The Briefcase | 7

A warning to our listeners, this series contains discussion of mental illness, suicide, and domestic abuse. We found the briefcase in her house. It's a sturdy briefcase. I mean, it's very thick and leather-bound and everything. What sort of stuff did you deem important enough to put into the briefcase? Honestly, there wasn't a rhyme or reason. And I just kept what I had, got to the point where it was full and buckled it down and we hauled it off. You know, we took it with us. It hadn't been opened. It had been in an outside cabinet in our garage. And so when he opened it up, he said, why have I kept this all this time? After so long a time, opening it up and starting to look at it again, it just kind of gave us a little bit of a funny feeling. I really don't believe she killed herself. She was there one day and then all of a sudden she didn't show up. Have we uncovered a conspiracy indirectly? Too many unanswered questions. She was scared that she was alive after they said she was dead. Okay. I think I'm recording. Cool. Hello. My name is Caroline Hamilton. Hello, hello. I'm Jenna Burnett. It's a Friday afternoon. Here we go. Okay. So this is a briefcase that Steve found under Sue's bed. Sorry if you can hear my dog breathing in the background. And it already had some papers in it. And then he added papers to it while he was organizing her estate. And then Castleview has also been putting papers into it during their research. So that is what we have. We are afraid to close it because we don't know the combination. It's one of those briefcases that has the two sort of like latches that have a Rolodex of numbers on either side. It is black leather with gold trim. And when you open it, one of her sharpshooter metals is pinned right on the inside. So it's front and center. Haley, what's it been like going through this and having this in your house? Yeah, I don't know. So like I kind of started and stopped. I'm finding for myself the most helpful way to keep me from like picking a lane, you know, like choosing my own adventure about what happened to Sue is to just kind of like dabble in a little bit of everything every day. So there were times where I would sort of like look at the briefcase and then it would go in my closet for like three weeks because I just was like, there's other things I need to look at. I need to get more context around everything. and then it would come out and like there's like a very palpable sense of um you know I've always been very like attached to old objects and like objects in general and there's this thing of like I gotta take the suitcase out you know like it just feels like it's so like loaded um and and heavy but like I don't know it was kind of nice I got kind of emotional one day just because my cat was interacting with it and I was just sort of like yeah it's like a person it's like a person's suitcase so I just started calling it Sue there's just Sue's in my house you know we're like I gotta go get Sue out of the closet, you know? Appropriate that the cat would be interested. Yeah, I thought so too. It was so nice. It's like, you can just, yeah, it's like, it still has like something of her in there, you know? Like, I don't know. I felt that too. And it was here and I was looking through it. I mean, Jenna probably made fun of me because I got kind of freaked out, but I got freaked out because it felt like something, you know? It felt like a, it's not haunted, but you know, like there's, there's life to it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just very enchanted by the fact that like, it is just proof that she was around. Like, I have tangible proof that she was here. So like, if you don't know her, that's fine. Someone has to, because like, I've got her briefcase. Where do you want to start? That's a great question, because there are a ton of documents in here. My thought was that we go through and try to sort them by date so we can get a better idea of Sue's timeline. Cool. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Ooh, I'm going to touch this first, because this looks old. Certified copy of an entry of birth. She didn't really talk about herself or her family or where she was from. I always thought she was only like four or five more years older than me. Do you guys have a birth date for her? The first thing that I looked at was the birth certificate, a beautiful birth certificate. Well, I called England to Southsbury, the township of Southsbury, and asked them, do you have record of this? And they said, no, we don't show you a record of this. When and where born, 13th September, 1952. What do you think that says? It is interesting that all of this is in like a very fancy script, handwritten. How do people read things? This looks like the original one, too, because it's like... I think it is the original birth certificate. It looks like it's an ink. Name, if any, Susan Pat, sex girl. Name and surname of father, James Eric Perkins, and we have her mom, Dorothy Joan Welch. We know that Sue was born in Salisbury. I know Steve has said that he had a hard time confirming her birth certificate back in 96, but I was able to verify its authenticity with the county council. Sue's mom then went on to remarry, so they split up at some point. I don't have that divorce record, but we do know that Sue's mom, Dorothy, remarries a guy named Harry Hobson in 1978. Stuart talks about this. This is his stepdad. I also have been in contact with the head of the Kirby Lissoken Historical, I guess, website. I don't know if it's a full society. It's a pretty small town, but he's been asking around and he hasn't been able to get in touch with anybody or find anyone who knew them. Wow, that's surprising. Also, I just love that you've been in contact with the Kirby Lissoken Historical Society. Yes, Richard Oxborough specifically, which if that's not the most British name you've ever heard, I don't know what is. So he responded to me just a couple of days ago and said, it is rare for me to draw a complete blank looking for former residents of Kirby Lasokin, but I'm afraid that is where things currently stand. And he said, I've got one lead still running and you never know when a conversation will jog someone's memory down the line. So I'll keep looking. Hopefully there will be a breakthrough soon. Wild. Yeah. It always is frustrating to me when you hear things like, it is rare for me to draw a complete blank, which happens a lot in this particular story for whatever reason. Did you say the birth certificate lists her place of birth as Salisbury? Yeah. And according to birth records, Sue's mom and dad were both born in Salisbury too. Salisbury is right next to Stonehenge. I think it's either Steve or somebody or Tony said something about that she always wanted her ashes sewn over Stonehenge. Leonard, again, was very well connected in the funeral home business. He had a plane that he would go pick up bodies. so he knew airplanes and he knew funeral directors. So he said, hey, I've got a friend that is over in England and he got him a plane just recently. Let me call him and see if he can do it. He called back and said, $500. I said, get it done. I never knew who it was or what it was. I don't know, he might have got it done for $250 and charged me $250. I don't know. But he had a connection and that's how we got it done. It's the train stop right before Stonehenge. So if she was born there, there's a possible connection. Although, I don't think any of Sue's exes mentioned to us that she wanted her ashes sewn over Stonehenge. In fact, I remember Steve Devillier and Dale both saying that they didn't know where her ashes ended up after she died. So I just don't know where Steve Barksdale actually got that info from. So for what it's worth, I did look into this a little bit. And I found out that you can scatter ashes at Stonehenge, just not in the inner stone circle. It has to be outside of that. And you need special permission to do that in the first place. And then flying a plane over Stonehenge also requires special permission, especially if you're flying under 3,000 feet. Interesting. Okay. So not impossible. And I guess knowing that she and both of her parents were born nearby makes it seem a little less random. This actually sort of leads me to something that I've been thinking about a lot. The thread of her dad through this whole thing and this idea that she was, like, on this journey trying to find him, it just really, really stood out to me. And Stuart mentioned it several times, that that was basically how she spent her teen years. She'd left school and she was off looking for dad. When he wasn't there, it was like a piece missing. There has been word said that my father moved over to Ireland. In Sue's visa paperwork, she states multiple times that she's lived in England basically since she was born. She says that she's lived there for 23 years and five months at the time of filling out this application, which would be her whole life. She also lists all of the places that she lived from 1962 until she leaves for America in 1976. There's only one gap, and it's in January of 1969. I suppose that could theoretically be her looking for her father, but it could be anything really. Based on what we're learning from Stuart, I'm wondering if that was when she was having this first child. I can't remember the boy's name, but there was a boy as well. I remember going to, it's like a convent, but it was where unmarried mothers would go to have their child. So I went looking for this unwed mother's home, what it could be based on Stuart's description. From what I found, it was one of several mother and baby homes. These were often led by religious organizations in the UK, specifically to provide resources to unmarried mothers and pregnant women. In recent past, women in the UK have come forward about the oppressive social stigma around these homes at the time. Some have alleged mistreatment and coercion into putting their children up for adoption. I haven't been able to confirm through records that Sue did in fact stay here, but I feel pretty certain that if she did, this is the home from Stuart's memory. Beyond that, adoption records are pretty tricky to get a hold of, especially in the UK for a US-based researcher who is not a member of Sue's family. So, you know, for what it's worth, I reached out to the adoption services, but I think we're going to have better luck if Lisa just reaches out herself. Yeah. So I actually just spoke to Lisa about this because I wanted to get her go ahead before we really did anything. And she is very excited. She is stoked about the idea of finding an adopted sibling. And she actually told me in that conversation that when Sue and her dad got together, he was under the impression that Sue had actually had multiple children already. Before Lisa. Yeah. Wow. So there might be many adopted siblings for us to find. okay this is entry of marriage your first one kevin incersol susan pat perkins on the 8th of march 1972 he was 18 and she was 19 basically they were like two strangers that married for a silly reason you know kids being stupid kids really he is labeled a bachelor and she is labeled a spinster at the age of 19. Spinster. This is her handwriting. In Sue's handwriting? Yeah, don't you think it looks the same? Yeah, I mean, the way Susan Perkins is, that definitely looks like her handwriting. Witness my hand this 8th day of March, 1972. 18 and 19. Bachelor and spinster. They was married for 51 weeks. But in that time, obviously in that time, I'd come along, didn't I? Sue had postnatal depression, just wasn't in a position to care for a baby. So I went to stay with my auntie and uncle. And when I was two, they adopted me. I know Lisa mentioned that she thought Sue might have had postpartum depression. But I remember when Heather spoke to Lisa's dad, he said that Sue actually checked herself into a hospital to be treated for it. Like she kind of had the baby, left the hospital and then went right back. That's interesting, too, considering the way that Steve and Tony both said that she talked about having Lisa taken away from her instead of letting Lisa be adopted by her family. Right. Like the way that Lisa and Kevin talk about it is like Sue and Kevin kind of made a mutual decision. Like, we can't raise this kid. And so they let Kevin's sister raise her. But that's not what Sue told people in America. But also, if she had such terrible postpartum depression that she had to check herself into a hospital, I can see that, even if it's not true, I can see that feeling like your daughter was taken away from you. Yeah, and like the I had no choice could be because I was in such a terrible place. I had no choice, you know. Okay, tiny, tiny address book. It says inside, believe in yourself. The only ladder to the stars is woven with dreams. That's really nice. Okay, so the first name in this address book is a Lily with an Ipswich England address and phone number And Lily was her friend whose letter we have She has so many contacts in Ipswich That was just coincidence of her meeting the American guy in Ipswich She married a guy called Wilmot. Don't know his name. He was in the Air Force. She said to him, I'm moving out to West Virginia with Chuck to his parents' ranch. I've called every farm in Virginia with Wilmot anywhere in the title. I've called a bunch of Wilmots that live in New Hampshire. I've called some in like Vermont. I'm just at a complete loss. I've got nothing. Okay, y'all. Big news. I found Chuck Wilmot. I could cry. Oh my God. I cannot wait. Thanks. Yeah, I'm so excited too. Okay, so starting first, I'm myth busting. His name is not Chuck. Okay. And he does not live on a farm in Virginia. Or West Virginia. So literally nothing we knew about him is correct. That is correct. That's why he was hard to find. I would like to apologize to every farmer in the Virginia and West Virginia area. You do not need to return my calls. Thank you so much. I don't really know where to start, but I guess I'll just say that, like, he didn't know that Sue had passed until the first time we spoke. Like, this has been kind of in the rear view. He's been really unbelievably generous in trying to fill in some gaps for me, which I really appreciate. He didn't want to do a full on mic interview, which, you know, I think we all understand. And he didn't want me to use his first name. So I'm just going to call him Not Chuck. But we've had several phone calls and he shared a ton of information with me. So I'm just going to go through what I have. According to Sue's visa application, which we got in a FOIA, Sue moves to Ipswich in 1973. She works as a secretary. Not Chuck was in the American military. He was working as a firefighter. And they met at an off-base party at like a private country house that they rented for the weekend. And he said Sue just basically walked up and introduced herself and they hit it off. I think he said that their first real date was just like walking along a beach and talking until super late at night. That's actually really romantic. Those are the best dates. Right. Like I love this for Sue. So then basically they really hit it off and they end up moving in together in a flat in Ipswich. And they have kind of like a pretty normal domestic life. they had sheepdogs. They hosted dinner parties. He said that they visited Sue's mom and stepdad for like dinners pretty regularly. He said that she and Sue would laugh a lot when they would go over. I know that we've had questions sort of about like Sue's, you know, childhood and family relationships. He did say that once he and Sue were in an argument and he sort of snapped at Sue and Sue cowered in the corner and he kind of asked her like what was going on and why she reacted that way. And she said, quote, things weren't well for us as far as family went. So that kind of feels in line with some stuff Stewart has said. He also said that Sue didn't really mention her dad. She did mention trying to find him once. He does not believe that she was successful in doing that. So basically, there's so much I could tell you, but to just focus on the timeline, not Chuck's military service comes to an end. They make a decision that they weren't done with their relationship and that she should come with him to the States. That's in the winter of 1975. Sue gets what basically Americans would know as like the 90-day fiancé visa. So then she and Notchuk moved to the United States, specifically to New York State. One of the things she told me was she worked in New York City. And she said, Pat, I left at noon one day and never went back. And nobody there ever knew what happened to me. And so she was up in Syracuse, New York for almost a year or two, and then someone came close to find her. She came in to New York City, and then she wound up in Buffalo. They get married in New York State in April of 1976, which is also why this was so hard to find, because marriage records in New York are not open to the public for 50 years. Oh, of course. So, big mystery solved. She came to America through the very normal and very boring process of immigration in 1976. and that's all in the paperwork that I was able to get a hold of. Got it. So just to recap, not named Chuck, not from Virginia, not from West Virginia, no farm. That's correct. Great. Which means that Lisa's dad either doesn't remember this as well as he thought or Sue intentionally misled him. Right. Here we go. Application for a social security number. Date of birth, 9-13-52. Your present age, 23 years. Today's date, February 13th, 1976. Oh, this is very interesting. Okay, so she lists her full name as Susan Pat Wilmot and her given name as Susan Pat Perkins, but then she signs it S. Inkersol. I feel like that would, I don't know, maybe people were less secure. I feel like that would raise an alarm. I know. If I signed something with a different last name when I was applying for a federal program, I feel like they would be like, ma'am, you have to go to the beginning. Notchuk and Sue settle in a small city in upstate New York. From what Notchuk tells me, Sue didn't adjust very well to the move. He says that she seemed to kind of get bored and she has a hard time fitting into, or maybe a disinterest with dealing with his larger extended family when she got there. They have a couple of fights where she mentions that she's really homesick. And then at some point, she starts working at this car dealership. And basically, Notchuk finds out that she's been seeing this guy named Dan, who's a mechanic. And Notchuk doesn't seem thrilled about this. So he basically says that Sue just kind of got bored and calls it, which I know is something we've kind of heard before. They're officially married in April of 76. He says their relationship is pretty much over by the end of the year. They did stay friends for a long time, which, again, seems to be kind of a pattern with Sue. They even visited each other. He says he went to Athens, actually, at some point in the mid-80s. Oh, wow. And she went to visit him as well before that, I think up in New York somewhere. Interesting. So it doesn't sound like she was callously using this man to get to the United States. It actually does kind of sound like she made a go of it and it just didn't work out. Yeah, I'm not really sure. I mean, I kind of just wonder if, you know, she just wasn't ready to be domestic. I mean, I don't know. She moved to a different country. That's got to be hard on a person. But also like exciting, right? You're in your early 20s. You move to a new country. The world is at your feet. Like I can see her being like, I'm in a new country. I'm going to see what there is. And again, just to point back to this possibility that maybe she was intentionally putting the people that she loved in the UK off the trail, off her scent, Dino, by giving them the wrong idea. We'll never know her true intentions, right? But there is the possibility that she fully intended to live this life with Chuck in small-town America. And then there's another possibility that she intentionally misled people so that she could start fresh. At some point, she starts working at Goodyear in 1977. She moves to the town over in 1978, and she's there in 1979. This is according to some records that I have in the briefcase. I also cross-checked them with the city directory from the Times. Shout out to local historians. Love that. And then it's weird because I have no record of what she was doing in 1980. At all? At all. So then, in January 1981, she's still in the same area in New York. So I don't know what happened in 1980 if she was not in these areas. She's within the same county she was living in before. So 1980, I think, is really a key. And I just don't know where it unlocks. I have confirmed that Sue's last month at Goodyear was January 1981. And then this is where things are, like, a little weird. So 1981, she lives at an address in a town called Horseheads, New York. It's listed on some Goodyear documents in her briefcase. And I cross-checked that address with these, like, old phone books that I got from these local historians. And in an address I know she lived in, she's listed as S.P. Wilmont with an N. And I do not know why. It's for two years. It's 1981 and 1982. It could be a clerical error. It could be intentional. I have no clue, but it's definitely Sue. And Tony told us that they met in Texas in 1979. Right. And what's confusing to me about that, too, is that Notchuk said that when Sue visited him in 1983, he thought she had already been living in Texas for like three, four, five years. This makes no sense. I mean, Notchuk's memory at least aligns with Tony's memory, which is interesting to me. Yeah, totally. I mean, it would be easy enough to dismiss Tony's timeline as him misremembering, but the fact that his timeline matches up with Notchuk's timeline. is it possible that the SP Wilmont at that horsehead's address is not our Sue? I really don't think so. I have Goodyear paperwork in the briefcase with that address on it, so the records align. Shit. So do we trust the records or do we trust the people? And to complicate things further, we have the marriage record that she and Larry Kogan were married in Texas in 1982, midway through that year. Yes, that's true. So I have Sue in these New York directories in 81 and 82. And then the next record I have total for Sue is in Texas, and it's her marrying her third husband, Larry Cogan, on July 6th, 1982. That's in Smith County, one county over from Athens. By October of that year, Sue receives mail from a friend in England named Lily, which is postmarked October 1982. This is the letter from her friend Lily in Ipswich to Sue Cogan at 801 West Larkin Street, and it's dated October 7th, 1982. So this would have been around the time she came to Texas. And it's stamped Ipswich, Suffolk. Royal Mail. Yep, yep, yep. Okay. Dear Sue, while you really did surprise me, I could not believe my eyes when your letter came. I was a bit surprised when I... sore? Mr. and Mrs. on it? Did she write saw but sore? Probably. I love it. I know you do not know, but now I am on my own. He left me and the children in May of last year, and we were divorced this March. He said that he did not want the children, so I got them without a fight. So I was pleased about that. I was very upset when it all happened. I did not think he would just leave me and the children for another woman and child. But then you never can tell, can you? Nope. But I feel better now I do not have to put up with him keep knocking me about, as I feel I am lucky to be here after the last time. Yikes. Yeah. That's frightening. so all I can say about him is that he is remarried and back at his old job well you ask me about the children the boy is getting on well at school he'll be nine years old next June but he is not the little gentleman you think he is but he is growing up to be a good looking boy the girl started school this September and is getting on well she'll be on November the 5th and is a proper little madam. But she is also lovely. She is also quote lovely in quotation marks. When I get a picture of them together, I will send one to you so you can see for yourself. You ask about petrol. Well, it is about 175 a gallon. Gallon, not liter. Cigarettes are one pound nine p a packet. Bread is 38 p a loaf and milk is 21 p a pint. Janet and Brian have moved just round the corner So I see Janet every day She has now got three children, two girls and one boy They're all doing fine Well, that is all my news I would just like to say that I am very pleased that you are married again And that you are very happy I hope you will stay that way for a lot of years to come And I hope that one day you will have the money to come home If you did, you and your husband will always be welcome in my home, as I would really like to meet him. Perhaps you can give me a ring so I can hear your voice again. Oh, and then this is on the back. I have given up my driving lessons and did not go for my test so you are quite safe on the roads again I cannot think of anything more to say so I will say goodbye for now P Please write back to me if you get the time I like the poem very much Love, Lily and the kids. In that letter, she talks about receiving mail from Sue, and she kind of talks about responding very quickly. So I'm going to assume Sue sent that letter from her Larkin address, which is where she receives this letter. I assume she sent the letter from the Larkin House sometime in September of 1982. We're now in what I'm going to call the Larry Kogan years, which are like, woof. Kogan was a truck driver. She hooked up with him somehow and he gave her a ride and she came all the way to Texas with him. Thanks to the state and federal prison records, we know exactly where Larry was for a significant portion of his life. Larry has kind of his own timeline. He had been incarcerated since January 1976, which is before Sue was even in the United States. And then Larry is released on parole in May of 1982. So two months after he is released from prison, they get married. I don't see a world in which Sue and Larry could have met at any point before May of 1982. I definitely agree. Like, they had to have met sometime between May 82 and July 82. It seems like Sue doesn't have an issue marrying people fairly quickly. Like, she'd done it with Kevin in the past, and she'll do it in the future. So for Sue, I think it's a possibility. So then the idea of Larry driving Sue down to Texas in a big rig is completely out the door. It's not completely out the door. I have heard he was a truck driver, to clarify, but it would have had to happen super fast, and it's messy with his parole. The strange thing is, and again, Tony could be misremembering, but Tony says when he met Sue in 1979, her last name was already Kogan, which is confusing and I don't know what to do with that information. Because she definitely wasn't Susan Kogan until 1982. So does that mean Sue and Tony met in 1982? Does that mean she was going by Larry Kogan's name earlier? And if she was, how the heck did she meet him? Maybe Tony's wrong? I don't know. I think what's notable, too, is like by 1982, we have Susan Perkins, Susan Ingersoll, Susan Wilmot, Susan Wilmont, Susan Cogan. That's five different names for this woman. And it's not like, you know, maybe they like ran into each other on the streets of New York at some point and then reconnected. Like he's been in prison, you know. I was really nervous when I was talking to Notchuk because I thought there was a possibility that he was whoever Sue seemed to be running from, as people have mentioned but I mean, unless he's lying to me which I don't really believe they stayed friends and visited each other but he did say in 1983 when she comes to visit him that's when she seems like she's running from something to him And he really thought she was coming back to stay. Like, he thought that this was a, we're getting back together. You're moving back to New York. You need somebody. Conversation. And she ends up going back. But, you know, it seems like something must have happened in this, like, you know, chunk of time. Which aligns with career criminal Larry Cogan waltzing into her life. Yeah. It seems to me that if there was a relationship that went sour in a physical or dangerous way, it seems like it's Larry Cogan. But that doesn't track with the idea that people seem to have of her being in Texas to hide from this scary relationship. Because he was right there with her in Texas, in the neighboring counties for several years. And she didn't change her first name. And she kept his last name for quite a while. Well, so kind of. So, I guess there's always a kind of. Okay, so Sue purchases the Woodland house in August of 1984. She signs the deed as Sue Kogan. Larry's name isn't on there, which is good, because like a week after she purchases this home, Larry gets into a high-speed car chase in Dallas, which results in an accident with three cars total. This guy. Yeah, and in this police report, they also note that Larry is a meth user. Lord in heaven. Yeah. He's back behind bars in October of 1984 and Sue files for divorce while he's incarcerated. So they're officially divorced in December of 1984. Per the terms of that divorce, Sue's name is legally changed to Susan Sinclair. Is that just a name she picked for herself? Or where did Sinclair come from? Yeah, I don't know. I think it might've been something she just picked. Also, I can't find any records of her using it anywhere, which is a little strange. But that's now six different legal names for Sue. So we have Susan Perkins, Susan Ingersoll, Susan Wilmott, Susan Cogan, Susan Sinclair, and Susan Knight. Not to mention the various spellings that accompany those names and nicknames like Sue. So then, in terms of the timeline Tony gave us for their relationship, he would have been crashing on Sue's couch in fall of 82. So then she and Larry would have been separated after just a few months of being married. Yeah. I think it's pretty plausible that Sue and Larry's relationship was all in like max six months, you know, just because it doesn't take long to find out someone is using drugs if you're living with them. So I think once they got married and probably moved in together, it probably became pretty clear that something is wrong. Like, this is not the person that I maybe thought he was. Yeah. I think what also is significant about the story is just that he clearly knew where she lived, I would assume, considering she bought the house prior to his arrest. So I think the idea of somebody prowling around outside of her house. One night, we were laying in bed. Window was open. She heard somebody shuffling through the leaves outside the window. She went outside with flashlight in that gun. She was nervous about somebody finding her. I don't think that it is outside the realm of possibility that that could have been Larry. Yeah, agreed. So at this point, Sue's been married and divorced three times. Correct. And I'm not totally sure how she got to Texas, but it would have most likely happened at some point in the early 80s. Carrying along down this timeline, the next thing I have is a marriage index entry for Susan Perkins and Stephen Knight in July 1985, which is our third Steve in this story. Yeah. If it wasn't already confusing enough. There's only two marriages that she actually admitted to me on. One of them was in the Air Force, and the other one was a guy around Athens, Texas. And she was married to him for six months, and that was after we broke up. So in order to find Steve Knight, I did the very boring research thing of just looking up every Steve Knight in the area and making a list of their phone numbers and having you do a lot of cold calling, which I appreciate. Yes, least I could do. I'm pretty sure I called every single one of those numbers. Most of them were dead ends. I even got hung up on once or twice. Typical. But I left messages when I could, and eventually our Steve Knight called me back. Hello? Is this Jennifer? This is Jenna. Hi. Jenna, this is Steve Knight. Hi. Thank you so much for calling me back. What can I do? Well, do you remember Sue Knight? I do. You do? Oh my gosh, that's very exciting to hear. Unfortunately, he just really didn't have a ton of info to share. The thing I actually found more interesting was how much he didn't know. I just, I really don't have anything I can tell you about her, honestly. I mean, we were married for a very, very short time. And when she decided it was over, then I moved away and I wound up filing for divorce. And I went through the whole thing and I never seen her again. That was it. You said that she just sort of decided it was over. Was there anything that happened? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what happened. She just one day said she couldn't do it anymore. And that was it. He said that she would basically shut down whenever he would ask about her past, and he had no idea why she came to Athens. But he did know that she had a child at some point. I know she had a child. I don't know if it was a boy or a girl or where they're at or if the child was born in the United States. She just told me she had a kid, and that's where it stopped. And he knew a little bit about her time in New York. I know when she was there, she would, she sang in some nightclubs. And I don't know if it was with a band or if it was solo or what the deal was. Oh, wow. She sang. I didn't know that. Do you know what kind of music? She liked Rolling Stones and that kind of genre. And of course, I asked him what her hair color was. It was brown. She had like blondish silver hair. She was a dirty blonde. She was bringing me up. Really, the vibe I got was just that their relationship was kind of a flash in the pan. Yeah. I did ask what he knew about her death and if it would surprise him to hear that it was officially ruled a suicide. No, I would not. Really? Can you elaborate on that? Just, I mean, kind of the way she was, the way she acted. Maybe she felt closed in or I don't know. So, you know, you hear things and you, I never did really hear a cause, but yeah, that wouldn't surprise me a bit. You know, you hear things through the grapevine and you kind of take it with a grain of salt. But I'm not sure somebody wasn't after her. And I couldn't tell you who or why or where or when or anything about it. It was just kind of a feeling I had because she was so secretive and kept herself and just, I don't know, seemed real insecure. Did she seem scared? No, she didn't seem scared. It's just, you know, a feeling. And I could be way off base. I mean, there could be nothing to it. That's really interesting because when I talked to Notchuk, he actually said something similar. So the first time we talked, he was really shocked to hear that she had killed herself and he didn't really believe it. The second time we talked, he's like, yeah, I've been processing and actually I can see where that might be true because she would have these such like intense periods of, you know, kind of despair. So I think that's I think that's interesting, but especially the fact that he felt like maybe someone was after her. Yeah, I know. And it actually sort of reminded me of Steve D'Avilliers as well, who spent years thinking there was absolutely no way that her death could have been a suicide, and then revisited these poems when we started digging into Sue's story and realized that, oh, that might not be as far off as he originally thought. But yeah, it seems like Sue and Steve Knight met, married, broke up, and Steve didn't really know what hit him. Yeah, I also have an entry, the Divorce Index, that says they officially divorced in February of 1987, but it sounds like they had split quite a bit earlier. Yeah, I remember Tony talking about this and saying that he thought that relationship with Steve was only about six months, all told. So when did she marry Steve Knight? July 1985. So she would have met Steve Devillier fairly soon after that and dated him for a few years. Yeah, that's my understanding as well. And then I have a student ID for soon, the briefcase from 1993. That makes me think that's around the time she would have met Dale since he said they met at the community college. Yep. And then, of course, she and Tony would have been dating kind of off and on that whole time throughout the 80s and 90s. And then sometime right before her death is when we think she was dating Steve De Villiers friend Mike? Right. This looks like another, like a metal address book, maybe. Let's see how this opens. Oh, cool. It's like a metal case and it flips open. That's so cool. Okay. 75 old 98. So that sounds like a car. I wonder if this was for work. 27 days since alignment. Yeah, this feels like a work thing. So Sue employment history is sticky as everything else is Here what I know based on just records Sue worked as a secretary in England between 1969 and when she left for the U in 1976 She gets to the U.S. and she works at a shop that's sort of like a Walmart in 1976 before working at Goodyear in 1977, which ends in January of 1981. I don't know what Goodyear or in what capacity. I'm just going to assume that's all in New York. So I don't have anything between that and the elder car dealership. She's at the elder car dealership from 1985 to 1994-ish. And then she's unemployed for a chunk of time in 1995, which I know because she collected unemployment that year. She also opened up an LLC called Knight's Gallery, but it doesn't appear to have made a profit according to her taxes. And by November of 1995, she's working at the McGilvery car dealership, which is who employs her at the time of her death. And McGillivray is the Ford dealership where she worked with Pat, the one who says he got a phone call from her after she died. Right. So that's just the stuff I have records for. There's so many other jobs that we've heard from people we've talked to. And that includes things like the computers with Dale, the drafting thing that Tony mentioned, the bookkeeping, the teddy bear stand. There's like that sewing shop, a roadside feed store, and then the hospital. She was the chief purchasing agent for a large hospital. Not large, large, but how did she have a background to get that job? The last time I knew that she was working in a hospital there, at administration. But y'all don't have any record or anything showing that she worked at the hospital, do you? I just don't have any records for this hospital job. If she did have it, I would bet that it was between leaving Goodyear in January of 1981 and starting at Elder, the car dealership, in March of 1985. I mean, four years is a pretty big gap. And it was brought up by both Stewart and Tony. And Tony had such strong memories about it. Like, he remembered her coworkers. He told stories about, like, playing on the hospital softball team with her. To me, it just seems like it must have happened at some point. you know? Yeah, I get that. I just, from a paper trail perspective, I have zero records to prove that it happened. I know. To be fair, I don't have records for several of the jobs that we've heard about, but I do at least have corroboration from a coworker. I don't have that for the hospital job. Something else I want to draw attention to speaking of paper trails, I know Dale mentioned that she might've had multiple social security numbers, but in combing through all of the paperwork in this briefcase, which includes lots of forms and things where she included or social. I've only seen the one. Really? Yeah. It matches every time. Okay. This is a letter. It looks like a cover letter, maybe. Elder Chrysler Plymouth Dodge Jeep Eagle. Eagle is the E. Eagle employees. Dear employee, often the little things are forgotten like a thank you. This letter is to express my appreciation for your confidence in me as a New York life agent. I am looking forward to serving your insurance needs over the years ahead and encourage you to call me whenever I can be of help. Sincerely, Gail Simmons. Thanks, Gail. Policy date, July 20th, 1993. So she got the New York life insurance policy from her work at Elder Chrysler. So that's how she got that one. And she also had a separate IRA. Yep. And it sounds like from that letter you read a second ago, that policy may have lapsed. Yeah. So by the time she actually died, she may have actually stopped paying for it. Ain't that the way it always goes. Yeah. Well, also if she died by suicide, she would most likely not be eligible for any life insurance policies. Which, I mean, I would think if she set this up and paid into it expecting an eventual payout when she died, like to me, that just doesn't align with her ending her own life, right? Like that would prevent anyone from cashing in. But who, who is she hoping is going to cash in on this policy? I guess Steve. But why would she want him to have all this money? I mean, it's not that it's a ton of money, but it's a few thousand dollars. That's significant. It seems like she forgot about that will entirely, which makes having all of these insurance policies even weirder. Yeah, I agree that it does seem like she forgot about that will entirely. I wonder if it says who the beneficiary of her policy is in there, does it? I don't know. Let's see. Estate of the insured. So just for her estate. Yep. So maybe she thought it would just help pay off her bills or her debts or something. Oh my god, wait. Additional details. She wrote 8, C, Steve Barksdale, executor. So she remembered that she listed him as executor. Yeah, and this was in 1993. So that was, her will was made in 1987. So that was six years after she made her will. She still remembered it and remembered that she had listed Steve as her executor. Yep. Weird that she never told him. Yeah. Because if you make a will in a hurry and you leave and you don't think about that will again, I get not mentioning it. But if you remember it and are referencing it on life insurance policies, maybe tell him. It is possible. There is a world in which she makes that will in 87. She picks Steve because she's between relationships and he is a trustworthy person that she knows from around town. And then she doesn't think about it again until 1993. And then she remembers, oh shit, he's the executor of my estate. I'm just going to put this on this paperwork until I figure out what to do. Do you know? And then she never did anything. Or she remembered that he was the executor of her estate and decided that she just didn't want to change it. Or like I've mentioned before, she always assumed that she would find another person to settle down with and be able to change it to someone stable. Who knows? Like there's all sorts of possibilities, but it is noteworthy that she at least did not forget that he was the executor and did not tell him. This is a green folder that says Tax Info and Finances. It has a composition book in it. A very old-looking composition book. So yeah, this makes sense. This is the journal of her finances. Craft, $40. Sears, $50. Orkin, $31.25. Doctor, $25. So she was very specific about how much money she had and what exactly she was spending it on. Yep. Ford Citibank Visa. Late fee. Because you have missed two consecutive payments on your account, your annual percentage rate will be increased to 12.9%. So if she had missed the last two, that means she missed the one before her death as well. So before her death, the month before her death, she wasn't able to pay her bills. Yeah, doesn't seem like it. debt notice. Your failure to resolve this just debt leaves us no choice but to assign your account to a collection agent. This agent will personally be empowered to take any and all appropriate steps necessary to collect this debt. And this is, what date did I say this was? April 12th, 1996. So the day after her body was found. The day after she was found. there are a lot of like bills from right before her death and it feels like they piled up suddenly and i wonder if that was indicative of her state at the time yeah i think also she has that composition book of all her charges and so there's several years where she's keeping very diligent track of her spending. But then there's a period where that meticulousness just falls away in the last year or so of her life. And Jen and I talked a little bit about this, but yeah, especially in the last month or two, bills start piling up that she seemed to be paying before then. I don't know. There's some sort of life shift there that's interesting to me. Yeah. Like what changed? Yeah. It is a marked shift. Although to be fair, it does seem like there were other periods in her life where her regular record keeping or savings accounts deposits, all that fall away. On one hand, she could have just forgotten to pay her bills or been bad with money. On the other hand, she died right before a lot of her bills were due, which if you're already behind on paying your bills, that's just overwhelming. And then, you know, this is 1996. So I take for granted how now so many of our bills are online or auto-paid online. She's looking at physical bills piling up, many of which she's writing physical checks for. That's a lot of work and brainpower to make sure that like payments get mailed to the right place. And then she has so many different names going on. But also just looking at the date of her death, not only was that right around tax season, so all of the stress that comes with that, but according to the police report, her neighbors called in a welfare check on the 11th, April 11th. And the neighbors say they called because they hadn't seen her for three days. So if we imagine she could have died at any time within that window between April 8th and 11th, I think it's worth pointing out her 20th wedding anniversary with Notchuk would have been on April 9th. And just a few weeks earlier would have been not only the 20th anniversary of her leaving the UK, but also the 15th anniversary of her mother's death in March of 1981. Oh my God. So on top of this really difficult time that she was potentially going through, she would have also been hit with all of these memories of things that she'd lost god that's that's heartbreaking man i don't even want to say it but like i feel like with all of this sort of under our belts i just feel like suicide is back on the table in a way that i really didn't want it to be before we went through all of this. Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree. The bills and these big anniversaries and the fact that she was living alone for the first time in a really long time, that's just a lot for one person to carry. And this ruling of suicide is what we got from the autopsy report. So Haley, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about that. Yeah, sure. So on the autopsy, it says her cause of death was mixed drug intoxication. And that's referring to the medication that she took. And it also says that the manner of death is suicide. I'm not totally clear on if that ruling comes solely from the medical examiner or if the police or the justice of the peace help at all with that determination. Yeah, same. And that's definitely the next thing that I want to do is look at the autopsy. Just because the number of times that people that knew her said they were concerned they didn't see the body or that they had heard conflicting reports about what was in the autopsy. I feel like we've been able to close a lot of doors surrounding who she might have been and answer a lot of questions about what her life was like, but we still have a lot of questions around her death. Next time on Undercover of Night. I am Chief Medical Examiner for Galveston County. I am first and foremost an emergency medicine physician. I also am a medical toxicologist. I think it's really hard to take 30 as an accident. Like 30 pills does seem like a lot. There's too many variables at play here. And so how do you know that it wasn't an accident versus a suicide? If this math cannot necessarily be trusted, then the other things surrounding her death become significantly more important. When you are making the ruling of suicide, that's not something to be taken lightly. It has a lot of implications. I think we've been waiting for a long time to get some sort of enlightenment from the gods of the medical examiners about what happened to Sue. And I think we're finding out that that doesn't exist. Sometimes the best answer is still, I just couldn't tell you. I just don't know. Dear listener, Undercover of Night is an Apple original podcast produced by Spoke Media and Castleview Productions. Our writer, host, and showrunner is me, Jenna Burnett. Associate producers are Lucy Huang and Reyes Mendoza. Our researcher is Haley Nelson. Our consulting journalist is Bob Sullivan. Mix, sound design, and original music by Will Short with additional music from Universal Production Music Story Consulting by Brigham Mosley Our executive producers are Caroline Hamilton, Sharita Lynn Solis, Ted Barnhill, Heather Mansfield-Jernigan, Aaliyah Tavakolian, and Keith Reynolds If you have any information on Sue Knight, you can email us at infosuenight at gmail.com If you or someone you know needs support, Go to apple.com slash here to help for resources. Follow on Apple Podcasts. Right back soon, your friend, Jenna.