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
06x05 - Death Play
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Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.
Documentary that reveals how forensic science is used to solve violent crimes, mysterious accidents, and outbreaks of illness.