06x05 - Death Play

[bunniefuu]

during an evening church service 38

year-old Steve Robards fell ill he died

later that night of a heart attack

one year later while reading Hamlet

Steve Robards daughter studied the lines

of Claudius the King when he says the

following about death jealousy guilt and

revenge my words fly up my thoughts

remain below words without thoughts

never to have it go in these words a

clue to her father's death

you

the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth

Texas locals call it the Metroplex

it's the largest consolidated

metropolitan area in the state known for

the assassination of President John F

Kennedy in Dealey Plaza in 1963 38

year-old Steve Robards was a Texas

native recently divorced and worked as a

mail carrier for the United States

Postal Service very proud of his job

which was just a rural route postman but

he liked his job he liked being outdoors

and felt some pride in it his 16 year

old daughter Marie had recently moved in

with him after a disagreement she had

with her mother's new husband so they

were living in a one-bedroom apartment

at this time and he was on the list to

get the next available larger apartment

and he was very happy about having his

daughter in his life at this point

Marie enrolled in Eastern Hills High

School where she was a popular

straight-a student

quiet studious elegant the kind of girl

that sort of you looked at twice and

always wanted to get to know because she

seemed so reserved so poised so

intelligent there was never a flaw about

her I mean her face complexion was

perfect

by all accounts both father and daughter

enjoyed living together but their lives

changed forever on the night of February



Steve Robards attended an evening church

service

when he returned home he told his

girlfriend and daughter he wasn't

feeling well after a little while he

started getting stomach cramps severe

stomach cramps and they became more

severe as the night progressed after a

few hours ultimately nine eleven one was

called and he went into what appeared to

be a coma-like State right there in the

living room he began to foam at the

mouth and became nauseous and by the

time the ambulance guys got there he was

dead

an autopsy revealed the death was caused

by cardiac arrest I didn't want to

believe how could it be that bad he was





probably 25% too heavy for a man his age

and size and somewhat uncomfortably I

signed it out as a natural death after

Steve Robards death Murray went to live

with her grandparents and transferred to

Mansfield high school for a new start so

for one year Murray lived the kind of

perfect life every parent would hope

their child she was an excellent student

she never got in trouble she always

turned in her homework she dated some

but she was never in any way regarded as

a wild girl after graduation Murray used

the $60,000 she received from her

father's life insurance policy to attend

the University of Texas she majored in

premed her dream was to become a

just even then she was just one of the

most talented to the many freshmen at

that sprawling university there was

nothing that suggested anything except

she was headed for this kind of

excellent life that seemed her destiny

midway through her freshman year Murray

learned that police were investigating

her father's death they questioned how a



heart attack

so young it was by all accounts the

perfect crime

after Steve Robards unexpected death his

daughter Marie transferred to a new high

school and made a new friend Stacy hi

all the time say we were best friends

you know we kind of fell in love with

each other you know just um it was we

had so much in common

Stacy stays in Murray she sees something

in Murray she sees through her in a way

she realizes that that poise and that

perfection is disguising something

during senior year Stacy and Murray were

both required to read Shakespeare's

Hamlet for English class as they read

the play together

Stacey happened to begin with Claudius's

soliloquy in act 3 in which Claudius

agonizes over his decision to repent for

k*lling Hamlet's father my fault is past

Oh

forgive me my murders I'm still

possessed to those effects for which I

did the m*rder

so Stacey reads the line because isn't

that cool Murray how that's written and

Maurice standing frozen and tears began

to stream down her face she asked me

Stacey do you think people can go

through life without a conscience and

there was Stacey with her questions you

have a secret yes you've done something

yes and you know Stacy's first question

oh my god you're pregnant

marina no it's worse so after a while

guessing that's it did you k*ll someone

she nodded her head yes

and that's when Murray broke down and

cried I can't talk about this right now

Murray then admitted the unthinkable

that she m*rder*d her own father she

said she did it with a poison she stole

from her chemistry class a year earlier

everybody was working on our left

Marie said that she took the poison when

the teachers back was turned

placed it in a paper towel and hid it in

her backpack

one week later while preparing dinner

Marie mixed it into her father's Mexican

food which concealed the taste of the

poison

there yeah thank you sweetie

the poison she used mimicked the signs

of a heart attack and her father died a

few hours later the autopsy never

detected the poison in his system

after the confession Murray swore Stacey

to secrecy

if the pledge was broken Stacey knew her

best friend would spend the rest of her

life in prison

stacy is tormented however by the secret

she too is trying to keep and she begins

to have these nightmares

in one of these recurring nightmares

Stacey hears the voice of Marie's father

from the grave

in another Stacey sees Murray chasing

her endlessly through the night

she begins to lose her ability to focus

she can't concentrate in school her

grades go she begins to drink too much

at high school parties at one point she

asked her mother she can check into a

psychiatric hospital for adolescence and

no one can figure out what had happened

to Stacy it seemed like the classic

meltdown

Stacy knew if she said anything it would

be her word against Murray's since Steve

Robards death was ruled to be from

natural causes however the pressure on

Stacy High was too great she told her

mother the school guidance counselor and

eventually the police so for eight

months

Stacy kept the secret and it nearly

destroyed and she finally had to confess

but Murray never what and like Claudius

she seemed stuck trapped in her own

private hell

when Stacey hai told police that Steve

Robards had been poisoned the police

searched the chemistry lab where his

daughter Marie said she stole the poison

that k*lled him in the lab safety manual

the page describing the chemical Marie

allegedly used had been torn out

it also tells you what precautions you

need to take when using the substance it

also tells you what to do in case it's

squalid or your eyes come into contact

with it if Murray used a poison to k*ll

her father

why hadn't it shown up during the

autopsy it's not a normal procedure

unless there's some indication that we

need to do that that's it's a test

testing that we don't do here at the

facility and we have to send out for and

the investigation did not lead us to

suspect anything of that nature at the

time of the death the chemical she used

the only way it could be detected is if

the medical examiner in Fort Worth had a

machine that cost a hundred and fifty

thousand dollars that could detect the

trace of this chemical during an autopsy

which they didn't have in which they

never even thought of using the

technology which can find rare chemicals

in human tissue is called a mass

spectrometer gas chromatograph

since Murray planned to attend medical

school and become a pathologist

prosecutors suspected she was familiar

with the screening test used by the

local medical examiner she also knew

which poison wouldn't be detected

investigators hope that Steve Robards

tissue samples were still in storage

since his death 18 months earlier the

medical examiner's office was within

days of destroying the tissue samples

and the blood samples as they do when

there's there's nothing amiss they don't

suspect foul play or homicide the tissue

samples were sent to an independent

forensic laboratory in Pennsylvania

where they were analyzed with the mass

spectrometer gas chromatograph the

poison they were looking for was a

metallic substance and very rare we will

not reveal the name of the poison on

this program the gas chromatograph mass

spectrometer directs a beam of electrons

on the sample breaking its component

molecules apart for analysis the results

are charted on a graph each peak is a

separate compound the size of the peak

is proportional to the amount present

the number is the exact time in minutes

it took for the compound to travel

through the column from the moment of

its injection to detection in Steve

Robards sample scientists found a

metallic compound with the retention

time identical to the poisons his

daughter Marie admitted stealing from

the chemistry lab

and the amount found in Steve Robards

body was massive 28 times the lethal

dose with this news Fort Worth homicide

detective Thomas boat sure went to the

University of Texas and Austin

see Marie Robards she came out in the

hallway and I introduced myself

I told her she was under arrest for the

death of her father Steven Robards years

earlier she had no response of there was

no reaction and Marie quietly went with

employes as ever and once they got in

that little room they barely had to ask

a question and she confessed and broke

down and she was pretty forth

forthcoming with information fairly

quickly she didn't try to hide she

apparently was uh either guilt ridden or

had thought a lot about what she had

done and came forward with the

information the most fascinating aspect

for both the police and for journalists

covering the case was Marie's

explanation of her emotive what was it

that made you want to k*ll your father

and she said

I wanted to be with my mom but in an

ironic twist like something out of a

Shakespearean tragedy it was all in vain

because Marie Robards mother and her new

husband were planning to move to Florida

and didn't tell her until after her

father's funeral

Marie had no choice but to move in with

her grandparents so she could finish

high school in Texas and thus began this

tale that in many ways is a kind of

twisted modern parable of teenage girls

into southerners these girls that are

have those mercurial emotions but also

many of whom are girls of divorce who

are trying to grow up with parents who

have split up and seem often preoccupied

with rebuilding their own lives and

forget about the needs of their own

children

despite her confession Marie Robards

surprised everyone by deciding to plead

not guilty

she now said she hadn't planned to k*ll

her father at all

you

in 1996 Marie Robards went on trial for

the m*rder of her father Steve she

pleaded not guilty her defense was that

she had no intention of k*lling him

Marie admitted that she stole the poison

from her high school chemistry lab and

she also admitted that she put the

poison in her father is Mexican food but

she said she only planned to make him

sick not to k*ll him

of course that doesn't make that much

sense if he just got sick she wouldn't

get to go back with her mother

prosecutors said Marie was a straight-a

chemistry student and the amount of

poison used was 28 times the lethal dose

anybody he's going to go to a local

medical school to study is probably if

their high school student is probably

above average as far as in the science

department and as a matter of fact I

mean that was part of my investigation I

collected her grades and she had very

high marks in school and in the sciences

they also pointed out that Murray stood

by and watched her father die without

saying a word to her father's girlfriend

or the ambulance crew that tried to

resuscitate him

eighteen months later the gas

chromatography found what the first

autopsy did not that Steve Robards had

died of a massive dose of poison

the prosecution presented Marie Robards

signed confession as evidence

did you know that this stuff is

dangerous yes or no how did you know

that

said what everything

Stacy testified that Murray told her

that she always knew that enough of that

chemical would have k*lled her father

and that was this defining moment that

her best friend admitted that Murray had

the knowledge about what that poison

would do

the forensic evidence the confession and

the testimony of her own best friend all

worked against her the prosecutor in the

case called her a relentless predator

another prosecutor called her society's

worst nightmare

a girl who kills her dad but some people

saw her as a kind of Lizzie Borden of

Texas this sweet charming successful

industrious young girl who suddenly did

something inexplicable and in this

surprising twist at least for me I begin

to sense a sympathy developing for her

because in many ways she was the symbol

of what modern divorce has done to our

society the medical examiner says Marie

was a very clever k*ller when she say

she was good enough to fake me out

initially because I you know went for

the head fake and did couldn't find

anything

on May 9th 1996 it took the jury less

than an hour to find Marie Robards

guilty of m*rder she was sentenced to 27

years in prison I don't know what we do

about it but there are kids they don't

think exactly like adults that I mean

you know they can get by with something

like this but a slap on the wrist but 27

years seems a little excessive to me

what she done was commit the perfect

crime

it was by all accounts the perfect crime

had Dorothy Marie not mentioned it to a

friend she probably would have gotten

away with that I mean almost certainly

would have gotten away with it Marie has

never spoke about what's happened since

what is known is that Marie is the model

prisoner at this woman's unit in East

Texas where she's going to be staying

for several more years that she is never

complained that she always volunteers

for the worst chores

that one day a psychologist went to see

her and she was wearing this paper-thin

prison garb and a cold front could come

through Texas

she was shivered and the psychologist

said why don't you ask for something

warm she said I don't deserve to

she shrugged she smiled she said I'll be

okay