Killer Grannies - Season 1 Episode 07- Granny's Killer Gravy
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00:00Grannies are supposed to serve home-cooked comfort on a plate, but one serving of Rowena
00:12Ledbetter's biscuits and gravy got very, very uncomfortable.
00:17Was she innocently poisoned herself, or did she dish up a serving of death on a platter?
00:26Today's date is 4.23, 2002, and it's 2.40 p.m. by my watch.
00:35I'd really like to hear, from your standpoint, what happened on that Sunday at the house.
00:41I went by Herman's.
00:44When I got there, he had had a pan of biscuits made, four sausage patties.
00:50He was making some milk gravy.
00:52I started eating. I got dizzy. I got nauseated. My heart was gonna jump out of my chest.
00:59I said, Herman, I'm dying. Call 9-1-1. Something's wrong. I've never had this feeling before in my life.
01:06An elderly couple, once all a feather with love. Now it's a deadly, he said, she said. He looked up at me and he said, she tried to kill me.
01:17He was so insane in love with me. He put poison in my food.
01:24A seemingly trustworthy grandma.
01:26Her granddaughter said she was a good woman. Her son said she was a good woman.
01:30They don't believe their grandmother could kill anyone.
01:33And the surprising story that makes the cops question everything.
01:39His father would get sick, go to the hospital, return to Rowena, get sick again.
01:44Why is he getting sick all the time? He'd never been sick.
01:47That kind of makes you wonder, is this person who you think she is?
02:08It was a Sunday morning. A 9-1-1 call came from Mutt Wilson's house.
02:13Mutt Wilson was a police officer for 27 years, retiring as a lieutenant with the Waco Police Department.
02:20A lot of people knew Mutt. He was a great cop. He tells them he's feeling horrible.
02:26Mutt says he was eating breakfast with his girlfriend, Rowena Ledbetter, when he suddenly felt faint.
02:32Now he's having a hard time breathing.
02:35Realizing this is an emergency, paramedics rush to his home.
02:40When the paramedics arrive at Mutt's house, he's in serious distress.
02:45Rowena is not feeling well either.
02:48They said that they were having his favorite breakfast of biscuits and gravy.
02:54And they both got sick at the same time.
02:57There were no obvious signs of anything really that was wrong with them.
03:02They're both elderly, and it appeared that Mutt was far worse off than Rowena was.
03:08They suspected it could be the food, it could be having a heart attack, blood pressure spiking, a stroke.
03:15So they take Mutt in an ambulance to Providence Health Center.
03:19Rowena, who says she's also not feeling well, resulted in the second ambulance arriving to take her to the hospital.
03:25As the second ambulance arrives for Rowena, neighbors gather, wondering what's going on.
03:32I was coming home from church, and I noticed down the road, right in front of Mr. Wilson's house, there was an ambulance.
03:39And I thought, oh no, something happened to Mr. Wilson.
03:42I asked the ambulance driver, is that Mr. Wilson in there?
03:46And he said, no, it's Rowena.
03:49Oh, I thought, how sad, his girlfriend is sick.
03:52He wasn't in the ambulance.
03:54I thought, well, maybe he went ahead of time or something.
03:57So I thought, I'm going to just go and sit with him in the hospital while he's sitting there with his sick girlfriend.
04:03Now, Roxanne has no idea that Mutt is also being rushed to Providence Health Center, but she heads there anyway.
04:11When Mutt got to the emergency room, he was having serious gastrointestinal problems, lots of pain.
04:18While the doctors were attending to Mutt, doctors in another part of the hospital were attending to Rowena.
04:24They were being treated immediately for some sort of food poisoning.
04:30Meanwhile, as a coincidence, Harold Stieg, a long-time wake-up police officer, was working off-duty as a security guard at the hospital that day.
04:40He heard that Mutt was brought into the hospital. He went to check on him.
04:45Harold had a conversation with Mutt.
04:48Mutt states that he thought he might have been poisoned.
04:51Harold Stieg takes this all in, and Mutt's very high blood pressure and heart rate tell him Mutt could have been poisoned.
05:00He finds Rowena in the next room, and she's slurring her speech and fading in and out of consciousness.
05:06His police instincts kicked in, and Stieg thinks that it needs to be investigated, and contacts the Waco Police Department.
05:14Who would poison these two lovely old people in their home on a Sunday morning?
05:19As Waco police are called to the hospital, Mutt's family hears he's fallen ill.
05:26I got a phone call that he was in the hospital, very serious.
05:31So I flew out immediately to Waco.
05:37Herman Mutt Wilson is my uncle on my mother's side.
05:42He was given that nickname, and it stuck at the police force, but the family never called him Mutt.
05:49He was always Herman.
05:51We were a very, very close-knit family.
05:54Mother was the baby.
05:56Uncle Herman was the middle, and his older brother was Leighton.
06:00The whole family was born in Waco.
06:03Mutt Wilson married his high school sweetheart, Nell Marie, right after graduation, and they were married happily for 60 years.
06:12She worked for the Texas Department of Safety, and he, of course, was the Waco policeman.
06:23Mutt and Nell lived happily in Waco until 1998, when Nell died from an aneurysm.
06:30Poor Mutt was left devastated and alone.
06:35After Nell died, Mutt tried to keep himself busy working as a security guard.
06:40He just talked about how lonely he was and how he'd missed his wife.
06:45I just felt bad for the gentleman.
06:48And so one day I baked my own bread, and I brought some bread and I think some soup over or something,
06:54and just sat and visited with him for a while.
06:56That's when he first told me that he had a girlfriend.
07:00He said her name was Rowena.
07:04She was a nurse.
07:05I'd worked at kind of a nice nursing home just about a mile down the road from where we lived.
07:11I said, how did you meet her?
07:13He said, well, she showed up one day, knocked on the door.
07:17And she says, hi, your wife's a Ledbetter, right?
07:22He said she was, but she's passed.
07:25She's not living anymore.
07:27He said, oh, well, I'm a Ledbetter.
07:31Rowena says her husband of 11 years, Dick Ledbetter, had also just passed.
07:37But Dick and Nell were cousins, and Rowena remembered meeting Mutt at a Ledbetter family reunion.
07:44It wasn't long before sparks were flying, and soon enough, Mutt and Rowena were an item.
07:50Once he met Rowena, he was very happy.
07:54She claimed she was 60.
07:56My Uncle Herman was almost 85.
07:59They kept meeting for coffee at his house, and then she would bring him lunch.
08:06After a little while, she would stay overnight with him, and she would stay a couple of days.
08:13Mutt and Rowena dated for about a year.
08:16She was a good cook.
08:17She was a seamstress.
08:19I know she had a son, and he had children, so Rowena was a grandmother.
08:25Rowena's son and grandchildren came from a prior marriage, and the love she showed for
08:31her family caught Mutt's eye.
08:33She was a doting grandmother to two granddaughters, and I think that endeared her to him even more.
08:40With Mutt and Rowena both being in their later years and both recently losing loved ones,
08:45their friends and family members just thought it was sweet that they found someone that they both could enjoy.
08:51I was hoping that it would be a good relationship for him and her both.
08:59With Waco cops on their way, Mutt's neighbor Roxanne arrives at the hospital to support her friends.
09:07When I got to the ER, I asked to see Rowena, and she was laying on a stretcher in the bed.
09:13I said, hello, Rowena, my name's Roxanne.
09:17I'm Mr. Wilson's neighbor.
09:19She goes, just startles.
09:21And I'm like, oh, that was kind of strange, but I didn't think too much of it.
09:25I looked around the room, and I said, where's Mr. Wilson?
09:29And they said, oh, he's here in the next room.
09:33I didn't think anything negative until I walked into Mr. Wilson's room, and there he is in his own bed.
09:41He looked up at me and he said, she tried to kill me.
09:46I'm thinking, he must know something that I don't know.
09:50At that point, the cops came in and they said, we'd like to talk to Mutt by himself if I would step out, which I did.
09:59He insists that he had been poisoned.
10:02And this time, he says, he believes it was Rowena who poisoned him and may have accidentally poisoned herself.
10:09He says, go search my house. He gives them permission.
10:14Given Mutt's a former Waco PD lieutenant, they trust his word and head straight to his house to take a look around before they even chat with Rowena.
10:24It's always imperative that you get to the scene of the crime as fast as possible to preserve any evidence.
10:31When officers arrive on scene, they take note that there was no forced entry.
10:36The only thing that appears to be out of sorts is the kitchen.
10:40They saw the breakfast dishes half eaten. Looks like a meal had been interrupted. And that's most likely when they got sick and call 911.
10:51Investigators wanted to determine, had that food been tainted? Was it bad? Was it poisoned?
10:58Officers take the leftover food and coffee to be tested and continue checking for evidence.
11:05In the kitchen, investigators located a red purse, which contained a pill bottle.
11:11That pill bottle was prescribed to Rowena.
11:14Now, the police know it's not unusual for someone Rowena's age to have a prescription in her purse.
11:21But whatever's in this bottle is not normal.
11:25That pill bottle was designed to hold pills. It didn't contain pills. It contained a milky, white, liquid substance.
11:34Is this what's caused this medical emergency? Was he in fact poisoned? And is she the one that actually did it?
11:42The police head right back to the hospital with the purse and the pill bottle.
11:48They want to find out from Mudd and Rowena exactly what happened.
11:53Mudd is insisting now more than ever that Rowena poisoned him.
11:58He also makes an outcry that if he dies, he wants an autopsy.
12:05The investigators at that point make their way to Rowena's room.
12:11She seemed to be fine. The investigators show her the pill bottle and she seems surprised that that came out of my purse.
12:21She admits that it's her purse, but she denies that item being hers.
12:31The investigators try to interrogate Rowena more.
12:35She just basically sits there and smiles at them.
12:39It makes them wonder what this sweet old grandma was up to.
12:46An investigation like this, you never want to rule out anything.
12:50She may still be a victim.
12:52She was just a nice down to earth lady. She was polite.
12:56Rowena was not good for him and she was trying to get into his will.
13:00Herman always told me, I'm going to have you one way or the other.
13:05With ex-cop Mudd Wilson claiming he's been poisoned and his girlfriend Rowena Ledbetter saying whatever's in that pill bottle isn't hers.
13:19Detectives just don't know what is and isn't true.
13:23An investigation like this, you never want to rule out anything.
13:27The worst thing you can do is get tunnel vision.
13:30Because at this point, she may still be a victim.
13:33Trying to suss out Mudd and Rowena's current conditions, investigators follow up with their doctors.
13:41Turns out Rowena has slightly elevated blood pressure, but is otherwise fine.
13:47While Mudd's in much rougher shape, his blood pressure and heart rate are both way too high and won't come down.
13:55The doctors treating Mudd still don't really know if he was poisoned or not.
13:59They really don't know what was wrong with him, but they know that it's serious and they were very concerned.
14:04I sat with Mr. Wilson for just about six hours and he seemed to get more and more sleepy and groggy.
14:10And he never asked me about Rowena at all.
14:15I left at six that night when his other neighbor, Mary Willis, came.
14:20Then she sat with him the rest of the evening.
14:23And at that point, his breathing and everything was still good.
14:26And so I was hoping that he was going to make it.
14:33Then at nine o'clock that night, he died.
14:39He had passed away before I could get to Waco.
14:43And it was, it was sad.
14:52Poor Mudd died without ever seeing Rowena again.
14:56She stayed in her room away from him the entire time.
15:00So the doctors and investigators shift to figuring what might have caused Mudd's death.
15:06They suspect it was a stroke.
15:09When Mudd passed, it changes the scope of the investigation to a potential homicide.
15:19I still don't know how this sweet little old lady may play into it.
15:22Was it poison?
15:23Was it intentional?
15:24Was it accidental?
15:25Did Mudd die of some other cause?
15:28There's a lot of unanswered questions that they needed to get to the bottom of.
15:32Mudd's body is sent to Dallas for an autopsy.
15:36And the leftover breakfast and pill bottle are sent for testing.
15:40The results will take a few weeks.
15:43As an investigator, your work doesn't stop while you're waiting on the lab.
15:48You have to continue to put that puzzle together.
15:51About the same time, Mudd's family finally arrives from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
15:57And police speak with them before they circle back with Rowena.
16:02When I arrived into Waco, he had already passed on.
16:06My mother and I both went to his house and the police were already there.
16:11That's when I found out that they were doing an investigation into him being poisoned.
16:20Investigators asked Joanne and her mother if they know what made Mudd think he'd been poisoned.
16:26The ladies have some chilling tales to tell.
16:30Mudd had had similar mystery health scares before.
16:34He started having these spells, they called it.
16:37His generation, they used the term spells.
16:42It was only when she was there that he would have these spells.
16:47And he'd just be so sick.
16:50No energy.
16:51And then it would go away.
16:54And maybe another week, maybe a week and a half, he'd have another.
17:00And this went on for about a month and a half.
17:03He was almost 85.
17:06So I began to wonder, well, why is he getting sick all the time?
17:09He'd never been sick.
17:12Three weeks before Mudd died, he was sent to the hospital with what appeared to be a stroke.
17:18The neighbors called me and said, Herman's in the hospital.
17:23And so I flew out and went to the hospital to visit him.
17:30And he had a black tongue.
17:32I had asked him, what did you eat before you got sick?
17:37And he said, well, Rowena had brought over Sue.
17:41And I said, Uncle Herman, isn't it strange that you only get sick when she's around you?
17:48And I specifically said, if you get sick again and they come to pick you up in an ambulance,
17:56you tell them, I think that she poisoned me, but please stop seeing her.
18:05He said, OK, I agree there's something wrong.
18:10I will stop seeing her.
18:13Well, that lasted maybe a week and a half.
18:16And then she was back in his life.
18:19The morning after Mudd's death, poor Joanne and her family struggle with both the terrible loss
18:26and the likelihood that Mudd's granny girlfriend killed him.
18:30The cops need to talk to Rowena right away.
18:33Investigators returned to the hospital.
18:35They're met by hospital staff and told that she had already checked out after a visit from her husband.
18:44That came as quite a surprise to the investigators because nobody knew that she was married.
18:49Waco police, who are thinking that their former lieutenant, Butt Wilson, was poisoned,
18:59head back to the hospital to speak with his girlfriend, Rowena Ledbetter.
19:03But wouldn't you know it?
19:05She's gone.
19:07And she left with her husband.
19:11Rowena was checked out by her husband, Cecil Forsen, and was taken to another hospital.
19:17Is this man a jealous lover?
19:20Does he know about Mudd?
19:21Does he know where Mudd lives?
19:23Does he have access to that house?
19:25Did he tamper with the food?
19:27You can't force an investigation to fit your narrative.
19:31You have to find out what's going on.
19:34Hospital staff say that Cecil told them he and Rowena have only been married for two months.
19:40With all kinds of new questions swirling, the cops are tempted to shift their focus to Cecil.
19:46But they keep their sights set on Rowena.
19:50After learning that Rowena is actually married and maybe not telling the whole truth about other things,
19:56police just wondered what else this sweet old grandma was to tell the truth about.
20:01What more was there to be learned about Rowena Ledbetter?
20:05Before tracking Rowena down, police speak with Mudd's loved ones to see what they can gather about his relationship with her.
20:14Mudd's neighbors, Mary and Everett Willis, reported to the police that Mudd had to take out a reverse mortgage on his home.
20:21Because he had drained his life savings paying for his wife's medical expenses during her battle with cancer.
20:28Just two short weeks after Mudd received the money from his reverse mortgage, Rowena showed up at the home and a short time later they were involved in a relationship.
20:40Rowena, on multiple occasions, was supposed to move in with Mudd.
20:46However, every time that occasion rolled around, she had an excuse why she couldn't.
20:52One of her main excuses that she leaned on was the fact that had she moved in with him, she would have lost her late husband's retirement and social security.
21:04Mary was pretty negative about Rowena.
21:07Said Rowena was not good for him and she was trying to get into his will.
21:12Mudd's attorney, John Malone, told police that Mudd asked him several times to either put Rowena in the will or take her out.
21:21The final time Mudd and Rowena visited his office, it was two days before Mudd died and the reason they were there was so he could put Rowena back into Mudd's will.
21:32In the final version of his will, Mudd left Rowena the house in spite of his friends' and family's concerns.
21:41Even after we had told him, Uncle Herman, stay away from this lady, something's wrong, he couldn't.
21:49She made him feel like a young man again, that he was worth something.
21:55Investigators from Waco PD received a phone call from Ronnie Rigney, who was Mudd's friend.
22:02Mudd had confided in him that in the days prior to that Sunday morning breakfast that he was having financial troubles.
22:11But part of that was brought on by a white Lincoln town car that he had purchased for Rowena.
22:21Ronnie then shares a surprising new tidbit about Rowena.
22:25Mudd had confided in him that she had been indicted for theft in 2001.
22:32While she was working as a vocational nurse at Ridgecrest Retirement Center, she would enter the rooms of some of these patients and took $20,000 worth of collectibles such as Hummel figurines, pocket watches, jewelry.
22:47She even took a painting off the wall of one of the residents there.
22:52After looking into the public records, police found out that the charges against Rowena remained pending, but the state licensing board revoked her certification to be a nurse.
23:02We don't know what this woman was thinking. All we do know is that who she presented publicly and who she was privately, there's a lot of dissonance there.
23:13A lot of things they found were troubling and it really made them wonder what this woman who appeared to be just a sweet old grandma was up to.
23:21Evidence against Rowena is piling up, but the cops still haven't figured out what's going on with her and Cecil.
23:29They find out that she's back at home in their duplex.
23:33We found out that even though they were married, she lived on one side of the duplex and he lived on the other.
23:40Detectives get eyes on Rowena and ask her to come down to the station.
23:45What do you know? She agrees.
23:48I'd really like to hear, from your standpoint, what happened on that Sunday at the house.
23:59Well aware of Rowena Ledbetter's shady business and rap sheet, Waco police sit her down to have a little chat.
24:09What we know about her is that she seems to be this one person, this nice person, incapable of doing what she's accused of.
24:20But when you start digging in the weeds and you see some of the decisions she's making behind everybody else's back, it's very suspicious.
24:28My name's Detective January.
24:30Yeah.
24:31I'd really like to hear, from your standpoint, what happened on that Sunday at the house.
24:37I went by Herman's. When I got there, he had had a pan of biscuits made, four sausage patties.
24:47He was making some milk gravy.
24:50She conveyed to law enforcement officers that her reason for going to see Mutt that day was to let him know that she wasn't going to move in with him and that she was going to call off the relationship with Mutt.
25:04I said, Herman, our relationship is going to have to end because I'm married, and it's been a problem for me since February, and he got very angry.
25:17First of all, he didn't know you were married.
25:19Till that day.
25:21She told investigators she hadn't informed Mutt about her marriage to Cecil because her and Cecil were having problems.
25:30I told Herman, I said, we've made up.
25:34And I said, I'm not going to be able to live in with you.
25:38As a matter of fact, I'm going to quit coming over here because it's causing me too much problems.
25:45He was over there stirring the milk gravy, and I could tell he was mad.
25:51I set my purse down, went to the bathroom.
25:54He said, well, eat a little bit anyway.
25:56And I said, okay.
25:57Okay.
25:58Rowena continues to tell investigators that she decided to sit down and eat.
26:04I got dizzy.
26:06I got nauseated.
26:07I broke out in a sweat.
26:10I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest.
26:14And I said, Herman, I'm dying.
26:16Call 911.
26:17Something's wrong.
26:18I've never had this feeling before in my life.
26:21I feel like Herman decided he couldn't have me.
26:28And I feel like he poisoned me.
26:31He put poison in my food.
26:35Why would he poison you?
26:36And why would he poison himself?
26:38Because he knew I wasn't coming back.
26:41Because he loved me so much.
26:43He really loved me.
26:45And Herman always told me, I'm going to have you one way or the other.
26:50It's evident that Rowena is laying the groundwork for what appeared to be a murder-suicide initiated by Mutt.
27:00Not buying Rowena's story, including the he said, she said about who made breakfast that morning, Detective January switches things up.
27:12Trying to see if there's any similar funny business with Cecil, he asks about all of her exes.
27:19How many marriages have you had?
27:22I'm thinking I've been married five times.
27:25Okay.
27:26Do you remember your husbands?
27:28Bill Hoover was my first one.
27:29First?
27:30And then I married Arthur Vintansic.
27:31He was your third one.
27:32And then H.C. Deaton.
27:33He's passed away now.
27:35And then I married Kenneth Monk.
27:37And then after that I married Dick Ledbetter.
27:39Dick Ledbetter.
27:40And then I married Cecil Forsen.
27:41And that's it.
27:42You've been married to Cecil since February, so about three months?
27:58About three months.
27:59They met when his former wife was a resident at Ridgecrest Retirement Center.
28:09That's also where Rowena committed theft in 2001.
28:14January asked Rowena why, if she was already married, did she want to be in Herman's will?
28:22Herman and I, we were going to get married in February before I married my husband.
28:26And so I said, Herman, I will move in with you.
28:29I don't want your money.
28:31I said, the only thing I would like is for you just to put the house in my name.
28:38In case something happens to you, I don't want to have to be kicked out.
28:42Herman and I were going to get married.
28:45We took out a marriage license, but I didn't let it go through.
28:49Why?
28:50Because Cecil Forsen, I liked Herman as a friend.
28:57But as far as being in love with Herman, no.
29:01And I never did want to hurt his feelings.
29:05Because he was such a good fellow.
29:09Suddenly the cops have new doubts swirling.
29:12Is it possible she's telling the truth?
29:15And Mutt poisoned them both to frame her?
29:18Or does she have all of them wrapped around her finger?
29:22A person who's been married seven times, you have to wonder, so what is it about them,
29:28perhaps, that they can't stay married?
29:30Does she pick abusive men?
29:32Some women do that.
29:33You know, they go from one abusive relationship to another.
29:36Or is she one who picks men who are vulnerable that she can be in charge of?
29:42And it happens again and again and again.
29:44Why?
29:45What does it say about her?
29:47The amount of calm in her while she was being interviewed, it raises the question,
29:53is she experienced?
29:55Has she done this before?
29:57The police just need more info.
30:00They turn to her loved ones.
30:03Police later interviewed members of Rowena's family, including her granddaughters, Crystal and Michelle.
30:09The granddaughters sing Rowena's praises, saying that she was a great grandmother, a loving person.
30:15What you expect her grandmother to be, they don't believe their grandmother could kill anyone.
30:22The investigators also spoke to Rowena's sister, Patty Krueger, who also sang her praises,
30:28and said that Rowena was a talented and gifted caretaker, she loved people,
30:34and that everything she did was, quote, just perfect.
30:37The contrasting portraits they were getting of Rowena left them wondering if they were on the right track.
30:44Waco police decided to dig into the background of Rowena's seven prior marriages,
30:50and a lot of the things they found were troubling.
30:54Of course, now, Waco police hear only rave reviews of Rowena from her family.
31:07They decide it's time to dig deeper into her exes.
31:11The fact that she's been married that many times tells us that there's something wrong with the way she attaches to people.
31:17What was it about those other relationships? How did they go bad?
31:21One of those marriages was to a man named Kenneth Malk.
31:26My father met Rowena in 1983. They were married in 1984.
31:32I knew she had her son, Billy, and Billy had daughters, so she did have grandchildren.
31:39I liked everything about her. She was just a nice, down-to-earth lady.
31:43She was polite. She seemed to be always there. She needed something.
31:47When I re-enlisted in the Marine Corps and went on deployment on ship to the Mediterranean,
31:53there were two times that she baked cookies and sent them out.
31:58That was very thoughtful of her.
32:01Despite a happy start for the new family, it wasn't long before Kenneth decided Rowena couldn't be trusted.
32:09She was forging my dad's name on credit card applications.
32:15My dad did not like credit cards. He paid everything in cash.
32:20When he found out about it, that was just a non-trust issue, and once you have a non-trust, it's time to move on.
32:30That's when he started the divorce proceedings.
32:33When I found out why I got divorced, I was in shock. It just didn't seem like her.
32:38After the divorce in 1986, the Malks decidedly did not keep in touch with Rowena.
32:46But news of Mutt's death travels, and the family of her next husband, Dick Ledbetter, has a few allegations of their own.
32:55Dick Ledbetter's son, Phil, contacts authorities with the concerns that his father may have also been poisoned.
33:04Phil told police that his father married Rowena seven months after his mother died, and he was shocked at how quickly his father remarried.
33:17Dick's former wife was a resident at Ridgecrest Retirement Center where Rowena was employed as a vocational nurse.
33:26Phil said that after his father married Rowena, his father grew more and more isolated.
33:32Phil stated that his father would get sick, go to the hospital, return to Rowena, get sick again, and that cycle continued over and over.
33:45And then following his father's death, Rowena took everything, heirlooms, purple hearts, things that mattered to the family.
33:54Rowena walked off with them and kept them.
33:57As an investigator, you have to take allegations like this seriously.
34:02Almost always older women who kill do so in nonviolent means.
34:06Poisoning is a prime example of how you can kill somebody nonviolently.
34:11And if in her history, she had success in gaining material things from men, and it worked, and she was able to move on to another relationship, she's going to feel rewarded.
34:25And it keeps her moving along that same path.
34:28With Rowena once again in the hot seat, investigators finally speak with her current hubby, Cecil.
34:36They want to know what, if anything, he knows.
34:39Cecil told police that he was shocked to learn that she was seeing another man.
34:45Cecil says that he had absolutely no knowledge of Mutt until Rowena and Mutt were hospitalized at the same time.
34:54Cecil is embarrassed to death because here he is married to the woman suspected of poisoning her boyfriend.
35:02He felt tricked, and he had planned to file for divorce immediately.
35:08Investigators can't link Cecil forced into Mutt or the crime scene or any involvement at all.
35:16Investigators decided at that point Cecil was no longer a person of interest in this case.
35:21With the now very real possibility that Mutt isn't Rowena's first victim, police are desperate for those test results to prove that she poisoned him.
35:32On May 17th, investigators were made aware that the results of the toxicology were available.
35:39It was determined that the food samples and the coffee samples contained a high concentration of a poison called bendiocarb.
35:49It was also discovered that tissue samples taken from mud contained the same poison.
35:58Lastly, the milky white substance in the pill bottle located in Rowena's purse was determined to be bendiocarb.
36:07They take that bendiocarb, and they want to know where it comes from.
36:14They find out that one of the places it comes from is Vicam W, which is an insecticide used to kill fire ants as well as other critters.
36:26On May 22nd, the medical examiner's report lists Mutt Wilson's death as insecticide poisoning and considers the manner of death a homicide.
36:41The following day, Rowena Ledbetter is arrested for the murder of Mutt Wilson.
36:47I thought, what a relief.
36:50So now, we know what killed him, and we know she's going to be convicted.
36:58At least, we hoped.
37:01Once Rowena's arrested, the case lands on Senior Prosecutor Mike Freeman's desk.
37:08But Mike thinks they're missing a key piece of evidence.
37:12We had the poison in the food, we had it in the pill bottle.
37:16The pill bottle being in her purse is a connection, but I want a strong connection.
37:21I want the jury to be convinced beyond all reasonable doubt.
37:24The only way that you could establish that as the ultimate poison was to have her acquiring it.
37:31We had to put the chemical in her hands.
37:35In order to eliminate all reasonable doubt that Rowena Ledbetter is guilty,
37:47prosecutor Mike Freeman needs proof that she intentionally acquired the poison she used on Mutt.
37:54The police department begins to search, where can we locate Bendio Garber via Cam W that is attached to Rowena's name.
38:06They get a call, and the call is from a guy named Brad Hyman at Estes Incorporated.
38:13He says, I've looked into our records that show that Rowena Ledbetter purchased by Cam W in late 1999 and 2000.
38:23There were three boxes of it, each box containing 10 packets that puts the chemical in her hands.
38:32This is the key to proving this case.
38:36Once they linked that poison to Rowena, police and prosecutors decide to circle back and see if maybe Dick Ledbetter was poisoned too.
38:46Mr. Ledbetter's body was exhumed, and the police said the results were inconclusive.
38:55We just couldn't come up with enough evidence to prosecute that case.
38:59It's an unfortunate setback with Dick Ledbetter, but Rowena's trial for Mutt's murder begins,
39:06and in opening statements, her defense is clear.
39:09Defense attorney John Donahue tells the jury Rowena's version of what happened that day.
39:15Mutt was suicidally depressed after the death of his wife, and learning that Rowena was married, Mutt actually had it poisoned her,
39:25and framed her as only an experienced law enforcement officer could do that.
39:30The only information defense gave the jury was that she's a good grandmother, she's a good mother,
39:38and she sat there mildly smiling the entire time.
39:44But it just really didn't touch upon the events of the case.
39:48Once the prosecution and defense finish their arguments, the jury heads off to deliberate.
39:55The jury in Rowena Ledbetter's case deliberates 30 minutes before coming back with their verdict.
40:04I was sitting there next to Detective January, and they announced guilty.
40:09And I can remember just so relieved and glad that my hand landed on poor Detective January's leg, and I was squeezing it.
40:22Bless his heart.
40:24Just relieved, excited, and glad that the jury could see the evil in this lady.
40:32It didn't take them long to come back with a life sentence.
40:39I was glad when she was given life in prison, because I wanted her to sit there in prison and suffer for the rest of her life.
40:51But she didn't suffer long enough.
40:58Just months after Rowena being sentenced to life in prison, Rowena died by choking on her own vomit at Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
41:07The report from the penitentiary where she was held indicated that she died from choking while consuming food.
41:14With Rowena dead, everyone in her destructive path is left behind to deal with the terrible aftermath.
41:30My brother or my dad told me that she had passed away in prison and the reason that she was there.
41:39That was hard for me to believe that the lady I knew those few years when she was married to my father would actually commit murder.
41:52We did bury him with his police hat on his chest.
41:59He loved the police force to the end all his life.
42:04That's what he lived for.
42:07When I was sitting with Mr. Wilson at the hospital, he talked about his faith and that everything would be okay.
42:13He knew he was going to heaven and he'd see his wife again.
42:19It really angers me when someone like Rowena will be so manipulative and come and take advantage of a poor old man who has just lost a wife of 60 years.
42:32That is really a despicable thing for me to see someone doing something like that.
42:38Not a good grandmother.
42:40Never forget to say once in her house.
42:41My dad asked me digression.
42:42I had no idea about my sister thanks.
42:44I opened my life just to stop knowing him.
42:45I went there to meet my thinking for the day and camp in the rest.
42:47I came here to see my friend that comes to a my son.
42:48He had no idea about the novel out.
42:50I can't see him.
42:52I was sleeping before it came out, but I felt some enough.
42:54I walked up going.
42:55I was slicked her from his muf from my head .
42:57He's still alive when she came back from my head.
42:58He died.
42:59This was interesting too late.
43:00One day is heading for me to check with Them at the center boc.
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