Lovers and Other Strangers | 4

A warning to our listeners. This series contains discussion of mental illness, suicide, and domestic abuse. Sue was hiding. She came to a small Hicktown. There was not much going on, as she could blend in and hide there. When she came into this country, she came in to New York City, and then wind up in a small Hick community southeast of Dallas. It's a far scratch. And she made these taxes home. I really don't believe she killed herself. She was there on one day, and then I'm saying she didn't show up. Have we uncovered a conspiracy indirectly? Too many unenthusiastic questions. She was scared that she was alive after they said she was dead. Hello? Hey, how's it going? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Let me make sure we're recording. Alright, so who are we talking to first? Actually, Tony just asked if we could move his call to tomorrow, but another one of Sue's ex-boyfriend Steve Divillier. He just got back to me in he's free all day today. Oh, great. That's perfect. Okay, I'm going to call Steve, and then I'll add you into the call. Great. Let's do it. Okay, let's see. Three-way calling. Here we go. My name is Steven J. Divillier, but I go by Steve. It's kind of strange because I just got to the door, and we're kind of out there, so I'm going to walk in to the elder and count our soldiers. So, look, she's nice. She's good. She's good. She's good. She broke a watch. She went there and said, what are you okay? You know, you just make me nervous. Why? You're just such a big strong looking guy. I said, oh my God. I want to go outside, Matt. We went to another and we started dating from there. Just a swing off from Taiwan. I was just going through some of our poll and two real poll. And I've got like, I think it's like 38 poll in total from before I met her until right up to the side. It's got the page number in here and it's got the date. So, you know, each one says like 4, 413 91, Monday at 11.15 p.m. That's about the time of me and her split up. It says, you have brought the swamp, the Gulf spring into the wintering part of mine. Such a joyful song to sing in rapturedly so divine, today then her honesty is sheer delight. A thing so few can share. At peace within, it feels so right. This magical harmony so so rare. Caught in fear now pushed aside. The gentle warmth still comforts me. Faith and trust shall be my God, probably your life destiny. And that was close to time with her. Jen, are you there? I am. Hi, talking on the line as well. Hi, Tony. So nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. I would love to start with how you all met. People that I was friends with back in the late 70s, my ex-wife and I were friends with them. And we were over having a cook out and Sue was at that cook out looking back at it. I think she was trying to fit in and find people that she was comfortable with. When did you start dating? Sue and I and my ex-wife were all friends. We ran around together. I mean, she actually spent time at my home while I was still married. I had a very nasty divorce. It was 13 months long. Well, I went knocked on Sue's apartment door and asked her if I could sleep on her couch that night because I had just left the house. And nothing had ever happened between Sue and I. We were friends and it walked on that way for. Oh, I would say three or four months before something did happen. But then things happened and it went from there. So far as actual dating, that is a concept I've never understood. We went out the heat. We went to the lake. We skied. We played. She coming from an environment that was not gun friendly. And people in my part of the world. We have people that are anti-gunned. We have people that are okay with that. We have people that love guns. And then we have people like myself which are obsessed with guns. I've been building guns. My own guns for over 45 years. Oh, wow. Sue got interested in that. And I told her how to shoot. And she really picked up on it and she liked it. We started going and shooting together. I got her interested in competition. And she did well at it. This is in charge of sitting in the post. She did well at 50 yards on the yards. She had gunned, actually. She was left hand. She was left hand. She was made for her man. She had jokers and stuff like that. I don't know what I've been doing. But she looked tremendous person. We had a lot of fun. She always said, I was a little first-latch. She said, I'm soon lost. I am looking for those deep brown eyes. And she just looked into my soul. She took me home. And the first thing she did, she wanted me to... I don't know. It was kind of testing my personality. She goes, wow. And you've got to create personality. You know, a great protector. You're a great. She's our teller. What a world. I was like, yeah, that's pretty much me. I'm so much children in my family. I know. And she said, I can tell. I'm not saying anything bad about Sue. But she was very astute in human nature. And she was very good at reading people. And then forming herself to do what she needed to do to get where she wanted to be by using the average person's own personal habits. I don't know how you want to put that. She was an hourglass shape. She was five, three, five, four natural blonde blue eyes. A solid 36 double D. Like I said, she could turn that English accent on. And it would stop guys in her tracks. But she was a sweetheart. I mean, I just, I can't say anything really bad about her. But I understood how she was in a lot of ways. After Sue and I split up, probably a year or two later, we went out to eat. And I could tell Vian, this is probably six months before she committed suicide. And I could tell things had changed in her life. She had gained a pound or two. And she actually told me that she didn't like getting older. Now, she wasn't that old when she died. But she was worried about getting older at that time. Her sex appeal wasn't as strong as it was before. And I think she felt like she was losing power because she did have that power with guys. I mean, let's face it, most guys think with their little head. And she was able to manipulate that to get what she wanted. Now, I may be naive in my thinking that her and our relationship was not that way. But I don't think it was. I think it was a sincere, mutual love between us. She made the comment to me one time, probably within a year when she died. She was getting her car fixed and to go home. And she stopped. And she turned around and she looked at me and she said, you know what? I said, pull up baby. She said, let me go was the dumbest thing I ever did in my entire life. And it kind of stopped me and my tracks and I thought about it. And she got her car and she left. And that was the last set about that. I mean, as much as we were together, if she was manipulating me or lying to me, I think I would have picked up on it. How long were you all together? Over 10 years. Wow. And we were friends for way more than that. We were in and out of each other's lives for 17 years. We actually slept in the same house together for many, many years. Do you remember when specifically? I know my divorce started in 82. And it was shortly after that when she and I started living together. But we were friends from like 79 to 82 when we got together. I had a camper that I had out there that I was living in in 96. And I can remember her in that camper. And we were per se necessarily together then. But yet we were off and on. And there was a couple times I called her and said, hey, you want to go eat? And she says, no, I got a date tonight. And I said, OK. Do you know I don't think was ever that much on her own? She might have lived in a house by herself that she wasn't necessarily on her own. She had companionship. I don't think she liked being by herself. I want to say we met in town about 87. Because in my ex split up by 86. We got divorced. I'm a divorced maybe eight. We split up in my 36. I want to say about 86. And you dated for about three or four years, you said? No, I'm not for four years. And then I moved to Washington, they see for that to be a pick a job up there. It's all wasn't going to be coming home every couple of weeks. And she said, well, you know, I think maybe we should just start dating other people. So I was like, that's up to you. That's all I need. That's all I need. I got some friends, women friends that I've not gone out with. I'm going to not want you to do the same. That's all nice with me. It's all nice about you. That's where we kind of ended things. But we're still talking after that. You know, got along right even after we split up. She made a teddy bear out of real actual fur from our life. She would have to go out and buy old used make coats and make stuff. They made a lot of general business. She did so much. She was first person I ever knew to have an internet farm. But I don't know where she formed out in that time. She was one of the first thing I provided. So I guess you could go back in the 90s. Anyway, I'm fine. I like the rainbow. What did you know of her background in the UK? Back in the UK. She wouldn't talk much about. She told me I saw something happen in the UK. And so my child was taken away from the baby. They deported me to the United States and gave me a wedding show location program. And so she was up, nothing to say, she's New York. For almost a year or two and then someone came close to find it. I don't know what she saw. She would not ever tell me. She was scared that she was one of the first to one night. We were lying in a bed and when the window was open and she heard somebody walk several days outside the window. And she jumped out of the bed and she said, don't move. And I said, no problem. She went outside and she went right here out there. You know what? I hear it with flash lightening gun. And you hear somebody running off of the distance. She went, I think I scared her long. I said, yeah, I think you did it. And he was gone and tuned. She was, I don't know. I was nervous about, not some amount of fire in her. As time went on, things never added up. The dates didn't add up. Timelines did not work out. I always had questions whether, was she in Whitsack? Was she running from something, what was she hiding from? She left England on questionable circumstances. She talked fondly about her mother and her cats, but she never had the desire to go back to anyone. And it wasn't that she didn't necessarily want to it, that she couldn't. What makes you say that? Just from things she said in the way she talked about it. There was nothing concrete. Never anything solid that you could put your finger on. And it's like sometimes she would relax in a conversation and she would say more than she wanted to say. But she knew I wouldn't press. And there was a time or two. I can't recall exactly the incident or what we were talking about. But she would look at me and say, OK, we're not talking about that anymore. The story she told me was, she was married to a guy that was in the US Air Force that was stationed over there. And she came into the United States with him on a green card. That she had four or five different pieces of identification, whether it be green card, those security card, driver's license, and they'll have different names. The first one you'd look at might have Susan Knight. And then the letter right behind it would say Susan Coggan. How did she keep up with all these different names? How many do you think she had? I know I think I saw four. I'm thinking five. There was Coggan, Sinclair, Knight. Oh, God, there was two other commonly British names in there. And I can't remember them now. I know she was married to someone named Inker Soul. And then I think her maiden name was Perkins. Perkins, there's another one. Now that was her maiden name. Inker saw, I think, as one of them, but there's another name. 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 married him. And she was married to him for four or six months. And that was after we broke up. I don't drink and I don't smoke. Soon was two packs a day. She drank very little. Every once in a while she had had a glass of wine. And that's what made the whole deal about the bottle of whiskey beside her bed. Then I actually committed suicide between the pills and the whiskey. You know, all that don't add up. Where did you hear that she had a bottle of whiskey next to her bed? I don't think I've heard that before. Either I saw a picture of it or I was told that. I do not remember for sure, but somewhere in my mind, I think I saw a picture. I was in law enforcement for a while. I was a reserve deputy sheriff in another county. I traded guns and shot with a lot of the deputy sheriffs and the cops around Athens. In my mind, I can see a picture of her bedroom with the pill bottle and a bottle of whiskey on her nap stand. They're always over something drunk and she's not my mom. I'm black, I'm black. She just didn't want to. That's what I was. Oh, not at all. She just didn't drink at all, really. No, she didn't. She didn't like to let it to make a feel. Did you know her to smoke or take any drugs or anything like that? She didn't smoke, no, bro. I'm hundreds of people. She didn't like drugs at all. No matter if I can't get enough smoke from that one, she's like, you didn't do it every once and not around me. What about prescription drugs? Did you know her to go to the doctor very often or take a lot of medicine? No, no. And that's what got me. It's a bit, she did a lot of folk prescription pills. I'm like, she didn't have any, I mean, she didn't like pecking pills. If there wasn't 20 different pill bottles on the top camera, then there wasn't one. I don't recall ever seen her even take prescription drugs. That's kind of bizarre. Isn't it? Because maybe one of us will help. No, it's just that's the type of people we were. So how to have a bunch of prescription meds? That's, I don't know, that's weird. Unless something happened later on, and something came about in her life that I and anybody else around her wasn't familiar with, if she was trembling ill in some way, that would make sense why she committed suicide. Let's see, that raises questions. I don't know what to make of this whiskey bottle story, particularly because we've heard from just about everyone who knew her that she really didn't drink. And I mean, Tony seems to have a pretty crystal clear image of this whiskey bottle on her nightstand. He seemed to think that he actually saw a picture of it. To speak to the facts of this, I reshaped the offense PD about any crime scene photos that they had. They do not have any. The way they phrased it to me is that they've given me everything they have, which did not include any crime scene photos. And they said, you know, the older the case, the less information they tend to have. It's also not listed in the police report. Yeah, I was just wondering about that. You said Caroline that it's not in the autopsy that she had any alcohol in her system, right? It literally says alcohol zero. When I met her, I don't think she was married to the guy. She never said she was, but she was dating or living with, I'm talking about the scum of the scum. And she wasn't with him long, and she got away from me. My ex-wife and I, we lived out in the Venice. And she spent three or four nights to a week with us when she was trying to get away from this guy. She never said, but I believe he got physical with her a few times. And he drove up in my driveway, which was a mistake. And I basically told him, I said, you step out of the truck and I'm gonna kill you where you stay. That was my exact words to him. I do remember that very well. Well, my ex-wife, at that time was my wife. She stayed beside me with another rifle, because it was our friend. And you're not gonna come on our property and threaten our friend. I know there's one guy who's kind of scared of me and we threatened her one time. We were sitting on our front porch when he pulled up. And he went to get out of the car, and nobody stood up because, you know, the doctor out here right now, we just go alone. I think of you, sir. I'm leaving right now. I'll never talk to her again. But I know it, because we know where you live, we know your name, and while we're again. Apparently this guy, he was a little bit strange, anyway. And some of us knew before, you know, because she wanted me to dig something out of the back of her own apartment. She knew I was talking about love, but she didn't want to do it. She wanted me to dig this up so I can get rid of it because we certainly couldn't get it. And I dug something up, you know, the bag full of tools to break into houses, stuff like that, blocks, sticks, you know, a whole bunch of stuff that would be for that type of a job. I just wanted to go out and learn about it. And she wasn't sure that I wouldn't know the outside of the window that night. Oh, really? You know, because she told me that I think that's like guys, you know, I would. I want to say there's no John or something. I'm wondering if it's... I don't know if it's John or a Johnny, but I do know of a Larry, Larry Cogan. Oh, that girl's having me. I mean, that could be... It's been so long ago. Do you remember the name of that boyfriend or husband or whoever it was? I'm not for sure. I believe his last name was Cogan. Okay. And see Sue had ID with Cogan on it. Interesting. And Cogan never came to any gathering, a cookout going to the lake. He never showed up, but yet she was living with him. But it's basically, I'm on wait a minute. I think that's how she got down here. Cogan was a truck driver at that time. Oh. Now, this is all starting to come back a little bit. I'm not going to say this is fact, but if I remember correctly, Sue said she met him up in New York, Buffalo, whatever, and a truck stop, and he gave her a ride, and he was based out of a little town in East Texas where I met her at. I'm thinking that's how she got to Texas, if I remember right. She hooked up with him somehow, and he gave her a ride, and she came all the way to Texas with him. And the reason I remember that is because he drove an orange truck that they called the pumpkin. You know, it's funny how your mind full of stupid details up, but doesn't remember the main things. So does that mean that she showed up in Athens with nothing? Like she didn't have a car, she didn't have a place? Yeah, she showed up in East Texas with nothing. Wow. Nothing. And she created everything else from there. Now, she used a few people along the way, not necessarily maliciously, but she would use people as, introduce me to them, introduce me to them. What can I do for you, you know, that kind of thing? Like I said, she was the chief purchasing agent for a large hospital, not large large, but how did she have a background to get that job? As far as I know, she did not have a formal education, but she'll don't have any record or anything showing that she worked at the hospital, do you? No, I haven't heard that before. All I've heard is the dealerships, and then I think she worked at a computer company when she was dating Dale. A computer company, I'm sorry. Oh, God, that's funny. This was not a computer company. They were getting blue prints from Landscapers and architects. She would clean that up on the computer, and then they would reprint the blue print. Interesting. I actually sat with her one time, and she was showing me what she did. And it was very tedious. When she said, there's awful good money on this, and I said, well, I'm happy for you. Will you hurry up so we can delete? Everybody's going to have their priorities, you know? Both Tony and Steve brought up the computers in her house. The thing that really surprised me about that was, both of them had a totally different understanding of what she did for work. Yes. And neither of those were the same as what Dale told us when we spoke with him previously. I tried to check some of this. I talked to an administrator of another local bulletin board. He did no Dale. He did not know Sue or her involvement in anything. I don't know how many computer people there were in Athens at this point. I know that there was a computer shop in Athens in the 90s, but it wouldn't surprise me if Sue had this very, you know, not to be like spyish about it, but like a particular set of skills. And then, you know, and then just kind of like kept mining them to make more money. That seems, you know, right in line. Yeah, and that sort of ties into what we heard about the teddy bears as well, just her sort of buying that business as a side hustle. Maybe she was doing the architecture blueprint thing before the bulletin board system. I don't know. I would put her way ahead of the curve in terms of working on computers, particularly personal computers. I want to talk about Larry Kogan. What a subject. Yeah. I mean, first of all, how frightening that both Tony and Steve D have almost identical stories about having to chase this guy off when he like showed up at their houses for Sue. Right. Yikes. I mean, I think the mystery of all the Larry Kogan things we've ever learned about is we know they were married for a very brief time, but also thanks to the state and federal prison records, we know exactly where Larry was for a significant portion of his life. Correct. So I think the timeline of these stories is just what interests me is when did Larry have time to get out of prison and chase down his ex-wife? Yeah. Well, so it's confusing to me because the records that I have, and I think there's a lot more that I don't have. But of the ones I do have, I don't really think they line up with this timeline. It's all very confusing. Basically, there were sprints of time when he was out of prison in the 80s and 90s. I just need more records to come in before I can figure out exactly when that was. We also have this story that Steve D told about digging up these like robbery tools from Sue's backyard. Oh, shit. What does that mean? What are tools used in a robbery? He said lock picks and things of the sort. Okay. But why bury them? Because she didn't, I mean, maybe the burying of them was like a panic moment. Do you know where she's like, I don't know what to do with these. I'm stuck with them. They probably implicate Larry in a crime. I'm just going to bury them in the backyard, you know. And then when he gets out of prison, she says, oh, God, he might come looking for them. I need to get rid of them completely. And Steve didn't see him when Sue was he the one that was like, there was a guy outside Sue's house and she went outside with the gun. It was like at the fuck out of my house. Yeah, he thought it was the same person, but he wasn't totally sure. He did say that Sue said, I think that's the guy I used to go out with. Well, go out with this is significantly different than married. Yeah. Yep. Good point. Larry is an interesting one because I mean, like he, um, I've spoken to one of his ex wives. I've read a police report featuring another one. And it does seem to me that he tends to be particularly confrontational about women. He has had romantic relationships with in the past. So the idea that he keeps popping in on his ex wives often potentially or allegedly with violence is kind of a pattern that I have seen, but has not necessarily been verified by the legal system. So yeah, I mean, wouldn't it prize me, I guess, if he was stopping by? I think the fact that it's for robbery tools is just a really interesting twist. She also, I'm looking back at what Steve actually said. And he said that Sue told him whoever these tools belong to was threatening to come get them. So it sounds like she was actually in contact with theoretically Larry Kogan. He was actually calling her to threaten to come get them and she did not want him over there. That honestly makes a lot of sense because if you're an abusive person, you may or may not actually care about the lock picking tools that you left in your ex's yard. But you do care about harassing using it as a reason to continue to contact her. Yeah. She was a personable person. She could talk to anybody. And she got along with anybody. Have you interviewed anybody that had anything bad to say about her? No, I was going to say when you said that y'all were still friends after y'all broke up and had nothing but fond memories. That's basically what everyone has said. Okay. I'm one of those people when I leave something or I get away from it, I don't burn that bridge. I call in a nuclear air strike. I wipe it out off the face of the earth forever. Sue is the only person in my past that I made friends with and could go back at any time and call and say, hey, you want to go get a hamburger. We had a very easy and compatible relationship that we enjoyed each other's company. Now, you'd best not even look in her direction until she has one cup of coffee. Same. But, you know, we didn't fuss in fact. I have nothing that fond memories and pleasant memories of that woman. She has a moment and time in my life that will always be there. She started dating a friend of mine and he came to me and said, I think she's the only thing we need to be around you. And I was like, no, you know, if you know them happily married now, if I should brought my kids to the airport when they in my present life got married, because my ex-wife broke her leg and couldn't take them to the airport. So, soon you got put over she'd gone and went, picked up my children and brought them to the airport and put them on a plane as an underscore of mine. I mean, I often pay for a ticket to come up. So, I don't think I can handle being there for that. Yeah. So, I guess she was still. So, um, I did break my heart because I hate her. I could ever break my heart back. But I'm telling you what, she was a matter of me. She was so kind. I mean, one of you might, I wasn't even able to buy my kids Christmas because of a lot of her job and everything. And she bought them both to go to school. I thought that was sweet and sweet. Because I wasn't really going to make things she went bomb by a single. So, when they came back she didn't know if she had to join on the fence. They ensured everything. So, I'm going to do more stuff there. She was about to find somebody that could make them walk me. Just who's always worried about me being walking. She was like, well, it's not like you found the one that you deserve and you love. You got to go in to the natural yesterday. And then I was like, well, until the morning, everybody walked back to your house and it's too late for that, but it took her. I was like, you so understanding, you know, so you're so cool. She was, I don't know, she was one of the kind, I was sure. Because I'm not alone, I'm not alone, she was not mine, I wasn't crazy alone, you know, she wasn't mine. I will probably have to say the only thing that I really, really got upset with her about is when I found out that she had died. Athens was a small channel and the word got out and it was very obvious very quickly that she had committed suicide. Really, even back then you thought that. Oh yeah. And that pissed me off. It was like, you know, why? But you know, one can understand what was going through her mind. And she was alone when she died from what I understand. She was sleeping in her bed in her house by herself. And her suicide was a big shock to me. I wish she was still here. I wish she'd been able to work through whatever the hell it was that got her so bad that she made that decision. There's a lot of unanswered questions on my part, but it's just, I think she was unhappy and things did not go the way she wanted. For a woman that used her looks to get what she wanted out of life, things were starting to slip by her and she was losing control. And I've always felt that's what brought it on that she was not in control anymore and soon was someone that wanted to be in control. I first found out that she died in a committed suicide. I said, there's no way. She's too strong of a person. She's too strong. Were there ever committed suicide? I thought, was there a suicide? No. No. I thought that's definitely not her. And then nobody that she was dating, he said, she wanted to tell you that's what she's got to answer. She made it and swear that we would not tell me. I don't know why she didn't want me to know, but she did not want me to know. That was what I'm not in the love. I'm kind of in this trying to be the whole thing. Because I'm in that state and she committed suicide. I still don't believe in it. But I don't know, reading these poems on my teacher, I started reading the bad glass poem. But that's pretty close to the times we got. There's a last one, I don't know. I can't read it to you if you want. I would love that. It's not fair. It's times like this, the darkness crowds me, blind out the light. I'm kept down in the abyss for all those black and white. I can't conceive the isolation of no choice but to be alone. No, no ones are family. I'm completely on my own. There's nowhere to contide or to share my deepest fears. There's no one, probably, or I've got my fears. It's times like this, not by the man. I hope this will probably ever soon. I'm so tired of being strong, much conscious, slipping away. I can't handle it much more. I can't. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I won't go to the end of March 14, 1996. I'm sorry, I can't believe it was much. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. See, I don't know. It's kind of like she tried to come something and if she knew too much attention to herself, it would cause problems for her. What kind of problems? Whatever she was running from, whatever she was hiding from, you know, whoever it was or whatever it was, there was something in her past that she didn't want she went up on her doorstep. We never really talked in depth about it. She had a daughter and she gave her a production, I believe. But she was very quiet and she was very reserved when it came to her history. She would give you broad details, nothing that you can pinpoint. Did she ever say why she left? No, she wouldn't even talk about it. That's why I came to the conclusion that she was either on the run from somebody, or witness protection, or something that point. And some little Hicksville town in East Texas in the planning woods is a good place to disappear. My buddy that was dating her, they found shoes from records. It was a guy from CIA called him and said, your number was on her phone bill a lot before she passed away. She was interested in finding out if you saw the body and witnessed that she was actually dead. And you know, sorry, you were looking well in the last day. That's how I actually found out when my buddy called me. That's how you found out that she had died? Yeah, that's how I found out for you. Wow. I missed her from the world first. I had no idea. I had no idea. But she told you specifically that she was in witness relocation. She told me she got relocated to the United States because the family that she was married into was part of royalty of some sort. And she saw something happen. She didn't want to talk about it. She did not want me to be involved anymore. She didn't know nothing about it. She'd actually get mad when I bring it up. I wanted to talk briefly about this other CIA call that was received. This one received by Steve DeVille's good friend Mike, who was casually dating Sue towards the end of her life. Yeah, that stresses me out a lot actually. It's one thing one person says that it's another thing if two people say it. Right. The big issue here is that we cannot reach Mike to talk with him about this and see what he remembers. So this is Steve DeVille, remembering what his good friend told him 25 years ago. So that's a really big issue with this story. But it is just very strange. And I also think it's strange that if this phone call did indeed occur, what Steve DeVille describes is honestly pretty different than the phone call that Steve Barkstale describes getting from the CIA. Same more about that. The way Steve DeVille put it, they seemed much more congenial when he said I did not see the body, but I did hear that she died. They said, thank you so much. And then hung up the phone. They didn't just hang up on him. And they wanted a different thing from him, which is confirmation of death versus custody of the body. He is also the source of this potential terminal cancer that Sue was dealing with, which I also don't know what to make of. Because we have no evidence for that in the autopsy. We have listed in that letter that her doctor wrote that she had been screened for cancer, and that had come back negative. And that was for breast cancer specifically. Yeah, a lot of this information I just don't know what to do with right now. Yeah, it's hard because there's so much of it that we'll never be able to know. Do you know, like we'll never really be able to know if Mike Buckley got a call from the CIA or what they might have said. And just on the cancer thing too, I think it's interesting that if she did say it, and we don't have evidence that she had cancer, did she think she had cancer like in a hypochondriac way? Or was she making it up and if she was why? To me, that could have been related to the suicide thing if you want to kind of prepare people for the fact that you're not going to be there soon. That's just completely speculation, but yeah, I hadn't even considered that. According to Steve DeVille, she told him she was in a witness protection program. If she was in an official witness protection program, it seems highly unlikely that they would have placed her in a place like East Texas where her British accent would have stuck out so much because the goal of witness protection is to have people blend in. But if she experienced something bad in New York or she saw something or any number of things going to happen, that could also be a reason to change your name, move across the country, make a resume about yourself, get a job in a whole new field. Like that could be her own version of witness protection of, oh my gosh, I feel like I'm in danger. So I'm going to take steps to create a new life for myself. I do find that interesting because I think that this sort of New York to Texas chapter is the wiggle room she has to really lie about herself. I mean, like one, I have what appeared to me to be records that she changed her name when she was living in New York or was going by a fake name or there was a clerical error. And you go down to Texas and you lie about your age, you lie about your background, you say you came over in 76 and worked in hospitals for another 10 years. Like this would seem to me that there is this pattern of potentially lying in this one little chunk, especially with Tony, right? It is like, how did you get here? Nobody knows. What life did you lead? Nobody knows when were you born? Yeah. And again, if she was officially in the witness protection program, it would be against the rules to tell people about that, which not to say that people don't break the rules. But technically they're, they're pretty strict about never mentioning the fact that you're in the program. Yeah. Yeah, it all is very messy. Also just, I mean, I don't know. Part of me is like, if you are running from something sort of in the same way that you were just saying, Hey, if you are running from something, why would you tell multiple people? I don't know. I mean, I guess she trusted these people and that's not entirely far fetched. But like, I just don't understand what the motivation for saying that you're actually in a witness protection program would be instead of just being honest and saying something happened and I had to leave. People in the South look at things differently and you get down here and people have a different perspective of life in general. A lot of people up north think we're a bunch of illiterate things. Some of us do prove a lot. But down here was a quieter, slower time and soon seem to be comfortable with it. And I think that's why she made it home. I don't know. She was looking for something. I don't think she really ever found it. She was a free spirit, but I don't think her spirit was ever at ease. But I do hope that she had some pleasure in her life and she enjoyed some moments. I never had any delusions about that I was the only person in her life or I was the perfect person in her life. As far as I'm concerned, we had a serious and substantial relationship. We both asked each other to marry each other on several occasions and we always turned each other down whichever side it came from. The time just wasn't right. But choosing unique individual, she really was. She'll always have a place in my heart and a mind. I mean, I will say I'm just so grateful that you agreed to talk to us because you're the longest relationship that we have. Everyone else knew her for a short period of time, but I mean 17 years, that's significant. Well, that's and see, that's another reason why I don't want to. It's not like I'm thinking I'm something special, but the facts are that we were in each other's lives for that amount of time. And like you just said, there's other people that were just momentary and that statement she made to me that day. I remember it very well. And she said it with a straight face. She already had a car door open. It's like she could make a quick get away. And I look back on it and I thought back on that at the time. And it's like there was something dark going on, but yet she was trying to deal with it on her own. And she did not want to burden me with her problems. But yeah, like I said, I don't think that I mean as an individual in this world, I'm a speck of sand on a very big desert. But yet in her world, I think I was significant. I think I was something special. No, I she was in the rain. What do you think happened to her? I don't know. I mean, I've been told about several people from Athens that she communicated to us. They found a bunch of drugs on the body. And I don't know reading a poetry that's scary because you know, you think, well, this poetry was done differently than the near the portion, but why? This is another way of trying to time up right on to be interesting to you. Like once you know, I know I knew I don't want and she didn't lay lipstick. There was a glass, an empty glass, but living a one and lipstick on it. When I went to her last of your things. And that was a really safe reply for me. And there was nothing on any of the computers. And I went to last 30-something years where her computer started. I mean, I know they told me why I didn't do it. When nobody I know saw her body. You know, the one chop that saw her, one got really emotional. And to this day, I had no idea where her ashes were placed. I've been asked, and nobody can tell me. Well, I will tell you that what we know of her ashes is that they were actually sprinkled over Stonehenge. I think it's either Steve or somebody or Tony said something about that she always wanted to ashes Stone over Stonehenge. And I've heard that too, but I don't like that going on with that happen. Stonehenge is a pretty unique place that you must both even touch anything. That's what I thought too. It seems like you'd need permission. You would need some sort of loyalty or something I would think. It's definitely not to do that. Do you know that I all found out about two or? Yeah, we've talked to him a handful of times. You wouldn't go now, so we had a couple of all so we were scared enough to go in that house. Have you talked to Steve Bargstale? Yes, I have. I've said in his office one day because I used my insurance for me. I think that's how Sue got to know him. I'm not for sure. I'm going to say within six months of her suicide is when I went to Steve's office and sat down in front of his desk and talked to him. He told me he had called the British consulate wanting to know what to do with her ashes. And he told me flat out that it was five minutes after he got off phone with the British consulate that he got a call. They never really identified themselves and said, you need to quit looking into Sue Perkins. You need to quit making inquiries about her. And this needs to be the last conversation we ever have with you about her. And it was enough to me that I took it. I didn't know Steve that well, but I think it rattled him a little bit and it concerned him. He made reference at the time it was either the FBI or the CIA that called him, but he didn't know for sure. And they told him do not dig into this. Now, are you starting to understand why I'm so curious why y'all are digging into it? Yeah, definitely. One of the things very favorite things was just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. We're talking about, you know, 25, 30 years ago, why has anybody interested? There is a lot of mystery involved. There is a lot of unanswered questions. And conspiracy theories, what they are, you know, there's so much, it's like a fortune cookie. You can always put it to whatever's happening. There's always a way of rationalizing it and making it real. To me, I think we were everyday ordinary people and to get right down to it, we're just a little bit ecog in this gigantic wheel. So it just, it tracks me odd. Well, that's kind of the thing, you know, just to sort of answer your question is that I think she felt significant to a lot of people. You know, she definitely left an impression. And I think that that's what interests us is that she was just one woman, but her story and the ripple effect that she had in Athens and to the people in her life was significant. And to be perfectly frank with you, I think there's a version of us going down this rabbit hole that reveals something to do with one of those three letter agencies and something that none of us expected. And then I think there's another version of us going down this rabbit hole where we do find out that she was just, like you said, a regular person who just left a really big mark in these people's lives. I'll be happy either way, but I am really curious to know now that I know what I know about Sue and about the people that that were in her life, I sort of have to know, like on a personal, on a personal level. I'm just very curious. I have to know. Well, I do understand, you know, part of the old phrase that it's like a dog with a bone. Jane, let go. Next time on Undercover of Night. I am the brother of Susan Pat Berkins or Susan Knight or Sue Knight, whoever you like to call her. From what I've heard, nothing adds up, nothing at all. By all accounts, she was extremely, extremely mysterious. She was very artistic and very focused on stuff. She was like a supermodel as well, she's a really beautiful young lady. Some person that can answer the questions and she isn't here to answer them. It felt like, okay, this all was leading to something worthwhile. Like, we aren't just digging into somebody's past to dig into it, we were able to provide some closure and some connections for people. What are you hoping to learn about Sue? Everything, everything, there's nothing, no stone unturned. This is the Apple Original Podcast Undercover of Night. Our podcast is produced by Spoke Media and Castle View. I'm Jenna Burnett, your showrunner. I host the show and write. Raya's Mendoza and Lucy Huang are my associate producing crew. Our researcher, Hailey Nelson, digs for paper trails and facts. Consulting journalist Bob Sullivan helps us mine for deeper themes. Will Short mixes sound designs and composes original tracks. And Brigham Mosley gives our story polish till it gleams. Our executive producers make our podcast team complete. Caroline Hamilton and Sherita Lynn Solis make sure the trains keep moving. Ted Barnhill and Heather Mansfield-Jernigan got this story on its feet. And Alia Tavikolian and Keith Reynolds keep us constantly improving. If you have any information on Sue Knight, you can email us at info-sue-night at gmail.com. If you or someone you know needs support, go to apple.com-slajhere-to-help-for-resources. Thanks to Tony McConnell and Steve DeVilleille for sharing their stories with us. Follow on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching.