Hello, It is Ryan and I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on chumbacasino dot com. I looked over at the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing. They were also playing Chumpa Casino. Coincidence, I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumpa Casino's home to hundreds at casino style games. You can play for free anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet. So sign up now at chumbuck Casino dot com to
claim you're free. Welcome bonus. That's Chumbuck Casino dot com and live the Chumba line.
No pers necessary, dvoid over if I lost terms conditions eighteen plus.
Judy was boring.
Hello.
Then Judy discovered chumbucasino dot com.
It's my little escape.
Now Judy is the life of the party.
Oh baby Mama is bringing home the bacon who.
Take it easy, Judy, jump the Chumba life.
That's for everybody.
So go to chumpacasino dot com and play over one hundred casino style games joined today and playing for free for your chance to redeem some serious prices. Jump Chumpacasino dot com Noprid's necessary boid We're prohibited by on eighteen plus terms and conditioned plice Let's detail.
Luck to.
You are now listening to True Murder The most Shocking Killers in True Crime History and the authors that have written about them Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky.
Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, The most Shocking Killers in True crime History and the authors that have written about them. Raynella Dawset said she came home one morning in two thousand and three and found her husband's body in bed, covered in blood, a cold thirty eight by his side. But
authorities were suspicious of Raynella's story. Why would her husband of ten years suddenly commit suicide and if he had taken his own life, why did it appear that three shots were fired? David Leith was not the first of Rainnella's husbands to turn up dead. After digging into Rainella's past, Policed unearthed bizarre gruesome details surrounding the death of her first husband, who was seemingly trampled by his own cattle, which led investigators to wonder could Raynella have staged his
death as well? To those who knew where Raynella was, a loving mother of two, a good neighbor and friends, a nurse who always reached out a helping hand. Was this woman capable of killing both her husbands? And if so, why did she do it out of greed, jealousy or revenge. This is the story about what dark secrets were lurking in her Deadly Web. The book we're profiling this evening is Her Deadly Web. With my special guest, journalist and author,
Dianne Fanning. Welcome back to the program, Diane Fanning.
Thank you, Dan, it's nice to be here.
Well, thank you very much for coming back on. It's always a pleasure to have you on. We always have a very very engaging program. And you've come up again and found another crazy, crazy story. So let's get right into it here, and maybe we can start with because there's a couple of things that you do talk about in this book, and I will we want to talk
about those things as well. But first let's probably paint a portrait of Raynella dawsett Lee and what's the proper pronunciation of the L E A T H. And so tell us a little bit about Raynella and go back because that's a big part of the story where Raynella grew up in the background on that. So take us back to Raynella doss at Leads in her early life.
In her background, raynell and Lards was born in the mountains of Tennessee. When she was a schoolgirl, her family moved to this city of oak Ridge, Tennessee. At that time people knew the name Oakridge, but it had a mysterious history. It had been harved out of the wilderness in order for the federal government to build a facility to process uranium. And the uranium that they processed that that plant was used in the bomb that fell on her Roachama and was one of the two bombs that
ultimately brought an end to the war against Japan. It was a very interesting place in a lot of ways because they had they still had air raid drills because the facility there. During the Cold War, it was thought that they were a target. So it wasn't just air rade drills like people would remember abducting and getting under the desks, or going in the halls and covering your heads. This was the total evacuation of the town. They would
just gather up. If you were at home, a mother at home, so you had three kids, two of them
hadn't started school yet, he had one in school. You would grab the two preschool children and you would follow a route out of town, and you would not consider going to pick up your own child, because those children were then being escorted to a stop, one of the stops on the way out of town, and people that followed that route would stop there and load up the many kids as they could, And so people were just going around taking their kids and everybody else's kids and
just heading all the way out of town.
Incredible, it's pretty incredible.
And when the town was first started, it didn't have a name, and no one could speak about what they
were doing there, the work that was going on. And so because of that, they had lots and lots of scientists there too, So you had higher than average education and because of that, you had a better than average school system, and the kids there pretty much grew up with the feeling that they were a special segment of the American population, and I think that that had an impact on shaping who Raynella Large, which was her maiden name,
the woman that she became. She went off to school and to be a nurse, and it was there at school that she met her first husband, at Dawsett, and
they got married and he went to law school. She finished her nursing degree, and they set up house out on the old farm where Bill Dawson had been raised, and he ran for after a couple of years of private practice, he ran for the office of Attorney general, which is the same position as a lot of people call a district attorney, but in Tennessee they're called attorney generals. And they proceeded to have three children. Then Ed got
very ill. He had cancer. He was still district attorney, but he was working from home a lot of the time. The cancer was expected to be terminal, but he was going He had lasted for quite a while, and then one day he was found out in the lot connected to the barn, trampled by the cattle. At least that's
what Raynella said. Right now, Raynella, because of who she was married to, had become rather involved politically and she was an influential person in her own right and played a major role in actually getting the successor to her husband elected to the position of Attorney General, and she drew the ire of many Republicans. Her husband edit bit her Reublican, and she was a Republican, but she used the Republican mailing list to send out letters supporting the
Democrat that was running for the seat. But nonetheless she still held sway in the community, and after a little bit of anger over that issue, she got past that, and she still was a somewhat powerful woman. She had a huge farm that was now all hers, but she also had three children. So within six months she ended up marrying a very close friend of her first husband, and he was David Leith. He was a barber and he owned his own barbershop and partnership with another man,
and they started off their married life together. Now they he gave it A already had one child who was grown for a previous marriage, and had two grandchildren, and Raynella then had three children.
But she.
Had another loss in her life when her daughter, who had a learners permit, was driving the pickup truck and went through a red light at an intersection and her little eleven year old brother Eddie was in the car and he was thrown from it and seriously injured, and he died a couple of days later. So Raynella lost
her son. Right soon after that, she found out because her husband's her first husband's secretary, was getting divorced from her husband, Steve Walker, and she found out that during the custody hearing, Kay, the wife had said the wife and secretary of her husband said that she did her husband.
I really got that all confused. Okay.
So there's Raynella and her husband Ed. There's Kay and her husband Steve. Kay worked for Ed as a secretary for years and years, started with private practice. After he was dead, she filed for KA filed for divorce from Steve. During the custody hearing, Kay said that Steve shouldn't have custody of one of the boys because it was not his biological child. It was the biological child of Ed.
Does it, oh, jee?
So when Raynella does it? Nowella does at least heard about that. You would think her anger would either be directed at her deceased husband or at her deceased hustant secretary, but no, Instead she lures Steve Walker, the other wronged person in this adulterous affair. She lures him out to the barn under the pretext of showing him some paperwork and instead pulls a gun on him and chases him all over the farmyard and across a fence and is
firing wildly at him. She's fired five times. When Steve went up over a fence and twisted his ankle and fell to the ground, she stood over top of him, pointing that gun at him, and she said, well, Steve, I used to be a much better shot busher. Can't miss from here, And she pulled the true important thing for Steve. She forgot she had the five shot gotten up,
the sixth shot gotten Yeah. So Steve survived and David survived for a few years, but only Raynella and Dave's doctor seemed to think that Dave was developing some sort of dementia. Everybody else thought he was just fine. And so it was a really confusing situation because Raynella kept saying things about how he wasn't right and she was taking the doctor, and then one day she left him at home and when she claimed when she returned she found him dead. In the bed and he had committed suicide.
And when you talk about dementia, he's not very old. What's he fifty seven?
Yeah, he's getting close sixty. He's not very old. And you know, I mean there is early onset Alzheimer's. They can happen to be from their forties, but you know, he still was a little young to be showing for typically to be showing signs of dementia. But that that piece of the puzzle ended up being answered later on when they when the investigators came.
To the scene and.
Were instantly suspicious because three shots have been fired.
They wanted, sorry, sorry, to take us back down the phone call, though we jumped over that, and I apologize for that. Take us back to the entire event in terms of she calls police and what's her demeanor like when she first calls police, and what is her actions when I thought it was fascinating. When police come, they they think there's another victim because there's somebody on the front lawn. So tell us about the whole turn of events and the phone call and then.
How she outsh she calls and she was shrieking and choking on her words, asking them to help her and the first thing she says when ask what's going on is that my husband shot himself, and she gives her a dress and tells him to hurry, and you know he's in.
Hello, it is Ryan. And I was on a flight the other day playing one of my favorite social spin slot games on chumbacasino dot com. I looked over the person sitting next to me, and you know what they were doing. They were also playing Chumpa Casino. Coincidence, I think not everybody's loving having fun with it. Chumba Casino's home to the hundreds at casino style games. You can play for free anytime, anywhere, even at thirty thousand feet. So sign up now at Chumbuck Casino dot com to
claim you're free Welcome bonus. That's Chumbuck Casino dot com and live the Chumba Laine for necessary Davod wherever I lost in terms of conditions eighteen.
Plus in the bed and she said, I'm I'm gonna throw up, and uh, they heard her make it all sorts of noise and gagging and everything, and they tried to get her to calm down, and they sent they sent someone in. She left the phone off the hook and ran outside. So she threw herself prostrate on the grass, and she was looking, for all intents and purposes, if she's dead. And so when the police arrived, they thought someone had shot her too, and so they went to
her first. They went to her aid first, but then she said no, no, no, you're going to help him. Help him. He's been shot. And when they went in and they found Dave's body, by that time, she was starting to look fairly composed and and uh, you know, she she didn't act all that upset. She sort of took charge of the situation. And she explained that he found out that his mother had cancer just the other day and and that's why he committed suicide.
Now, the other I want to talk about this because it's very important how easily they determine what suicide and what they believe is homicide in this case, but they look at what they know that they got a call at this time, which was around eleven thirty or a little bit past eleven thirty in the morning, right right
right now. The thing is is that they talk about lividity, So maybe you could talk about what that is for you know, most people do know they're junkies like me to watch investigation Discovery and read.
All the books.
So, but for those that don't, what's what's lividity and why is it important to this case? And what and when I talk about lividity, how is that important to this case? And then finding the body.
Well, lividity is a discoloring of the skin that is caused where the blood in the body settles down when when after they're dead, because you no longer have your heart pumping the blood, so your little capital areas that are all full of blood just sort of seep and
go down to the lowest point because of gravity. So you look at when people arrive on the scene to investigate a crime, they look at that discoloration and and they also will do things like pressing on the surface of the skin to see how how well it bounces back or whether it goes white, or you know, how how it's affected by touch, And they can tell by the reaction of the skin and the signs of vividity.
An approximate amount of time since death had passed and Raynella's story to the police would have had him dead not that very long, and it had to have been probably they determined just by examining the body briefly that it was probably five out more than five hours earlier. So her story was suddenly not fitting together because of she had claimed to have left the house about three
hours earlier. And you know, so if it had if he had died five hours earlier, she couldn't have been in the house, and I mean she would have had to been in the house when it happened. So you know, that was a good indicator to them that there was something wrong here. And the other thing that on the scene that caught the investigator's eye was that it appeared
as if he'd been tucked in to bed. I mean, he had a pillow nicely between his head and his shoulder, he had a pillow between his legs, and the lower half of his body was very very neatly covered up. And next to him was a plate of food. He had some oatmeal on it and some taste and stuff.
And there was no blood spatter on top of that food, which made no sense if she had served him that food and it had been sitting there that whole time, and there was no evidence that he had taken a sip of the water, no marks on it, no change in the level of the milk.
And.
It just looked real suspicious in.
A lot of ways.
And then when they saw the three shots, one through the headboard, one through his head, and one into the bed, it didn't automatically say that it was not a suicide, but it raised the question very seriously. It happened that somebody might be planning on committing suicide and that if every last second they turned the gun away and then like we go through like that first shot went through the headboard, and then they come back and kill themselves.
But the third one into the mattress was just bizarre. That didn't make a lot of sense. But they didn't know immediately what order was in. They didn't know that until they were examining evidence later.
They also had the benefit of looking at it later at what's called guns. I found this very interested in your book too, the gunshot stipple or yeah, gunpowder stipple. So I guess they know there's the effect with the gunshot residue as well, So they did if you can explain that that But I found that fascinating the book, that that was another way they said it's a circumstantial case because they didn't have any eyewitness or a lot
of things that they would have in other cases. But they had this type of evidence, this gunshot fippling anyway, that I hadn't heard of before. So it was interesting to find that in your book.
So, yeah, and what that is is, it's when the gun fires, it sends out hot gases along with the bullet and and and that has you know, the dirt and stuff for the gun barrel firing, and it flies into the skin. And it depending on and how close the the the end of the gun is to the head, uh is, it changes the patterns so you could actually tell the distance of the gun from a person's head when it was fired into them.
Right, And the result of the autopsy was as well that their conclusion.
Was what.
They had. They they said that the gun, I mean, the gun was held at a place that, although not impossible, it would have been very awkward for him to have shot himself there. And the other thing they discovered was that the shot that went into his head killed him instantaneously because it severed his brave stands right, so he could not you know, you hear sometimes they say that the person will just involuntarily jerk and cause another gunshot to fire, but in this case that could.
Not have happened. Right now, she is she arrives in this on this crime scene with her daughter, Katie, I believe, and they are both questioned by different detectives. What's again. When she's officially questioned, she does say some you know about the melting butter. She's they talked to well, what would happen that day? And maybe the quote is that I bring in his breakfast like many times breakfast in bed,
but I bring it. He complains that I bring in the breakfast too hot to melt the butter, and yes, which is a very odd thing to say. Yeah, yeah, So tell us about his early questioning and what the police really conclude from that.
They have They they thought it was an odd statement and and initially something like that if if someone were in shock or in you know, extreme immediate grief, maybe they would stumble up their words. But it was something that really stuck with the investigators and later they would, you know, it would come back and sort of haunt them as as something that wasn't quite right. And they
were very uncommon too. The way she was behaving. She wasn't acting all that distress despite the fact she said something that was basically nonsensical, right, But you know they in cases like this, investigators really have to step very carefully because although often the spouse is the person who's responsible for a murder in the home, there are still a lot of people who lose spouses to murder and they had not a thing in the world to do
with it and are truly victims. So you don't want to stomp all over them like you would in an ordinary suspect in the beginning.
Now, the other thing that's again, it's just fascinating when you look at this story, you say, oh, here, I think I get the idea, But there are many, many mysterious twists and turns, and I love how you reveal things at different times, so you keep us wow, geez, really scratching my head. And then I go, I see why. But we're going to not panalyze the audience like that, and we're going to tell them now, Raynella is because of this district attorney with the sixth judicial, this attorney
general she was married to before. Now when she's questioned now, and the other thing I felt found fascinating too as well. I just wanted to mention is that you said that her first husband and her new and David were friends. Yeah, correct, right now, they were friends, so the death of ed Dawset didn't raise any alarms whatsoever. And then you also mentioned about Raynella having this power. Her husband was powerful since he dies, no one questions that. But also she
attains a lot of that same power from that. So the thing that we're not really describing is and has to be certain, is that this is an imposing figure. Like you say, she's five foot eight, she's like one hundred and seventy pounds. But she's a very charismatic, you know, strong woman. I found it interesting that nobody thinks anything but the highest regard for her now when she is being question even though it looks like she's the likely person.
This Moyer's this guide that you bring to life in here, that's very important. Inspect and lead investigator Moyers. What he does is that he is kind of concerned because Raynella has some powerful supporters. Despite what it looks like here to you and I and the reader, tell us about some of these people that appear in support of Raynella.
All of a sudden, well, you know, in her front yard while they're doing this investigation inside the home. So who of Knoxville legal and political world were gathering in that yard. There were judges, public defenders, Republican party leaders. They were all there in support of Raynella. And you know, Wawyers knew this. He knew that the powerful people of Knoxville would have their eyes on him, and he knew
he had to tread carefully. I mean, it was very important to him to find justice for this man, but he had to do it with great care so as not to step on the wrong toes before he had gotten a proof together.
Now what happens as well another little monkey wrench into this, or at least another little again twist, very very unusual twist, is that the prosecutors in this, the local prosecutors, say, we can't do this because there's a conflict of interest, and so what's the what's the solution with this? This is again very I'm not very typical. So what's the solution to.
The okay, round two?
Name something that's not boring?
Laundry, book club, computer solitaire?
Huh oh, sorry, we were looking for chumba casino. Chum, that's right, chumbacasino dot com as over one hundred casino style games joined today and the play for free for your chance to redeem some serious prizes.
Chum chumbacasino dot com.
Plus retails these people saying we can't prosecute this case.
Well, it is then turned over to a attorney general's office a couple of counties away so that they can handle the prosecution. But you know, when when you run for office, the most important thing to you is always the people you serve. As far as you know, your ability to get re elected. People in adjoining counties that can vote.
For you are just not as.
Important as the people that are capable of voting for you. So that made the priorities of the case drop lower on the list for this new jurisdiction, And in fact, until the guy that was serving at that time was out of office, the case didn't really get moving on the legal front to take it before a grand jury.
Interesting, so it was kind of stalled, just bibaciously, Yeah.
Yeah, it just kind of stalled because you know, you have the investigators in one district and you've got the prosecutors in another, and coordinating that and raising any kind of sense of urgency in a couple of counties away is kind of difficult.
But in the stuff with it, Yeah, I was going to say that. Obviously, in the interim, the police know that they have a case that's circumstantial, Like I said, even though it's a good circumstantial case, they know they have these other factors at play, and so they're continuing
to investigate. So what are some of the kinds of things that they did to try to gather and bolster their case with any kind of evidence they could that would piece together this and kind of counter her her account of what happened that day.
Well, one of the suspicious things came up in the toxicology report. They found four or five different medications floating around in Dave's bloodstream that should not have been there. All of them would have an impact on his awareness and alertness, all of them would give him problems doing memory tasks. And these were drugs he wasn't supposed to
be taking. And Raynella, the nurse, knew exactly what drugs did, and knew exactly what drugs to get to do what she wanted to do, And it is suspected that that's why she and the doctor she took him to were the only people that thought something was wrong with Dave because she'd been drugging him off and on for quite some time to set up the scenario.
Now the investigators have to also because she is stating that he was suicidal and obviously committed suicide. Are they gathering it? Are they speaking to, like, say, his co partner, the co owner of his barbershop or this hair salon is a man named Hoight. So what does Hoight have to say? Again, another close friend and he knows Raynella. And we're going to have to introduce this character because it's incredible his behavior as well his belief in Raynella.
Yet he's a really good friend of David. So tell us about hoy and his ideas about this.
Well, you know, he was not at all comfortable with the idea of suicide. And the other thing that really really bothered him was the fact that Raynella probably so fast to get Dave cremated. Now, Corey personally had nothing wrong with cremation. He was thinking he'd probably be cremated.
But when he.
Once told Dave about that, Dave got all over his case and told him it was wrong that. You know, she got.
Well sin to have lost Diane completely, so we will just wait for her to reconnect. I'm sure that you will get back online here with us for those listening. Of course, we've been listening to Diane Fanning and talking about her incredible new book, Her Deadly Web. We were just talking about Renella and right now they are trying to get this thing to try well, and we've If you've been listening carefully, obviously you know that it doesn't look like what should look like a slam dunk case
is not. And here we have, thank god, Diane Fanning back on, so we'll reconnect her and continue.
They Suddenly you were gone.
And I was talking away okay where we were back with Raynella and you were talking about jeez oh Hoy.
Yes, we were talking about Hoy and ho was Hoy. Had once told Dave that he was what he died, He's going to be cremated, and Dave got all over his case and told him he couldn't do that. You know, you can't go to heaven if you've been cremated. It was a very firm belief in. Dave said that he did not want to be cremated, and yet weeks before he died, Raynella had pre paid for his cremation.
The other thing too, that he must have mentioned it, and because it was noteworthy enough to his daughter Cindy as well, that she thought it was odd because I was against his wishes.
Yes, and everyone's good, Fred Gordon. Everybody that knew him knew that this was a very fervent and deeply felt religious belief. He did not, absolutely not want to be cremated. And you know, there is no possibility that Raynella didn't know that. But two weeks before he died, she prepays for his creation. You know that that was pretty darn suspicious.
Yeah. The other thing that I thought was fascinating to again this is I read all kinds of these books, as you know, and this is amazing. A few days after the funeral, Raynella gathers friends and family at the home for a meeting. Of course, why not have your attorney present from the h bell So there's an attorney there, now, it's amazing. Attorney has a tape recorder and so Cindy is there, I believe, and a hoint is there as well, and Raynella, and if there's someone else, please tell me.
But what it is is that I got to get you to tell our audience, what's the question this person? This is there is a lawyer with a tape recorder a few days after the future funeral, and here's Raynella and here's her lawyer with a tape recorder. And what question does the lawyer ask the hoint especially but the people in the room and an attempt to record their response.
Well, you know, he was an attorney for Raynella, and he was very interested in and in making sure that ray Nella was protected from harm. So he started asking them questions about Dave's suicide and and whether or not that they could testify to his state of mind. And it came out and asked him, you know, I mean could we count on you basically, and Boyd said no, I don't. I don't think I could do anything to help you at all.
Yeah, it was the way the question was asked was basically, why did you think Dave committed suicide?
Exactly?
Yes, that's White basically said, you know, well number one, you know I don't. An attorney said, well, I guess the meeting's over, and White said, yeah, you're right. I found that fascinating. I've never heard of any kind of meeting like this. The other thing we skipped over too, because this is this is some this is some real gold here that at the funeral she says, I was nothing but Dave's hood ornament.
Yes, And why in Heaven's name she thought that or would even say something like that at his funeral. It just made nonsense, and she obviously ran the family.
There's a lot of trust that this woman had built up and a lot of confidence in her that it's just hard to hard to comprehend that even Hoyite, even going to the meeting, I can't believe that he isn't that you know that, you know, the light bulbs aren't going off already here, you know, idea idea here with what she's doing. So and we continue with the police investigation.
How do they proceed with this? You say this case was stalled somewhat because it wasn't a priority for the other now the two counties away prosecutors that are coming here, and we understand why because if it's you know, it's a politics basically, So tell us how things do proceed at this point.
Well, eventually there's a new man in that office, and he is essentially shamed into doing it by a public letter from Dave Leaf's daughter demanding justice for her father, and and that sort of helped.
Get the ball rolling.
On top of that, the Tennessee State Police have some forensic experts, and one of them, you know, they you want to have one of them testify about guns. So the guy that's examining the gun, the murder weapon, notice that it's a type of gun that keeps the casings inside of the gun. They don't expel when the shot is fired. And he realizes that there's two different kinds of ammunition in the gun. And he realizes because of that, exactly the order of the shots it went headboard, head
and mattress. And that became very important because the separate brainstem David could not have fired that third shot, right, And what the prosecutors and investigators believed was that the third shot was fired for the whole reason of getting gun shot residue on David's hand. So she put the gun into his hand after he was dead and fired that third shot through the mattress.
And that's what cooked her goose, or at least was the.
I think yes, yes, I mean yeah, and you know, I mean she did all sorts of things that were just pretty darn heartless. Like she sent it was hoyt. She gave him a cardboard box and she said, give this to Cindy, who's Dave's daughter. And so he took the cardboard box and gave it to Cindy. When she opened up this just playing cardboard box, what was inside of it but her father's cremains.
Yeah, I mean that's pretty darnheartless. Yeah, I would say that.
M And So it was when all this came out that people started looking back at the murder of Ed, at the death of Ed doct and what they discovered was that when Ed Dost died there was only a part way autopsy done, and what was done was the report was filed before the toxicology report was completed, and when when the medical examiner later turned into toxicology report, he was sort of waiting for the prosecutor's office to tell, you know, to talk to him about it, which they
never did. In the prosecutor's office, there were people thinking that maybe you know, Ed had this was some sort of plan of Ads to get more money from Raynella and the children, since he was leaving three children behind. If he died in accidental death, then it would they would get double indemnity on the insurance, and they didn't.
They didn't want to look into it because the best scenario they could see it was insurance fraud, and he just didn't want to dig that up on a widow with three little children, right, So instead they just set it aside. But they found out in that toxicology report when they looked at it later years that what he
really died from was an overdose of morphine. And although there were a couple of marks on his body from the hoofs of the cattle, that there were no way serious enough injuries to have called caused Anyone's said, so a.
Bunch of people not really doing their job to their full extent exactly. Again, it's just part of the charm of this woman to be able to buffalo these people that are more than have their loyalty to her husband. And yet that's the striking thing that's nobody can really put a finger on.
Yeah, And the only people, well, the other the only people that were really really suspicious from the get go were Ed's family, right. They they were very troubled by this, and and some of the farmers out that way too. They knew Ed's heard Ed had a herd of polled Herford's and Herfords just don't stampeded. I mean, they're not prone to it. They're more likely to step on a hue and body if it's behind them and they don't realize it, but they're not going to go stampede and
run over people. They're very gentle. And the farmers I talked to out there said Ed's cows were even gentle for poul Trford, So it was like really unusual that there would be an agricultural accident involving that particular type of cow.
So so we're charges pursued by police and by district attorney for the first for Ed Dawson.
Yes, they actually charged her with the murder, but they didn't want to go to trial until they exhumed the body. And since there was such a sloppy autopsy done the first time, and you know, it was only half done and everything wasn't checked and there was no notation. For example, the morphine pump would had to have been in him because it was installed by doctors before he had died. They they they had to look at that body again.
But you know, Raynella object to the exhumation, and the judge decides to protect the sanctity of the deceased and not desecrate the body by digging them up again, which makes no sense to me.
And yet, and yet, ed Dossett's family, for the most part, or at least the people that would be the people that authorized it, they were okay with.
That because well, except for Raynella and his children, who were under basically under Raynella's control, the only people that his parents were both dead, He had no siblings, and he had cousins that he'd been raised with. But you know that they a wife would then have a stronger say so, right, you know, So it just was. I mean the two daughters that were living objected to it too.
I mean they were on their mother's side, which is actually the typical reaction when a spouse kills another spouse, The children tend to side with the surviving spouse because that's the only parent they have.
Right So in the end, with this, she is is it confirmed that she has killed these two husbands.
It took two trials. It took two trials. The first one, I had a hung story. Eleven had voted guilty and one not guilty. In the second trial, all twelve voted her guilty. She was given life without parole. In the case of Ed does It, the prosecution moved to drop the case without prejudice. They had doubts that they could win a case without getting an exhumation order. They had
her in jail for the rest of her life. But because they had it done without prejudice, that meant that, should, by chance Braynella get out on an appeal with the murder of David Leath, they still had this they could reinstate the charges again. So basically Ed's death is tagging over her head and as long as she's served, is serving her sentence at prison. I don't think they'll be doing anything. But once that's done, they are going to move and try to get an exhumation again. I'm sure.
Now this is the hung jury in the first one, that's that's quite an achievement actually, for for a defense team to be able to do that with let alone one, let alone with just wonder let alone too. Again, it was just one.
It was just one that hung the jury, and and the the the ironic thing was one of the things they were asked before they were selected, was can you know, can you decide guilt based on a circumstantial case which there's no eyewitnesses or anything like that, And and you know,
they all said yes. But then this one guy who drugged the jury along for a couple of days while he was dilly delling and trying to decide, finally came to the inclusion says there was no eyewitness and quite frankly, you know, if you're going to kill a spouse in your home, you're not going to invite someone to watch.
And there was no DNA evidence. Well, how they expect to get the DNA evidence when these two people are both living in the same house and there was no smoking gun, as it were, I mean, you know, so basically he said that he could decide on a circumstantial case, but when it came down to it, he could. He wanted he wanted a CSI moment, and there just wasn't one.
Well, I mean, because of her connections, I guess it seemed to be. You know, when you have when you have a good lawyer, when you have supporters in the legal community, it does make a difference. That person has afforded even more.
You know, it's not right, but it's true.
Yeah, no, it's not right, but it's that's what happened. And so, I mean that's the inequity of the judicial system. Money really makes a huge difference how you're represented in court, so and again the treatment that you're afforded. You see only celebrities get bail on murder cases usually, but you'll see celebrities get bail for years once they're charged, you know, So there's a difference. But at the same time, I think everyone involved illegal people especially would realize this person
is likely going to be convicted. And so you see a lot of times where the first trial, but subsequent trials, I mean obviously if district attorney refiles the charges or appeals it and says we're going to do it again, they are convinced that they have enough evidence, so they're not going to let go. And like you say, with this woman here, she if she ever were to get parole, they have a solution for that too. So they are planning on having this woman in for the rest of her life.
Yeah, and the twists and turned to this story, we're just incredible, you know.
Yeah.
I mean, if you ever heard a case where there were involved two medical examiners who pulled guns to law enforcement. I mean, you know, that was one of the bizarre things to this story.
Yeah. And you know, another one of it I thought was interesting early on too, is that she she I think she's being questioned, and she turns on the television set so she can watch Joyce Myers tell of you know, tell Evangelists on which I've seen, so I know who she is. So so she found that it felt it important that she not missed that episode again kind of keeping with the demeanor of the police for kind of
scratching her head, you know. So she was wailing and screaming and laying on the front grass, but then later soon after kind of composed.
So and when the police got to the house, the clothes ryer was running and and Moawyers asked her, I said, well, oh, you know when the last time you used to close the clothes Fiars said, oh, that was before I left to go up to the school.
In the hospital three hours earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's a big load. Probably she's probably done, okay, yes, yeah. And the other thing too, that she was a nurse, but there was no blood spider on her at all. So she didn't attempt any CPR, Like, yeah, no tr.
Chains on her clothing. And you know, even when it's totally hopeless, if you really love somebody, you will grab hold of them, you will try to bring them back to life, even if you know there's absolutely no sense to doing that at all. And yet here she is. She's a trained nurse. She had a lot of knowledge at her disposal, you know, and she wasn't just you know, nobody nurse. I mean, this is someone have been nursing for quite some time and she was a charged nurse
at the hospital was her last job. So she was quite experienced and quite expert. And you know, the thought that she did nothing to come to the aid of her husband was a very very suspicious thing.
Yes, absolutely, Well, it's a fascinating till, Diane, and I'm glad you've dug up just one more fascinating till. So the book that people have been listening to this evening is your latest, Her Deadly Web. What have you got planned for in the near future? What's your next book project?
Do you know?
Well, my next book coming out is fiction. It is the sixth book in my Lieutenant listen to Pierce mystery series Ie A Wrong Turn. That'll be out the UK come out into September and the US first January. Then I have another true crime coming out in May. It's called Murder on the home Front and it is about Julius schenneker Case and Julie shot her two teenage kids and when the police arrived, she told them she did it because they were mouthy.
Oh incredible. Well, it's always been a great time having you on my program and getting a chance to talk to about your latest and greatest true crime books. So thank you very much for this, Diane, and maybe you could tell us about your You have an excellent website with a lot of information that people might want to visit. Give us a get a little plug in for that as well.
Okay, it's www dot Diane Fanning d I A N E F A N N I n G dot com. At the bottom of what my every web page is my email address if anyone wants to send me any questions or comments. And one of the new things that since we've talked is I now have ten of my eleven true crime books are available in audio, so for people who are commuting or might be visually disabled. There is there's an audio version of the books now that you can get from audible dot com or on Amazon.
So yeah, we got that going. And of course ebooks and you know there's there's so much stuff going on.
Yeah, no, it's great. I mean, audiobooks were really rising in popularity and then ebooks came around, so I said, well what about audiobooks. Now you don't have to send you know, four or six pound box for someone's house with all these d d ds now right right, you know, So it's great, it's it's it's helping anyway, I really do.
Yeah.
When I used to when I used to commute, I had an hour long each way, and and I loved audiobooks. I mean it made the time faster, particularly when you were stopped in traffic there wasn't moving.
Yeah. Absolutely, it's a good, good, good time spent. Absolutely.
Yeah.
Well, thank you very much, Dane. Good luck with this and and everything you're doing. But you don't need any luck with this. You've got the you've got the advantage anyway, Thank you very much, Dane. Have a good evening, and thank you once again for coming on the program.
Nice to see me, talk to you again. Bye bye, good bye bye.