A Deadly Cocktail - Part 2 (David Castor)

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Speaker 5 previously on anatomy of murder antifreeze ethylene glycol it's a horrible way to die You don't die instantly by any stretch of the imagination. You die, you know, almost cell by cell.

Speaker 5 Not something that, you know, you would think of as using using as a methodology of suicide. I need an ambulance of 4127 with a road.
I just had to know.

Speaker 5 I had to know, you know, concretely and for certain what the guy died from. And what's the problem?

Speaker 5 My daughter, I believe, has taken some pills. Whoever wrote that note killed Mike Wallace and David Caster.
It couldn't be anybody else.

Speaker 2 I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff.

Speaker 4 I'm Anasega Nicolazi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discovery's True Conviction.

Speaker 2 And this is Anatomy of Murder.

Speaker 2 Now, a quick reminder, this is the second episode in a two-part series. So if you haven't yet, go back and listen to part one.

Speaker 4 On August 22nd, 2005, 37-year-old Stacey Castor called 911 to report her husband's possible death by suicide.

Speaker 4 A medical examiner would later confirm David Castor had died from ingesting a lethal dose of ethylene glycol, better known as antifreeze.

Speaker 2 But investigators from Onondago County, New York, including the DA Bill Fitzpatrick, were unconvinced that David would have intentionally subjected himself to the long and painful death caused by antifreeze poisoning.

Speaker 2 There seemed to be a much more logical explanation. He was murdered.

Speaker 5 There was a camp in the sheriff's department that believed her. I think the guy killed himself.
And then there was the camp that, you know, said, no, this is not adding up. It doesn't make sense.

Speaker 5 Let's treat it as a homicide until we are convinced otherwise.

Speaker 4 Then, with the discovery of Stacey's fingerprints on the glass of Antifreeze by his bed, not to mention a turkey baster containing David's DNA on the tip, the ME was ready to change his initial ruling on the manner of death.

Speaker 5 The guy readily admitted, yeah, absolutely. I

Speaker 5 ruled it a suicide. Doesn't change my opinion about the cause of death, but now confronted with this new evidence that you have uncovered, I am changing the death certificate.

Speaker 5 manner of death to homicide.

Speaker 2 Which meant, of course, that David's wife, Stacey, was was now the prime suspect.

Speaker 2 And even more shocking was that in their efforts to dig up more truth about the mysterious death of Stacey's first husband, investigators discovered that he too was the victim of antifreeze poisoning.

Speaker 4 Which brings us to September of 2007.

Speaker 4 Aware that her ex-husband's remains had been exhumed and that the walls of justice were closing in around her, she invited her 20-year-old daughter Ashley over to the house.

Speaker 2 A well-timed police wiretap inside Stacey Caster's home gave a window into what happened next.

Speaker 5 I need an ambulance at 4127 Whistle Road here. What is the nearest corner across the street?

Speaker 5 Gwenwood. And what's the problem here?

Speaker 5 My daughter, I believe, is seeking some pills.

Speaker 4 According to Stacey Caster's 911 call, her 20-year-old daughter had lost consciousness as a result of what she claimed was a cocktail of alcohol and prescription pills.

Speaker 4 And apparently, she had also left a detailed suicide note explaining why.

Speaker 5 When she called the police, she couldn't have been more insistent. You know, like, here, don't forget this.
I found this on Ashley's bed. Now, Ashley's comatose is being taken out in an ambulance.

Speaker 5 And she's like, here, here, you know, don't forget the note. You got to check the note out.

Speaker 2 And in that type note, Ashley claimed responsibility for not one, but two murders, shockingly, taking the blame for poisoning her stepfather, David Castor, and her own father, Michael Wallace, eight years before.

Speaker 4 According to the note, Ashley could no longer bear the guilt of her actions. So she had decided to take her own life.

Speaker 4 It was a stunning admission that, if true, could turn the investigations into both homicides upside down.

Speaker 2 Now, the coincidence of events here is just astounding.

Speaker 2 Not only were paramedics again being called to the Castor home in what Stacey Castor claimed was an attempted suicide, but also the fact that investigators were listening into this 911 call on that wiretap as it was being made.

Speaker 4 Ashley was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Speaker 4 In fact, doctors would later say that she was just minutes away from dying from the dangerous combination of pills and alcohol that she had in her system. But incredibly, she survived.

Speaker 4 And what she would have to say would shock both doctors and the detectives that had raced to her bedside.

Speaker 5 When she woke up and she said, look, I have no idea idea what you're talking about. There's no way in the world I'm trying to kill myself.
I'm in college. I have career goals.
I have a boyfriend.

Speaker 5 I don't know what you're talking about. Please stop accusing me of trying to kill myself.

Speaker 2 Detectives confronted her with the typed suicide note and her confession to two murderers.

Speaker 5 The detective that questioned her, you know, really was very upfront with her.

Speaker 5 in his mind for a reason. You know, he was confronting her with, why did you try to kill yourself? And, you know, there's this poor young woman there.

Speaker 5 He's confused, doesn't know what the hell is going on. And I've got this strange cop telling me I tried to kill myself.

Speaker 5 So she spent most of her initial waking moments trying to convince this guy that she didn't know what he was talking about.

Speaker 4 Ashley vehemently denied that she had attempted to take her own life. or that she had poisoned her stepfather or her father.
She also said absolutely not had she written that note.

Speaker 2 But if she was telling the truth, then the only other possibility was the unthinkable that her own mother had tried to kill her and set her up to take the fall for both murders.

Speaker 4 Ashley recounted for police what she remembered from the previous 24 hours after going to her mom's home.

Speaker 5 She was telling Ashley, like, I want to celebrate with you. Mom might not be around for a while.
And, you know, Ashley at that point was just about to turn 21.

Speaker 2 According to Ashley, her mother was mixing the drinks and being pretty insistent on the refills.

Speaker 5 So she was all excited, you know, and she remembered and later testified at trial that the drink itself tasted terrible, which begs the question, why would you keep drinking it?

Speaker 5 And, you know, she's a kid and she says, look, I was excited. My mom wanted to, you know, have a drink with me and celebrate.
whatever it was she wanted to celebrate.

Speaker 5 I didn't know what she was talking about, that she wasn't going to be around for a while. So, yeah, I I drank with it and it put her almost right out.

Speaker 4 At one point, Stacey even offered her daughter a cocktail with a straw and instructed her daughter to push the straw to the back of her throat and just drink it.

Speaker 5 And her recollection was, she said, I remember, you know, drinking Thursday with my mom and waking up on the gurney on Friday with you guys.

Speaker 2 Here's the first big turn.

Speaker 2 A toxicology screen would reveal the terrifying truth truth that Ashley had also consumed a large amount of powerful drugs, none of which she remembered ever taking voluntarily.

Speaker 5 When we saw Ashley's drug screen from the toxicology report, it looked like something out of a doctor's office, every drug imaginable.

Speaker 4 The detective's suspicion?

Speaker 4 That Stacy had surreptitiously been dosing her own daughter's drinks with drugs and that she had attempted to stage her murder as a suicide and blame her own daughter for the murder of Stacey's two husbands, Mike Wallace and David Castor.

Speaker 2 Or the confession was true and Ashley was solely responsible as the suicide note had indicated. But at the very least, detectives knew that the killer came from inside the house.

Speaker 5 Whoever wrote that note killed Mike Wallace and David Caster. It couldn't be anybody else.
Okay, I've got two people. That's it.
It's either Stacey Caster

Speaker 5 or Ashley Wallace that committed this crime.

Speaker 4 Either way, investigators knew the proof was likely hidden somewhere in this so-called confession and suicide note. And this comes straight out of something you'd see on TV's CSI.

Speaker 5 The beauty of it is it was examined by the Secret Service, and the Secret Service agent found a defect. in the printer at Stacey Caster's house.

Speaker 5 So we were able to prove forensically that the suicide note had been typed right there at the house. Okay, but Ashley certainly had access to that.
She lived there.

Speaker 5 But what was it about the note that was so convincing to me? Well, a couple of things.

Speaker 5 For example, regarding the death of Michael Wallace, the first husband, the author of the note, purporting to be Ashley, the daughter, is describing in detail how the antifreeze was administered to Mike Wallace.

Speaker 5 But an interesting thing pops up. In addition to antifreeze, the author of the note also points out that he was given rat poison.
So, you know, we look around at each other and say, rat poison.

Speaker 5 First anybody's heard of that. Never come up in conversation before.

Speaker 5 And I immediately call the ME and I said, your work's not done on Mike Wallace.

Speaker 5 Need to know if there's the presence of rat poison in the system. And sure enough, there was.

Speaker 2 It was a detail only the killer would know. Was it proof that the confession was legit or a fatal slip in Stacey's elaborate cover-up?

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Speaker 4 New York's One Nandaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick knew that after the exhumation of Mike Wallace's remains and the determination that he too had been poisoned, that Stacey Castor would feel cornered.

Speaker 4 But not even he could have imagined just how far she would go to try to get away with murder.

Speaker 5 She couldn't pin it on a neighbor, a jilted lover, a friend, a random stranger. She's calculating this in her mind.
She knows we've exhumed her deceased earlier husband.

Speaker 5 She knows we're going to find out what he died from. What's the common denominators? And the common denominators, plural, are me, Stacey Caster, and my two daughters.
Okay, well, Bree was eight.

Speaker 5 That's kind of a stretch to say that an eight-year-old eight-year-old did this to her father. And Ashley was 12.
That was the only choice she had was to try to pin it on Ashley.

Speaker 2 Investigators suspected that Stacey drugged her daughter, Ashley, and then forged a suicide note in an attempt to frame the 20-year-old for the murders of her father, Mike Wallace, and her stepfather, David Castor.

Speaker 5 According to the doctors that treated her and that I spoke to, she was probably 15 minutes away from death.

Speaker 5 If Stacy had, ironically enough, you know, waited 10 more minutes for the phone call, her daughter would have been dead.

Speaker 5 And I would not have had a living witness to explain that the suicide note was false.

Speaker 4 Most horrifying of all was that not only did Stacey Castor plan to frame her own daughter for murder, Bill believed she was willing to take her daughter's life also in the process.

Speaker 5 You've heard the expression that there are monsters amongst us, and there just are. And we get so carried away sometimes with the why.

Speaker 5 And I think we lose sight of the fact that there really is evil in the world.

Speaker 5 And Stacy Cast or whatever else you want to define her, she's an evil, evil person. This was so diabolical, so evil.
It's hard to put into words.

Speaker 2 But still, what about the possibility that what was in the letter was true? If detectives were going to prove that Stacy was who they thought she was, they had to also prove that Ashley was innocent.

Speaker 4 Absolutely true.

Speaker 4 So Bill set out to demonstrate that not only was Ashley incapable of the murder, but that there was demonstrative proof that she hadn't done it and that she was not planning to take her own life.

Speaker 5 During the day that she's supposedly planning to kill herself, Ashley is texting with her boyfriend about plans that they have to meet later that night and the following day and plans that they had for that weekend.

Speaker 5 You know, not 100% conclusive, but certainly inconsistent with a woman that's so depressed that she's going to end her own life.

Speaker 5 The very last thing that she texted before she succumbed to the cocktail from her mother was, I love you too, honey. See you tonight.

Speaker 5 Does that in any way, shape, manner, or form suggest a woman that's about to kill herself?

Speaker 2 And as for the confession and the suicide note itself, Bill leaned on his wiretap and a dose of good luck to prove that it was not Ashley that wrote it, but her mother, Stacey.

Speaker 5 We were able to recover a first draft of the note, and the forensic examiner put the time that it was done between noon and 12.30 on Wednesday afternoon,

Speaker 5 noon to 12.30 in the afternoon.

Speaker 5 And just for the heck of it, I said, you know, I can't listen to 160 hours of tape from the wiretapper, but I'm going to listen 12 to 12.30, See if she was by some miracle on the phone.

Speaker 5 As it turns out, fortuitously, she was. She was talking to one of her friends.
And I remember playing the tape later for the cops.

Speaker 5 I go, remember you guys told me there wasn't anything of any evidentiary value on the tapes, right? Yeah, that's right. That's right, DA.

Speaker 2 I go, well, listen to that.

Speaker 5 Tell me what you hear. And you could hear very distinctly, but softly, but distinctly, you could hear the clicking of a keyboard as she's talking to her friend.

Speaker 5 But clearly clearly it was Stacey cold-bloodedly drafting the note with the intention of killing her daughter in just a day.

Speaker 4 On September 14th, 2007, Stacey Castor was detained at the hospital where Ashley was recovering and then transported to the police station to get a statement regarding her daughter's near-death poisoning.

Speaker 5 She was then placed under arrest. And she was charged with the murder of David Castor, and she was also charged with the attempted murder of Ashley.

Speaker 2 And there was an additional charge as well that hinted, at least in part, of the motive Stacy may have had for killing her husband, David Castor, the forgery of his will.

Speaker 5 The people that witnessed the will of David Castor, leaving everything to Stacy, eventually came forward and said, you know, look, we didn't really witness David's signature.

Speaker 5 We lied or we perjured ourselves. And we got a call from Stacy after David died.
And she was crying and saying, you know, he left me with nothing. There's no will, but I've drawn one up.

Speaker 5 It's consistent with what he wanted. Could you do me a favor? Could you sign it for me? And foolishly, they did.

Speaker 4 But even with what appeared to be a ton of compelling evidence, the trial would also have some significant challenges.

Speaker 4 Without direct evidence, meaning a confession or an eyewitness testimony, the case was largely circumstantial.

Speaker 2 But Bill was confident in the totality of the narrative that he believed explained her guilt.

Speaker 5 Starting with the scene itself, the unlikelihood of him using antifreeze as a methodology, the turkey baster

Speaker 5 with David's DNA on the tip. Why would this adult male resort to a turkey baster when he's got a glass of antifreeze on the side of his bed?

Speaker 5 Why are Stacey Caster's fingerprints on that glass and none from David Caster on that glass.

Speaker 4 Or Ashley's fingerprints, for that matter.

Speaker 5 The lies that she told regarding his depression, his failing business.

Speaker 5 And then, of course, we go to the examination of husband number one and find out that, not surprisingly, he died of the exact same methodology.

Speaker 5 You know, I have an expression, I'm sure you've heard it before, you know, this many coincidences take a lot of planning.

Speaker 5 It became obvious that it's not a coincidence that two guys just happened to kill themselves with antifreeze.

Speaker 2 Nor was it a coincidence that Stacey happened to invite her daughter over for a night of drinking immediately after learning that her ex-husband's body had been exhumed.

Speaker 5 And then with the attempted murder of Ashley and the suicide note, it quickly evolved into what you and I call proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In my mind, proof beyond virtually any doubt whatsoever.

Speaker 4 But there was one part of the narrative that seemed to be missing. A motive.

Speaker 5 There was nobody that said in the instance of Michael or David that, yeah, Stacy did it. You know, they hated each other.
She told me she was going to kill him. None of that type of evidence.

Speaker 5 No domestic violence instances where she had been, you know, like beaten or abused psychologically, financially, or physically and was getting back at him.

Speaker 2 But what about the money? I mean, surely her attempt to forge David's will suggested that she was after the money, right?

Speaker 2 Well, maybe not.

Speaker 5 And although there was a financial remuneration for her in both instances, it wasn't anything where like she rushed out a week before the murder and got a million-dollar life insurance policy.

Speaker 5 It was just, you know, regular life insurance policies and in some cases, you know, small pittance of savings or material goods. So it wasn't a motive-based case that stood out at you.

Speaker 4 Both Both Michael Wallace and David Caster were working-class, salt-of-the-earth type of guys with little to no savings.

Speaker 4 And so to Bill, the fact that this financial motive seemed so minor was exactly what made her actions so cold and terrifying.

Speaker 5 I believe that clinically she was a sociopath and that she just grew tired of Michael and then grew tired of David.

Speaker 5 as opposed to what a normal person would do, you know, file for divorce or anything along those lines, she She just smells, you know, I got a better way to get rid of him.

Speaker 5 More efficient and more financially beneficial to me.

Speaker 2 But there was another large issue leading up to the trial for the murder of David Castor, and that was whether or not the prosecution would be able to include evidence from the suspicious death of Stacey's first husband, Mike Wallace.

Speaker 5 I don't have any jurisdiction over the Michael Wallace case, and It's a great piece of evidence, but am I going to get a judge that's going to let me get that evidence in front of a jury?

Speaker 5 So I've got to prepare almost two different cases.

Speaker 5 If I get the Mike Wallace evidence in, I feel very good. If I don't get the Mike Wallace evidence in, I still feel good that I'll prove it.

Speaker 5 But there's no such thing as too much evidence in a murder case.

Speaker 4 The fact was that Mike's murder was pretty damning evidence of Stacey's pattern of criminal behavior. But they also had to consider that it could unfairly prejudice the jury against her.

Speaker 4 And I can tell you all that normally this would not come in. You can't have evidence of other crimes while someone's on trial for something else specific.

Speaker 4 But here, and again, here's your legal lesson for the day. It's something called Molino that we prosecutors love.

Speaker 4 It's a hearing we have to say, hey, there is a reason, judge, that you should let this in.

Speaker 4 In this case, modus operandi, something so unique in a signature or that something in the other crime helps prove the identity of the defendant in this case. And just think about it.

Speaker 4 And what would be more probative of her guilt of killing someone by antifreeze? That's somewhat circumstantial than to show that her other husband was killed the same way.

Speaker 4 So that's absolutely what they were trying to do here. And fortunately, they were successful.

Speaker 5 There are some instances where the modus operandi, the methodology of death, the things are so intrinsically related and they're so unique. And that this clearly falls into that situation.

Speaker 5 Two husbands dying under very unusual circumstances of antifreeze poisoning, one being misdiagnosed as a heart attack, the other almost being misdiagnosed as a suicide, both being the husbands of this one particular woman.

Speaker 5 So I don't think it was a really challenging call for the judge. And he made the right call and said, yeah, you can get in evidence of Mike Wallace's death here in this trial.

Speaker 2 And so the trial did begin with all of the anticipation and media attention you might imagine for a case this shocking.

Speaker 4 Stacey Caster continued to stand by her story and entered a plea of not guilty. Her eerily calm demeanor was at odds with the horrific crimes she was accused of.

Speaker 2 So, here was the challenge: Would prosecutors be able to prove that Stacey Castor was the monster they believed her to be, or would this twice-married, twice-widowed mother of two weave a new chapter in her ongoing scheme to get away with murder?

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Speaker 5 It was a high-profile case, cameras in the courtroom, a lot of media attention, and juries sometimes can freeze up when all that happens.

Speaker 5 I wanted to make sure that everybody on the jury got it, from the simplest person to the college-educated, you know, smartest person on the jury. That was my mindset going in.

Speaker 2 To Bill Fitzpatrick, the argument was pretty simple. You either believe what was written in Ashley's so-called suicide note, or you believe Stacy had forged the note to frame her daughter.

Speaker 5 I wanted to make the jury 100% certain that Stacy did it or Ashley did it. There's no third choice.
There's no boogeyman here.

Speaker 5 Nobody is suggesting that it was a jilted lover or a burglar or a disgruntled client or anything like that. It's this woman or that woman.
And they happen to be mother and daughter.

Speaker 4 With the suspect pool narrowed to just two, Bill's goal was to carefully pick apart any possibility that Ashley could have poisoned David Castor.

Speaker 5 And when you're convinced as to who wrote the note, circumstantially just chock full of evidence that Stacey wrote it, And when you consider her story, her lies, you know, seeing him on the weekend when by her own admission, Ashley was nowhere near the house.

Speaker 5 She was at a friend's house. She was alibied all weekend.
When the suicide note was typed, we know for a fact from documentary evidence that Ashley was at school.

Speaker 5 And when you consider all of these things together, it's her.

Speaker 2 And as the trial started, he took a bold approach, confronting Stacy's lies head-on.

Speaker 5 I said to myself, you know what? A huge part of my case is going to be Ashley because I'm certain I could convince the jury that only two people could have committed the crime.

Speaker 5 So I put Ashley on the stand first. She was the very first witness, and she was fantastic.

Speaker 4 The defense was unprepared for Ashley's bombshell testimony on the first day of the trial. The kind of powerful presence that is so often saved for a trial's finale.

Speaker 5 She was just an innocent young woman thrust into this situation in a bizarre way, still loving her mother, but also still recognizing that she tried to kill her.

Speaker 5 That was, I think, a good way to start the trial, and as it turns out, turned out to be the right decision.

Speaker 2 Ashley recounted her mother's efforts to ply her with alcoholic drinks that tox screens had proved were laced with drugs.

Speaker 2 There was even a recorded phone call between Stacy and a friend in which Stacy callously described just how dangerously intoxicated her daughter was. Ashley's still drooling on herself.

Speaker 4 That poor kid was exhausted.

Speaker 5 She didn't look very good this morning, though. No.
Wow, Jesus. What do you expect? She freaking got hammered.

Speaker 2 You know, Anasika, this is so horrific on so many different levels. I mean, this is a mother allegedly drugging her daughter with the hopes that it may end her life.

Speaker 4 I mean, just think about it. She is making this phone call, kind of talking somewhat lightheartedly when she just poisoned her, right? She is watching her daughter die in front of her.

Speaker 4 Like it's one of those things, like, I cannot fathom it. And it is so sickening to me when I hear it.

Speaker 4 It's just, uh, you know, you always think you've seen it all, but there's always something unfortunately worse. And this to me is it.

Speaker 2 I agree. I mean, this is in the backdrop of her ex-husband being exhumed from his grave to be tested.
I mean, she knew that was going on.

Speaker 2 So, if that was not the driving force to get her out of this situation and really

Speaker 2 put two murders on her own daughter when she was actually maybe committing another one right here. I mean, Stacey Castor, in my books, is completely evil.

Speaker 5 The holy grail of the whole case was the 750-word typewritten suicide note wherein, if you believe it, at face value, Ashley confessed to killing both her biological father and her stepfather, the latter being done when she was 12 years old.

Speaker 4 The first of which she would have been only 12 years years old.

Speaker 4 But beyond some of the other things we've discussed, that a wiretap recorded Stacy typing at the exact time investigators believed the letter was drafted, and that it was likely written when Ashley was still in school, Bill always thought there was something strange and suspicious about the wording of the letter itself.

Speaker 5 In the note, there's a reference to a declaration of guilt, like, I did it. Only the author doesn't say, I did it.
The author says, it did it. And it makes no sense.
It's just a tick that it did it.

Speaker 5 Interesting. So I read that early on, way before trial, and I filed it away.

Speaker 2 And during the trial, Bill saw his chance to prove that the author behind this strange tick was Stacy herself.

Speaker 5 Really, the Perry Mason moment was I brought out that I had gotten from an acquaintance of her handwritten notes that she had sent from the jail.

Speaker 5 And in one of the notes where she's proclaiming her innocence, it's like a gift from God, she handwrites, they're going to take me to trial. I don't know if they're going to offer a plea bargain.

Speaker 5 It doesn't matter because it didn't do it.

Speaker 4 Bill was convinced that in the midst of fabricating her elaborate denials and false alibis, Stacey hadn't realized her fateful mistake.

Speaker 5 It was like Bruno Hauptmann when he wrote the ransom letters in the Lindbergh case. He had this tick of always adding adding an E to the ends of words that didn't need an E.

Speaker 5 And it was one of the things that helped convict them. And this is certainly one of the things that helped convict her.

Speaker 2 As for forensic evidence, the prosecution presented Stacey's fingerprints found on the glass of anifreeze by David's bedside and on the turkey baster containing David's DNA.

Speaker 4 The proof that her first husband, Michael Wallace, died from ethylene glycol poisoning spoke to a unique pattern of disturbing criminal behavior.

Speaker 4 Bill was even able to provide a chilling detail about where Stacey Castro may have gotten the idea.

Speaker 2 There was evidence that Stacey had seen a news segment about a killer named Lynn Turner whose weapon of choice was none other than Antifreeze.

Speaker 4 The defense, they argued that in regards to Michael Wallace's murder, that Ashley, his own daughter, was likely motivated by jealousy of her younger sister.

Speaker 5 The essence of the defense theory was that Ashley had murdered both Michael and David, attempted to point out that Bree,

Speaker 5 the younger daughter, was called princess by Michael. Okay, well that happens all the time.
You know, fathers have nicknames for their kids.

Speaker 5 And the suggestion was that Ashley was somehow jealous about this new sibling that she had and her father's attention, Mike Wallace, being divided between the two of them.

Speaker 5 And this led to a homicidal rage. Now, do 12-year-olds kill? Yes, they can commit horrific crimes.
But to suggest that this particular 12-year-old, now,

Speaker 5 or at the time of trial, 21-year-old, did it, where's the evidence of that?

Speaker 5 What 12-year-old child would diabolically think of poisoning him not only with antifreeze, but as it turns out, with rat poison as well? That's a bit of a stretch.

Speaker 2 Now, the defense argued that the evidence against Stacey was entirely circumstantial, and they were willing to put her on the witness stand to convince the jury she was innocent.

Speaker 4 Now, it's definitely not the most common tactic at a homicide trial, but of course, defendants do testify. Stacey Caster's testimony was like nothing Bill had ever encountered before.

Speaker 5 She got up there. She was...
totally devoid of emotion, which, I mean, even when she's on direct describing the death of husband one,

Speaker 5 the husband two, and she's describing implausible things as totally normal.

Speaker 5 For example, when I'm cross-examining her and I said, now your daughter, she takes this celebratory glass of vodka that you admit, that we have you on tape.

Speaker 5 We see you buying the bottle of vodka with her at the store moments before she started consuming this. You don't have any argument about that.

Speaker 5 And then she went into her room and for 16 hours, she never came out until you called 911.

Speaker 5 You never checked on her during the night. You never made sure that she was fed or hydrated or needed anything.

Speaker 2 To observers, the lack of compassion and basic maternal care demonstrated by Stacey Castor when her daughter was severely intoxicated and, in fact, dying from a deadly cocktail of alcohol and pills was further proof that Stacey Castor was not just indifferent to her daughter's condition.

Speaker 2 She was behind it.

Speaker 5 And then periodically throughout the rest of the afternoon, the evening, and the night, Stacy would diabolically go back in and spoon feed her more alcohol and more barbituids, hoping to kill her.

Speaker 4 The jury deliberated for two days, which I can tell you is excruciatingly stressful for a prosecutor and the families, of course.

Speaker 4 It should take a jury however long they need, but the longer a deliberation goes on, the more worried we get that something isn't clicking for them. Did we not make some element clear?

Speaker 4 But all we can do at that point is wait.

Speaker 5 They were out a couple of days, but you know what? As I talked talked to them afterwards, they only took one vote.

Speaker 2 And with that vote, they decided Stacey Castor's fate.

Speaker 5 Well, they found her guilty of everything. The murder of David, the attempted murder of Ashley, and the forging the will.
So I congratulated my co-counsel.

Speaker 5 I thanked the jury and then immediately turned to Ashley and Bree. And both of them were.
bawling and we had a nice moment. We went back up to the office and talked and it was, it's good.

Speaker 5 You You know that feeling. It's good.

Speaker 4 And while she was never charged with Michael Wallace's murder in convincing the jury that Castor had killed David, Bill had effectively convinced them that she had killed her first husband as well.

Speaker 5 In essence, proved two murders and one attempted murder. But for jurisdictional purposes, she was only convicted of murdering David and attempting to murder her daughter.

Speaker 2 And the prosecutor in the neighboring county had to weigh the pros and cons to bringing bringing their own murder charges.

Speaker 5 He gave some thought after my trial to prosecuting her and I said, why don't you let's see how the appeals work out.

Speaker 5 And if everything stands on appeal, you know, a 50-year sentence is the max you can get in New York anyway. So what's the point of putting the girls through it again?

Speaker 5 And that's eventually the decision that he reached.

Speaker 4 Stacey Castor was sentenced to a combined total of over 51 years to life in prison.

Speaker 4 During sentencing, the judge said she was in a class all by herself, particularly for attempting to kill her own daughter and frame her for the murders.

Speaker 5 I've seen lots of murder cases and I've seen people try to frame other people. I've seen police try to frame people, sadly.

Speaker 5 This case is unique in that regard to me, that this is the first time a mother had ever tried to frame a child for a murder that she committed.

Speaker 4 Stacey Castor died in prison on June 11, 2016 at the age of 48. The cause of death was later ruled to be a heart attack.
In the eight years she spent in prison, she never confessed to her crimes.

Speaker 2 As for her daughters, they have both grown up to be successful women.

Speaker 5 They're doing great. I'm proud of both of them.
I don't know how they can be so good and successful at what they do, knowing what they've been through. It's amazing.

Speaker 4 In the years since their mother's conviction, Bill has been a steady shoulder and even somewhat a surrogate father to both young women.

Speaker 4 Ashley has even asked Bill that when the time comes, she would like him to walk her down the aisle.

Speaker 2 Like Bill, I think we both have mixed feelings about the word closure.

Speaker 2 Some survivors find that the end of a trial, a verdict, and the sentencing of a perpetrator brings relief and marks the end of a long and painful period. But it does not close the door on the pain.

Speaker 2 And as Bill says, there is always an empty seat at the dinner table.

Speaker 5 We don't bring closure, but we bring that sense of justice. Okay, my life matters.
My loved one's life mattered.

Speaker 5 The system isn't perfect, but I had a champion in court and the assistant DA got justice for me. There's no better feeling in the world.

Speaker 2 It's hard to fathom how someone can choose murder over divorce, the option society gives us to walk away, however painful from a failing marriage. Yet these are rare, twisted cases.

Speaker 2 The perpetrator sees homicide as the ultimate escape hatch, trading the legal end of a relationship for a permanent, irreversible solution.

Speaker 2 We have to ask ourselves what pressures, delusions, or entitlement drive someone to cross that line, and how often gardened expectations about marriage and control play a role in pushing intimate partners towards violence instead of separation.

Speaker 2 Today's case leaves behind so many open wounds. Just listen to the words of Ashley herself, one-time suspect in her father's death and forever a victim.

Speaker 2 She expressed these thoughts at her mother's sentencing hearing.

Speaker 6 The biggest question I ask is why? Why did she do these things?

Speaker 6 I know that's probably never going to be answered. There are so many things that she has ruined.
She'll never be able to see Regraduate. My father will never take me down the aisle.

Speaker 6 She'll never get to see her grandchildren. All those things she took away from me.
She killed two people and tried to kill kill me and blame it on me and blame me for the other deaths.

Speaker 6 That bothers me so much. I had to pretend for a year that everything was okay, that nothing was bothering me, even though I was worried about the trial and worried whether the jury would believe me.

Speaker 4 Seeing the pain that's left in homicide's wake and hopefully bringing a bit of relief by accountability in the courtroom was always motivating and some of the greatest satisfaction I always felt about being a prosecutor.

Speaker 4 This case absolutely absolutely boggles the mind. Two husbands, two men she promised to love, instead she fed them poison until they died.

Speaker 4 And if anything could be worse, it was when this killer tried to murder her own daughter and frame her for the other crimes.

Speaker 4 Fortunately, that daughter survived, but I am horrified by the mental pain that both daughters were left with once they knew what their mother had done.

Speaker 4 They lost their father, their stepfather, forever, and then lost their mother to prison. Bill says the girls are both doing well and he is very proud to watch the women they have become.

Speaker 4 It makes me smile to hear that they are both thriving and moving forward in their lives, even in the wake of such absolute devastation.

Speaker 4 Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an audio chuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media.

Speaker 2 Ashley Flowers is executive producer.

Speaker 4 This episode was written and produced by Walker Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Phil Jean-Grande.

Speaker 4 I think Chuck would approve.

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