Episode 528: The Murders of Stan Farr and Andrea Wilborn

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna, I'm Ash.

And this is morbid.

It's Covid-free, morbid.

I got hit with like this gnarly wave of nausea and I was like, Drew, we have to go home, we have to go home. And then I took a Covid test and it said, nope. And then I took another one this morning to be safe. And it was like, No girl, you don't have Covid.

It was like, you don't have Covid, you don't have it, go to work, yeah, and I was like, okay.

No, I've been happy to come to work this week. Yeah, this week. No, I'm just kidding just this week.

I'm just kidding, No, like, you know what I mean when you get back from vacay and you're like, Oh, I'll work, Yeah, yeah.

Vacation, vacation, vacation, all right well.

But yeah, so Covid-free up in here. I was going to say, Do you have, like, any other news about your life? Uh, no, except for the fact that, um, I don't think he'll be listening for a long time to this because he started at the beginning. But Will Friedle, from Boy Meets World, also had Covid at the same time, so we were Covid buddies.

You guys were Covid brothers, Yeah, we were Covid brothers and so shout out to him whenever you get to this episode.

Shout out to Will I think he was probably going to listen to, like some of the more recent ones, to hear his shout out. Oh yeah, so here's another shout out, here's another one, Will.

Yeah, for having Covid. Double shout outs for you, I feel like that's only fair to shout people out when you have Covid at the same time.

It's true, you know, you know, Covid brothers, Covid brothers.

Yeah, don't get it guys, it's not great. why would you? It is not great.

I don't know why you made that choice in life, Helena. I don't either. Bizarre choice. It was not awesome, but, you know, Covid free.

Feeling good, Covid free? Yay, I don't really have any news since I last spoke to anybody, yeah.

I'm trying to think, yeah, it's been, it's really just been a convalescing time up in this house, so yeah.

I just been trying to get my life together back at home. My house is a fucking wreck, get my life together between. Like, the getting married thing of it all. Like, my house got super messy during that, because, like, there's just fucking piles of wedding shit everywhere.

And then we left and then we came back and we were like, Whoa, we should do something about this, and you said, Nah, it's very overwhelming. Mostly, Drew's doing something about it, so like, shout out to him.

Shout out to Drew Yay, hell yeah, yay, yay.

But yeah, other than my house being a mess, I don't really have any updates. No, I have a case for you today that it's a very interesting case. I had actually never heard of it before, and I was looking for new cases. And I found it. And I was like, Oh, I'll cover that.

And then Dave was like, Whoa, that was a wild one to cover. I love the journey that that just took. Yeah, I'm glad, like I was looking for cases to cover and I found it.

Yeah, and this is it, this is it. There you go, all done.

I'm just kidding. From beginning to end. That's how the sausage is made, that's pretty much how the sausage was made. I was looking for a case and I found one, and then I put the casing, the sausage casing.

And the sausage casing? And here it is. Yeah, yay, yeah, well, yeah, that's what I did.

And Dave helped, so shout out to him. But this is the, uh, it's a double murder. Unfortunately, it's the murders of Stan Farr and Andrea Wilborn. I don't think I've heard of this.

Yeah, I was surprised that I hadn't, because it's the basis for, like, a pretty popular television show, really. Yeah, um, Dallas, the soap opera.

Yeah, okay, I never watched Dallas, nor did I, but I know of it.

And now I kind of want to watch it, I don't, but okay, I but.

Okay, because it seems like something that you would watch, but I remember it was like a huge thing in the 80s. Yeah, yeah.

It was like Dallas was like the the shit the like super drama. Yes, so, and you can, you'll see why at the end of this. But at the center of these two murders is there's a couple of people. But at the at the center that we're going to start is Priscilla Lee Childers.

She was born July 30th, 1941, in Dublin, Texas, not Ireland, to be clear, and Dublin, Texas, is a small town right outside of Houston. Now, her mother, Audie Lee, already had two children, both boys, and Audie was just going through it. Trying to raise her kids as a single parent after she was abandoned by her husband shortly after Priscilla was born, Oh boy.

He was like, Oh, we have three kids now. Bye cool, can you imagine love that?

So with her, uh, with help from her brother Guy, Audie did her best to raise the kids right and pass down a love of arts and culture that she had developed herself when she was a kid. And as a result, little Priscilla was enrolled in dance and piano classes at an early age. Which, that's fucking awesome that her mom's a single mom and still figured out how to make that happen. Yeah, it's hard enough when you have a village to help. Yeah, exactly.

But she was also encouraged to focus on her studies and get good grades so that she could have a better life than what her mom had had. And what was really available for most young women in this rural part of Texas? So in 1956, when she was 16 years old, Priscilla found what she thought was a way out of Dublin in the form of 19 year old. Jasper Baker, Jasper Baker. What a name, Jasper Baker.

Now, despite her young age, Priscilla fell desperately in love with Jasper Baker. I feel like you just have to say both of his names, you do. you can't just say Jasper, no.

And before long, they decided to get married. Just 10 days before her 17th birthday, she gave birth to their daughter. Oh wow, Angela D, who they simply called D, which I think is like a really cute little nickname, Angela D.

That's cute. But unfortunately, it seemed like things really happened super quickly and then fizzled out as quickly as they had started. Things quickly turned bad between the two of them. And, like her own father had done, he abandoned her not long after she had the baby. Oh, fuck you, Jasper.

Yeah, which forced her to move back into her mother's house in Dublin, which is where she was trying to get out of. Yeah, not because she had a bad relationship with her mom, she just wanted more.

She wanted more now. It didn't take long before Priscilla had found another way out of Dublin, this time with a man named Jack Wilborn. Unlike Jasper, Jack was mature. He was actually 19 years older than Priscilla, and he owned a used car business in the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas.

So in 1960, Jack and Priscilla, after they had fallen in love, got married. They moved into a new house in Fort Worth. And at first, things were like a dream. Priscilla wasn't even 20 years old, she already had a husband, a maid, a really nice house in the suburbs.

And within a year, she gave birth to their first child, Jack Jr.

Who they referred to as Jackie, and then he was followed in 1964 by her third and final child, a girl they named Andrea Lee. Okay, now. From the outside, Priscilla and Jack's marriage really seemed ideal. They had a stable income.

He owned that business. They had great kids, and they were members of one of the nicest country clubs in the state. Uh-oh, I know.

I just feel like there's too much good happening. Yeah, I feel like whenever it starts with a country club, too, it's just like, imperfect. It can go south quick, yeah.

I mean, it can always go well at the Country club too, of course, but I've never been there. But what people didn't see from the outside was that Jack and Priscilla had been drifting apart for quite some time, according to Priscilla. Not long after Andrea was born, Jack became verbally and emotionally abusive towards her. She told a friend, Greg Brown I could never do anything right. I used to go out on the swing in the backyard and just cry at night.

Oh, that's so sad. Which, like, you have three kids. You finally got your way out and you think you have this and you're just on a swing. Crying. Yeah, like, you think you have this fairytale life. And then he just changes like, and gets so dark all of a sudden. That must be so lonely.

Now the problem, it seemed, was that, while she had no trouble staying busy, three children and a husband, that saw to the fact that she would stay busy. Priscilla didn't really have any identity aside from being a wife and a mother, and that was not the only identity she wanted to have. She was seeking. Yes, she had never finished high school.

She never received really any kind of specialized training, she really didn't have any marketable skills. Because she was 17 when she married her first husband. So she was super dependent, exactly, she was dependent on Jack for almost everything.

So, in order to combat the growing anxiety and the depression that she was starting to feel, she decided, You know what? I'm going to reinvent myself. Which, like, I love, I love a little like a reinvention moment, you know? She grew her hair longer than it had ever been, She dyed it platinum blonde.

Oh wow, she's gorgeous. If you google a picture of her, she's beautiful. She wore heavy, a lot heavier makeup than what most Texas housewives were wearing at the time, and she started dressing in what could be considered more youthful and revealing outfits.

They weren't really up to the women of Texas's standards at the time. Oh, please. But she was living, she was living her best life, according to Greg Brown, who wrote Texas Tragedy. The story of Priscilla Davis Priscilla quote resembled the then sex symbol Bridgette Bardot.

Oh wow, she is beautiful, isn't she? so pretty damn? And he said, She looked like Bridgette Bardot, who I also think is like, unbelievably gorgeous.

Truth? But she didn't really look like, you know, a homemaker, the mother of three young kids, anymore. Like what people thought that should look like. That's so absurd, of course it is. Now. Whether the aesthetic changes helped her to feel more satisfied with her life, it's kind of unknown.

But they definitely caused her to get noticed by men other than Jack Skip, Hollinsworth of The New York Times wrote. Each spring, at the Colonial National Invitational Golf tournament in Fort Worth, hordes of men would gather around. And this is so gross. Just to get a peek at what they fondly described as her balcony, which I'm assuming is her chest. Everybody needs to get it together. Oh my God, you gotta get it together.

Guys, because that's, that's gross, why don't you just say, like, she's beautiful? Yeah, I just wanted a chance to admire her beauty.

To admire her beauty because she's beautiful. Yeah, I wanted to see her balcony, I wanted to look at her tits.

Go watch porn, asshole, be quiet about it, like, you're an asshole, like, What the fuck? Yeah, that's really gross.

And it's like hordes of men gathering around to, like, just ugh, like, lure at her balcony. What the fuck are you doing? calling it a balcony? That's just dumb? There's so many problems here, many.

Ugh, now. One day in 1967, during a mixed doubles games on the courts of I think it's Ridgely Country Club, Priscilla met a new admirer, young oil tycoon. Cullen Davis. That's a name, Cullen Davis, that's a name.

Lots of she's a, she's a got a thing for names. I think, yeah, you gotta pick a strong name, yeah, now. Despite being a complete stranger to Priscilla, Cullen was very well known in and around Fort Worth as the son of Kenneth Stinky Davis Oof.

They called him Stinky. What a name. Yeah, I don't know what a nickname. That's something.

Came from somewhere, sure, did. I don't really know if I want to know where. I don't at all. But Stinky Davis was one of Fort Worth's wealthiest oil men.

You can't not laugh when you say that, but he was, he got a lot of fucking money, and after graduating from Texas, you need to have a lot of money. If your nickname is Stinky, if you're going to go by Stinky Davis, you better have some money.

You need something going for you, you need something now. After graduating from Texas A&M University around 1955, Cullen returned home to Fort Worth and went to work for his father's and his family's oil business. In 1962, he got married to his first wife, Sandra. And actually, that day in 1967, during that mixed doubles game, he and his wife, Sandra, were playing against Priscilla and her friend.

Oh, and that's how he met Priscilla, Oh, with his wife, with his wife, who he was married to.

Oh, but that marriage was never really a happy marriage, and Sandra went through a lot. We will come to see, Oh.

According to Skip Hollinsworth, Cullen was best known around Fort Worth for his way with women, and his marriage to Sandra never really stopped him from pursuing women. So he's a pig, he is something so cullen and Sandra Davis. They had wealth, they had status, and with their two boys, they made for a very respectable family from the outside.

But at 34 years old, he's thinking, you know, he's this young buck. Respectability and stability weren't really what he wanted, which, like, by the time I'm 34, I would love some respectability and stability. But what he was after was passion and adventure. You can have all of that, yeah.

Why can't you have all of that together? You can be passionate and adventure, and still be stable and respectable. Yeah, like, why not? yeah?

But apparently not in Cullen's mind. Later, after he divorced, Sandra Cullen would tell the press that he'd only married his first wife. Quote Because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. That's what every woman wants to hear. Yeah, and it's like, you have two children.

Like, and why would you ever say that about the mother of your children? It's like, come on, knowing that your children could hear that, you just don't need to say that, yeah.

Now it seems that Cullen, though, and Priscilla had been having similar existential crises, and each was seeking to shake up their lives. So they kind of met during a time where it was a perfect storm brewing. Yeah, I was going to say, Yeah, no, she hadn't exactly been looking to have an outright affair.

But after their meeting on the tennis courts, Priscilla and Cullen did start seeing each other regularly. But secretly, they were meeting at Green Oaks Inn in Fort Worth. To, you know, keep everything hush hush. In early 1968, Cullen suggested that they take a trip to Acapulco. Is it? Yeah, Acapulco?

Okay, thank you. They wanted to go there for the weekend, but unbeknownst to them. Jack Wilborn had a sneaking suspicion that his wife was seeing somebody else, and in late December, he hired a private detective to follow Priscilla. Uh-oh.

Now, the private detective reported back to him about this trip to Acapulco. And Jack, in turn, called Sandra Davis and informed her that her husband was fucking around on her with his wife. I mean, so, in case you're not following. Jack is married to Priscilla, but Priscilla is seeing Cullen, who's married to Sandra, and Jack calls Sandra. And is like, we should probably team up here because our spouses are cheating on us precisely.

And together, they did team up, they went full VH1 cheaters with a private investigator. They all, including the PI, devised a plan to wait at the airport for the plane to arrive for Mexico and then follow the car to Green Oaks Inn. Where they decided they would surprise them and put an end to the love affair, or so, they thought, that's pretty, uh, hilarious, yeah.

Like that is.

That's I love that method, I think that's great exposed.

Exposed? I think it's great, I'm into it. It's just like you call the other one and you're like, Well, we're both in a similar spot here. So, and at that point when you've been wronged to that extent, like, why not get a little bit of enjoyment out of the exposure at all?

Yeah, well, and you're both showing up and being like, we both know, yeah, so it's all out in the open. Exactly no more like this person knows, or that person knows, or this person doesn't know this part, or....

Nope, we all know we're on the same page. Everything's out here, all the dirty laundry right on the line.

Yeah.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling. And it's all these girls with a diagnosis. The state tried to keep on the down-low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, no, it's hysteria, it's all in your head.

It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here?

Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police coverup, if you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a coverup to prevent one of their own from going down.

Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case. In Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

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Now, it was late when the plane arrived in Fort Worth, but Jack, Sandra and the PI there waited. And they followed Priscilla and Cullen to the Green Oaks, where they checked in a little after midnight. A few hours later, while they slept, the door to Cullen and Priscilla's room burst open. And they were shocked to find their respective spouses and a man that they didn't know standing before the bed, yikes. It was unclear exactly how they like the PI and busted open that door. Jack and Sandra were able to get in there, but they didn't.

Priscilla jumped from the bed and ran to the bathroom, trying to hide, but it was too late. I was going to say, that's not going to work. The private investigator had already managed to take several photos of the couple in bed together, and a messy divorce was soon to follow. Now, at first, I was like, Why the fuck would you take pictures for the divorce?

For the divorce, Yeah, because I was like, that's kind of weird, that's proof, yeah.

It's just like here it is. It's not just irreconcilable differences now. Shortly after the affairs were exposed, Jack Wilbourn and Sandra Cullen both filed for divorce for divorce. Goodbye.

For divorce, I'm filing for divorce, I'm filing for divorce on you. I would not be married to you.

It's wild, too, because usually people in these, like older stories and stuff that you'll hear, you'll like at least one of them, doesn't divorce. Yeah, like this wild thing, you know, like, there's always I want to stay. And you're thinking, it's going to be like, Oh, they're going to try to work it out. But this one's just like it's pretty cut and dry.

They're both just like, Nope, well, because Cullen already wasn't treating Sandra very well at all. No, and I think Jack and Priscilla, Priscilla and Jack weren't happy, so it was like, I don't think any love was lost here.

I think it was just betrayal. Yes, big time, which is not cool. No, it's like, just get divorced.

That's a thing right now. Priscilla immediately moved out of the house, and she was put up by Cullen in a large apartment in a Fort Worth high rise, while Jack retained custody of the children. Oh, wow.

Sandra also had no intention of making the divorce easy for Cullen. In court, she quote, accused Cullen of slapping her in public, beating her in private until she had bruises covering her face. Whoa, yeah, and then he does that shit.

Yeah, yeah, and then he does some other shit that you're like, you're just a violent man. Yeah, yeah.

She also accused him of extensive infidelity and neglect, and claimed that was justification for a large alimony and child support, as well as full custody of their two kids. Which, like, Go for it all, baby, yeah, go for it all, Sandra for everything. Cullen never challenged her for custody or even seemed to care that he wasn't going to see his children anymore.

But the alimony, that's gross. The alimony was another matter entirely. Yeah, of course, fight for your money, screw the kids, but that's really gross.

Fight for the money. Yeah, that's really gross, he's nasty, that's like, shameful.

He's nasty. The divorces were granted that summer, but Cullen would spend the next 30 years fighting Sandra in court over the financial settlement. Jesus. Now free of their previous relationships, though, Priscilla and Cullen wasted no time formalizing their own relationship, and they got married on August 29th, 1968. Okay.

That date was doubly significant for Cullen, as it was the day that his father, Kenneth Davis, died. Died on his wedding day. Oh, leaving his entire oil empire to Cullen and Cullen's two brothers, damn.

At the time of Kenneth Davis's death, his company, Ken Davis Industries International, was earning roughly $300 million a year. What the fuck back then, today today?

That would mean they were earning $2.

5 billion per year, yeah, in a lifetime, that's inconceivable.

Oh my, yeah, you can't even get the word out. I kept thinking, unthinkable, but I was like, something is more intense than that. Inconceivable, inconceivable. But in a year?

$2.

5 billion? I always think about that with billionaires. I'm like, that's just like my brain won't conceive of that much money, even existing, never mind someone having it. It's just wild to me, it just feels like it's not real. And I think at some point, people that even have that money, they don't even can't conceive of it.

Really conceive it? Yeah, damn crazy. That's unbelievable. In the years that followed, Cullen and his brothers increased that revenue to more than $1 billion annually.

Damn, so they were making even more, like they were making crazy money, like unthinkable, inconceivable money to use both of your words, damn. But his one third ownership made Cullen obviously one of the wealthiest men in Texas. And unlike his conservative father and brothers, he didn't really see any good reason not to put that wealth to good use. Or his view of good use?

He and Priscilla Priscilla, excuse me, spent $6 million to build their new home, Stonegate Mansion Stonegate Mansion Stonegate Mansion in Fort Worth. The place had five bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, an indoor pool, and this fucking sent me a 2,000 square foot master bedroom.

That's a house that is literally bigger than my house. that's a house that is larger than my entire house, like 2,000 square feet for your bedroom.

Why do you need that for a bedroom? I can't even picture that. How? What activities are you planning to undertake lots?

In that bedroom.

Allegedly, lots went down there. Oh, okay, so they needed the space. Yes, but it was, it was, it was the rumors, rumors.

If you're a fan of Salt Lake City, you'll get that. But they also purchased a ton of artwork that was all scattered throughout the house and collectively valued at close to $3 million. Back then. Holy shit. So like a billion now, probably pretty soon after moving in, this is this is a lot. Colin commissioned a six by eight foot oil painting of him and Priscilla to hang in the foyer.

That is the most humble of men, that's the most oil tycoon shit I've ever heard. Six by eight feet, it was literally bigger than John. that painting was bigger than John.

A bigger than John painting of you and your spouse, like, Shit, just shit, shit, shit.

That's such oil tycoon behavior. I was like, Wow, like, it's just any. Like commissioning an oil painting of you and your spouse wild, I just think about it like commissioning an oil painting of like of me and John, just like.

Please do, please do. Hanging in your foyer. Do you even have a foyer? what's a fucking foyer?

Is that like the entryway to your house, your foyer? I think it is, yeah, yeah.

Just like they, in case you didn't know whose house you were in. Boom, it's like, here we are in oil form, the humble of it all.

Mikey just was right, Mikey just said, That's some Schitt's Creek shit, that is some Schitt's Creek shit, that really is, see. And it didn't work out for them either.

That's very true. They also bought a skybox at Texas Stadium, which Priscilla decorated entirely in pink. And my note on that, so my note on, you can decorate a box, I think, if you own it outright.

Oh shit, I didn't even know that. My note for the oil painting was Humble Man's, but my note for decorating that exclusively in pink respect, I love it. He lavished her in all the clothing that she could have ever dreamed of, and expensive jewelry, including a necklace with the phrase rich bitch spelled out in diamonds.

This isn't real, this is Dallas. Like now I know how that was after this. No, literally it was.

I also would like to inform you that Dave and I are getting matching necklaces that say, Rich bitch. We decided, Yeah, are we rich bitches? No.

Are we going to wear rich bitch necklaces? Yes, can you imagine actually purchasing that rich bitch? And like, you're like, imagine John gets you a gift. And you open it up and you like the wrapping paper. You peel it back and you see, oh, like, it's this long box.

It probably has like this beautiful jewelry in it, you open it and it's a fucking necklace that spells out Rich bitch in diamonds. Can you imagine I'd be like, What does this mean?

What does it mean? What does it mean? I'm sure Priscilla was just like, Hell, yeah, yeah.

Priscilla hugging you on that shit. When you have billions and billions, you're like, yup, rich bitch. That's part of my genome at this point. So like, let's go, Dave and I were crying about this.

That is amazing, yeah, uh. Other purchases included a learjet, you know, an apartment. Oh, just a learjet, just a jet.

Yeah, an apartment at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, and lots and lots and lots of European vacations. Holy shit now. Eventually, the rather lavish and decadent lifestyle that Cullen and Priscilla were living really would become common among Texas high society. And, like I was saying, serve as the basis for the soap opera Dallas.

Makes sense. But in the late 60s and early 70s, their displays of wealth at this time were still considered. Very gauche, very gauche, very gauche. I love that word.

I do, too. Among the old guard of Dallas-Fort, worth oil money. They were all turning their fucking noses up to that. Like, what are you doing with your rich bitch necklace? Because that's because, you know what their way of doing rich was, hush, hush.

Is so like Priscilla and Cullen's is so it is gauche, and it's like, so tacky, it's like right in your face. And all these older money ones are like, the are like the Gilmore's, you know, bitch, where it's like, I literally make Gilmore girls references later.

Because it's like, they, you know, they're rich, like you look at Emily and Richard, and you're like, Yeah, you got money, yeah, but it's like that old money.

Right, you know, like it looks like that old money, yes, that's like just like old world, kind of, kind of decorating and shit, exactly.

It's so funny because, literally, like the next two sentences after that, I wrote an Emily Gilmore reference. Another thing I can always compare anything back to is Gilmore girls. It's true, and I got that from you, you did.

Because you gave me your love of Gilmore girls. But yeah, so everybody was like, Yeah, you're being real gauche. And most of the society. Women quietly resented having to welcome, you know, the one-time wife of a used car salesman into the fold. And they felt that Priscilla probably slept her way up to the top, and, you know, made her way up that social ladder by doing so. Which reminded me of Emily and the Dar ladies in Gilmore Girls.

That's very much when they in the movie, the new one, or in the reboot. Yep, yeah.

When they like, shit all over that girl and then Emily's like, here's the thing, Emily's like, you're not going to get in. Like, they're going to talk shit about you, and then they're not going to let you in. It's what we do.

Like, Yeah, it's so true, but I immediately saw that everybody's got to stop worrying about everybody else, yeah.

Just fuck off, everybody's just worried about your own shit, live your own life. You only have one, presumably.

You all have it like these, these women all have money, it's like you're all living. Yeah, so just shut the fuck up.

Live your way, let the other person live their way, talk, I mean, talk about it quietly, like, whatever.

That's okay, you want to talk shit to each other. But like, there's no reason to be like, nasty, No, that's the thing. You don't need to be nasty about anything, it's just it's not nice to be nasty.

Worry about your own nose. But they weren't alone, these ladies. Eventually, Cullen's brother, Bill, actually ended up filing a lawsuit against him, uh oh, claiming that Cullen had quote run up personal debts of at least $16 million back then.

How does that happen? And was using Ken Davis's, like the company's assets, as collateral for obtaining personal loans. What does he need loans for? That's the other thing. I have no fucking idea.

What the fuck is going on here? I think I think he was spending, I mean, yeah, like, clearly unfathomable amounts of money now. The suit was eventually settled, and Bill actually bought his share out of the company.

But by that point, his relationship with Cullen, his brother, was completely destroyed, beyond repair. Now, really, never. Having been one for working, Priscilla instead filled her days spending money and becoming, what somebody might say, is a trophy wife, a symbol of Cullen Davis's success. And she was happy to be one. Yeah, as long as she was fine with it.

At that point, at his request, she completed her physical transformation by getting a boob job There You Go, which only made her less welcome in the eyes of Dallas Fort Worth society. Because they were like, fake tits, never.

Who gives a shit about people's tits? I was like, bitch, if I could get a boob job, I would get a boob job. Leave people's boobs alone. My boobs are my boobs shut up about them. So one friend told Greg Brown she was known in Fort Worth but not socially accepted because, and this was a quote. They all thought she was a whore.

She's just like, really mean. But it didn't really seem like Priscilla was interested in trying to fit in with those women who shunned her. Rather than, you know, try to integrate herself into a group who never wanted her in the first place. Yeah, fuck that she was like, Fuck y'all.

I deal with that on the REG. Don't try to be friends with people who don't want to be friends with you. Man. No, it's not worth it. She was like, I can just spend my days planning vacations and decorating and redecorating my mansion. Yeah, there you go.

And she loved to plan for the one social event of the year that she really did enjoy. The annual Colonial Invitational Golf tournament that was like her favorite event of the year. Now, while Colin liked having a beautiful wife on his arm, that didn't keep him from getting jealous whenever the press paid more attention to Priscilla than they did to him. And after a year or two of marriage, the adventure and excitement of the early days of their relationship did begin to wear off. And Colin's less attractive qualities shone brighter than they had when they first met.

And I just want to give everybody a trigger warning here for domestic abuse. At first, the abuse was verbal and emotional, much like what she went through with her previous husband. But it didn't take long for the abuse with Colin to become physical. One night at the apartment Colin kept in Dallas, he and Priscilla got into a trivial argument that just became more and more heated over time. And without warning. He punched her in the face several times, breaking her nose.

Oh, fuck him, broke her nose. Are you kidding me? No, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?

You punch a woman in the face once, breaking her nose, oh my god, and then multiple times and break her nose. Yeah, he sounds like a, and this is the same guy who abandoned his children, so this is not shocking.

No, now. Sadly, Priscilla was not the only one who suffered Colin's abuse. And I want to give another trigger warning here for domestic abuse and also animal abuse. It's going to be quick because I can't even deal. Priscilla's daughter, Dee, moved in with her mother shortly after Priscilla had divorced from Jack.

She was also a frequent target for her stepbrother's rage. Oh, this makes me so angry. One night after Dee had gone to bed, she was woken up in the night by Colin, who walked her down back down to the kitchen and berated her for forgetting to lock one of the doors before going to bed. What the fuck is like this guy needs..?

Like, he's on a power trip. Ugh, what a hottie. When he asked whether she knew why it was important to lock doors, like he was very clearly being very patronizing, Dee gave a flippant answer. And she was just like, I don't know. So people don't steal your junk. And that infuriated him to the point that he hit her in the face.

My God, so. Priscilla heard her daughter scream, and she ran down into the kitchen carrying their newly acquired kitten in her arms, and Colin was still infuriated. He grabbed the cat and slammed it on the kitchen floor and did it over and over again until the cat passed away. That guy needs to be locked away, he's a fucking animal.

He's an animal, an animal. that's animal behavior, like I almost cried, just thinking about it, That's animal behavior.

And then I literally went around to all my cats and pet them because I was like, I can't imagine that. So let me get this straight, you abandoned your children, yep, after being physically abusive to their mother.

Yeah, after being physically abusive to their mother. You have punched your new wife in the face several times, breaking her nose. You have hit her daughter, not even your biological daughter, in the face. And now you have killed a kitten.

Yep.

Like, what else is there? like, what else is there? Oh, you'll see, are you kidding me? No.

Years later, in an interview with A&E, Colin acknowledged this incident, saying I killed the cat. I admit it it was a dumb thing to do, but Dee had smarted off to me. Oh, get so fucked, you little bitch of a man.

I shouldn't have killed the cat, but it was the kid's fault for not locking the door. The kid smarted off to me. Shut the fuck up, so that made you kill a fucking animal, what the fuck?

Shut the fuck up, Colin, this guy is a piece of garbage now. Those instances of domestic and animal abuse, unfortunately, did not dissolve the relationship between Priscilla and Colin. And she still tried her best to keep up outward appearances. In lieu of acceptance into Texas High Society, they took vacations and extended stays in places like Vegas and Palm Springs.

And they actually started socializing with stars, some being Kenny Rogers and his wife Margo, and Kenny and Margo both took a liking to Priscilla immediately. They said they found her charming and quote-unquote down-home, but Colin was decidedly less well-received. Margo Rogers recalled her husband was kind of shifty-looking. He had one of those looks where he looked out one side of his eye.

Like, she had his number, Yeah, she was like, something's off here now. Despite her opinion on Colin, Margo and Priscilla had become close in the early 70s and maintained a friendship throughout the years. And later, in an interview with Greg Brown, Margo commented on Colin's relationship with Priscilla and Colin in Priscilla's marriage, saying she was kind of disconnected from him and everything around her. Not aloof, just observant.

Now, Patricia stuck with her husband through the early 70s, continuing to keep up the appearances at social functions and events where she knew there was going to be press coverage. But by 1974, she just couldn't tolerate the abuse any longer. But the problem was everything they owned belonged to him. Just as in her previous marriage, she had no real identity or income that wasn't tied to her husband. Oh, no.

And she worried that if she and her daughter, Dee left, they'd be destitute, like they'd have nothing. Now. This is like, beautiful. Seeing her suffering, the Davises longtime maid, Cora, took Priscilla aside and insisted to her that she take the $1,500 that she herself had in savings. Stop it.

That's all she had. Stop it, and she was like, I want you to take it and leave him for good. Because I see what he's doing to you. And I see what's going on here and like, you've got to get out of here. What a selfless, kind human being, like, holy shit.

And obviously it was that bad that this woman is willing to give up her life savings to be like, you've got to get out of here, you've got to go. And like, she clearly cared for Priscilla and Priscilla's daughter so much now, taking the savings of somebody.

Who was still anyways was less than ideal, but under the circumstances, it was really the only option that Priscilla had. So, on July 30th, 1974, the day that she turned 33, Priscilla took Cora's $1,500 and filed for divorce from Colin. Now, when Jasper Baker, her first husband there, abandoned her after the birth of their daughter. Priscilla was left with nothing and, like I said earlier, had to move back to her mom's house in Dublin, Texas.

She also was left with little more than her daughter in the clothes on her back. And this time, Priscilla was determined to end the marriage and come out ahead. She wasn't going to walk away from this with nothing. In her filing, she accused Colin of multiple forms of abuse and cruelty, which was directed at both her and her daughter. And the stories she told the judge were very similar to the stories that Sandra Davis had told in her divorce filing. So it seems like this is his pattern, so there's a pattern. And that did not earn him any fans in the courtroom.

As a result, the judge ordered him to move out of the mansion so Priscilla could keep it. And to pay her $2,500 a month for living expenses. Wow, now. Colin Davis was, as we know, exceedingly wealthy. $2,500 for him. He could sneeze and that would fucking come out. That was a quarter to anybody else.

It's just taking a quarter out of your pocket, legit? So the stipend for living expenses was not a problem for him at all.

And they both agreed upon now. As somebody accustomed to spending large amounts of money. Whenever he fucking felt like it, that restriction to him felt so unreasonable. Oh, shut the fuck up. So. In November of 1974, he petitioned the judge to permit him to sell off nearly 45,000 shares of stock out of his Western drill company. And he cited his reasons. A national credit crunch and short-term loans to various banks in the total of $14 million.

So he's tied up and like, I can't, like, I need you to let me get some of it. Yeah, which? Again, why do you have $14 million tied up in loans when you are a literal billionaire? That's what I don't get now. Judge Eatson refused the request and instead increased his monthly payments to Priscilla from $2,500 to $3,000..

He was like, You're not impressing me with the sob stories here, I know that you have access.

To $15,500 quote advance on community property for trial expenses. So he's just making it so that Cullen has to pay off the ass, which I love, that's hilarious. The court appearance is dragged on for the next two years, with Priscilla or Cullen asking for postponements for one reason or another. Divorce is incredibly messy, and I can't imagine with this amount of money how much messier it would be.

I can't stand far. In February 1976, Far moved into the mansion. And for the first time in a long time in Priscilla's life, it felt like things were getting back to normal for her. Her daughter, Dee, was almost 18 years old now she was living still at home, and Andrea, her other younger daughter, was coming to visit regularly.

And even the divorce settlement actually seemed to be going in the right direction. On August 2nd, Priscilla and Cullen appeared again before the judge, and this time Cullen's monthly payments were $25,000 per month. And he was ordered to pay Priscilla an additional $25,000 for accumulated bills and another $25,000 to cover legal expenses. Damn, because they were like, you have money up the asshole, yeah, start paying it.

Now, after what felt like a victory in the courtroom that day, Priscilla and Stan went out to dinner at the Old Swiss House with friends. Bev Bass.

And Stan to open the large iron gates, and they made their way up the driveway that led to the house as she fumbled in her purse to find the keys to the front door, though. Priscilla looked through the window and she noticed that the lights on the security panel indicated that the front door had been opened since they left hours earlier. She figured maybe it was Andrea who was coming to stay with them for the evening, or even maybe her daughter Dee. And so she shrugged it off and just made their way into the house.

They were in the bedroom and Priscilla just went to go into the kitchen to turn the lights off. And that was where she noticed. What looked like a bloody handprint on the basement door. Oh shit. Priscilla took a few steps toward the basement, but between the security panel and the handprint on the door, something was beginning to feel very wrong, and she called out for Stan instead, after a few seconds with no reply, she decided to go to the bedroom to find her boyfriend. But as she made her way toward the stairs, she was startled by a man dressed in all black, wearing a woman's black wig, who emerged from the laundry room on her.

Right, what the fuck? As he emerged, he greeted her, saying Hi, right before shooting her in the stomach at close range. Holy shit. So some man dressed in all black, wearing a black woman's wig, like black hair, emerges from the laundry room.

Wow, so. Alerted by the sound of the gun and Priscilla's scream, Stan rushed downstairs and found the door leading into the kitchen was locked so he couldn't get in there without any warning, though. The intruder shot through the door and when the door did open, the two men started struggling. And during the struggle, Stan was shot three more times. Sensing that it might be her only opportunity to flee, though, Priscilla forced herself to stand up.

And get out of the house through the sliding glass door that led out to a courtyard. And once outside, she started running toward the road. But the intruder chased after her and caught up to her and started dragging her back toward the house. What the fuck? But luckily, there was a split second where he was startled by a sound and let go of Priscilla's arm, which let her fall to the ground. And when he went to investigate the noise.

He ran away and several more shots rang out. So the commotion prompted her to run toward the road. And after making it past the gate, she ran to the nearest house and started ringing the doorbell over and over. And she shouted to whoever was on the other side. My name is Priscilla Davis. I live in the big house in the middle of the field off Hullen. I'm very wounded.

Cullen is up there, killing my children, he's killing everyone.

So the neighbors called an ambulance and emergency services did arrive. A short time later, Priscilla was taken to the hospital to be treated for the gunshot wound to her stomach. And there she would learn that Stan didn't make it. He was killed. And neither did her 12 year old daughter, Andrea, her 12 year old daughter. She didn't even live at the mansion, she was just staying there for the night. She was found dead in the basement. Holy shit.

And Priscilla also learned that the commotion she had heard in the driveway.

Was from Gavril, who had pulled up to the house just as she slipped out into the courtyard. Oh my god. Gavril had confronted the intruder, who shot him several times before fleeing the scene. He was in critical condition and he would survive the attack ultimately, but he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Are you kidding?

This is like, devastating. So, despite having been shot in the stomach, Priscilla was still conscious and able to speak, and she identified her attacker as her ex-husband. Holy shit telling. Even on the ambulance ride there, she was telling ambulance drivers, he quote. Put on a black wig and started shooting all my kids. Oh my God.

At 4.

30am Fort Worth police surrounded the home of Karen Master, a quote unquote friend with whom Cullen had been staying with, and called inside demanding that he surrender. His only request was that he be allowed to dress before coming outside.

And when they searched the house and his car, they discovered several handguns hidden 5 in Karen's house and 2 in a styrofoam chest in the trunk of Cullen's car. So he had 7 fucking guns, just lying about what the fuck? Immediately after his arrest, Fort Worth officers were sent to guard the homes of Judge Joe Edson, the divorce judge there, as well as the homes of Ronald Altman and Jerry Lofton.

And Priscilla in the divorce? Damn, you don't think of that, No, it's scary. Your life is on the line to a certain extent now. Back at the mansion, police started combing through the crime scene, which one ambulance driver referred to as like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

That's horrifying, truly horrifying. There were two large pools of blood on the floor leading from the kitchen to the foyer, one where Priscilla was shot and the other in the spot.

Where? The spill of blood led from the hallway to the kitchen, where Stan's body had been dragged and dropped by the killer. And from the kitchen, investigators made their way to the basement, where they found the body of Andrea Wilborn in a small utility room. What the fuck crime scene? Technicians noted that she hadn't suffered any physical trauma, aside from a bullet that had entered her upper chest and exited out her lower back. Later, it would be determined.

That Priscilla went upstairs to hide in the laundry room, waiting for Priscilla. She's 12 12 years old. Other than the obvious carnage, there's no other word for it. Detectives concluded that nothing in the house had been stolen or otherwise disturbed. I mean, that tells you, because it's his fucking house.

If anyone's walking into that house and doing shit, they're stealing shit.

That tells you.

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Now, while Priscilla and Bubba Garville were in no shape to speak to the police after a certain point, Priscilla's friend Bev Bass was. And she corroborated what Priscilla had managed to tell the police before being hospitalized. Now it's important to note that they had no chance to talk after this all happened. So she is corroborating the story, and I'm saying that for a reason, she's just saying it because that's what she saw happen. According to BEV, she planned to stay at the house that evening, and she and Garville arrived shortly after Priscilla and Stan.

According to Captain J.

W Tindall, the young lady recognized this person.

That the suspect wheeled and shot Mr. Garville on the side, so she recognized him and called him by name. And that's before she's even spoken to Priscilla, who, at that point, had already told ambulance drivers it was cullen, so they're both saying it was cullen.

Now bass. She said she ran as soon as the shooting started and was briefly pursued by the attacker, but he eventually fled as she made her way.

Into the house. But the fact that both of them were like, Yeah, it was cullen. I mean, they're not just pulling that out of their ass. No, of course they're not, and I don't know if everybody's been listening. But he's proven himself to be a very violent and scary human being, absolutely. And now a human being who is losing a lot of money and his home, you know?

Cullen Davis was released on an $80,000 bond, which, of course, he had no trouble paying. In his statement to a shocked group of reporters, Justice of the Peace W..W. Matthews defended the bond, saying it was the amount recommended by the district attorney. And I stayed with it. When pressed, he speculated This man probably will never hurt anybody again.

He was just drunk, the police told me. He was quite drunk, and they say when he gets drunk, he gets really mad. It's like, Yeah, how comforting that he probably won't break into anybody's house and open fire on five people. That has to be the stupidest shit I have ever heard, probably blow out of a person's fucking face, like he was just drunk.

Well, he probably won't do it again. People in this case need to get so fucked. Why open your mouth and say words if those are going to be them? Well, you know, he got drunk, he gets mad, he gets mad, he punches his wife.

He gets mad, he slaps his stepdaughter.

He's just drunk, maybe he won't get drunk and mad again. We can all just cross our fingers. A week later, while still recovering at Harris Hospital, Priscilla gave her formal statement to the assistant district attorney. In it, she was very clear that, despite the attempted disguise, she immediately recognized the shooter as Colin Davis.

She said If you were sitting there and I was looking at you and you had on a wig, I would still be looking at your face.

It was possible that she was mistaken. Priscilla responded Oh, no, I lived with him. No, I could spot Colin in a crowd three miles away. You know your husband's face better than most faces? I would think if he puts on a stupid black wig, it's not going to hide his fucking face. And if you look at pictures of him when he was younger, he's pretty discernible.

You would be able to point that face out, he doesn't just have any old oil tycoon face, I would be able to point him out. He looks like Colin Davis.

And it's like, you just put on a wig, yeah, now, after two weeks of freedom, Colin Davis was arrested a second time when the district attorney dismissed the previously filed charges and refiled new ones, this time for two counts of capital murder. Good now. While the district attorney's office was vague about why they had amended the charges, the court documents allege that Colin had committed burglary when he entered the home without permission.

In Texas capital, murder carries a mandatory sentence of either life in prison or death, and the district attorney indicated their intention to seek the death penalty. Oh, damn. Under the circumstances, no bond was issued and Colin was remanded to the custody of the Sheriff's Department. Pending a grand jury hearing, which was scheduled for late winter. On February 15, 1977, a grand jury returned.

And two indictments for the attempted murder of Priscilla Davis and Gus Gavril. Setting Colin's bond at $150,000 for the attempted murder counts and denying bond on the actual murder counts. Okay, I was like, Can we deny bond for a minute? is that cool? And it's also like, why even set up a bond if you can't get a bond on the other charges?

Kind of feels like a waste of time now. In the weeks that followed, the prosecution and defense started interviewing prospective jurors.

For coverage of the case and the notoriety of those involved, jury selection was going to be more than an uphill battle. In one case, a man who regularly serviced the business machines in several of Colin's offices told the DA. I've kept up with the case real close and I do not feel the man is guilty in any way. Because you service his fucking machines and he says, hi to you, probably, and it's like, shut up, you don't know anything about the Interworks, you've heard nothing.

I looked this fucker in the face and it was Colin Davis. And this guy who wasn't there and knows nothing about it, he's like, I don't know.

I'm going to listen to the people who looked into his face before they shot him. That's the other thing. Dude, he doesn't know your fucking name, no? But like many of the potential jurors interviewed, this man was disqualified for having formed a pre-trial opinion of Colin Davis. But he was not alone.

During the selection process, the judge, Tom Cave, had to declare a mistrial after learning that one of the jurors, I believe her name was Elizabeth Pankey, had discussed the case with a co-worker. She'd been given permission to leave the state to attend a funeral in early April, and at that time, she also discussed the case with friends on at least three occasions. My girl, that's literally rule number one of Fight club, Don't talk about Fight Club, yeah. So he was extremely reluctant to do so, but he saw no alternative and dismissed all the jurors. They just fucked this case right up, damn.

The problem for the D.A. Was that while they knew it would have been impossible to find a jury that hadn't heard about the case, they didn't expect that it would be so difficult to find a jury pool that hadn't already made up their mind about the matter of Colin's guilt, damn. And this was due, in part, to the fact that many people found it impossible.

To get murder, much less the murder of a child. I'm sorry. Have you ever read anything ever? have you ever turned on the television? That happens so much?

You watch the news so much in a weird way. This case kind of reminds me of the O.J. Simpson case. Yeah, a little bit. It's got certain parallels, I feel now. There were those people who were like, No, I just can't imagine that a rich man would kill someone, that's crazy, but there were also people.

Who stood to lose considerable sums of money? Oh, this is so dirty, it's so disgusting. If he had been found guilty, they would have lost everything. In total, he owed nearly $6 million in outstanding loans at every major bank in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Wow, so he gets benefits from being a dirtbag who can't pay his debts. Yeah, that seems right. And while his being refused bond had already hurt their chances of being paid, his being found guilty would mean that. They were unlikely to ever get their money back, and that was their main concern money over the life of a 12-year-old. This is really gross and he would have killed everyone in that house if he was able to before he got disturbed now. Equally challenging for the prosecution were the rumors about Priscilla that had started spreading.

Rather theatrical, Richard Racehorse hines You heard that, right? This man's nickname is Racehorse. I don't want to know anything else about that.

Better than stinky, Better than stinky, but real wild Texas is a wild place, it sure is.

Racehorse Hines had filed several motions to access witness testimony and other materials that they believe portrayed Priscilla in a negative light. I love that this woman got shot.

And they're like, you know what? 's a great way to go about this. We should just make sure that she looks like a dumb bitch. Smear campaign. Yeah, that's a great idea. The person who got shot and lost their child, shot in the stomach, lost her child, punched in the face by this man, lost an animal because this man beat it. But let's make her look like an asshole.

Yeah, let's definitely do that, sometimes it's like.

I think, especially when it comes to wealthy people in the justice system now. Nothing came of their efforts in court, really, of trying to get the witness testimony and all that. But they were very public about these attempts. And that was enough to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the public. Of course, because nobody ever wants to look actually at facts, it's just whatever sounds the most salacious, exactly.

And there were stories that, while they weren't exactly slanderous.

Her own investigators had alleged that there was a contract on her life. And when she did go out, usually late at night and always with close friends. Priscilla wore a silver-plated 32 strapped to a custom-made holster on her right boot. It's like, clearly she was afraid of this man, she's going out with a fucking holster now. Despite being the victim, though, the rumors and innuendo encouraged by the defense made her seem like the one who was guilty, according to WHO.

This poor woman. Before the trial began. Priscilla received a call from the wife of a quote-unquote prominent industrialist who had business dealings with Cullen, and this wife asked her to quote-unquote. Let Cullen off the hook. I know he punched you in the face and broke your nose and murdered your kitten in front of you. After abusing your child, let him off the hook.

PRIScilla You have to be a down, dirty, empty, pathetic bitch to call someone up and ask that, What a bunch of shameful fucks. Get the bells ready, let's go down the street. All y'all are the most shameful of fucks I have ever heard. It's insanity, truly, to pick up the phone and call a woman who all of those things happened to. Because it's going to affect your husband's business dealings, a mother whose 12-year-old daughter was murdered. But your business dealings are the most important here.

Let him off the hook, Oh my goodness. So. Priscilla was perplexed, assuming that the woman was talking about the divorce settlement, and, of course, it didn't occur to her that this woman was talking about the murder of it all. Yeah, let him walk free. Later, she recalled, she pointed out that I had gotten a lot of nice things that I never had before.

Oh, yeah, she's going to double down. She got to the point and said, Priscilla, I think the best thing for you would be to move out of town and change your name. Honestly, bitch like, that's a cunt right there, you're a cunt. The best thing for you would be to move. If I got that fucking phone call.

After all of that, honey now, Priscilla later commented on that call, saying.

It's so much worse, I can't believe. After everything she had gone through, this is what she's dealing with. Are these pieces of shit? But by summer, the trial was officially moved to Amarillo, Texas, and pre-trial hearings began quietly in June.

Once again, the prosecution and defense found themselves in a struggle to find mutually agreeable jurors. The biggest issue was still.

The case of defense attorney Richard Haynes, who was a local celebrity.

Several jurors had become familiar with him from other cases in press coverage, and they kind of assumed this kind familiarity with him. And, quote unquote insisted upon calling him racehorse.

Which implied a huge degree of bias that would influence the entire outcome of this trial. What's happening?

What is this situation like all around? Hey, racehorse, how's the murder trial going? This really tests your faith in humanity, it really does.

After nearly two more months, a jury had finally been selected. Apparently less perspective jury members called this man racehorse and cullen. Davis capital murder trial finally began on August 22, 1977, in his opening statement to the jury, District Attorney Tim Curry.

Talked about the prosecution's simple case, he said Cullen Davis learned of a setback in his divorce proceedings, then went that night to the mansion he and his estranged wife Priscilla once shared with the intent to kill her. He stopped short of citing a clear motive, but noted the fact that the murders were committed literal hours after a divorce hearing where the amount of alimony was raised. And the fact that Cullen and Priscilla's relationship had just deteriorated to the point of pure vitriol, oh yeah, pure vitriol.

Hours after the alimony was raised. That's everything you need to know. That's pure motive. Hours, not even days, a couple of hours.

They went to dinner and then that happened. That's the most solid motive ever, truly. And again, two people recognized him, who had no time to get any kind of story straight, but told the exact same story now. Priscilla was among the first witnesses to take the stand, and she spent nearly six hours answering Curry's questions about the cause of the attack. She really didn't say anything that she hadn't already stated in her statement given to the police and to the district attorney's office.

But that didn't stop the defense from repeatedly objecting to her testimony, claiming, among other things, that she, quote, ignored the rules of the court and was referring to hearsay evidence. Shut up, this is all in her statement. In his cross-examination, Haynes kept Priscilla on the stand for days, several days.

After she suffered chronic pain from an ankle injury and continued to get prescribed after she got shot in the stomach, he asked about her sexual history and relationships with other men. The fuck does that have to do with anything? They're trying to say? She's a gold digger and that she lives a dangerous life where another man could have done this to her? And even implied that she. Quote, had concocted their story to keep the real killer from coming after them and to help Priscilla get Cullen's millions in the divorce.

Wow, so we're just like making up a story about who killed my child, yep. In questioning her morality, Haynes was clearly trying to undermine the jury and public's trust in Priscilla. And it was working. Some in Texas High Society, like I said, simply didn't like what Priscilla represented at all. A colleague of Cullen's told a reporter She's trash, plain trash. Her daughter was killed to jealousy.

Who cares if she was trash or not?

Give me a lineup telling you jealousy, jealousy. Others simply relied on the rumor mill for information. There was talk of quote orgies and two-way mirrors and movie cameras hidden in the ceiling above the master bedroom's double queen-sized bed. Some suggested the basement was full of S&M accessories, when in fact, it was just full of storage. And also, who the fuck cares if it was?

Even though it wasn't like, it's clearly not right. Who the fuck cares what she's into, like, fuck off. What does that have to do with the 12-year-old getting murdered? Exactly what?

Like, what? Actually, nothing even happened in the bedroom upstairs, so why are we even talking about it? No, that's ridiculous. But unfortunately, Priscilla did somewhat play into the kind of salacious rumors, on occasion, granting interviews with the press. Where she kind of went out of her way to coquettishly avoid answering direct questions about her sex life and the rumors surrounding it, it's interesting, though.

Yeah, she probably leaned in a little bit, but it's also like, what the fuck?

And literally slammed a kitten on the ground until it died. No blame it on the woman, like, we're not going to talk about how fucked up you have to be to do that, blame it on the woman. Like this is wild. But they're like, she fucks sometimes, exactly, and it's like, Oh okay, she wasn't rich before she met him. She punches women and children in the face and kills animals. But okay, yeah, exactly. But you know, like, she has tits.

They absolutely should be, but something tells me that they were not. No, of course, not now. When Racehorse hines there was finally given the opportunity to give his opening statement, his strategy was made clear. The intruder had entered the house to kill Stan, not Priscilla, he told the jury. With absolutely no fucking basis.

Mr. Farr was a target of those assailants because of his business connections with those other people, referring to Priscilla, Andrea and Gavril.

The unpaid drug dealer who had gone into the house to kill Stan and simply executed the others because they were there. What?

And didn't steal anything while they were there. No, No, of course, not to collect their payment. Absolutely not. And when Priscilla ran outside, this drug dealer, who was not after Priscilla, chased after her.

Going in a $6 million mansion with $3 million worth of art. Take the fucking painting just that off the base, just baseline, $3 million worth of fucking art on the walls. Never mind everything else in that place.

And like diamonds, fucking jewelry doesn't even look for shit, doesn't even break anything, doesn't even look around the bullets. I mean, he didn't even take a fucking coke out of the refrigerator. Nothing that makes sense. Yep, collect payment. Yeah, absolutely.

How is that not hearsay? exactly? Hearsay is such a confusing. That's the thing that doesn't make anything. I saw him be naughty once, what? No, he didn't.

You know what, we do have actual record of Cullen being a fucking animal, there's a literal record of that. That's why the divorce proceedings were going so well for Priscilla, because he had done the exact same shit to his last wife.

He has a clear pattern of being an abusive piece of shit who clearly was escalating his violence. He's abusive to his first wife, he has an affair, he abandons his children, doesn't give a shit about them.

His wife starts abusing her, too, abusing her child, killing animals. And now he's mad because he's gotta lose more money. And that's the other thing that you can point to. This motherfucker was still in court with Sandra fighting over money. He's upset about losing money. It's clear as Day, What the fuck y'all?

But in his cross-examination of Priscilla, all Haines needed to do was question Stan's moral character.

That prejudices the jury. I don't understand how that's allowed, I don't either, I don't at all. Other witnesses for the defense included Karen Masters.

That's where Cullen was found. They were more than friends. She claimed that Cullen was in bed next to her at the time of the killing. And the other witness for the defense was the owner of a small Fort Worth nursery, who claimed that he had sneaked onto the property on the night of the murders, according to the nursery owner, he had gone to the courthouse to reclaim some plants that hadn't been paid for.

I'm sorry, what they send you in the night to go. Repo plants. No, he did. he was repoing his own plants. Hell yeah, just go repo some plants. I've never heard of repoing plants.

This makes absolute sense. But he said he saw the killer and it wasn't Cullen. Davis. Oh, let's believe this guy, I believe him, like the rumors and innuendos.

That she had beside Masters on the night of the murder seems like it would be a good alibi. But that information was noticeably absent from her statement to police given that same night, and never, ever came up in subsequent police interviews. Yeah, she just forgot it happened that at the trial, she remembered that multiple interviews with the police. Now that I think about it, he was asleep in bed next to me.

Yeah, right, next to me, best friends. And similarly, the claims from the nursery owner would also have gone a long way towards clearing Cullen's name. But this was the first time anyone was hearing that information. Yeah, it's hard to find people who repo plants. In the middle of the night, of course, they stay real chill, flying under the radar.

Not everyone was impressed with Haynes tactics. In a statement to reporters. Priscilla's former boyfriend?

Refuted nearly everything Haynes had implied during the trial, he told the press Mr Haynes has brought drugs, whiskey and sex, everything else into this case. What the hell does that have to do with a 12-year-old girl being murdered by someone? Thank you, that's literally what we were just saying.

You're the only person to say that so far. Ruffner had made the news several months earlier after an arrest for cocaine and weapons possession. Which Haynes was able to use to his advantage in the courtroom. Associating Priscilla with Ruffner to further undermine her character?

Who, you know, is dealing with cocaine charges? Well. And also it's like, I love that we are just focusing on making Priscilla look like a bad person here. And it's like, how, what? Yeah, like, it's well established that Colin is a fucking monster, he's an animal. And I know that's your job.

I realize that that that's the whole job, nobody needs to tell me, I understand that that's the job. It's infuriating, of course it is, and it's infuriating to look at a mother who has lost her child to murder. And sit there and make her look like she brought this all on herself.

Yeah, that takes like, that's fucked up and I don't understand how you sleep at night. No, that takes a special kind of person to look into the eyes of someone who lost their boyfriend and their 12-year-old child and one of their good friends was paralyzed. And basically say, Hmm, kind of did this to yourself, didn't you?

Damn which like, go off king. Assistant District Attorney Tali Wilson summarized their belief that, after becoming enraged by yet another divorce court ruling in Priscilla's favor, Colin Davis donned an obvious disguise. Snuck into the home where he killed Stan Farr and his stepdaughter, Andrea Wilborn, and attempted to kill Priscilla and Gus Gavril, they also reminded the jury that both Priscilla Gavril.

These people, because they're like, it's just meaning nothing, they don't care, they. They went into this all with preconceived notions. As for Cullen's supposed alibi, Wilson pointed out that Karen Masters had failed to mention it to the police in her statement. And even on the stand, seemed uncertain as to whether Cullen was in bed at the time of the murders.

He said she asked him on four different occasions when he got in after she found out about the murder. So I think we have to conclude that Karen Master knows herself. That Thomas Cullen Davis was not at her house at the time of those murders, that they at the time, those murders were committed. Fucking Karen, what the fuck's wrong with you? He was in bed with me and then she was like, I had to ask him a few times when he got back.

Imagine protecting a man who beats women, murders kittens. Imagine being that person. No, I won't like, imagine that being who you go down as.

Karen, Imagine, Can you imagine it? Karen? Because that's how you go down here. Mm-hmm.

Now, in his nearly three-hour closing statement, Haynes again went after Priscilla's character, telling the jury Priscilla Davis is the Machiavellian influence behind this whole thing. Right? what, right? According to the defense, Priscilla had conspired with Gavril and Bass to frame Cullen for the murder in order to access his vast fortune.

Oh so, he was just fine, being paralyzed for life. And again, I don't understand saying that she did this to access his vast fortune. Three hours before this happened, she had access to it. Yeah, she would. Why the fuck would she have gone and made this all messy when she was getting exactly what she one wanted and two deserved?

Like the judge was on her side, he was giving her the up-and-up every time. If this jury hadn't been from this community, any other jury would have been like, what the fuck, yeah, they'd be like, that doesn't make any sense. That argument sucks.

That literally doesn't make sense, but, he continued. Miss Bass is one of a series of young girls in Mrs. Davis's history who has been corrupted by the drugs and sex at the mansion. Since Davis moved out and divorce proceedings began in 1974. I feel sorry for Bubba Gavril, I can understand how he got into this.

I have no malice toward him, except that he came into the courtroom, raised his hand to God and he lied, and I do not forgive him for it. I don't fucking forgive you, you piece of shit, you're standing there lying out of your fucking face. Get your theatrics out of here, you know what?

You're gonna get yours, my friend. Now. One would think that the case against Cullen Davis was a strong one, literally the strongest. He had the clearest motive of probably anyone I've ever seen, yeah.

A questionable alibi, at best, very questionable. And there were at least three eyewitnesses who not only identified him as the killer, but also corroborated one another's statements without being able to even speak to each other at the time that their statements were given. That's like air shot. The defense had little more than slanderous rumors and innuendo that, at best, suggested the victims were maybe people of poor moral character.

So everyone was like, Okay, a guilty verdict seems like a foregone conclusion, yeah. After deliberating for two days, the jury returned with an acquittal on all charges.

Every single charge, there were four.

I'm sorry, what the wildest thing is? Um, they acquitted this motherfucker. No, no, no. the wildest thing is that. Um, I regret to inform you, it gets worse.

It gets worse.

I am without flabbergasted thought flabbergasted when I got.

It just erased itself. No, when I got like, it just went boop to that point, I was like.

No, I was like, Wait, does acquitted not mean what? I thought? I? I was worried that something like, like a mistrial, maybe something even akin to that, happened. Because you said something about an A&E documentary where he talked, and I was like, Oh, that fucker is still talking.

Acquitted on all counts. Yeah, just wait though, cuz man.

We're not done, we're not done. Skip Hollinsworth of The New York Times wrote Wow. The jury had actually believed the theory that Priscilla and Beverly had conspired to frame Cullen, even though they told different people that he was the killer. Before they had the chance to compare stories.

Now this jury.

Whoa, oh God. When they were later interviewed regarding the verdict, jury members gave a variety of flimsy reasons for the acquittal. Because they didn't have one stand-up reason, one juror told reporters. There were too many unanswered questions in my mind.

I can't sentence a person to death until I know he's guilty.

What unanswered question did you have? Yeah, can you? is the one answer unanswered question in the room with us right now. Can you point at it? can you point to it? can you identify it?

Because I, what are you talking about? The public, on the other hand, what's the unanswered question? What is it? The public, on the other hand, did not seem surprised by the verdict.

One resident told reporters No, it didn't surprise me. Money does so many different things. I mean, that's that is truth, it shouldn't surprise me, yeah.

But holy shit. Another man who lived near the crime scene echoed the sentiment, saying, Oh, there's no doubt that his wealth helped him get off. And the length of the trial helped him because those jurors were getting tired. A few days later, at a victory party thrown by Cullen Davis, a victory party, an attendee attendee of the party. Put it more succinctly, rich men don't kill their wives.

Rich men don't kill their wives. Where do you live? What? what fucking alternate universe planet are you living on? where rich men don't kill their wives? rich men kill their wives?

Poor men kill their wives, middle-class men kill their wives, husbands kill wives. All the fucking time. That's a backwards. Elle Woods shit of happy people don't just shoot their husbands.

Rich men don't kill their wives. What? who said that I could name you about six billion fucking instances where rich men do kill their wives?

Are you the person who said that? Who are you? Raise your hand, name yourself, that is some stupid shit.

That is some ignorant shit to which I say, girl bye, girl bye, fuck you. Rich men don't kill their wives.

What? wow, what? That's someone controlled by a rich man.

Sure, fucking is or a rich man, that's a rich man, and not Cher, exactly.

Now, following the trial, things more or less went back to the way that they were before the murder. Oh good. Cullen and his new girlfriend Karen there continued Oh wait, I thought they were friends. They became more than that.

Friends to love us, Yes, yes. They continued attending society parties and events, and he went back to his position as the head of Ken Davis Industries. Oh good, I'm glad everybody, you know, justice for all, No.

And for all a good night, you're not ready for this. I'm not ready. I just want you all don't read ahead.

I'm not, you're not ready for this. I'm not, oh my god, I just want to tell you one more time, guys, you're not fucking ready for this.

What's happening? Nine months after his acquittal, Cullen was caught on tape soliciting a murder from an FBI agent that he believed was a hitman. I'm going to say that for you one more time, nine months after this guy got acquitted for murdering a 12 year old. Somebody's boyfriend, paralyzing another man and attempting to kill his current wife, who he was getting divorced from. Cullen was caught on tape soliciting a murder from an FBI agent he believed was a hitman. On the tape, Cullen can be heard saying, Do the judge and then his wife.

The judge and then his wife, he was talking about the divorce judge and his wife. Holy shit, I'm not done. In order to make the case stronger, the agents actually faked photographs, supposedly showing Judge Eatson covered in blood and stuffed into the trunk of a car.

How hard they work, enjoy that. When the agent showed Cullen the photos, he acknowledged that they had done as he had asked. And when the agent asked if Bev Bass was next, he said, All right, like, Yep, she's next.

A trial followed his arrest, and Cullen was once again represented by Fucking Racehorse Hines on the witness stand. He can't get away from this. I mean, he's on camera, yeah, he is.

He sure is, I'm, so I'm very angry. On the witness stand, Cullen claimed that in one of their unrecorded conversations, the informant claimed that he had actually been hired by Priscilla. Oh my God, he'd be willing to turn against her for the right price.

Oh my god, mind you, baby. This is an FBI agent, he's talking about this, like it's a literal, a literal hitman. it's an FBI agent undercover.

He sheepishly admitted that he had been tricked by yet another of his ex-wife's schemes.

Given the amount of damning evidence against him, the story was fucking preposterous and implausible. I am without words. Get ready. Cause? In November of 1979, that jury returned a verdict of not guilty and Cullen was yet again acquitted.

I on tape with an FBI agent saying that he need that. This FBI agent who he thought was a fucking hitman needed to kill his divorce judge and the divorce judge's wife. Which shows you what a fucking animal this man is. And indicated that Bev Bass was the next target who had pointed at him, who had pointed at him.

The killer, Yup.

Yup, but then you got, how are this many people stupid? they're not stupid? how are this many people evil, correct?

That's more like it, they're not stupid. How are this many people gathered together onto two juries that fucked up money?

The root of all fucking evil, in this case, holy shit. Following the second acquittal, Cullen claimed that he and Karen had become born again. Christians literally fuck off.

They were turning their lives over to God. You're both disgusting. And in the spring of 1980, he held a ceremony on the front lawn of the mansion, which he had ended up reclaiming from Priscilla in the divorce settlement. Where? So he's having this whole party where he's turning his life over to God.

He and a local evangelical reverend destroyed more than a million dollars worth of gold and jewelry, claiming they honored what he called false gods.

Okay, decades later, in an interview with Skip Hollinsworth, Cullen claimed All I care about is living for Jesus and doing what the Bible says to do.

Karen Davis and Cullen got married in the spring of 1979, and they lived together until she unfortunately passed away from breast cancer in 2016.

He continued to live in Fort Worth and is retired. For Priscilla, the future held much less promise than her ex-husband. After the trial, she and Cullen finally did reach a settlement in their divorce, where she retained a large alimony payment. But unfortunately, she continued to live as she had when she was still married to the wealthiest man in Texas. Picking up the check for everyone whenever they went out and continuing to buy big-ticket items. And, according to Hollinsworth, by the early 1990s, she was close to broke.

She lived in a one-bedroom apartment, drove an old rusty Cadillac and even did part-time work at Neiman Marcus, passing out fragrance samples. Now, despite her wild slide down the economic and social ladder. Friends say that Priscilla lived a contended life in her later years, and her only regret was that her ex-husband was never brought to justice. And on February 19th, 2001, unfortunately, she also died from breast cancer at the age of 59 years old. Wow.

Not a fucking ounce of justice in this case was served. Wow.

I.

Caught on tape with the FBI? You were caught on tape asking for two people to be murdered and then acknowledging that they had done the job correctly, and then agreeing to another person being murdered. Say what you want about Racehorse. But he's a fucking defense attorney, holy shit.

Like, my mind is blown, I literally don't even know how to comprehend this.

Wild, I don't know how to comprehend it. Absolutely wild. truly one of the craziest stories I think I've ever read. Wow.

I don't understand the FBI at all, I don't understand any of that. You were caught on tape with the FBI and everybody was like, I don't know, I don't know.

Should we trust the FBI, like, who knows why don't we trust Cullen? Oh, okay, you guys wow.

I need to.

Go into deep meditation. I'm so put off by that. And just how sad for Stan Farr's family and for Andrea Willborn. Man fucked.

I'm just shocked, I'm shocked, shocked. I don't even have anything to say. Yep.

That's that, wow, okay? So we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird.

But not so weird that any of this, wow, not so weird y'all.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com Slash Survey.