Susan Polk

They were living a dream in Northern California. She was very much in love. They had three young sons. They lived in this beautiful home with a pool house in a high-rent zip code. One evening, stunning violence shatters the facade. He's lying in a pretty big pool of blood. There's blood everywhere. Amid rumors and speculation, investigators uncover a simmering rage. The last four years are really just out. She was trying to keep her family intact, and that's why she stayed. This has like threatened before. At that point, they became a media surface. And prosecutors face off against a determined foe. She actually tested in the 99% hell of an IQ test. She was a genius. I've tried a lot of cases. This is obviously the most bizarre. Am I going to just go down without a fight? No. The most bizarre. Twenty minutes from downtown San Francisco lies the bedroom community of Orinda, California. Well, they look serious and rich are probably perfect descriptions. They're the black, high, formal people. It's probably one of the most wealthiest communities in Contracosta County. A little after 9 p.m. on October 14, 2002, Contracosta dispatch gets an unusual call. 911 police are fire. Oh, my mom's fire. Do you think your mom saw your dad? The caller identifies himself as Gabe Polk and his father as 70 year old Felix Polk. This match called me. They told me that they were dealing with a possible homicide. The person reporting the incident with his son, said his dad appeared to be dead in the pool house. He said to the 911 operator that he went outside and hid behind some garbage cans and called 911. We believe his mom was responsible and she was inside the house. First responders arrive at the sprawling home and find Gabe lurking outside. Gabe kind of stumbled off in the garbage can. The first responders didn't really know what they were coming into. They were alarmed at first when he jumped out. I didn't even display any great emotions when I arrived. It seemed fairly calm. He said he saw his dad in the pool house. There was a lot of blood. He thinks his mom shot him. An officer remains with Gabe in the driveway. As it step off the shareway, the house is to the left, the pool house is to the right. Deputy Henson spots someone inside the main residence. I could look to my left and see a woman through the glass windows. I made a deception that must be the mom, the wife, and the motion for her to come. I go on with the sheriff's office. We're here to do a well for a check on your husband. I had her step out. I did have my side arm out. When she came to the door and I realized she didn't pose immediate threat, I immediately hosted my weapon. So now I've given Ms. Poke to Deputy Kelly and told him to watch her. Deputy Henson cautiously enters the pool house. Felix is lying in the main living area of the pool house. He's flat on his back. He's got his underwear on, but no shirt on. He's lying in a pretty big pool of blood. There's blood everywhere. He was very pale because the blood had drained from his facial area. He was dead. It looked like he had multiple injuries on his body. From the way the blood was on him, it was a very violent situation that occurred. And they have very few violent crimes that occurred for a town of that size. This area was very, very safe. And so this news was, it hit me off guard. My wife called me and she said, Felix Polk was just found dead in a rinda. I was shocked. But I'm just trying to process the news I just heard. Born to a prominent Jewish family in Austria on June 30, 1932, Felix Polk and his family survived one of the most dangerous eras in European history. Felix was born in Vienna, escaped Vienna, went to France upon the Nazi occupation, and then they ultimately was family immigrated to New York, where he began his education. After college, Felix enlisted in the Navy, but his service was interrupted. When Felix was in the military, he was having depression issues, so he actually went to a psychotherapist. The treatment helped Felix and inspired a career path. He came out to Berkeley and got his PhD in the early 70s and started a practice in psychology. Everybody had prepared to look up to him in his field. Dr. Polk was an attractive young man at the time. He was married and he had two children, a boy and a girl. They had some issues and that marriage ended in divorce. Following the divorce, Felix reconnected with an old friend, Susan Bowling. Susan was a woman who had once been his patient, and Felix Polk often befriended his patients. Susan kind of reenters his life. Their romance really burgeons, even though the 25-year-old aged difference. Born in 1957, Susan was a native of Northern California. Susan grew up with an older brother and her parents divorced when she was about five or six years old. The divorce left Susan feeling lost. As she grew into a teenager, she took refuge in her schoolwork. Around 14 years old, she actually tested in the 99%ile of an IQ test, basically rendering her a genius. Susan was really smart, but that also meant that she didn't necessarily fit in with other people. And so that's when her mother sought therapy for her. After several years in therapy, as a young adult, Susan seemed to be back on track. Susan Polk graduated from San Francisco State University with a degree in English and creative writing. When she started a relationship with Felix Polk, Susan not only found a lover, but an intellectual equal. She was very much in love with Felix and Felix was in love with her. They seemed to genuinely care about one another. After several years of dating, in December 1981, they settled down and tied the knot. Susan and Felix lived in this beautiful home with a pool house in a high rent zip code. He had a good business and made good money. They had three young sons. Adam was the oldest. Then it was Eli and then Gabriel. She was raising her children, taking care of the books for Felix's practice, managing their financial accounts, their real estate, their rental properties. But by 2002, after almost 20 years together, their two oldest sons had moved away from home and the couple began to question their future. The marriage and the tear-rated, there were arguments and fights. She was going to fall for divorce. Just been building up. In early October, 2002, she had gone on a trip to Montana to find a new place to live, which Felix knew about. He claimed that she had abandoned him and gave. The sons would try very hard to maintain their neutrality, but there was obviously a lot of tension. As they hammered out the details of the divorce, Susan and Felix settled on a temporary living arrangement. She would take the main house with gay, and Felix would take the pool house. They seemed to have mutual respect for one another and make sure that they were getting everything they needed. Sadly, their agreement does not last long as the poke marriage ends in October 2002, when their youngest son Gabe calls 911 and tells police his mother shot his father. I will opt to misspoke. Man, I said this. My responsibility to tell you that Mr. Pope, your husband, is dead. And not by natural means. When she gets notified that her husband's dead, there's not crying or screaming or questions. Being detached, uncaring, that's not unusual. It sort of goes kind of to one extreme or the other, the people who are extremely emotional, and then the people who are shut down. Deputies transport mother and son separately for questioning. When detectives take a look at Felix's body, Gabe's claim about his mother comes into question. Gabe's initial call, he thought his father had been shot, but the investigators weren't sure. The detectives didn't think it was a gunshot one. They did a curse research, and there was no obvious murder weapon. Investigators have to consider whether Gabe is intentionally throwing the investigation off track. The first responders didn't really know what they were coming into. They didn't know if he was part of it, or if he had done something to his father. Coming up, a family's secrets are exposed. And they didn't know are you mean just how you tell the truth? And investigators examine a slew of strange accusations. She said he was a misogynist, that he had prior knowledge of the minor livena attack. He is totally out of the mind. Around 9pm on October 14th, 2002, 15-year-old Gabe Polk discovered the body of his father, Felix, in the pool house of their lavish home. Contracosta investigators begin to question the young man's story. Gabe found Felix lying in the middle of the living area of the pool house. Gabe's first impression to 911 that his father had been shot. Gabe thought his mother was the killer, but at the scene, the detectives discerned that right away that it wasn't a gunshot. I've seen gunshot wounds, and you can tell it is usually an entry wound, but it looked like there was multiple injuries. Investigators question if other aspects of Gabe's initial story could also be false. You have to really wait for the autopsy to be conducted to really know what killed him. Gabe and his mother Susan are taken to the station, while investigators continue to survey the crime scene. There's no forced entry, and so whoever got in there was allowed to come in to the pool house. There wasn't a lot of furniture knocked over or things broken. What it did look like was he was in bed and it's gotten out of bed. When investigators examined the blood evidence, they gained new insight. The blood, it wasn't pooling, it was flat and dried, so my assumption is that he'd been dead for a while. That's when we notified Corners' Office of Body's ready to be moved. I responded back to my office and that's when I started interviewing. Considering all scenarios, investigators begin with Gabe. He's saying, my mom killed my dad. They at least have in their mind. Well, he's here, he discovered the body, we at least have to look into him and make sure he's not a suspect. They asked Gabe to walk them through the events that led up to his 911 call that evening. Gabe and his father were supposed to go to a baseball game. In the afternoon, it was something that was planned to have a time and his dad didn't show up. He's waiting for dad to come home from work because the car's not there. Dad's a pretty reliable guy, so he thought it was strange. Gabe tells the detectives that he'd asked his mother where was his father and she said, I have no idea. Gabe's father still hadn't returned home, so around 9 p.m., Gabe decided to check the pool house. It was dark at this point, and he obviously had been stood up for the game. So he finally got curious and he went down to the pool house to look for him. When he entered, his father lay on the ground, so covered in his blood, the Gabriel was convinced that his mother had shot him with a shotgun. So Gabriel went outside and he called 911. Investigators asked Gabe why he believes his mother would hurt his father. The last four years I really just thought I did it and I was like, just how do you tell those girls? Once he was on the phone back from one man, she actually called my dad and told him what she planned to do. She threatened to shoot him with a shotgun. His father had told Gabe that ship threatened to kill him with a shotgun because of their contentious relationship. Gabe was not equivocating or ambiguous, he was very direct about what he saw, what the background was, his opinion to the killer was. Gabe talked about how the Maritra deteriorated. His mother was saying increasingly delusional things about his father. Susan Pope was making comments that her husband was a Mossad agent, which is the Israeli secret police, that he had prior knowledge of the 911 attack. He had tried to poison her dogs at one point. She is totally out of her mind. She called the London Embassy and she's in stuff and told them all that. And then she thinks she will follow her. She thinks my dad pays people to follow her. Gabe kept coming to the conclusion that his mother must have done it because she had threatened him before. And there was this contentious divorce, but the investigators weren't sure. Authorities step out of the room, but the camera is still recording. They watch as Gabe calls his older brother Adam, who is away at school at UCLA. Investigators step back in and join Gabe's call with his brother. Gabe's claims about his mother gain credibility when Adam tells them similar stories. They didn't trust her mental state. In layman's terms, they kind of thought she was being crazy all the time. The dysfunction was so deep with people being pulled from one side to the other, trying to be allied, the children not wanting to lose either parent. Gabe and Adam told a credible story. To leave investigators, Gabe was very dragged about the backgrounds and what his opinion was of who the killer was. Investigators end the interview and release Gabe. Next, they take the boys' accusations to Susan. What's this about you believed your husband was with them aside? Why would your son think that? That was more like an insult that we couldn't really upset because he was a high level government employee. I just sort of speculated that he had a lot of influence. She seemed very aloof, didn't seem too shook up that her husband was dead. What did happen? Well, I'm hoping you can tell me what happened. I heard about it. You suppose you said you were going to do a shotgun? No. You never had a shotgun? I don't want to fire her. She claimed she didn't know anything about him being dead out there or why or how. I did not kill my husband. I'm not that kind of person. Her husband's dead at the house and here she is just sitting there kind of calm and kind of not caring. They've got my attention. Coming up, a threat from the past could lead investigators to a killer. The other patient threatened to kill him. She actually brought a knife to one of the therapy sessions. After Felix Polk is found dead in his lavish California estate, Susan Polk, his wife of nearly 20 years, is quick to deny any involvement. You don't know what happened to your husband? No. Something happened. Obviously that's why we're all here. You've had ongoing miracle problems for some time now. Living in different places. There's a man that I killed him. Investigators ask who else could be responsible? Was Felix seen in the other ladies? I don't know. Now I don't know. Was he in the gambling? Did he have any gambling deaths? I don't believe that. They leave no stone unturned. Did Gabriel kill him? Gabriel would kill his father. Well, that's his father. Susan suggests investigators look to her husband's professional life for answers. My husband did not leave an impeccable life. He's had his life threatened before. Well, I wish I could give you the name, but it was in his patient file that he had a patient threatened to kill him. Susan told him Felix had been threatened by his patients in the past. In fact, he said he had some female patients who actually brought a knife to one of the therapy sessions. Investigators make note of Susan's claims. And as they continue to press her, Susan grows visibly inpatient. Well, trying to think of anything with what could have happened. Well, that's your talk. It's not my talk. I'll never forget this one. You're the detective. You figure it out. And that just kind of blew me through my mind. And I said, I'm thinking, whoa, okay. Detectives believe that Susan is holding back. They quickly call her bluff. I would ask her things like, well, if this is a self-defense issue, we need to know. It's a technique that you can get the person to at least admit to being there. And then from there, you take it on to their involvement. Maybe there's a self defense issue. She kept denying, based on the coldness and aloofness of her during the interview. And all this information was coming out, I think, through Gabriel. I was very convinced that she was involved in this. And I said, well, I think I have figured it out. And I said, I'm going to have to play a few under arrest for the homicide of your husband. She was then transported to the jail for booking. The next day, the autopsy report comes in. Verifying Felix died nearly 22 hours before his body was found. Part of the autopsy report, a lot of stab wounds, that was causative. Multiple stab wounds. Felix had five mortal wounds to his torso, and more than 20 wounds and small nicks over his body. The stab wounds weren't the only injuries inflicted upon Felix. He had something in the back of his head that looked like he had been hit with some blunt object. Felix, most likely, was hit on the back of the head, and the blunt force trauma rendered him semi-conscious. And all the stab wounds were inflicted when he went to the fore. The autopsy yields another surprise and potentially explosive piece of evidence. When they're processing the body, they found some hair in his hands. The clump of hair that was found in Felix's hand is significant because it was one of the probably the few things he could do before he was killed. His last ditch effort grabbed the hair of his assailant to try to defend himself. We can do a DNA analysis and find out whose hair it was. They ran it through pretty quick. Hair is great, DNA because of the roots. Because the fruits are still on, they can do a lot with that, so we got to it pretty quickly. The results are clear. We find out that the hair in his hand came back to Susan Paul. Now we've got hard evidence so we bring her back in for an interview. This time, Susan is willing to talk and admits there is more to the story, but it's not what investigators think. She admits killing him, but she says that she did it in self-defense. Susan said she lied earlier because she feared her sons would lose their father and their mother. She describes going down the pool house to talk to him. They got an argument. He grabbed a knife. He attacked her with the knife. She was in fear for her life. She kicked him in the groin, got the knife away from him and stabbed him in self-defense. According to Susan, this wasn't the first attack. She said he'd been abused before. He threatened her. He's been abusive all along. The reason why she stayed with Felix is because she really didn't have a comprehensive understanding of what else to do. She loved her boys. She was trying to keep her family intact. She was trying to keep her relationship with her boys solid, and that's why she stayed. Susan says that two months earlier, she finally built up the courage to file for divorce. But while she was in Montana looking for a place to live on her own, Felix bombarded her with threats. When you come home, I'm going to do away with you. And she believed that we were threatening her. With Susan's story, contradicting Gaves by painting Felix as the villain, investigators ask her to submit to a physical exam, hoping this will shed light on the truth. There was no scratches or cuts or anything on her. He had defensive wounds on his hands. No victim who's conscious doesn't have defensive wounds when they're being stabbed because that's almost an instinct to throw your arms and hands up to keep the knife from being plunged into you. With an initial blow meant to immobilize and 27 stab wounds in all, investigators believe the attack on Felix was intended to kill. If you're trying to defend yourself, you don't inflict a number of wounds over and over. You inflict wounds until they're disabled. Investigators discern if it truly was self-defense. Susan would have called 911 immediately. Rather than leaving Felix's body in the pool house for nearly 22 hours. If an ambulance had gotten there in time, he may have been saved, but she didn't call 911. Investigators take a closer look at the divorce proceedings and learn Felix had recently taken some bold moves. In late September or early October, Susan went away to Montana. While Susan was gone, Felix was able to obtain a restraining order to keep Susan out of the house and give him sole custody and also sole possession of their shared house. While she was gone, weeks prior to his murder, Felix also tightened the purse strings on their temporary spousal support agreement. Felix managed to have her monthly payments, reduced from $6,000 a month, down to $1,700 a month. When she discovered what Felix had done, she immediately co-opted her son, Gabriel, to help move all of her husband's belongings into the guest house behind their home. Three days before the murder, Felix Polk had called the police. 911. Can I call the police? I'm out of the message and speak please. Okay, what's going on? I've been presiding with my son and my wife's given him to pick me out of the house and I'm not interested in being kicked out of the house. What's the reason that he gave me a wife? He lived away, moved to Montana and he came back and the wife of the wife, she moved me out of the house. When police showed up, he presented the court order showing that a judge had given him a sole possession of the house. They found a note from Susan saying that she did not feel it was a valid court order. She'd gone to the movies and at that time, Felix also realized that Susan had changed the locks on the house. Three days later, Gabriel found his father dead. The direction of the case seems clear, but as investigators continue to dig, a decade's old secret will throw the case into a tailspin. Coming up, Susan's mother drops a bombshell. According to her mother, she was groomed when she was his patient. And Susan launches a media campaign. It was horrible, but I did what I had to do to survive. Following Susan Polk's arrest, Susan's mother approaches detectives with new information. What they learn changes everything. Although Susan and Felix had been married since Susan was 24 years old, their relationship began almost a decade earlier. Susan had a very vulnerable time in her life. Age 15, she was very damaged by her parents' divorce. Susan was having behavioral problems in school and the school wanted her to get some help. So that's when she became a patient of Felix Polk's. But Susan's mother alleges that instead of helping his young patient, Felix took advantage of her. According to her mother, she was groomed and abused by Felix Polk when she was his patient when she was a teenager. And he sexually abused her. When she was 15, Felix Polk engaged in non-consensual sex with her by hypnotizing her and drugging her. According to her mother, she was only 15 and he was in his 40s. And it was not just rape, but clearly she says Felix Polk started a terribly inappropriate, truly abusive and exploitative relationship with Susan. Susan seemed to be in love with Felix. She eventually told her mother and then Susan's mother confronted him and told him, you will break off this relationship with my daughter. But she never reported it to the police. Felix stayed away from Susan while she started college, but not for long. Susan eventually, around the age of 18, went off to college. It was within a year or two back to the way it had been. And even though she was older, she had a compulsion to go back to him. While Susan was in school nearby, she and Felix continued their relationship, which Susan eventually revealed to her new therapist. She went to a different female psychotherapist telling that woman, her previous doctor, Dr. Felix Polk, had initiated a sexual relationship with her while she was underage and was patient. The new doctor, instead of turning in Felix Polk to the APA, calls his wife and lets her know. The wife wants to divorce Felix. He decides the best way to handle this scandal head on is to go ahead and divorce his wife and to marry Susan. They get married even though there's a 25-year difference. But then they go on to have three children and somewhat, in a way, look like, okay, this all worked out. The news is a shock to investigators, but they quickly realize they aren't the only ones getting the inside scoop. At the encouragement of her attorneys, Susan is telling her story far and wide. She started giving interviews, they were feeding the media, all these stories about the relationship. They were having an affair when she was underage and his patient. Susan explained that he had sex with her in his office when she was an adolescent. It's kind of, you know, front page news. The story is unfolding and finding out more and more. According to Susan, the way their relationship began haunted the entirety of their marriage. As I grew older, I was ashamed. Susan and her attorneys allege that over time, the circumstances surrounding her relationship with Felix took a toll on her mental health. And he told me I could never leave him, but it would destroy him his career. Those last five years, Susan's mental capacity really began to decompensate. Susan says instead of offering help, Felix once again took advantage of her. According to Susan, Felix was turning the children against her, constantly telling the children that she was very mentally ill, kind of gaslighting Susan. In case she tells you that I raped her when she was 15, know that that's all made up. With no way to prove or disprove Susan's claims about her past, investigators feel that her media campaign is an attempt to bolster her claims of self-defense. My recollection is that I stabbed in five or six times. I was on my back the entire time. He was, um, aggressing the entire time. It was horrible, but I did what I had to do to survive. Whether or not the general public buys Susan's story, she garners plenty of attention. At that point, it became a media surface with everybody wanting to know. Because Rinda is a quiet upscale, it's a burrio. And so a crime of murder is forefront in the news. Prosecutors know that trial will be unlike any they've done in the past. It's a once in a lifetime, yet some weird, I mean, I've tried a lot of cases, but you know, this is obviously the most bizarre. Prosecutors learn that Susan and her defense team are putting a worrisome strategy in place. Shit, good lawyer. They got a judge, a rendered to say, making a word that she's incompetent and meet with psychological experts to determine her competency. But on January 13th, 2006, attorneys on both sides get a surprise when Susan makes an announcement. She was never willing to submit to any sort of psychological assessment to determine what if any psychological issues she may have had. Susan refused to let her attorneys put that defense on the table, firing them all. She refused to cooperate with the psychological examination, fired her to lawyers, and then represented herself. So was she crazy? Or did she know exactly what she was doing? Am I going to just go down without a fight? No. Coming up. Will Susan's risky move pay off? She's smarter than even most attorneys are. Or cost her freedom. The court was packed every day. The press is there. It became the theater of the absurd. By March 2006, prosecutors are eager to begin Susan Polk's trial for the murder of her husband, Dr. Felix Polk. Months before, Susan sent shockwaves through Contra Costa County when she announced she would act as her own counsel. That's what's captivated the public was that she was representing herself. The court was packed every day. The press is there. People are standing on the sides. It's become this theater, right? And everybody wants to know what's going to happen today. Susan's opening statement gives prosecutors reason for concern. She's obviously a very smart person, smarter than even most attorneys are. Prosecutors alleged that during the contentious divorce, Susan hit a breaking point and snapped. The marriage was disintegrating. She'd become so bitter and angry she was capable of killing her husband. She felt like she was entitled. That after all he'd done to her and all he was going to do to her and she just had it. I think she sat there and her mind was spinning and it went, okay, it's time. I'm going to go kill him. Prosecutors assert that Susan roused her husband from sleep and met him at the door with a weapon in hand. Our theory was that she hit him possibly with a flashlight to disable him. The blunt force trauma to the back of the head either rendered him unconscious or semi unconscious and then stabbed him and he had no ability to defend himself. We found Felix's car at the nearby bar station and our theory was that Susan drove this car to make it look like there was something else involved with this killing. When it comes to Susan's defense, she starts by making her way through the prosecution's witness list without missing a beat. There were periods in the trial where some of her questioning was as good as I've ever heard from any lawyer. I mean, some of her cross-examination was really, really good. But as the trial goes on, cracks begin to form in Susan's strategy. It became kind of the theater of the absurd. She accused them of everything from being a Mossad agent to being involved at 9-11. I mean, there's a lot of crazy accusations. Again, all unverifiable, just her throwing out stuff in her mind, what she thinks in her mind. It does make it harder to believe that if the person's saying something that seemed delusional here, they're telling the truth over here. There are three witnesses set to take the stand who steal the spotlight from Susan. Gabriel, who at age 15 discovered his father's body and Adam who at 19, was a way at college. These two young men went into the court ready to give the testimony of what they knew. It was almost like a train wreck. They are basically being bachelored by their own mother. It became a three-ring circus when she finally called her middle child Eli to the stand as her defense witness. Eli backs up his mother's claims. He insisted that she was abused, that she was innocent, that everything had been Felix's fault. That was never proven. There was never any evidence that he ever beat Susan Polk. I was able to punch a lot of holes and a lot of the things he said. When I cross-examined him to object to 140 times, but by then I was getting immune to our yelling, so I just kept going. After a grueling 22-week trial, the jury is left to decide. When the jury went out, I don't know. I mean, it's like when any jury goes out, you're scared to death. Four days later, they return with a verdict. Susan Polk is found guilty of second-degree murder. The jury, by finding her guilty of second-degree murder instead of first-degree murder, basically gave her a gift. 16 years to life. I think what the information that the jury had, they couldn't have banned any other decision. Following the verdict, Adam Polk makes a statement. Felix Polk was a beloved father, brother, uncle, cousin, and nephew to his family. We as his family are devastated not only by his loss, but the violent manner in which he was taken from us. He was not the controlling and manipulative individual that he was portrayed to be. He was an imperfect person as we all are, but Susan had no right to take him from us. Susan is serving her sentence at the California Institution for Women. In 2019, Susan was denied parole and will not be eligible for parole again until 2029. Abuse is never okay. If you or someone you love isn't an abusive relationship, there is help available. Call the domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.