence of a cold case.

• Gloria Rarig (39:56):
  "When I know the truth, and I pray about it all the time. Every night when I go to sleep, I think, God, give me something. Give me some peace about this."

The episode underscores the enduring struggle between relentless pursuit and the frustrating realities of the justice system, leaving listeners contemplating the elusive nature of true justice.

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Conclusion

"Hard to Get" intricately weaves the narrative of Sandra Bridewell's manipulative prowess, the systemic failures that enabled her long evasion of justice, and the unyielding resolve of the victims' families and dedicated detectives. As the search for truth continues, the episode serves as a poignant reminder of the complexities inherent in solving cold cases and the profound impact on those seeking closure.

Notable Quotes:

• Detective (05:06):
  "As she aged and her looks diminished, she went from a gushing Southern belle who could use her charms to get what they want to a missionary who could get what they want from religion."

• Sue Mosley (05:24):
  "Camille has humiliated everybody that calls themselves a Christian and loves the Lord."

• Detective Eastridge (15:14):
  "She just has no morals or ethics. Kind of like a sociopath, you know, she doesn't care about anybody else's suffering as long as she gets something out of it."

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Production Credits:
Host: Cooper Maul
Story Editor: Kathryn St. Louis
Executive Producer: Jonathan Hirsch
Sound Design and Mixing: Josh Hahn
Associate Producer: Zoe Kulkin
Fact Checker: Naomi Barr
Production Managers: Sami Allison and Tameka Balance Kolosny
Lawyer: Rachel Goldberg
Special Thanks: Steve Ackerman, Emily Rozik, Jamie Myers, Eric Miller, Skip Hollingsworth, and Glenna Whitley

For more insights into Sandra Bridewell's life, readers are encouraged to explore John Leakes' book, The Meaning of Malice: On the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park.

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Transcript

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[Narrator]

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 by now, Sandra was indicted and behind bars. But just how long she would stay there had yet to be decided. I know this seems unbelievable, but the fact is, in the eyes of the law, Sandra, at 63, was a rookie offender.

[Detective]

She had not been convicted of any other crimes.

[Narrator]

He wishes to remain anonymous, but the investigator who worked at the direction of the US Attorney's Office told me it's not uncommon for first time offenders to be offered plea bargains. Sandra's back was up against the wall though.

[Detective]

If she didn't accept a guilty plea, then we would have to go to trial. And if she was found guilty by a jury of her peers, she would end up probably being sentenced to more time.

[Narrator]

Of the five charges against her, Sandra only had to plead guilty to one aggravated identity theft. After the breathless investigation, the sting operation, the resources spent trying to bring her in, the system is built to cut deals like this for first time nonviolent offenders, no matter how strong the case. That's how it works. Frankly, this pisses me off. Sandra was no rookie. She hadn't accidentally committed a crime, but she'd never been caught. And for that the system decided to treat her like some unfortunate soul who made a single bad choice. She was only considered a rookie because her first husband, David Stegall's death had been ruled a suicide on her word, in the word of the psychiatrist she arranged for her husband to see. In the case of Betsy Bagwell, Sandra may have just gotten lucky because Betsy's own husband refused to go to authorities with evidence that her supposed suicide seemed staged. Then Alan Rarig? Could she have foreseen the jurisdictional shitshow that would occur if his body was transported across state lines? I wouldn't put it Past her. I've got a lot of ways to describe Sandra Bridewell, and rookie isn't one of them. But here she was in her 60s, a lifetime of deception behind her as she walked up to the federal courthouse to enter her plea bargain. Inside, it was an unconventional reunion. The women who had tirelessly gunned for Sandra to face consequences were in the same place. This was a moment Alan Wearig's mother, Gloria, had waited decades for.

[Gloria Rarig]

I was so excited that Jane Todd called me to tell me she had arrested her in North Carolina.

[Narrator]

So when Sandra finally stood before a judge, not for Allen's murder, but for aggravated identity theft, Gloria was there. It might not have been the justice she had hoped for, but it was something reporter Glenna Whitley would never have missed it.

[Gloria Rarig]

I mean, it was a rush. Just like, yes, she's finally been arrested, and all these years, she had never been in custody.

[Narrator]

These women sat next to one another as Sandra Bridewell entered the room.

[Gloria Rarig]

She walked in like she was Ms. Queen. I sat right on the front row when she came in that door. And I had a big lapel pin with Al's picture on it on my.

[Narrator]

Jacket, a powerful reminder that her son had been stolen from her. Maybe Sandra would catch a glimpse of his face and feel something.

[Gloria Rarig]

She did not look toward me at all. She walked totally past me.

[Narrator]

And just about six months later, she was back there again, this time for sentencing. Reporters gathered to catch a glimpse of the black widow, who was now gray. I couldn't help but notice that nobody they grabbed for a soundbite characterized her as a novice. In a segment from Raleigh's local news station, wral, investigator Marty Folding, who's no longer with us, painted a picture of a seasoned predator.

[Detective]

As she aged and her looks diminished, she went from a gushing Southern belle who could use her charms to get what they want to a missionary who could get what they want from religion.

[Narrator]

Sandra's last victim, Sue Mosley, spoke her truth.

[Sue Mosley]

Camille has humiliated everybody that calls themselves a Christian and loves the Lord.

[Narrator]

Yet at one point in the hearing, in a surprising pivot, she cut Sandra some slack. Sue Mosley approached the stand. She wore a charcoal blazer, a pearl necklace with matching earrings, her gray hair pulled back. Detective Jane Todd remembered this wasn't easy for her.

[Sue Mosley]

Sue was really nervous.

[Narrator]

Who wouldn't be?

[Sue Mosley]

She got emotional there at one point.

[Narrator]

Then she spoke directly to Sandra.

[Sue Mosley]

She forgave Sandra for what she had done.

[Narrator]

I'll speak for myself here. I can safely say Sue Mosley is a better person than me. And I think you'd be hard pressed to find many people willing to extend forgiveness for being defrauded, manipulated, and robbed in their golden years. Her son Jim told me that was his mom through and through.

[Detective]

Being a very Christian lady, you're taught to forgive no matter what.

[Narrator]

It was an outstanding act of grace, significant to all but one person in the room that day.

[Sue Mosley]

There was no acknowledgment out of Sandra. She kept her head down most of the time that Ms. Sue was on the stand.

[Narrator]

Sandra had always been a paradox in this way. She was cunning and brazen when she needed attention from someone else, but cowardly when someone demanded her attention. While Sandra may not have paid Sue's forgiveness any mind, Judge James Dever III sure did. In cases of nonviolent crimes, acts of grace can actually influence sentencing outcomes. The gavel fell officially Charged with one count of identity theft, Sandra was sentenced to the mandatory minimum term of two years in prison. She'd have one year of supervised release by then. It was anyone's guess whether she still had the nerve or the audacity to pull another con on an unsuspecting family. The more I think about Sandra's whole story, the more I find myself circling the same two opposing questions. Did she outthink law enforcement at every turn? Or did cops make mistakes and let her slip away when they should have had her dead to rights in the final weeks of production? On this podcast, I was mulling this over with PI Carrie Huskinson. This is what she said.

[Carrie Huskinson]

Many people have asked, how is it that Sandra was able to get away with killing people, never being held accountable? And I'm just going to say this, that I believe the reason why she's never faced justice is totally and completely because of the incompetence of law enforcement.

[Narrator]

From Sony Music Entertainment, you're listening to the finale of Fatal Beauty. I'm Cooper Maul. Episode 6 Hard to get it turned out a cold case investigator in Oklahoma City already had Sandra in his sights from the moment of her capture. His name is Kyle Eastridge. When news of her arrest made headlines.

[Kyle Eastridge]

We got wind that she had been in trouble out in North Carolina. So we started following that.

[Narrator]

Detective Eastridge is retired now, but he used to be a homicide detective, and eventually cold cases became his focus. After retiring, Estridge was diagnosed with als. In our conversations, I never got a sense it kept him down. The guy's got a mean sense of humor and an encyclopedic knowledge of homicide investigations.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Allen's case was one we always wanted to Solve. And his mother was his champion. She was always checking in with supervisors of the DA's office just to see if anything new would happen.

[Narrator]

While Police handle investigations, DAs decide which cases are worth prosecuting. And the cases are usually reopened if new evidence pops up. Like fresh tips, DNA breakthroughs and forensic tech improvements.

[Sue Mosley]

Ms. Rearrig was trying to get it reopened, and we were having a little bit of problems.

[Narrator]

Detective Jane Todd was just as adamant as Gloria. She even called up the DA herself and asked him to reopen the case. A cop in Charlotte, North Carolina, pushing a DA in Oklahoma City? That wasn't exactly standard.

[Sue Mosley]

I never got word back from him. So I called Ms. Rearrig and asked Ms. Rearrig. I said, look, I said, go to your church, have them write letters. Get up with the DA to them. You want the case reopened?

[Narrator]

Detective Todd thought, how could the DA say no to that? After all, public pressure and media attention can push a case back into the spotlight. All in all, 100 people from Gloria's fellowship signed a petition.

[Sue Mosley]

And the DA ultimately got up with the cold case department.

[Narrator]

It worked.

[Sue Mosley]

And I finally got a call from Kyle Eastridge.

[Narrator]

By spring 2007, Allen's cold case was officially being reopened.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Now we just gotta do some good old fashioned gumshoe police work and go out and find witnesses and see if we can build a timeline that will bring us the information to charge.

[Narrator]

Detective Eastridge was determined to do what couldn't be done two decades ago. Find the missing pieces. But in 2007, this investigation faced the same challenges it did in the 80s.

[Kyle Eastridge]

It's a case that never really had a lot of physical evidence.

[Narrator]

There was only one person who could fill in the gaps. The one person who had always been at the center of the storm. Maybe Detective Eastridge would have better luck than Detective Todd.

[Sue Mosley]

The whole time I had her in custody, she would never admit to having a third husband named Alan Rurig.

[Narrator]

It's an odd thing to deny because it's a fact. But maybe Sandra was trying to convince herself her whirlwind marriage to Alan had never happened. Her denial ran that deep.

[Sue Mosley]

I mean, she just totally refused to say that she was married to him.

[Narrator]

They had to puncture her bubble to get her to admit basic facts and get her to admit what had actually happened. The day Allen met her at the.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Storage unit, I knew I was gonna have to try to talk to her. And she was in a spot. She couldn't get away.

[Narrator]

Now that she lived in a jail cell, she couldn't slam the door on cops or evade them. A few months after Sandra was incarcerated, Detective Eastridge got a shot to interview her. This was it. He took a flight down to raleigh.

[Kyle Eastridge]

I needed to try to get her nailed down to a story.

[Narrator]

I asked him if before going down there. Like the detectives before him, he also suspected Sandra had killed allen.

[Kyle Eastridge]

For me, it's the whole picture that makes her suspicious. And there's a lot of people that fight over money and get divorced. But sandra had an idea in her head that she belonged in that world. It was a big driving factor for her. And what even convinced me more was that when sandra got to the age that she began losing her looks a little bit, she didn't have that, if you want to call it sex appeal to lure in these guys, she shifted her tactics to fraud.

[Narrator]

Detective easteridge suspected Sandra would stop at nothing for financial gain, not even murder. And perhaps when the two locked eyes in the interview room, Sandra sensed that in him. She entered, controlled, deliberate, unshaken.

[Kyle Eastridge]

I introduced myself. She said she knew who I was and didn't care.

[Narrator]

She had incredible self possession from the.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Time she walked in and sat down to the time I left. She wasn't nervous. Her eyes were sharp. She didn't have that babe of the woods look. She looked like she was in charge. It was a real odd dynamic to me.

[Narrator]

Sandra invoked her right to an attorney and showed detective Eastridge the door.

[Kyle Eastridge]

She shut me down immediately.

[Narrator]

But he'd been in the room long enough with her to figure out one thing.

[Kyle Eastridge]

She just has no morals or ethics. Kind of like a sociopath, you know, she doesn't care about anybody else's suffering as long as she gets something out of it.

[Narrator]

The fact is, she lured men into her web, Pretending to be fragile, in need of saving. But she was never the one drowning. She was the tide pulling them under. The architect of the game shifting pieces at will. The queen who made pawns believed they were kings.

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[Narrator]

Outside the prison walls, the search for the truth wasn't over. The investigation pressed forward and soon Detective Eastridge wasn't working alone.

[Detective]

I more or less jumped in. A lot of what I learned about this case was on the fly through him explaining things and me asking questions.

[Narrator]

That's Detective Ryan Porter. He'd recently been selected for Oklahoma City's Homicide unit when he was assigned Eastridge as his partner. Detective Porter told me what stood out to him when he was first put on the case.

[Detective]

There was just a lot of weird things that he had brought up. She's cooperative one day and then she shuts it off. She Hires an attorney. That's not somebody that's a widow. That has absolutely nothing to do with a case. Would do.

[Narrator]

I can imagine this was a real head scratcher of a cold case, Especially given it was his first.

[Detective]

It made no sense to me why somebody who, if they had no involvement whatsoever, would not cooperate, Let you talk to their kids, let you talk to everybody.

[Narrator]

That only made detective Porter more certain there was something worth hiding. So the detectives turned their attention to the people who had lived under Sandra's roof.

[Detective]

Her three children, especially Britton and Catherine, would have had more information because of their age.

[Narrator]

They were 17 and 15 when Allen died, while the youngest, Emily, was only 12. I remembered a detail Glenna Whitley shared with me about when Sandra gave her first and only interview with Oklahoma police detectives Pacheco and Mitchell. The timing of everything was very important.

[Gloria Rarig]

And the children could have known something.

[Sue Mosley]

About where she was over this weekend.

[Gloria Rarig]

Over this period of time.

[Narrator]

Better late than never. Here detectives were nearly three decades later Asking timeline questions.

[Detective]

Let's make another run at our kids. They're adults now. Let's go take a run.

[Narrator]

Maybe they had heard something, seen something. Maybe after decades of silence, one of them would finally give them the lead they needed.

[Detective]

Kyle had already done a lot of the footwork in locating where the three children were located. Emily, Katherine, as well as Britain, where they were at. We were very optimistic we were going to get someplace.

[Narrator]

Sandra's kids could be the key to the case. To get their statements, it looked like detectives Porter and eastridge would have to embark on their own version of planes, trains, and automobiles.

[Detective]

Kids are scattered throughout the United States at that particular time. And when I say from east coast to west coast, I mean east coast to west coast.

[Narrator]

They began with Emily, Sandra's youngest daughter. The two caught an early morning flight and spent the whole day traveling before arriving at her door.

[Detective]

Emily was so willing to meet and talk with us, but too much time in her age at the time of this makes it very difficult for her to recall things or get specific dates beyond her age.

[Narrator]

Detective Porter raised another valid argument for Emily's lack of recollection.

[Detective]

Sandra kept her mouth shut. She doesn't necessarily talk about stuff. She appears to just be a habitual liar, and she can do it with no thought involved whatsoever. So that just tells me that she probably shielded the kids from as much as she could.

[Narrator]

But kids don't stay in the dark forever. Even Emily had come to suspect the worst about her mom.

[Kyle Eastridge]

She was convinced her mother was involved.

[Narrator]

I picked up a similar Sentiment when I reached out to Emily, but she declined to speak with me. Emily did talk to the detectives, though. But her interview didn't give us anything.

[Detective]

That was going to be helpful for the actual homicide.

[Narrator]

And it was on to the next one from that.

[Detective]

We left the next morning again at 6am and drove to central United States and tried to talk to Katherine.

[Narrator]

Things didn't exactly go as planned.

[Detective]

She wouldn't come to the door.

[Narrator]

Detectives Eastridge and Porter were striking out after driving halfway across the country. They were no further ahead, and things were looking dire when the oldest Briton, Sandra's son, also refused to speak with them. The detectives were clearly not getting what they needed on their own. So Starting in late 2007, a grand jury was impaneled. When a grand jury asked for testimony, you show up. Detective Todd, although no longer on the case, was highly invested and recalled for me what went down.

[Sue Mosley]

And of course, they subpoenaed Brett, Emily and Catherine. Emily testified Brett, of course, his attorney pled the fifth for him. And Catherine. She pled the fifth.

[Narrator]

This refusal to testify from the two eldest baffled me. I'd been told they were estranged from their mother, so why wouldn't they talk? Was it too painful to confront who their mother really was? Was it a primal sense of loyalty to her? Or was it something else? Here's Estridge again.

[Kyle Eastridge]

What was significant about it to me was how hard he fought not to testify about this and how hostile he was about made us think that there might be a level of fear on his part.

[Narrator]

Why would Britton be afraid? Detective Eastridge told me he thought Sandra's son didn't talk because he was in some way involved somehow culpable. I'd play you the tape, but sometimes he can be hard to understand, given what he's dealing with, living with als. But hearing this from Eastridge got me thinking. When Detective Todd began looking into Sandra's past, she also reached out to the kids.

[Sue Mosley]

In talking with Catherine, I believe she knew something was suspicious.

[Narrator]

That was about as far as she got with her.

[Sue Mosley]

Brett was a different story. Brett was almost cold and said, contact my attorney. He was just like his mother. You contact my attorney.

[Narrator]

I thought this was odd. Why would Britton need an attorney to speak about his mother's alleged crime? Then Detective Todd shared something Emily told her.

[Sue Mosley]

She told me at one point during an interview that while on vacation in California at a resort, Alan and Brett were out using jet skis and her mother had asked her brother to run over Allen with the jet ski, make it look like an accident.

[Narrator]

Could Sandra have wanted it out for Allen from the start? Had she contemplated making his death look like a tragic mishap in open water? Suddenly, Britain lawyering up made a twisted kind of sense. Maybe this wasn't just about covering for his mother. Was he protecting himself? In the winter of 1985, one of the working theories was Alan Rarick had been killed in Dallas, then transported to Oklahoma City. And remember, the driver's seat was pulled up in the Bronco for someone much shorter than him. Someone like Sandra. But if she had driven him there in the Bronco and left it, how in the hell did she get back to Dallas? Detective Porter told me the initial investigators ruled out one form of travel.

[Detective]

They checked air flights to make sure she didn't fly back down to Dallas from Oklahoma City, which she didn't.

[Narrator]

So if she didn't fly back, and if she wasn't strong enough to lift a hefty man like Allen, he almost.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Has to have some second person involved.

[Detective]

So who, around that time frame, most likely had a driver's license that she knew well, she trusted, and she knew she could manipulate? I'll leave it at that. You're pretty smart. You'll figure it out.

[Narrator]

If you're having a hard time putting two and two together. Detective Eastridge told me flat out her.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Son was old enough. He could have helped her.

[Narrator]

But could Sandra have forced her own son to help her dispose of Allen? He was just 17 in 1985. That fragile space between boyhood and adulthood where the lines of right and wrong can blur under the weight of influence. At that age, you crave your parents approval, fear their disappointment. And if that parent is a master manipulator, a woman who spun lies as easily as breathing, what chance did he have? Could Britain have been keeping a secret for his mother this whole time? I had to ask him myself. I sent him a FedEx to what was listed as his last known address and called a bunch of numbers associated with him. I tried his partner on Facebook and LinkedIn. Then I tried calling her. And something weird happened. This cell phone number had been associated with both her and Britton. When I called, a man picked up. So I asked if she was available. The guy replied, what is this concerning? After I described this podcast and that I had been looking for this lady's partner to comment on claims he'd help move a body. That's when the man on the line said, interesting, you have the wrong number. This made me think I was speaking to Britton himself. But he didn't. Want to admit that I followed up with a text and told him One working theory Cops had was Britton might have helped his mother move Alan Rarig's body. I'd wanted him to comment, or at least respond with a no comment, but he never did.

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[Narrator]

When I began looking into Allen's cold case before I had ever even heard of Kyle Eastridge or Ryan Porter, I first visited a website called Oklahoma Cold Cases. On the bottom of the page dedicated to Alan Rarig, it directs anyone with information regarding his murder to contact a guy named Mike Burke. He was a detective before going on to work for the District Attorney, solely focusing on cold cases. I couldn't get him to talk to me, but I made one last attempt, hoping Detective Porter could convince him.

[Detective]

I was trying to talk him into getting on the phone with you, and he just said, look, I would just. I would ruin the rapport between us and Dallas if that happened.

[Narrator]

That answer stopped me cold. Did he mean he couldn't get on the phone because he didn't want to throw Dallas police under the bus? Was that it? If speaking to me would risk relationships between law enforcement agencies, just how badly had Dallas mishandled this case? In my reporting, more than one source had told me they thought Dallas hadn't truly cooperated with the Oklahoma City cops.

[Gloria Rarig]

I don't believe the Dallas PD was doing very much. We didn't feel like we had any real cooperation from the Dallas police.

[Sue Mosley]

They just dropped the ball. They didn't put in the time to actually do the research. They took the word of everybody else around them.

[Narrator]

I shared with Detective Eastridge what I'd been hearing through the grapevine to see what he thought.

[Kyle Eastridge]

There were a ton of murder cases there. They don't care about the whodunits. They want to clear their plate as easy as they can.

[Narrator]

And since Alan turned up dead in Oklahoma City with no hard physical evidence he'd been killed in Dallas, it never seemed like it belonged on their plate to begin with. For a bigger city burdened with more investigations paid by tax dollars, it seems fair to say they're not exactly chomping at the bit to overextend themselves on a hunch.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Everybody's looking past the buck because murder cases earn money, their resources, and they're taking a lot of responsibility.

[Narrator]

Research told me that's just how the cookie crumbles.

[Kyle Eastridge]

That's how law enforcement is. Everybody has their own problems, and nobody wants to deal with someone else's.

[Narrator]

I get that. But by the time Allen died, Sandra was already under some pretty substantial suspicion for two other deaths. Her first husband, David Steagall, then her friend, Betsy Bagwell.

[Kyle Eastridge]

If you look at it, the way Betsy Bagwell died is real similar to how Alan died. And they were both headed to meet her. They were both not seen alive again after that.

[Narrator]

Detective Easters hoped if he could get Dallas investigators to see the connection between the two cases that he did, then they'd be invested in helping him solve Allen's homicide.

[Kyle Eastridge]

But Dallas PD had no interest in looking at it any further, so we'll be kind of stymied on that.

[Narrator]

And let's not forget, the medical examiner couldn't be certain that Betsy's death in 1982 had truly been a suicide. Over a dozen years later, Kerry Huskinson revisited the case, scrutinizing forensic details. She collaborated with a blood spatter expert and with his help, determined that Betsy likely didn't die by her own hand, that the crime scene had been staged. Huskinson was excited and called the Dallas PD Cold Case Squad with what she'd found. But the officer who picked up didn't react like she hoped he would.

[Carrie Huskinson]

He just started yelling at me, telling me, and what is it you expect us to do, huh?

[Narrator]

Huh? Huh?

[Carrie Huskinson]

You want us to get the cause of death changed on the death certificate to, say, homicide? And then what? He said, you know, we're just going to have a cold case sitting on our desk, and how does that help anybody?

[Narrator]

Huskinson's frustration was palpable. She had laid out the evidence, but instead of interest she was met with hostility, as if reopening the case was more of a burden than a pursuit of justice.

[Kyle Eastridge]

The truth is that they just want the easy out for their case. It's a suicide. Let's not deal with any further. Case closed.

[Narrator]

Dallas police just seem so laissez faire about Sandra. It's maddening. I called them a few times, sent emails with questions, and yet a spokesperson said that they would not comment on a case they didn't take over.

[Detective]

You shouldn't want somebody that's, you know, a potential suspect of a homicide roaming your community and not helping the people that are trying to get them picked up and taken care of.

[Narrator]

Yet Dallas let Sandra Bridewell roam, and they didn't help solve Allen's murder. There's one thing we haven't discussed yet that could have made a difference in solving Allen's murder.

[Kyle Eastridge]

The only thing that would have really helped on physical evidence side would have been if we had found the weapon. And ballistically massive.

[Narrator]

Basically, it would have been something if they had found the gun that killed Allen in Sandra's home and matched it to the bullets found in the Bronco. But during the first investigation, Detectives Pacheco and Mitchell never searched Sandra's home. It's kind of incredible. Maybe if Sandra's attorney didn't intercept them, they would have found the gun then. Detective Eastridge had pieced together a timeline, a carefully reconstructed series of events that, to him, left little doubt about who pulled the trigger. But in homicide investigations, what detectives believe and what prosecutors can prove are two very different things.

[Kyle Eastridge]

I know from the prosecutor's standpoint, they wanted that slam dunk.

[Narrator]

A case so airtight that no defense attorney could poke holes in it.

[Kyle Eastridge]

We really dug for that, see if we could find anything that would put over their comfort zone on charging her. But we just couldn't do it.

[Narrator]

The stakes were too high. Charge Sandra with weak evidence. And if she were acquitted, double jeopardy meant she could never be tried again. Even if the murder weapon surfaced years later. Or if one day someone who knew too much decided to talk.

[Kyle Eastridge]

Actual people do to buy her, they weren't real keen on reliving it.

[Narrator]

Whispers had filled Dallas since the late 70s, but lips remain sealed.

[Kyle Eastridge]

I just remember this constant pushback from people that wanted no involvement.

[Narrator]

Why didn't people want to talk to law enforcement about Sandra? When I spoke to Gloria Rarig, she told me straight, they're all afraid of her, but I'm not. I've been trying to get her on the phone ever since this podcast Was just the seed of an idea at an age when most people have already retired. Sandra got out of prison, and it feels like she's been on the move ever since. She's been looking over her shoulder. For 15 years, I've chased Sandra's shadow across the country. Multiple PO boxes, dead end phone numbers, and emails. I reached out to the people she stayed with during her supervised release. They didn't call back. Every lead unraveled. And just as we were wrapping up production on this podcast, Ryan Porter tipped me off that Sandra had been stopped at Boston Logan International Airport last summer for erratic behavior. Finally, a solid lead. I called the Massachusetts State Police more times than I can count. Then I finally heard back. It's Debbie calling you back from the Mass. State Police. I just wanted to let you know I searched our system for 20, 24, January 1st, all the way through December 31st, and no records actually appeared. No such incident report existed. No Sandra Camille Powers. Maybe I was foolish to think I could catch a ghost in a year when others have spent decades trying and failing to. When I told Jane Todd and Carrie Huskinson I wanted to talk to Sandra for this podcast, they responded with the same gentle tone your mom uses when she knows your dream is about to be crushed. Sandra's not just hard to find. She's 81 and has perfected the art of vanishing. While most people her age are slowing down, she's still outrunning everyone. For Gloria Rarig, Sandra may be out of sight, but she's never out of mind.

[Gloria Rarig]

When I know the truth, and I pray about it all the time. Every night when I go to sleep, I think, God, give me something. Give me some peace about this.

[Narrator]

Leads have run dry. Investigations have stalled. Sandra has continued to live her life untouched by the weight of what happened. And yet those who remember Allen refused to let him become just another cold case.

[Gloria Rarig]

Al was so liked and so loved by so many. Everybody who knew him. They just liked being around him, with him. And that's why this interest has stayed with me and all his friends.

[Narrator]

They need answers. Detectives Eastridge and Porter tried their damnedest to give that to them.

[Detective]

I went to her house with Kyle, and just the absolute sweetest lady. You meet her, you want to help her get closure, and it breaks your heart when you're sitting there and you know, I'm just not there. I'm just not there.

[Narrator]

Detectives are off the case, but Gloria's still carrying the weight.

[Gloria Rarig]

And he would be pleased to know that I was still fighting for this. He would.

[Narrator]

I wanted to take the baton from Gloria to fight to make some movement on this case, to be the fresh set of eyes that caught something everyone else had missed. But the truth is, that's all I was able to do. Carry it for a while. I didn't deliver the moment she'd been waiting for since that frigid December night. The reality of cold cases is something has to shift. A witness has to remember differently. The right person has to start talking or the wrong person has to slip up. At 95 years old, Gloria's well aware she may not see the day Sandra is held accountable.

[Gloria Rarig]

Even if I die before I can get this done, I'm still going to pray that somebody else will take it up and see that we get justice for this. That's my hope.

[Narrator]

Justice isn't a straight line. It twists and turns, stops and starts, stumbles and backtracks. I'll never stop fighting to uncover what happened. It's unsettling to think that maybe after all this time, the only thing standing between the truth and the people who have fought for it is the woman herself. Sandra has always been the keeper of her own secrets, the architect of her own legend, the woman who charmed her way into high society, wrapped men around her finger, and more often than not, slipped through the cracks. But even Sandra can outrun the inevitable.

[Detective]

If Sandra were to pass, I mean, I would be extremely hopeful that somebody would take another run at these kids. With her gone now, just foreclosure.

[Narrator]

And what would that mean for Sandra? She will have gone to her grave without ever being convicted of a murder. She will have gotten away with it. But perhaps justice can be just as poetic as its been elusive. Because if truth comes out after she's six feet under, she won't be around to spin the story. And for a woman like Sandra Bridewell, that may be the greatest punishment of all. Unlock all episodes of Fatal Beauty ad free right now by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. Not only will you immediately unlock all episodes of this show, but you'll get binge access to an entire network of other great true crime and investigative podcasts. All ad free. Plus on the first of every month, subscribers get a binge drop of a brand new series that's all episodes all at once. Search for the binge on Apple podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to access wherever you listen. Fatal Beauty is an original production of Sony Music Entertainment. It was hosted and reported by me Cooper Maul. Kathryn St. Louis is our story editor. Jonathan Hirsch is our executive producer. Sound design and mixing by Josh Hahn. We use music from APM and Epidemic Sound. Our associate producer is Zoe Kulkin. Our fact checker is Naomi Barr. Our production managers are Sami Allison and Tameka Balance Kolosny. Our lawyer is Rachel Goldberg. Special thanks to Steve Ackerman, Emily Rozik, Jamie Myers, Eric Miller, Skip Hollingsworth and Glenna Whitley, whose reporting for D Magazine and the Dallas observer is an essential piece of the story of Sandra Bridewell. If you'd like to read more about Sandra's life, grab a copy of John Leakes the Meaning of Malice on the Trail of the Black Widow of Highland Park. Please rate and review Fatal Beauty. It helps people find our show.