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True Crime Garage
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Who wanted Kathy Page dead? The 34 year old mother of two was found dead in her vehicle. At first look, it appeared that she had lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a ditch. However, the scene was staged to appear to look like an accident. Someone wanted Kathy dead and that someone covered their tracks.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Picture this.
- [00:31]
Narrator/Storyteller
It's the end of a long week. You're unwinding in the tub, listening to your favorite true crime podcast and then chronic hives come back again in the
- [00:42]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
middle of the episode.
- [00:44]
Narrator/Storyteller
What a wet blanket looks like another spell of itchy, swollen, red or skin colored hives. If you have chronic spontaneous urticaria or csu, there may be a different treatment option. Worried about your chronic hives interrupting our next episode? Learn more@treatmyhives.com Garage.
- [01:48]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me as always, my is name a man who's been skipping around the garage in a Jaylen Brunson jersey. Here he is, the cap with no pants on.
- [02:02]
Co-host/Commentator
It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [02:11]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
This week we are drinking Putt Putt Lemon Tea Lager by the good folks at Roadmap Brewing Company. This is an Arnold Palmer inspired beer that packs lemon and tea flavors into a light bodied, easy drinking lager. Great for a day on the course or in the garage. ABV 4% garage grade 4 out of 5 bottle caps. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends that helped us fill up this old fridge for this week's show. First up, a cheers to Pam Brown in York, Alabama.
- [02:45]
Co-host/Commentator
And a big we like your jib goes out to Bryce from Memphis, Tennessee.
- [02:50]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And here's a shout out to Mary from Scarsdale, New York. And so let's do a very special Ron Swanson please and thank you to everyone who dropped by our booth at CrimeCon in Las Vegas to say hello and chat with us. It was wonderful to see all of you again and to meet a lot of you for the very first time. Cheers.
- [03:10]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah. B W R U N Beer run for everything. True crime. Check out truecrimegarage.com and Colonel that's enough of the BSNs.
- [03:19]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
All right everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime.
- [03:24]
Narrator/Storyteller
It.
- [03:55]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Kathy page was only 34 years old
- [03:57]
Narrator/Storyteller
when she was found slumped forward inside of her own car, a black Mercury tracer. The first facts investigators settled on were stark and brutal. She had been beaten and she had been strangled. Later, a rumor would circulate that came about by way of claims that she had also been raped, perhaps while being strangled. What never changed, even as details were debated and theories hardened, was the way that the scene looked at first glance to some people, like a tragic accident that simply happened at the wrong bend in the road. But the story did not stay an accident for long. Kathy's body was discovered on May 14, 1991, and over time, her death came to be one of the longest unsolved
- [04:48]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
cases in southeast Texas.
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Narrator/Storyteller
People would say her name with the kind of familiarity reserved for local tragedies
- [04:57]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
that never found resolution.
- [04:59]
Narrator/Storyteller
And from early on, many in the community, even within the wider conversation around the case, would point at one person again and again. Her husband separated from her at the time, Steve Page. More than three decades later, those accusations and suspicions remain part of the case's shadow while Steve Page remains a free man. This is the killing of Kathy Page, the case that would not close. And this is true crime.
- [05:36]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Garage. Kathy Page was born Lucille Catherine Fulton on January 8, 1957 in Vier, Texas. She was the daughter of James Fulton and Dorothy Ann Fulton, and for most of her life she went by Kathy. Family members described her as gregarious, someone who could be a lot of fun, and the way people spoke about her made it clear she wasn't only remembered for how she died, she was remembered for how she moved through her life. Social, outgoing and as some put it, a pretty blonde who attracted attention in her hometown. Vitor itself sits in western Orange county, part of the region known as Southeast Texas, near the junction of Interstate 10 and Farm to Market Road 105, roughly six miles northeast of Beaumont and Rose City. It is described as a bedroom community, quiet, residential, tied to the economic gravity of the refining complexes in Beaumont and Port Arthur and connected to the broader Beaumont Port Arthur metropolitan area. Kathy worked as a waitress, and one of the places associated with her life was the Hofbras Steak and Grill house on North 11th street in Beaumont, Texas. It was described as a popular restaurant serving Texas style country cooking. Pork chops, ribs, fish, shrimp and steaks were all featured on the menu. In later years, the location would change businesses. What once had been a steakhouse became the Crazy Cajun Restaurant, a seafood spot known locally. Kathy Fulton would eventually marry Steve Page in November of 1978 in Jefferson County, Texas, when Kathy was just 21 years old. Steve Page was a local insurance salesman who loved basketball and who swept Kathy off of her feet. And those recollections, Kathy's family initially approved of the relationship and approved of Steve Page. Kathy's older sister would later say in an account attributed to the Daily Mail quote, I thought he was a really nice guy. And multiple family members echoed that. They liked him in the beginning. They eventually had two daughters, Aaron, who was born the year following the marriage, and then Monica who was born in 1983. 3 they were married for over 12 years and it is said that the relationship was marked by breakups and makeups over time. However, at least one of Kathy's sisters, Sherry Valentine, said that she had doubts from the early on stages in the marriage. She described Steve as an arrogant man and she said she never felt that he was the kind of companion that she would want for her sister. She also characterized Kathy and Steve as being opposites, as if something fundamental didn't fit even when things looked good from the outside. This captain will bring us to 1991. And by May of 1991, the marriage was ending. This is according to just about anybody you could talk to that knew both Kathy and Steve. By 1991, the relationship between Kathy and Steve was described as finished, done and over with. Kathy was said to be asking for what she called a friendly divorce and Steve had reluctantly agreed to move out of the family's home. Now, there are multiple closely spaced events described in the days leading up to Kathy being found dead. And some of those are events where people say that they had been arguing. That seems very likely considering that we know that the marriage was pretty much over by this point and Steve had secured another place to live. At this time, however, he's not living there just yet, so he's in the process of moving some of his belongings out of the family home and getting set up in this new space. May 11, 1991 is often reported to be either the last night that Steve stayed at the family family home or the first night that he stayed at his new living arrangement. Some reports state that it was an apartment, others state that it was a condo. It wasn't terribly far away from the family home. But like we had said, with Kathy asking for what she was calling a friendly divorce, this was going to be a situation where the parents, both of them, wanted the other parent to remain involved in the kids lives and work together, to continue to raise their daughters even though they would be living in separate dwellings.
- [11:11]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, and she might have been Calling this a friendly divorce, but we don't really know what Steve thought of this.
- [11:18]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And now you can ask for a friendly divorce doesn't mean that you're going to get one. Right.
- [11:23]
Co-host/Commentator
And your definition of, of a friendly divorce could be different than what Steve thought was a friendly divorce.
- [11:30]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
May 12, 1991, was a Sunday, and the family of four, they're going to spend the day together. This was planned in advance. So Steve and Kathy spent the day with their family, taking their two daughters to the beach. Later, Steve, fried shrimp for the family. The day was one that was supposed to be truly like the last normal good day together, all four of them. They already had plans in place for the four of them to spend the day together. But again, by this day, Steve would spend the night away from the house. And as said, he moved out of the house. And it seems to be 100% official by this Sunday, May 12th.
- [12:18]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah. Reading this, it made me wonder if Steve thought, if I just play nice, maybe our on again, off again relationship will just go back to on again.
- [12:29]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
That seems to be the way that the reports have held up to this day where Steve said, look, I think she was just going through a phase and she would come out of it and we would resume our time together. But the people that knew Kathy seem to think like, as said, it was finished, done and over with.
- [12:48]
Co-host/Commentator
Right. But sometimes in a relationship, what the person is telling their partner as opposed to what they're telling their family could be two different stories.
- [12:58]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Regardless of what's going on and what they are telling people. The general narrative keeps circling back to the same idea. Steve is leaving, he's moving out of the home, but he will still be present in the household, the typical household set up, helping with the children, as reported by All Sides. Right now, this is going to lead us to May 13, 1991. So Steve reportedly came back to the family house this to help the children get ready for school that morning. And he drove them to school and he made some business calls and returned to the home, or at least as it's reported, to the home before noon. Now, he says that afternoon that Steve and Kathy washed one of the vehicles, family vehicles, together. Later, they went separately. So they drove separately to the ballpark for the girls baseball games. The girls are playing in two different baseball leagues or softball leagues. Details become more vivid here, as if the ordinary is being pinned down because everything afterward becomes contested. In this story, Kathy was described as wearing blue jeans and a green shirt at the ballpark after Monica, one of their daughters After Monica's game ended, Kathy took Monica home. It was said to be Kathy's normal practice to park next to the house. If she arrived home first, a lot will be made about where people parked in the driveway. I'm not going to lie to you here, Captain, or try to sell you a bill of goods here. I, I didn't, couldn't understand exactly why, because there's some other things in this timeline that are much more questionable throughout the telling of this true crime story that I think our listeners will agree with me on that front.
- [15:00]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but also, sometimes parking is just out of habit. But if Steve is not in the house, not staying at the house, why would it matter? She can park wherever she wants.
- [15:13]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. What may have been considered someone's spot prior that seems to, to me, wouldn't matter anymore at this point. What we do know is Steve State at the ballpark with their other daughter, Aaron, until her game ended. This was much later in the day. So he then returned to the house. And it's reported that this would have been as early as 9pm or could have been as late as between 9:30 and 10pm at some point late that night, the story splits into parallel tracks. Okay, we're going to have Steve's account and Cathie's communications with a friend and what police later said they learned about Cathie being with another man that night. So this is where everybody agrees that they all went to the ballpark separately. They all returned to the family home separately and at some different times. But after this point, really everything can be called into question here. So Steve's version of what happened that night includes this. He said when he went back to his new place. So he, he actually drops off his daughter and then goes to his new, what would be his new residence. He says he arrived there late May 13, but he says once he's there, Kathy called him and asked if he would come back to the house and stay at the house because she wanted to go over to a friend's place or go out with friends in Beaumont. Now, Kathy worked, as we said, as a waitress, so I would imagine her schedule isn't a traditional Monday through Friday, 9 to 5.
- [17:04]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [17:05]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So this would make a lot of sense. And it sounds like Steve was working a more traditional Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. So she clearly plans on being out late if she's asking Steve to stay over. And then that way he's there to get the girls up, get them ready for school, take them to school, like he did that earlier that day.
- [17:27]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [17:27]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Or she would return at some point and take over those duties. That part, that understanding of what they had worked out doesn't make its way to our report.
- [17:39]
Co-host/Commentator
But also, if you're Steve and you're thinking, hey, I'm trying to get my foot back in the door, hey, I'll be over there. The closer I'm to her, the more family man that I am, the more chance that we have of getting back together.
- [17:59]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Couldn't hurt, could not hurt. And it. Even if you, that wasn't your desire, there's no reason that your divorce, your separation from your wife should. Don't let that ruin your relationship with your daughters. And keep in mind, the daughters are still young at this point. They're 12 and 7 years old. So leaving them alone would not have made sense that night. So the other part of this story, which doesn't really refute what Steve is saying, it's just more information and different information. Okay, so we have Kathy's friend and co worker. Her name is Charlotte Swearingen. And she's going to play a big role in this story because Charlotte says that Kathy called her around 9:30pm or maybe as late as 10pm that night. She said that Kathy told her that she was going out and reminded her, Charlotte not to answer her phone that night if anyone called. Okay. So she's requesting this of her friends specifically in case Steve tried to call
- [19:10]
Co-host/Commentator
Charlotte's home to check, telling Steve, I'm going out with Charlotte, but she's really going out with somebody else.
- [19:17]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right? You and I are going out together. As far as he knows, if he calls your home and you pick up the phone and I'm not home or on my way home, by that point he's going to know that I'm not doing what I said I was going to do. Charlotte knows what's going on. She knows that Kathie was meeting a particular man. Now, she does say this is the only time that Kathy had ever asked her to cover for her while she was meeting a man. In all of the accounts, people know who this man is. But in all the reports here, Captain, the man is identified only as Tom. So what we do learn is that Kathie was meeting this Tom, Another man at a hotel in Beaumont on the night of May 13, 1991. This is approximately six miles away from her home. From my understanding, this is a man that she met while she was at work. And it sounds like this guy traveled for his business or for his career and he would often stay at the same hotel in town. So take that information for however you want it. The general story here becomes that Kathy left his presence around 2am or so. Other phrasing in the account places Kathy leaving Beaumont at 2:30am however, regardless if it was 2am or 2:30am nobody confirms having seen her alive again after this timestamp.
- [20:57]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [20:58]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Charlotte, her friend, described another moment that night saying that around 12:30am her phone at her home rang. She picks up the phone, the caller hung up without speaking a word.
- [21:11]
Co-host/Commentator
She said, could be Steve, could not be Steve.
- [21:14]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. We, we don't know. She said that that night she had received hang up calls. She had also received hang up calls on other occasions. And she has stated that she assumes that on some of these occasions, if not all, it may have been Steve. But again, she has no way to confirm that. We cannot confirm that. Charlotte also said that Steve called her around 3am this time. She speaks with him. He's looking for her, looking for Kathy,
- [21:44]
Co-host/Commentator
which is reasonable because if he's going over pretty late at night, he's not going to, you know, she's leaving at 9:30 or 10 o'. Clock. You're not going to expect her back in two hours. But after three or four hours, you'd probably start getting pretty worried.
- [22:01]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. And so there's no reason to believe that Steve did not call Charlotte in the early morning hours. The only thing that comes into question here is that time shifts in different tellings of this story. So Charlotte has always said he called her at 2:30am Steve has told people that he called Charlotte at 2:30. He's told other people he called her at 3:30. He's told other People we called her at 4:30. So he doesn't deny calling Charlotte.
- [22:32]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [22:33]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
What time did that actually happen? Now let's back up here a little bit to earlier that night because some of these details could be true, could be fiction, but they're going to matter either way. So Steve says that when he arrived back at his family's home, remember Kathy? He said, hey, could you come back to the house, watch the kids, I'm going out. He says when he arrived back at their home, Kathy was getting out of the shower, she was wrapped in a towel. He said one thing led to another. This led to them having sex with on the carpet. So on the floor, in the living room area or the living area. Now, one thing I want to be clear about here, because I've seen some very good reporting in this case, but I've also seen some bad reporting, actually some very Bad reporting in this case, which can be easy to happen when you have a lot of he said, she said, they said kind of stuff going on here, which we, we will see. That will be the case here. But for the purpose of clarity, some reports refer to this as the lounge area. If you do enough digging and you read all the reports out there, you will come to the conclusion that the living room and the lounge are the same. It's just called different depending on who is telling you what went down. In his account, Steve says they have sex in the living room, which look seems like a very strange place. You got two kids inside the home. You know, you have a master bedroom that you two share together at one time. They're asleep, but wouldn't be my first choice.
- [24:14]
Co-host/Commentator
But also they had a nice day as a family, so it's not out of the realm of possibility. And then if she's going to go see another guy and she's worried about Steve finding out, well, if we have sex real quick, he's not going to assume that I'm going to go see another guy after we just had sex.
- [24:33]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
He says that Kathy left the house between 11:15 and 11:30pm he described her clothing and items with specificity, saying that she was wearing a gray blouse, white pants, white shoes, a watch, earrings and a wedding ring. He said that he watched TV briefly and then went to bed sometime between 11:30pm and midnight. And he was sleeping in his underwear under blankets. And it's. I can't confirm this because this is not most of the reports, but in at least one report I found that he was sleeping in a guest room, not in their master bedroom. So this would make sense to some. I would think that he's sleeping in a different room. If she intends to come home and then go to bed that night, maybe they're not going to sleep together that night. His story continues into the early morning.
- [25:32]
Co-host/Commentator
Just because you sleep together doesn't mean you sleep together, Right.
- [25:36]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
He says Kathy never came home. Instead, a paper boy found Kathy's car near the home and it appeared that her vehicle had crashed into a ditch. And Kathy is found inside and dead. Now, after Kathy was found, it was reported that she was wearing the same clothing that was stated by Steve that she was wearing when she left the home. However, there were some critical items that were missing. Accounts say that her socks, her watch, earrings, and he said she was wearing a wedding band. But the reports say any rings were missing from her body and from the vehicle. The absence became part of those items become A big part of this mystery, not just what was missing, but what it suggested about where Kathy had been that night, how she had been handled, and whether someone had tried to alter what the scene would say to investigators. So what we have to point out here, Captain, is what is probably obvious to most of our listeners. The way that the vehicle is positioned and how it is found to the untrained eye would suggest vehicle accident. Person inside died in the car during that accident.
- [27:09]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah.
- [27:10]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
What would be learned is how she's found in the vehicle, those missing items, and later the autopsy would confirm that she did not crash her car, she did not die in that crash, and in fact, she was murdered. And everything is suggestive that she was placed in that vehicle. And someone staged that scene to make it appear as if she crashed her car after a night of drinking with her friends on her way home from hanging out. So police said that they were at the scene soon after 5am on May 14, 1991, when Kathy's vehicle was found nose down in a ditch near the intersection of the I10 service road and West Boulevard Street. Remember, a paperboy had discovered this vehicle. The car was described as half hidden and located only a short distance from Kathy's home. So only about 100 yards. She's roughly a football field or less from her home. So some might look at this and go, well, she almost made it, but she crashed into this ditch. But one thing that I found reported in, I believe it was two of the reports out there, Captain, this, this part makes no sense. If someone is trying to staged the scene to make it look like she was driving home and crashed into the ditch and was killed, the vehicle was. Was positioned in a way that it was not heading. It's not pointing to or toward her home. It's pointing the opposite way.
- [28:55]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [28:56]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And all the reports say the same thing, that it had to have been staged to resemble an accident. And they point to these different items here, that there was very slight damage to the vehicle. There was no evidence to suggest that she realized that she was going to crash and attempted to slam on the brakes. To the investigators, the evidence suggested the car had been rolled slowly into the ditch rather than crashing into it. The car was described as extremely neat and clean, with the exception of two whataburger cups that were found on the floorboard.
- [29:33]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [29:33]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The rear view mirror was turned left in, touching the windshield.
- [29:39]
Co-host/Commentator
Were the cups from that night, do we know?
- [29:41]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I have no idea. Kathy's body was in the driver's seat. Her purse was upright in the Passenger seat so upright. Right. Like the. The cups on the floor might suggest that there was some kind of crash. Her purse just kind of chilling there in the seat suggest otherwise, in my opinion. She wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Her head was tilted to the right, leaning against the headrest. And there was. Most of the reports out there state that there was no blood in the car. So to be as fair as we possibly can, let's say there was very little, if any, blood in the vehicle at all.
- [30:20]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, this part has always troubled me because I go, is this a staged crash, or is this a situation where crime happens? Our victim is deceased and the vehicle goes into drive or goes into. Is placed into driver, placed into neutral, and. And then the car just ends up doing what the car does, and nobody. Because the victim's dead, they can't. They're not controlling the car.
- [30:45]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Injuries and such are reported as Kathy's nose had been broken. There were marks on her interpreted as indicating she had been strangled. The reports suggest that it was someone using their left hand. Closer inspection revealed transfer blood on the inside of her clothes, which investigators took as an indication that the clothes had been put onto her body after injury was inflicted. Okay, so we should note here, captain, that there was blood at the back of her head, but no other blood was visible at the scene. Again, her nose had been broken. Marks on her neck indicated she'd been strangled with the left hand. And that transfer blood inside her clothes is a very troubling matter here because, again, that's an indication that she was attacked and likely killed and then redressed after injury was inflicted. Police also would say that blades of grass on the underside of the back of her jeans suggested that her body at some point had been dragged. She was wearing no makeup. She wore no watch. She had no jewelry on, and of course, no wedding band. What people that knew her best would later state is that Kathy was notorious for removing her makeup and jewelry before going to bed. First responders moved her body and placed it into an ambulance for transport. The vehicle was taken in for processing. Meanwhile, two police officers went to Kathy's home. When officers arrived at the page home, they noted that no lights were on.
- [32:39]
Co-host/Commentator
Foreign.
- [32:44]
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- [38:26]
Co-host/Commentator
All right, we are back. Tall cans in the air. Cheers to the people.
- [38:32]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Raise them high to this guy. So we have this accident scene, right? And keep in mind a lot of the stuff that we're about to go through here. Captain, they're going to be processing this scene at the same time that these activities are taking place. So these investigators that are going to arrive at the Page family home again about a football field away from where the crash, if you want to call it that, took place, they're likely armed with some information, but not the majority of the information that we just covered. And they say that when they arrived there that the lights, all of the lights were off inside the home as one would expect when a family is inside sleeping, right? So they knock on the door. Steve Page is the one who opens the door. Now one of our and this has been something that, that people really hate about this case and it's come under the lens of suspicion over the years. One of the officers on the front porch of the home is Detective Mosley. Now, it's important to note here that Detective Mosley and Steve Page knew each other for most of their lives. They grew up together on the same street. They went to the same school. They've known each other practically forever. Now, some reports state that they were friends, that they were tight friends. Other reports simply state that they grew up and they've known each other their entire lives.
- [40:01]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [40:02]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The key factor here being that if you are reading an article that is suggestive of a police cover up, in every one of those articles, Detective Mosley and Steve Page are very good friends. And the articles that don't hint at a police cover up, they are simply two guys that grew up on the same street, went to the same schools, and have known each other their entire lives. So the officers say that Steve answered the door wearing only his boxers. When asked about Cathy, he tells them she's not here and asked the police if they are knocking on their door regarding her. Detective Mosley noted something that would later be repeated time and time again. In this case.
- [40:52]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, the tip of Steve's penis was showing through his boxer shorts.
- [40:56]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, he says that when Steve stepped outside to talk with them, he, he looked toward the direction of the crime scene or the crash.
- [41:06]
Co-host/Commentator
Okay.
- [41:06]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Before having been told what had happened. Okay. Now that on the surface, when we have the detective noting things like this, and you'll see other things that detective mostly noted in his reports to me that suggestive that the police weren't covering specifically, mostly covering for Steve Page, he, he's saying, I'm suspicious of this guy right away because he's looking in the direction of the crash scene.
- [41:31]
Co-host/Commentator
Right. He shouldn't know what direction the crash scene was.
- [41:35]
Narrator/Storyteller
Right.
- [41:35]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
We've not told him anything yet. However, I will go out of my way to defend Steve Page here can
- [41:42]
Co-host/Commentator
only look one way or the other.
- [41:44]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, and given the short distance between the crash scene and the home, look, there's, there's police cars there. That's. That draws everyone's attention all of the time.
- [41:56]
Co-host/Commentator
So, and, and, and my question would be, do they have their lights on? Because if they have their lights on, that's where you're going to look.
- [42:02]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. I would imagine they have some form of lights on to at least light up the scene. Now, whether that's the blue and reds, we don't know. But. So also on the front porch with Detective Mosley is Lieutenant Carter, who accompanied the detective to the house to tell Steve that they had found Kathy Page dead. They Go inside to deliver this information. And the lieutenant says in that moment that Steve became very emotional, that he threw himself on the couch and started crying out loud. However, Detective Mosley observed and reported that Steve had no tears during this moment. And both officers say that Steve did not ask to see his wife, nor did he insist on going to the scene of the crash. Now, we need to keep in mind they're telling Steve that his wife is dead. Right?
- [43:06]
Co-host/Commentator
They're not telling him, I'm not going to the scene of the crime, but
- [43:10]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
the scene of the crash. They're not. They're not telling him that she was murdered. Right. They're telling him that she's dead, that her car was found in a ditch. Leave. Leave it up to him to put those pieces together. And while there, they. Both officers say they were there for about 15 to 20 minutes. Between the time on the porch and the time inside. This is where I think they made their mistake. I don't think they should have left or at least left one of the officers there. They did say that during that time period, at least once or twice they had asked Steve to turn on the lights in the house. He did not. So even when they entered the home, he didn't turn on the lights inside the home. The officers noted that there was clothing on the living room floor.
- [43:59]
Co-host/Commentator
That's bizarre.
- [44:01]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So remember Charlotte Swearengine, Kathy's friend?
- [44:05]
Co-host/Commentator
It's both bizarre. Turn on the lights, you, you. You freaking weirdo. And also. Okay, his story about them having sex on the living floor. Okay, fine, but you're gonna pick up the clothes afterwards.
- [44:22]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Charlotte Swearengen said Steve called her between 5:30am and 6am on that morning. During this call, he's wanting to know where Kathy was. Charlotte told him she's still going along with the whole setup here. Told him that they had been out together and that Kathy left to go home around 2am or so. Charlotte then called the hotel where Kathy's friend was staying, but no one answered.
- [44:51]
Co-host/Commentator
So in Steve's AKA man meat, Steve's
- [44:55]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
version of this is that he woke up just before 6am realized that Kathy wasn't home, he called Charlotte, and then within minutes of that phone call, police arrived while he was about to get dressed.
- [45:09]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, they should have stayed at the house longer because then they can investigate. But at this point, I don't know if law enforcement knows that it's a murder scene and not a crash scene.
- [45:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I think for the officers or detectives that viewed the vehicle and Kathy inside, I think they're suspicious that It's a murder, but it's not 100 confirmed at this talk. Now later that morning, Kathy's father, James Fulton, will have to tell his children. So these are Kathy's sisters, that she is dead. One sister described the moment with a, an image that stuck with me. She says her father arrived. They were supposed to do something together that morning. And she said her father arrived not in his overalls but instead in his dress clothes. And she said just the sight of him right away, before he even spoke, told her that something was wrong.
- [46:10]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [46:11]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So dad tells Kathy's sister Kathy is gone. She asked him, gone where? He answered, no, honey, she's.
- [46:20]
Co-host/Commentator
She's gone.
- [46:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
She's dead. So the family gathered with Steve and Kathy's daughters. From my understanding here, Captain, the daughters Woke up around 8am they don't describe, they never describe us hearing anything unusual that night or any noise that night. They Woke up at 8am now, this is a considerable amount of time after the police were on the front porch, in my humble opinion here.
- [46:48]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but in fairness, if there was a crime that took place in that house, we've had other crimes, other murder cases where children have been home and heard nothing.
- [47:00]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. What I mean is I just me trying to relate to this scenario. I find it odd that he didn't wake up the girls to tell them what had happened. But in fairness to Steve, he, he may have wanted to know the particulars of this before telling his daughters.
- [47:17]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah. And some people take a, a while to figure out how to tell children that their mother has died.
- [47:26]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. The. It was Steve who notified Kathy's parents that she had died.
- [47:33]
Co-host/Commentator
Well, that could be something.
- [47:35]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, what's he going to do not tell them? Well, that would be really something.
- [47:42]
Co-host/Commentator
Stranger things.
- [47:44]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
When Peterson, his parents arrive. When her parents arrive. Excuse me. At the house, they say that Steve was wearing red shorts and a white T shirt. He was barefoot and they noticed a scratch his nose. And they also say that Steve was doing laundry at that time. This is before the girls were awake. And they also stated that he was wiping his hands and maybe and his face with a washcloth and that Kathy's bed appeared not to have been slept in. Now, Steve would later deny doing laundry.
- [48:22]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [48:23]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, it's weird because he doesn't. There's a lot of reports say that he denies doing laundry. However, it's. It is stated that one load of laundry was done that morning and it was bed sheets. It was one of the daughter's bed sheets. So I think when they say he denies Doing laundry. Remember, they arrive before the girls wake up. It sounds to me if you were to put those items in order that it. He's admitting to doing laundry that morning. But it was bed sheets and that would be after
- [48:56]
Co-host/Commentator
accident.
- [48:57]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I have no clue.
- [48:59]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, so possibly one of the daughters had an accident. You gotta toss the sheets into the washer. Which makes sense. Hey, when I talked to him the first time. Yes. I wasn't doing laundry. Because if he was, you go, well, that's a weird time to be doing laundry. Is he covering something up? Well, once the girls wake up, if there was a load of laundry done. Still, I think it's a little bizarre because if I find out my wife and I understand that they're going through a divorce, but they're on again, off again and you're staying the night there and you just had coitus. Right.
- [49:35]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So according to him.
- [49:37]
Co-host/Commentator
According to him. Right. So. But you go, okay, well if all that's happening and now she's dead and I love her and she's the mother of my children, I'm probably not thinking about doing laundry.
- [49:54]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, and without going down six different avenues.
- [49:57]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, let's go down seven.
- [49:59]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Well, for every person that says he was doing laundry very early that morning, there's a person who says I was in the home and nobody was doing laundry. So. And really, to simplify this, if we were to go down every avenue on every little detail here, we could do 10 episodes on this case that would bore the. Out of everybody listening.
- [50:19]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, that would be fun.
- [50:20]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Okay, but here's the thing though too
- [50:22]
Co-host/Commentator
is sometimes you toss something into the.
- [50:26]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, but what I'm saying is there, I don't think there's any reason to. We're just spinning our tires.
- [50:31]
Co-host/Commentator
Right, Right.
- [50:32]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Because for every person that says there was laundry happening at 6:30 in the morning, there's a person that was there and says laundry wasn't happening at 6:30 in the morning. And, and keep in mind, Steve openly says his statement is I wasn't doing laundry that early. I did a load of laundry after the girls woke up.
- [50:50]
Co-host/Commentator
Right. So he's not even denying it. Right.
- [50:54]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
If he's doing a lot of laundry, that's suspicious. Right. If he's doing washing a lot of clothes, washing a lot of towels, whatever, that would be very suspicious. We don't know. We could sift and sort through it as much as we want to. At the end of the day, we're not going to know. And I can tell you this, 30 some years later, nobody else Knows either.
- [51:12]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but you know, my middle name is Spinning My Tires, Captain Spinning my Tires. Fat hands.
- [51:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
There are also at least one person that say that they saw him carrying clothes as if it were laundry that he had just completed. We do have one member of Kathy's family who, when she's over there that day, Steve tells her that Kathy had been out drinking that night and she was probably drunk and taking Valium and she went into the ditch and died.
- [51:46]
Co-host/Commentator
Well, nobody should drink and drive. But the volume comment is, I think, interesting. Put a pin in that.
- [51:56]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, but that his statements are. Will not be backed up by toxicology reports. Right, but he's still. What I would. Yeah, but without. Without just being blunt. He's still trying to sell that she died in a car accident in the ditch down the road.
- [52:12]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [52:13]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
To anybody that shows up to the house that day, Remember, they've not done the autopsy yet. They don't. They don't know exactly how she died. And of course, anybody that comes into his home, especially her family, is not going to know what was found in her vehicle with her and what, more importantly, what was not found with her in the vehicle.
- [52:32]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but is he trying to sell it or is he trying to figure out what happened in his own mind?
- [52:39]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Possibly, Possibly. But it gets difficult for me to say that. It gets difficult for me to say possibly when I know other details that we haven't got to yet.
- [52:48]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [52:49]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So he told Accord, again, this is according to her family. I don't want to be very clear here. This case is very difficult to go through because her family is all going to be in lockstep saying things that Steve did or didn't do that are incriminating. He will deny and counter all of those. And in some cases, he has a person or persons backing him up.
- [53:17]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [53:17]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So these claims get very difficult to go through and to sort out what is real, what is factual and what is fictional. Because Jan reported that Steve told her that he did not want the Vitor police department in his house because they would probably find blood on the living room carpet because Kathy had shaved her legs in the living room.
- [53:43]
Co-host/Commentator
That's weird. There's a lot going on in this living room.
- [53:46]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
That's later that day. Another key part here is later that day, Jan would say that Steve said that he didn't know that Kathy had a boyfriend. She had. No. He had no idea that she had met a man at the hotel. Okay, so we got to be clear here because this is where the timeline gets really dicey. You have A lot of people coming in and out of the home, and a lot of people having conversations with Steve. Some of them are police, some of them are her family. Some of them are just other people, friends of his and whatnot. You have a lot of things going on. So we have all these conversations at some point that day. It is general. It becomes general knowledge that she had met someone at a hotel the previous night. So he simply saying after that becomes somewhat general knowledge that he did not know that she was meeting somebody that night, didn't know she had a boyfriend. As Jan states that Steve had said the word boyfriend. Again, one big part of this timeline that shifts back and forth is what time did he call Charlotte? So Jan will state that he says that he called Charlotte at 3:30am not at 2:30am Like Charlotte says. And Jan also said that in another telling of that same story, he said 4:30am Him. Now, to Steve's defense, Jan did say she did not notice any blood during the time that she was in the home. She did, however, state that she saw laundry and hangers lying around the living room floor.
- [55:29]
Co-host/Commentator
But what do we know from the toxicology report?
- [55:32]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
There was no alcohol or volume found in her system.
- [55:36]
Co-host/Commentator
Okay. And I'm not making an argument that there. That there was a crash. I'm just trying to play this out in my head. Is it pot? You know, is it possible that she came home that night and let's say they didn't have sex before they left, or they didn't have sex before she left. And he thought, well, I came over to watch the girls, and you went out with your friends, and you came back and, hey, let's rekindle this relationship. And then she said no. And then the situation got escalated from then.
- [56:13]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Right. I think reviewing this, what it appears to me is he calls Charlotte's home, Charlotte fails to do as instructed and picks up the phone. And that tips Steve off that, oh, Kathy didn't go out with Charlotte as she had told me.
- [56:33]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [56:34]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And what the people that think that Steve is guilty of killing his wife would tell you is that she had came home and all those items that were not found on her, and she did. She didn't appear to be wearing any makeup that's all suggestive to them that she got ready for bed, he must have woke up, managed to kill her probably in that home, in that living room, places her body in her vehicle, and then manages to get that vehicle a short ways down the road and put it in the ditch. And, oh, by the way, he was too dumb to have it facing the right way as if she were driving home.
- [57:15]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah. Or maybe he's not too dumb. Maybe it's just physically not possible.
- [57:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Like, come up with a better way to stage the scene, my friend. Yeah, well, okay, so as said here, the. One of the biggest problems about this case is going to be, as I'm going to summarize it for you, as simple as I can, because this will be the ongoing part about this case, the hurdle that is almost impossible to clear. Okay, so the events of that day. Well, that night, that day. More important to say, everything that Steve did or did not do that day has been highly scrutinized. I'll summarize it for you as for years to come, Kathy Paige's parents, siblings, and friends will point to a dozen different actions or inactions, actions of Steve's pointing to those as suspicious. Steve counters all of their claims, and in some cases, he has someone to back him up. Okay, so there's a laundry list of these different items that took place or did not take place that some say are suspicious. Item number one, numero uno, has to be the autopsy. Okay. So later that day, the police returned to the home and they told Steve Page that they needed to conduct an autopsy on his dead wife's body. Steve says, you're not doing an autopsy. They said, well, you know, whether it's an accident, murder, whatever, if somebody dies and it. We. We don't know that it's natural causes.
- [58:50]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [58:50]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
You're going to perform an autopsy. And he says, absolutely not. You're not going to perform an autopsy. I don't want anyone cutting on her. So it's James, which is Kathy's father, who authorized the autopsy. Now, keep in mind, part of that autopsy is going to be that toxicology report.
- [59:10]
Adobe Firefly Announcer
Yeah.
- [59:11]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Okay. Now, also that day, he had told at least one person that Kathy had recently developed a drug problem. She was doing cocaine at night and Valium during the day. So again, to me, that's. I think that's trying to sell this crash idea to whoever's willing to listen. Right.
- [59:33]
Co-host/Commentator
But if law enforcement is telling you, and maybe not even your wife, just anybody, somebody that you love, hey, we don't think it was a crash. We think there's foul play. You would absolutely want an autopsy to be done. Yeah, absolutely.
- [59:50]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. Or if you thought, as you are telling people, that she was drunk and had drugs in her system.
- [59:58]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah.
- [59:59]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And. And the crash was real, you would still want the autopsy. And of course, toxicology is not good in 1991. It's not going to come back that day. So he, he can work that story for the time being. Now, to further that, he has he stated two different ways. The police are not going to search my home. Why? Because I think that you may find some blood or something in the living room. Again, why would I find blood in your living room? Well, Kathy had been shaving her legs
- [60:29]
Co-host/Commentator
there, and she was high on cocaine. So she was horrible at shaving her legs.
- [60:34]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And then her father is telling Steve, look, you should just let the police search the house. They want to come in and take a look around. Just let them take a look around. And Steve tells him, absolutely not. The police department is not coming in here because they've planted stuff on some of my friends before and that's not going to happen here.
- [60:55]
Co-host/Commentator
This guy is sounding more and more like Scott Peterson.
- [60:58]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The police asked Steve about Kathy's jewelry sometime on that Tuesday. He says that he looked in her jewelry box and the items in question were gone. But he does not let the police look in the house. So he would not consent to a search of his home. He is interviewed on that Tuesday afternoon at the police station. At the police station. Now, in Steve's defense, remember, we have the family saying there was a scratch or something on his nose. The police did say that they. An examination was conducted at the police station of Steve's face and hands, which revealed no marks or injuries. The following day. We're now at Wednesday, May 15, other family of Kathy's is visiting the page home. This is where the drug rumors or cocaine rumors are stated by Steve. Now, Steve did clear that up later. They said, look, we found no cocaine in her system. Why would you tell. And he said, look, that's something that somebody had told me, that she was going through a phase, a party phase, and she was doing cocaine on occasion or experimenting with drugs in the moment. That's something that I thought of. Now, however, he was never able to remember who the person was that had told him that.
- [62:21]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but remember, he also made statements that, hey, I don't know if we're going to get a divorce. I think she's just going through a phase.
- [62:29]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Is that a part of it?
- [62:30]
Co-host/Commentator
And, and also when you're going through even a breakup, it doesn't have to be a divorce. You have mutual friends, you have people. So when you're having these conversations with people, well, we're just fighting all the time. And they go, well, I heard this rumor, right? Or I heard that she was seeing somebody or there's a lot of stuff that, especially with the friends that are connected to both, where they just kind of feed different information. Whether that's correct information or not, you just get fed a lot of information.
- [63:03]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
True. But if someone told you that your significant other was doing a hard narcotic like cocaine, I would wager that you would probably remember who the person was that had told you that.
- [63:17]
Sponsor Announcer 2
Yeah.
- [63:19]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Unless. Unless this was a drug or drugs were in and out of your life and her life. Right. But this seems like. This seems a major statement for someone to tell you that to the point that you would repeat it to somebody else later and then go, oh, well, I. Now I don't remember who told me that.
- [63:37]
Co-host/Commentator
Just to play devil's advocate, it could be somebody that he's like, this is a close. This is a close family friend. And I don't want to say who because that will make them look bad if it wasn't True.
- [63:50]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
True. But he looks pretty bad saying he can't remember. So on Friday, May 17, Kathy Page, they hold a funeral for her the following day, Saturday. At least one person claims to have seen Steve burning something in the backyard. Steve would later explain that he had missed the trash collection day on Tuesday. Understandable. His wife was, you know, finds out that his wife is dead that day. Trash is probably not the first thing on his mind. He says that he decided to burn said trash, trash in the backyard. A big part of this statement will become a mayonnaise jar full of grease. Okay. So he says this is one of the items that he burned that day. Now he says when he was going to carry it out, he was. When he was carrying it out to throw it in the fire in the backyard, that it slipped out of his hand, he lost control of it and broke. Or the lid came off in the grease. You know, people dump grease into jars all the time, Right. Cooking grease. He said that this spilled onto the living room carpet, which then forced him to have to do a thorough, thorough cleaning of this carpet to get that smell and the grease out of the carpet. What?
- [65:10]
Co-host/Commentator
There's so many things happening.
- [65:12]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
The people that he killed her will suggest, will tell you that, oh, he just happened to spill all that grease. Or at least based off of what he was cleaning, the location where he was conducting the carpet cleaning, he happened to spill that grease the same spot that they had sex, which nobody has outright said this with the clothing that's on the floor in the living room. But they are suggesting. I guess the implication here is that if there were to have Been blood on this carpet at some point. He didn't need to. He didn't have the time to clean it before anybody arrived that morning. So he had tossed clothing on top of it so it wouldn't be visible. And then there's this whole argument about carpet cleaning and shampooing the carpet. There was somebody in his family that rented a carpet cleaner. You know, you can go to the store and rent them. But it wasn't Steve. It was one of his family members. However, you have her family that says, well, we came over and it was multiple people cleaning the carpet with Steve. And the interesting thing here, though is he does not deny cleaning the carpet. It's just the details of cleaning that carpet.
- [66:27]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah. Just like he doesn't deny doing laundry.
- [66:31]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. And he says, I didn't rent a carpet cleaner. I already owned one. Now, after the funeral, Steve Page was named as the prime suspect in the murder. This is after the autopsy found Kathy's makeup and jewelry had been removed prior to her death, suggesting that she had made it home that night prior to being found in her vehicle in the ditch. Now back to them having sex that night. Remember, he says he doesn't deny this. In fact, it's his part of the story that they had had sex that night. Okay, so we got to clear something up here because what a lot of people suggest as part of this murder is that she was raped and then killed and then the whole crash scene was staged. Right. What happens here is the autopsy also revealed that Kathy did in fact have sex on that night, on the night that she died, although no sperm was found in her body. Okay. Steve Page had a vasectomy operation and he admitted to having sex with Cathy the night that of her death. Steve Page has insisted that there is no evidence of rape and said that forensic evidence showed Kathy had been strangled by a left handed killer. He says that he is right handed, although her family says that he's ambidextrous.
- [67:55]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [67:56]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And this remains a point of contention. It seems like in 30 years, nobody's figured out if this guy's right handed or left handed or really, frankly, how much does it matter to the case?
- [68:06]
Co-host/Commentator
Right. But the guy that she went to see at the hotel, did they have sex?
- [68:11]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Because that man. While the details of her time there that evening have not been revealed, the police department has stated that that man has been cleared in her homicide.
- [68:25]
Co-host/Commentator
Right, but they could have had sex and he could have wore a condom. So true.
- [68:32]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
But also what could be true is that in the heat of the moment, Steve Page raped his wife and murdered her and then put her body.
- [68:39]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, but wouldn't there be signs of that? Because there's normally evidence whether somebody had sex or. Or whether they were raped.
- [68:49]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Correct, Correct. The broken nose could be signs of the rape. The strangulation could be signs of the rape.
- [68:56]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [68:57]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I mean, she had marks on her body. She was. Killed her. So her family would tell you that that's what happened. That when he figured out that she wasn't where she said she was going to be, he knew that she was cheating on him. And then when she returned to the home, she had just enough time to start preparing to get ready for bed. He woke up or. Or was distracted or didn't have enough time, whatever that. And then he brutalized her before placing her in the vehicle. And some of those people suggest that maybe rape was part of that. I don't know. I don't need rape to be part of that to.
- [69:33]
Co-host/Commentator
No.
- [69:34]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
To believe that he killed her.
- [69:35]
Co-host/Commentator
But also, let's. Let's not say that she was cheating on him. They're going through a divorce.
- [69:40]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Correct.
- [69:41]
Co-host/Commentator
And I understand that it wasn't. It wasn't finalized, but the smarter man
- [69:47]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
would have found her at the hotel and presented that to a judge during the divorce proceedings.
- [69:52]
Co-host/Commentator
And the friendly divorce.
- [69:54]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah, well, yeah, but it wouldn't. It would have it. Whatever he needed to go in his favor would have gone in his favor during that divorce. So there's also disputes over whether Steve Page was asked to take a polygraph test. He says no, he was never asked. But her family, the Fultons, have publicly stated several times that, yes, he was asked, but he refused to take one. Now, in 1992, Kathy's family filed a wrongful death suit after two grand juries declined to indict Steve Page on criminal charges. Okay, so it was brought to the grand jury a couple of times. In 1993, enraged by the lack of progress in his daughter's murder case, James Fulton began a billboard campaign. This, to draw attention to the unsolved case and to call out the police for what he saw as a failed investigation. So ever since 1993, James Fulton had been putting up billboards in a field that sits beside the I10 freeway. And these billboards accuse Steve Page and condemn the police. His original three signs read, vitor Police botched up the case, waiting for confession. And this could happen to you. Fulton also put up a billboard in a local park that declares, this is Orange county and city of Vider. Here you get by with brutally murdering A woman this signed by Fulton in part says the Vitor Police Department that did not solve my daughter's murder will be assisting you with any complaints or problems of this so called park.
- [71:37]
Co-host/Commentator
Well, again, the timing is difficult with this one because if it would have happened a couple years ago, we could do some testing. If we find foreign DNA, then this could possibly clear Steve. But I'm guessing that they didn't have some of these tests around and I'm sure that they didn't save some of the evidence to be tested later.
- [72:02]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
These billboards about his daughter's murder serve as the inspiration for the Oscar nominated film Three Billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri. Now anybody that's watched that movie, which is absolutely great movie, will know that the crimes depicted in that movie look nothing like the case that we're talking about here today.
- [72:24]
Co-host/Commentator
And also it was her father that was kind of the, the spearhead to keep this in the news and keep this on people's mind. And the movie, I believe it's the mother.
- [72:36]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yeah. So the, the individual that wrote that movie said that they started writing that story from seeing billboards when driving throughout the country and didn't know any of the details. So these, these billboards, which he did have three back then, could be the, you know, seem to likely be the inspiration for this individual to write a fictitious story.
- [73:04]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [73:04]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
And in 1994, Steve Page was caught on camera kicking a bunch of flowers off of Kathy Page's headstone off of her grave at the cemetery.
- [73:13]
Co-host/Commentator
That's bizarre.
- [73:14]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
He says that the incident came about after he had endured being baited and harassed by his wife's family. Of course they disagree. He was convicted, fined and sentenced to probation for this, this act. Shortly after being convicted of desecrating his wife's grave, Steve Page moved to Houston, citing harassment from Kathy's family as one of the reasons for relocating. Steve Page says the signs, the billboards are one of the reasons that he left the area in 1995. He also claims that the billboards caused great grief for his daughters Aaron and Monica, which led to them being bullied at school. Now, from my understanding here, Captain, the two Page daughters split their, the remainder of their childhoods between their father's home in Houston, Texas and their grandparents home in Huntsville. And they became estranged from Kathy's family, the Fultons.
- [74:19]
Co-host/Commentator
What happened in the wrongful death case,
- [74:22]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
it took a lot of time here, but what we end up with, there's a couple mistrials, but ultimately the, an Orange county civil jury found Steve responsible for Kathy's death, and the civil jury awarded damages of $150,000 to her family to the Fultons, finding Steve financially liable for Kathy's death. Again, this took a lot of time. This was well after the billboards and even after he had moved out of the area. Now, years later, tragedy would touch this family, this poor family once again. Monica, one of the daughters, died in 2008, 11, at the age of just 27 years old. This was reportedly by suicide, and some accounts state that she had become addicted to prescription painkillers. And a toxicology report showed that she had taken 25 Vicodin, leading to her death. The other daughter, Aaron, would eventually move to Tennessee later in life, and it's reported that she had no contact with the Fulton side of her family. But as of 2014, she recently began talking with her father again. This is according to what he told Daily Mail tv. Now, in a series of blog posts written by Aaron in 2014, she states that she believes that both the Fultons and her father, Steve Page, are liars. In 2018, the case was profiled on the TV show Cold Justice. They interviewed dozens of witnesses. And while it sparked renewed interest in the case, it didn't really lead anywhere from there. The case would stretch on year after year until it became what many in Southeast Texas would call it, one of the longest unsolved cases in the region. A death that never stopped being discussed and a name that never quite stopped waiting for answers. In 2024, the police announced a reboot in the Kathy Page murder investigation. A reward has been established through Crime Stoppers of Southeast Texas for any information that leads to an indictment or arrest. In the unsolved homicide case of Kathy Page. The number for Crime Stoppers is 409833, tips. That's 409833, tips. And you will remain anonymous.
- [76:54]
Co-host/Commentator
Is there one piece of information that sticks out to you as something you can't get past on whether or not Steve's guilty or not?
- [77:04]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
I don't know why he wouldn't turn on the lights. I don't know why he wouldn't want an autopsy to be conducted. Right. The clothing on the floor seems odd. He does have an answer for some of that. I don't know. Every bit of his movements seem unnatural to me. And look, the items that were not found with her, if it were an accident, should have been found with her. And we know it's not an accident. However, where are those items? To me, that's suggestive that she made it home. And the Part beyond it being unsolved that bothers me the most about this case is I don't see a cover up. And I hate that it is framed that way in some of the articles and reports that have survived throughout this case. What I see is that I think that they were working behind the eight ball because they didn't fully know where she was that night for a couple of hours that morning. However, police should have, if you were suspicious from what you saw in the vehicle, an officer should have remained at the home even if he forced that officer to stay on the front porch. What I don't see is a cover up. What I do see is, look, these homicide investigations, they have to be two things. Thorough and efficient. They have to move quickly and efficiently. And what did not happen here that would have solved every question that we just threw at the wall, at the garage wall on today's episode would have been answered if they searched that home that morning. And I don't think it. To me, it doesn't seem inconceivable that if I'm a detective and I'm going to a judge, I'm going to the brass and saying, hey, we need to get this in front of a judge. He won't consent to us searching the home. I want to search the home. Why? Because there's indications of a murder at this crash scene and she's found within a football field of her home where her husband, who they had recently split and he was going to be living elsewhere.
- [79:21]
Co-host/Commentator
Right.
- [79:21]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Was staying that night. I think a search warrant would have likely been signed off on by a judge and then we would not have to have relied on his friends and family or, or her friends and family to tell us what they witnessed or what they did not witness inside that home on that morning when she was reported dead.
- [79:41]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Yeah, I agree with you.
- [79:42]
Co-host/Commentator
The fact that this case, multiple sources kind of imply that there might be a cover up, which is strange to me because Steve makes multiple comments of he's afraid that the cops are going to frame him.
- [79:58]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
So.
- [79:58]
Co-host/Commentator
But I think the biggest one to me is how are we going to get the answers to what happened? It's the autopsy and he doesn't want to have that performed. Very suspicious.
- [80:27]
Sponsor Announcer 1
Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every
- [80:30]
Co-host/Commentator
week for everything True crime. Check out truecrimegarage.com and Colonel, I think everybody should go listen to our off the Record episode, Agent Black.
- [80:42]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
Yes, that will be the recommendation for this week. Make sure you go check out that episode of off the record with retired FBI agent Barry Black. He's an expert in bombs. He was a sniper at one time, and we only got to scratch the surface of all of the war stories and significant historical events that placed him at major crime scenes during the course of his career.
- [81:11]
Co-host/Commentator
Yeah, it was an honor to talk to him. And as we're talking to him, it was like the amount of like images that popped into my head as he was talking, it was a great interview. You should check that out. That is on Patreon or Apple. Podcast subscription and until next week, be
- [81:30]
Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
good, be kind and don't.
- [82:07]
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Nick (Host of True Crime Garage)
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