MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Elizabeth Santos
2023-04-17 00:55:08
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
Hi crime junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
And the story I have for you today is about a woman whose shocking death left behind a million questions. Some believe her death was the result of a mental health crisis, some think she died at the hands of another, some might say both. Her grieving family has been pushing for answers. But with virtually no media coverage, save for a few YouTube videos and social media, it has been an uphill battle.
So they reached out to us and I had our reporter, Nina dig in. She has been pulling at the threads of this mystery for nearly a year now. And I'm warning you, once you fall down this rabbit hole, you might never get out. This is the story of Elizabeth Santos.
Lots of people say that Alaska is like a different world, and maybe it is. But you could probably plunk Rovenna Street down in a million towns across the U..S, and it would fit right in a mix of houses. Not too much excitement, good or bad, usually, it's pretty low-key and quiet.
But that all changes when a scream pierces the air at around 6 a.
M on Saturday, August 8, 2020. And about 10 minutes later, a 911 call comes in to dispatch. The caller is a 45-year-old woman named Lizette Hogland-Hall, and the emergency involves her 37-year-old friend, Elizabeth Santos. Here is part of that call, which we got from Elizabeth's family.
OK, and what's happening there?
My friend has had, like, a mental breakdown and she needs an ambulance or she needs to go to the hospital for something.
OK, what exactly is going on with her?
She's downstairs, but I'm here now. I woke up to her just screaming, and she ran out the door and came back in, screaming hysterically. And then she is like, she doesn't even know what she's doing, she's like a tassel.
Do you need an ambulance yourself?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
All right, and so were any weapons used.
No, she came here, she recently, she didn't have her medication and she went to pick it up yesterday.
She has been unable to sleep for a few days and she's not on drugs or anything like that.
Yeah, we're going to get officers out there as soon as we can. We've already got a call loaded for officers to come out there.
And there's no weapons out or anything.
No, OK, what's going on right now? She's coming upstairs? OK, can you stay in a separate room from her until the officers get there?
Yes, OK. Is it just you and her inside the residence, or is there somebody else there, too?
No, my son is here, too.
How old is your son?
8.
2.
Two Anchorage police officers respond to Lizette's duplex. They're let in either by her or her son, Desmond, and they make their way upstairs to what's actually the main floor of the house. Elizabeth is on a landing at the top of the stairs, lying on the ground near Lizette's bedroom. She's naked, except for a robe, and to police, it doesn't seem like she knows what's going on. Like, she can't sit up properly, she can't stand, she's kind of flailing around and her eyes keep rolling back in her head.
Is she even able to tell police what's going on, like communicate with them at all?
No, she's mostly incoherent, like just mumbling random words and spelling her name over and over. The officers also notice bloody injuries, maybe some small cuts on Elizabeth's thigh and abdomen, which they think came from her scratching herself. But they also make note of a pocket knife that's folded shut right near the stairs. Lizette tells these responders that Elizabeth has a history of mental illness and she is supposed to be on medication, but she hasn't been taking it.
So at first glance, it sounds like she could be having a mental health crisis. But for some reason, the officers don't think that's what's going on. They think that Elizabeth is having a reaction to drugs, even though Lizette insists that Elizabeth does not use drugs recreationally. Except for weed, which is legal in Alaska.
Yeah, and I've never heard of anyone having a reaction like this to Weed.
No, and she tells them that the only other thing Elizabeth has taken recently was 4-benadryl. And that was like, a few hours ago. Plus, Lizette adds that her bizarre behavior hasn't just come out of nowhere, it has been happening on and off practically all week. But still, the officers think that she is overdosing on something.
So they request paramedics from the Anchorage Fire Department while they wait for an ambulance, police handcuff her, which they say is for her own safety. EMS gets there at 6.46 a.m. And even though she's still not really making any sense, she's able to say which hospital she wants to go to. And when they ask if she's in pain, it sounds like she gestures to her head. By 6.58, Elizabeth is in the ambulance.
She's getting an IV, pretty much ready to go. But then the ambulance just stays there outside of Lizette's house for 25 more minutes.
Well, why are they not getting her straight to the hospital?
I wish I knew. We literally made this like minute-by-minute timeline with the reports that we have. And there are some gaps in there and this is just one of them. Nothing we have explains why they're sitting there waiting. But it is no exaggeration to say that every minute counts. Because at 7.20, while they're still sitting outside the house, Elizabeth goes into cardiac arrest. Paramedics start CPR and finally head to the hospital.
But by the time they get her to the emergency room at 7.
36. She has no pulse. Thankfully. Er, staff manages to get a weak pulse back. But as they're examining her, they realize something she doesn't have just a few cuts or scratches. She has multiple stab wounds.
How did everyone miss multiple stab wounds? I mean, she was only wearing a robe.
I have no idea. But once it's clear that Elizabeth is bleeding internally, they rush her into surgery just before 8 a..m. And the hospital updates Anchorage PD on their findings once Anchorage PD gets the news. The department sends the same two officers back to Lizette's to bring her and her son, Desmond, in for questioning. So when these officers get back for round two, they find Lizette on the phone with Elizabeth's sister, Benedicta, who lives in Florida. Benedicta told our reporter Nina that when she had gotten that call, she thought the call was coming from Elizabeth because that's what her caller ID said.
But when she answered, it was Lizette calling from Elizabeth's phone, and she wasn't making much sense. She told her that Elizabeth had attacked her, or they had fought or something, and that ultimately she was taken to the hospital. With quote-unquote holes.
Holes, meaning what the stab wounds.
All she said was holes, but before Benedicta can really even process what she's being told. Lizette also mentions that the two of them argued over $500 that Elizabeth owed her, and she was mad about Elizabeth wearing her robe and apparently her ring. So this is like a complete whirlwind of information, and Benedicta's just trying to make sense of all of this over the phone from so far away. And that's when, suddenly, in the background, she overhears police telling Lizette that Elizabeth is not doing very well. The officer has Lizette hang up the phone, leaving Benedicta wondering what the heck is happening.
And while she starts calling around, trying to get more information, Lizette tells police everything she can think of about the past few days. She says that Elizabeth usually lives with her boyfriend, this guy named Dustin, in Wasilla, like an hour away, but they weren't getting along. So she had been staying with Lizette and Desmond ever since. And Lizette says that it's been a nightmare because Elizabeth has made a total mess of her house.
So does she bring up the $500 she told Benedicta about?
From what I can tell, she doesn't mention that right now, but she does insist that whatever is happening isn't because of illicit drugs. Like she says that again, she's like, This is about mental illness.
Has Elizabeth actually been diagnosed with a mental health condition?
Well, her family says that she'd been treated for depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But Lizette tells police that she thinks Elizabeth might have had bipolar disorder, and she describes her behavior as manic. But obviously, that's not a diagnosis.
Right, right.
Eventually, Desmond and Lizette are taken to the police station for questioning, and that's when police can really get a sense of their physical state. Neither of them has any blood on them, but Lizette does have some injuries from her fight with Elizabeth. She says that her elbow hurts, and a patrol officer notes three small, red, fingernail-sized cuts on her face. She has a red bump by her eye and another one on the top of her head.
So the responding officers missed those, too.
Or they just weren't visible before. I don't, you know, these are kind of small things. And in the heat of trying to get Elizabeth, who is still alive, into the ambulance, I don't know. Now. It's about 1030 in the morning by the time officers start questioning Lizette and Desmond. But Desmond's interview lasts all of four minutes because he says he doesn't want to speak without a lawyer present. But Lizette, on the other hand, she has plenty to say.
Lizette tells detective that she's known Elizabeth for eight years. She's one of her best friends. They either work together or still do. I'm not totally clear on that, but they were exotic dancers in Anchorage, and police learn. Elizabeth is a Florida transplant who just fell in love with Alaska years ago when she visited with a friend.
But her family, like her mom, two sisters and brother, still live in Miami, so she travels back and forth a lot. So, all in all, Lizette thinks she knows Elizabeth pretty well, but she has never seen her like this before. She says that Elizabeth had barely slept in days. She was like reorganizing Lizette's closets all night.
She keeps repeating the same stories and saying strange things, random words and phrases, something about a guy named David and the number seven. She tried to make Lizette buy her stuff during a shopping trip, and then, a couple of nights ago, Lizette had found her curled up in a ball, just screaming. But despite all of this strange behavior, the two had never gotten in a physical altercation before this morning. Now, she goes on to say that after Elizabeth had been taken to the hospital. She then called Dustin, who was the boyfriend, to let him know what was going on.
And apparently he said that he had seen this kind of thing from Elizabeth before. He told her that Elizabeth has these types of what he calls episodes every few months, especially when she doesn't take her medication.
What medication?
That is a great question, I think a crucial question, but a lot of the details about that are redacted in the records we have. Benedicta says that Elizabeth was prescribed zoloft, which is an antidepressant. Lizette tells the detective the same thing.
And then she says, maybe a second medication for ADHD. But that contradicts what she told paramedics earlier, because apparently she told them that she thought Elizabeth was on. Seroquil, which is an antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder. And meanwhile, we've got medical records that appear to be from 2016 showing Elizabeth was prescribed the antidepressants Lexapro and Welbutrin, along with Adderall. But, I mean, again, 2016,.
Those could be well out of date now. What I know is that she had apparently just refilled a prescription for something again. Redacted, redacted, redacted a couple of days before all of this. And we know that she had been taking Benadryl to sleep, which is kind of how this whole situation started this morning.
So, long story short, medication-wise, there are a few possibilities floating around anyway. Lizette then goes into more detail about what exactly happened that morning. She says that around 3 a..m, Elizabeth, just like, bursts into her room, saying that she wanted four benadryl.
And Lizette's sure she took it.
Well, here we get another discrepancy. So at the House. Lizette said that she saw Elizabeth take the benadryl. But now, when she's talking to investigators, like formally at a station, she tells this detective that she only assumed Elizabeth took the benadryl she gave her.
So she didn't actually see her take it.
Right now. After that, Lizette went to sleep, but only a few hours later, at around 6 a..m, she woke up to the sound of Elizabeth screaming at the top of her lungs from somewhere inside the house. She says that she heard the front door open and Elizabeth ran outside, then came back in screaming the whole time. That's when Lizette went downstairs and saw her in the front entrance hallway wearing only a robe. And this was the last straw.
Lizette told Elizabeth that they needed to get her to a hospital and that did not go over well, she says, because the next thing she knew Elizabeth was attacking her. Here is some tape from Lizette's actual interview with the detective. Was she punching you or slapping you?
I didn't feel like punching or slapping.
It felt more like a clawing, like she was saying like, this, David murder.
And it was like, and I just started, like, saying, Desmond, call 911, call 911, and I ran upstairs.
Where was Desmond at, was he upstairs or downstairs?
He was downstairs, but I don't know if he was in the bathroom or in his bedroom.
Downstairs.
Yes, he was downstairs, and so I ran upstairs.
Lizette says Elizabeth is a lot bigger than her. She's actually six feet tall and Lizette's like 5'6. But eventually, Lizette says she was able to get away. She ran upstairs and Desmond followed, and they hid in her bedroom. But even though the door was locked, Elizabeth kept trying to get in, just banging on the door so hard that she thought it was going to break.
So you're hiding in your bedroom?
With the doors locked.
Me and my son are both in the bedroom with the doors locked, and we hear her in the kitchen.
We hear her out there saying stuff, moaning, groaning.
What does she say?
It sounds like it's not really like you can hear it, it's more like a na-na-na-na-na-na. So it's like, that's my best impression.
Okay.
I don't have a point. How long were you guys in there?
Until the police came, until we heard the doorbell.
And who answered the door?
I did, I ran downstairs.
Just a quick side note, they don't outright say. But in the police reports, officers make it sound like Desmond is downstairs and Lizette is upstairs with Elizabeth. When they got there, which would probably mean Desmond answered the door, but Lizette says she did so. I'm not sure what the real deal is. And she also says she didn't notice any injuries on Elizabeth before she and Desmond locked themselves in the bedroom.
But after the cops got there, that's when she noticed blood on Elizabeth's stomach and legs and a knife by the sofa in the living room.
So this is the same knife police noticed when they found Elizabeth then.
No, this is actually a different one. The one that you're referring to was a closed pocket knife, right? and this one is like a full kitchen knife.
Oh.
Now, while Lizette's interview is going on, surgeons are working frantically to save Elizabeth. They ultimately find 10 stab wounds, 2 on her abdomen and 8 on her thigh. They operate, they give her transfusions, but she goes into cardiac arrest again. And despite attempts to resuscitate her, Elizabeth dies on the operating table at 1125 that morning. Now that the situation has escalated, investigators get warrants to take Lizette and Desmond's clothing, take their DNA and even swabs of their hands.
Wait, were they with the police the whole time?
What do you mean?
I mean, I guess I'm wondering if they're even wearing the same clothes, oh, because unless police stayed with them. There's a huge gap of time between when they took Elizabeth away and when they came back to the house to talk to Lizette and Desmond.
Yeah, so you're right. They were not with police, like watching them. From the time police got there until this interview, there was like an hour or so where nobody was with them, nobody had eyes on them. But Lizette says that she hasn't changed, and she doesn't think Desmond has. But to your point, I mean, there's no way to know for sure.
And since police don't have any charges to hold them on once, they take their swabs and whatever, they're free to go, but they're not free to go to their home. Because. Detectives have a warrant to search their house for stuff like knives, trace, evidence of bodily fluids, bloody clothing, Elizabeth's medications, her cell phone, all of it. Although investigators soon realize that they already have Elizabeth's phone because they got it from Lizette. But as police start to process the house, there's a huge problem to contend with. The scene has been compromised.
Well, I mean, obviously, like I said, they left these two people there all alone.
Right? But that's not all. Lizette had admittedly started to wipe up a couple spots of blood in the kitchen because she didn't want it to stain the floor. And the wild thing is, they didn't even do this, like, to your point, when they're not being watched. She did this in front of the responding officers.
Oh, cool, cool. So police basically watched her clean up a crime scene and they were like, Yeah, sure, go right ahead.
I mean, I guess it wasn't considered a crime scene at the time. I mean, really, they don't know if it's a crime scene now.
Okay, but I've been doing this long enough to know that. In a good investigation, you treat everything like a crime scene until you know for sure that it's not. You can never go backwards, like backwards in time to redo this.
You're not wrong. But they didn't, so it was tampered with and the results are still the same. What's interesting, though, is that police don't find anything that could have been used to clean the blood. Like there are no bloody dishrags or paper towels or anything in the kitchen, or even in, like the bathroom, garbage bins.
Which makes zero sense.
Right, what I will say is that it's not clear if they checked any other garbage cans inside or outside of the house. And listen, this is something that the Anchorage PD could clear up pretty easily. But they declined our interview requests. And there are just some details like this. Once again, they're not writing down every garbage bin that they checked in their reports.
Not that they shouldn't, like, I think it should be there, but they didn't do that and they're not willing to talk to us, so we don't know. But here is what I do know that they find. In the garage, which is right off the front entranceway on the first floor, there is an open pocket knife on the ground, next to a truck. The blade has this black tar-like substance on it, which is also on some glass on the hood of the truck.
On the second floor, there's a leatherman, which is this multi-tool thing. Kind of like a Swiss Army knife, and that's on this half wall, which is next to the stairs. And I think that this knife is what the original reports refer to as the pocket knife, the one that was by Elizabeth when she was lying on the ground outside Lizette's room, like the first one the responders saw. And I think the reason that it's here instead of the floor at the bottom of the stairs is because. One of the officers mentioned that he moved it out of her reach. Like when they were still trying to, like, get her to calm down, okay? So then over in the living room, there is a steak knife on the floor by this longer couch, right where Lizette remembered seeing it with the tip partially under the couch.
And in the kitchen, investigators notice several knives missing from a butcher block that was set out on the counter. There are two butcher-style knives on a drying rack by the sink and then in the cabinet under the sink, which appears to be mostly empty. There is another steak knife, similar looking to the one that was found in the living room.
Is it just me or does this feel like a weird number of knives to have in all these random places?
Yeah, I mean, they're just like scattered all around the house, yeah. And while not all of them have blood on them, the knives from the living room and the one under the sink both appear to have something that looks like blood on them. Now. As for the rest of the house, there is blood on various surfaces upstairs and downstairs. Like there's some on the steps, the banister, the carpet leading into Lizette's bedroom, the front entrance walls.
There's even pinkish-red stains on the kitchen floor, and then a potted plant in the living room and a chair from the dining area. Have been like, knocked over. And police just see clutter everywhere they look. So investigators start collecting evidence and swabbing various, you know, these stains that they think are blood stains. For DNA, they also test a few things for the possible presence of blood.
And here are the results. So the steak knife in the living room tests positive, the leatherman from the top of the stairs and the kitchen floor stain are negative. And then the knife under the sink doesn't have enough material to even test.
Okay, I literally have to take notes on all these knives, I know. What about the pocket knife in the garage? You haven't mentioned that? Does that get tested?
They don't test that one, or even the butcher knives in the drying rack.
Why not?
As far as I can tell, the butcher knives just never come up again. And the only thing they say about the pocket knife is that. They had to maneuver around a bunch of stuff in the garage to get to it. So, I mean, clearly again, they looked at it, they thought it was important, but they must not think it was involved.
Who knows? So that's what's going on with the knives. They're searching the house, they're collecting evidence, and, meanwhile, officers canvas the neighborhood.
They find a few people who say that they heard a woman screaming outside at around 6 a.
M.
But it doesn't seem like anyone else called 911.
The people living on the other side of Lizette's duplex don't remember any loud, banging or pounding noises around the time that Lizette says Elizabeth was trying to get into her room. Although they think that there was some thumping sounds earlier in the morning, anywhere from like 1230 to 4, so the next day, this would have been August 9th. Lead detective Jeff Bell reaches out to Elizabeth's boyfriend, Dustin. And this is such a random fact, but Detective Bell is actually the anchorage officer who helped the FBI interrogate Israel. Keys. Which, again, not related to this at all, but just a random crime junkie fact.
Anyway, Dustin tells Detective Bell that he and Elizabeth were together for a decade, and there had been times when she acted manic, he says. She was even hospitalized in the past and she was supposed to take medication for ADHD, but when she did, she couldn't sleep. So then she'd take benadryl. Over the course of their relationship, he says, there were multiple concerning incidents, like one time, he says, Elizabeth attacked him by like clawing at him.
Another time, he says, she ran into traffic and he had to pull her out. And there was even a situation, according to him, where she took out a knife. And he thought that she was going to use it on herself, so he had to, like, tackle her. And he said that lately, her mental state has seemed to decline even more. Dustin describes how Elizabeth was usually neat and organized, but recently she has started being super messy.
And she also rarely used to drink alcohol, but she had started to drink more and more at work, so their relationship was getting rocky. Which is why Elizabeth was living with Lisette. The last time that I can tell that they spoke was at 3 0 5 a.m on the morning Elizabeth died.
Dustin tells Detective Bell that she had called and texted him, but she wasn't making much sense. She was rambling about ghosts and numbers, and her texts were just as odd. Dustin even forwards the texts along to police so they can see. And we have them here, which I think provides a little like insight. So, Britt, do you want to read these like just a couple of them?
Sure, so after she asked him to answer his phone, she texted him Zombie ghost M, like just the letter M. Then we stay ready. 44, and all of that is one long word no spaces.
And then we are done. I mean, I don't know what any of these mean, Ashley.
I don't think anyone does, including Dustin. So after those messages, Dustin says that he told her to just get some sleep and then the next thing he knew she was at the hospital.
Okay, so at the very least it sounds like she was going through a rough patch.
Yes, something is going on, right?
Definitely, but was her family aware of any of this?
No, so they're completely shocked and devastated by this whole thing, especially because no one had contacted them with even any concerns about Elizabeth leading up to this. I know Dustin did talk to Elizabeth's brother, Eusebius the day that she died, but that was the first time he'd spoken to him ever. Like, not just about Elizabeth's like, declining state, but ever.
Despite Elizabeth and him having been together for like 10 years at this point, Elizabeth's family does not know this guy very well. So anyways, two days after her death, Dustin contacts Eusebius again because he wants permission to get Elizabeth's things from Lisette's house. That's when Eusebius finds out that Lisette and Desmond aren't in custody. Because he and his whole family assumed that they had been arrested the day that Elizabeth died, because Lisette told Benedicta that they were being taken to the police station.
Plus, Elizabeth's family doesn't think she would have stabbed herself, so to them, that only leaves Lisette and Desmond.
Yeah, but I actually get Lisette and Desmond not being in custody at this point because they don't even know if Elizabeth was murdered. I guess what I don't understand is how no one has updated the family.
That is a super frustrating part of this, because, remember, they're in Florida, it's not like they can just hop in their car and be there in a few hours. So the next day, which is the 11th, Benedicta speaks with Detective Bell, and he assures her that they're investigating.
But he's like, Listen, it's only been a few days, we don't have the official autopsy or the toxicology reports back yet. And again, to put this in context, we're talking 2020. This is the height of Covid, so there are bound to be delays. But in the meantime, Detective Bell does start interviewing Elizabeth's friends and coworkers.
They are all stunned to hear about her death, and none of them know of Elizabeth using illegal drugs or misusing medications. They tell the detective that she was just the sweetest person, poised, calm, patient. Basically the exact opposite of what police had been hearing about her recent behavior.
In fact, a woman who everyone calls Shayla tells him that Elizabeth has stayed with her before she went to stay with Lisette and Desmond. And when they were together, everything seemed fine. But everyone also does seem to have a different opinion about Elizabeth's relationship with Dustin. Some people say that they just needed a break, some people say they were broken up.
Some say that she seemed afraid of him. It's all a confusing web that Detective Bell has to work through, and it gets even more confusing when rumors start to spread among her friends and coworkers. The co-owner of the club where Elizabeth danced had sent a group text to a bunch of employees. This was the day that Elizabeth had died, and basically she was just letting everyone know.
So, naturally, everyone had questions, what happened, how? and the co-owner's response. Actually, I have a screenshot.
Can you just read exactly what was sent?
Sure quote She was off medications and stabbed herself in the abdomen and neck. She died during emergency surgery. End quote Okay, one. That's not a very tactful way of answering those questions.
No, and two. The stab wounds were only found on her abdomen and thigh, right.
Bingo, that's the takeaway. So this text basically starts a chain reaction of rumors that are not true, people who got this text told others. And then suddenly, people are hearing that Elizabeth was stabbing herself when the cops got there, or that it happened in a car, and so on, and so on.
Okay, but rumors have to start somewhere. Where did the co-owner originally hear she'd stabbed herself in the neck?
Dude, we sent Nina on a mission to try and find out. There is nothing in the reports that we have about this rumor's source, so none of what we have is first-hand information. And when Nina talked to Eusebius, he said that two of Elizabeth's friends told him that they had heard it directly from Lizette. But again, this is third-hand information.
Take it with a massive grain of salt. And trying to track down who said what during this time is like trying to make sense of a game of telephone. Everyone is hearing something different and by the end, everything has gotten so twisted up, it's hard to know where it even began. So there's kind of this waiting period. Yes, Detective Bell is out there talking to people, but again, all he's getting is like, this weird web of information. And police don't get the autopsy or toxicology results back until October.
So that's a long, painful wait for Elizabeth's family. But when the reports finally do come in, the investigation takes a turn that no one in her family saw coming.
I want to start with the toxicology because there are a lot of issues to unpack. Elizabeth had THC in her system.
Which isn't shocking, since everyone knew she smoked weed.
Right? But there was something else in her blood that no one was expecting. Medazolam that is a sedative very similar to valium, and it's used in surgery, as part of anesthesia or to treat severe agitation. And before you even go well, she had surgery and she was agitated when the EMS got her to the house. There is no documented reason for this to be in Elizabeth's system.
EMS reportedly didn't give her any medication and it is not on the list of medications that the hospital administered. But unlike everything else we've talked about so far, this might have a simple explanation. Nina reached out to Dr. James Gill, Connecticut's chief medical examiner and past president of the National Association of Medical Examiners.
Okay, then?
Yes, very fancy. So she asked him to talk us through all of these complicated findings, and let me just say, dude went above and beyond. Now. He couldn't offer an opinion on this specific case, but he looked over the reports and answered a ton of questions for us. And one thing he pointed out is that he didn't see an anesthesia record in the hospital reports.
We know she had general anesthesia, but we don't know what she was premedicated with. Normally, that information would be included, and I'm not sure why it isn't here. But for all we know, the hospital has this whole other document explaining this whole thing that we just don't have now. It's worth noting that midazolam is also prescribed for epilepsy, which Dustin has, and there's been some speculation that it might have come from him somehow.
Honestly, though, I think a missing anesthesia record makes more sense to me. Dr. Gill says that the documented level of midazolam in Elizabeth's system was consistent with a typical dose. So we're not talking super high. And if, for argument's sake, that she took it before she was hospitalized. He says that it's unlikely that that level would have caused the type of reaction that police described.
He said it's more likely to have made her like, relaxed or sedated.
Then what about the benadryl? Could that have caused her behavior?
Girl, this is a whole other thing to unpack. So based on the reports and the tests that were ordered, we don't actually know if there was any benadryl in her system.
Ashley, You have mentioned Benadryl like 50 times, how could they not know?
Okay, so to get to that, I have to explain the various types of toxicology tests that can be run. So there's a basic postmortem blood test, which detects opiates and amphetamines, cocaine again, basic stuff that, like the name, implies. But for things like the active ingredient in Benadryl, or Seroquil, or Zoloft, or any of the medications that have come up so far. You need an expanded blood test, and in this case, they only did a basic postmortem blood test, not an expanded one.
But if the whole theory from the very beginning was that she had some strange drug reaction, why wouldn't they get an expanded test?
And that's a great question. I don't know. This is what is wild about this case. Again, you can go back and forth, and you know, we'll get to it. At the end, you can go back and forth of what happened to Elizabeth.
What I don't think anyone disagrees on is that the way that her case was handled was so poor. And to your point about this specifically? I really don't understand, because again, I brought up Benadryl a bunch of times, because it's come up a bunch of times. And what we know is that high doses of diphenhydramine, which is the active ingredient in benadryl, can actually cause delirium now. That being said, the dose that Lisette said Elizabeth took, which I remember, I think, was like four tablets. Four tablets shouldn't have been enough to cause that kind of reaction. So there are just too many unknown variables to draw any real conclusions, which is why I just don't understand why that expanded blood test wasn't done.
And who decides what test to order anyway, the M.E. or the police?
Dr. Gill told us that it's usually the pathologist which brings me to the autopsy. So the M.E. determined that. Elizabeth died from complications of multiple stab wounds, two on the right side of her abdomen and eight on her right thigh. The thigh wounds were, quote unquote, superficial, while the abdominal wounds were more serious. They injured her liver and intestines, and they penetrated her aorta.
The ME noted that Elizabeth had a medical history of depression. And based on the pattern of the injuries and the lack of defensive wounds, he said he can't rule out the possibility that these wounds were self-inflicted, so he classified Elizabeth's manner of death as undetermined. And with that ruling, Anchorage PD immediately suspends its investigation.
I'm sorry they suspend the investigation. I mean, can't rule out. The possibility is not the same. As she 100 stabbed herself, they're basically saying they still do not know what happened to her.
Yeah, her family is floored by this. But they basically decide that if police aren't going to try and find out what happened, then they will. Now, the silver lining is they have access to more information. With the case suspended, so Eusebius submits a bunch of records requests and tries to learn everything he can.
But the more he finds out, the more questions he has. So on Thursday, January 21st, 2021, what would have been Elizabeth's 38th birthday. He reaches out to Detective Bell again, and that's when he finds out. Police never sent any of the forensic evidence that they collected for any kind of testing. What, why not?
Well, Detective Bell tells him that it wouldn't prove anything one way or another. Like, if they found Lisette's or Desmond's fingerprints on one of the knives, it's their knives, it's their house, they would expect to find their fingerprints.
Okay, then why don't they test all the freaking knives for Elizabeth's fingerprints?
Well, I mean, police say that it still wouldn't prove anything. Because even if they didn't find her prints, it doesn't mean she didn't stab herself. Like people don't always leave fingerprints, at least not ones that are like, readable. And to their first point, she'd been staying there, so like, if you do, what? Does that mean? She could have touched the knives before?
It's messy. He basically just tells Eusebius that he doesn't have a theory about what happened. He's not necessarily saying that Elizabeth stabbed herself, but there's also no evidence, he says, that anyone else stabbed her. And he said, the only way that they could prove something like that is if the culprit essentially confessed.
Or you could, I don't know, test the evidence, do an expanded blood test, you know, investigate, as the term investigator implies.
Yeah, right, like, I understand what they're saying and we could go round and round in circles. But at least try like you don't know what you have until you try.
Check off a couple boxes for us, would you?
Yeah, and Eusebius isn't satisfied with Detective Bell's answer, either. So in late March, he tries again. This time he gets on the phone with Sergeant Bianca Cross, who helps oversee the homicide unit. And unlike Detective Bell, Sergeant Cross does have a theory that she's willing to share with him. She thinks that it's very likely that Elizabeth's injuries were self-inflicted. Now, she tells him, it doesn't sound like Elizabeth was in a very good frame of mind. Maybe there were some mental health or drug-related issues.
Plus, she didn't have any defensive wounds. They're coming back to that. She says that even if one person held Elizabeth down while a second person stabbed her, she would still expect to see more injuries. Rug burns, abrasions, scratches something. And she also thinks that regardless of who did the stabbing. One of two weapons was used, either the leatherman or the steak knife found in the living room. And of those two, she and the detective both think that the steak knife is more likely. But she continues to say that they have no plans to test any of the forensic evidence.
She also tells Eusebius that if, for argument's sake, Lizette stabbed Elizabeth, the two had a physical altercation beforehand. So if Elizabeth was the attacker, then Lizette would have had a reason to defend herself.
But why are the cops arguing self-defense when Lizette never brought that up in the first place?
It does feel like setting up a defense that nobody has brought up. She never said that.
No one's asking for, Yeah, this is so frustrating. I mean, bottom line is, if Elizabeth was killed, she deserves justice. End of story. But if she wasn't murdered and her injuries really were self-inflicted, then this cloud of suspicion is just hanging over Lizette and Desmond.
Until what? Forever? I mean, that's not fair to them either.
Yeah, I mean, this is what's so frustrating. Elizabeth's family has a very clear point of view on this. But again, even if you're muddy like, it's in everyone's interest to get this cleared up. But Elizabeth's family feels that the Anchorage police have been largely dismissive, not just of them, but of Elizabeth. And they wonder if it's because she was black, or if it was because she was an exotic dancer, or because she wasn't really a local. Or because of early oversights in the investigation to Eusebius, police don't even sound very knowledgeable about the case.
Although, I mean, no one knows it better than him. Because by the time he talked to Sergeant Cross, he had amassed a pile of reports and audio recordings. I mean, he basically knows the files backward and forward now. It's worth noting, though, that for the longest time, he hadn't been able to bring himself to look at the photos of the scene yet. I mean, this is his sister.
But this call with Sergeant Cross, it motivates him to finally look at those. Maybe those are going to tell him something, and when he takes a look, he gets a shock.
Britt, I want you to take a look at these evidence photos that Elizabeth's family gave us, which are also on the blog post for this episode.
Okay, so these are the knives from under the couch, the kitchen sink and the leatherman by the stairs, and there's no blood on the sink knife or the leatherman. And I can just barely make out anything that remotely looks blood-like on the one in the living room.
Right, oh, and remember how police didn't test the pocket knife in the garage for whatever reason?
Yeah, they just said like, No, thanks.
Yeah, bring up that one, look at that photo, like, make it large.
Oh my God, right away, this is the only knife in these pictures that I can actually see what maybe looks like blood. I mean, there's at least some red stuff on it, in addition to whatever that gunk is. There's definitely enough to be like, Yeah, let's test this one.
The fact that they didn't, that is baffling, Ashley.
Yeah, again, this just goes back to, like, why are you being so picky and weird about what you do? Test and don't test, and like, get all the information possible. Because leaving stuff out, even if it's not nefarious, even like it, just makes this not good. And Eusebius is just so frustrated by this now, I think he's frustrated that that knife didn't get tested.
I mean, same. But actually, the thing that I was really hung up on with the knives were the ones with no blood on them. So we actually went to Dr. Gill for some insight again. But he says that it's not that unusual for a knife to have very little blood on it after a stabbing. Like when you think about it, it goes into a body quickly.
When it comes out, tissue, skin, clothing can kind of like wipe some of the blood off.
Which makes sense, but it's not just there's very little blood on these knives, there's like, practically no blood. Plus, she wasn't really wearing clothing. Well, actually, I don't know were the stab wounds through the robe, or like, straight onto her bare skin.
I know the paramedics cut her robe off, but I'm not sure if the knife went through it or not. And you know, honestly, this detail might actually play into, like, the larger question at the heart of this story. Because as rare as this method of suicide and attempted suicide is, there's three classic criteria that indicate a stab wound could be self-inflicted. Now, it doesn't mean these are the only three, or that they're always true, but first, there is usually the presence of hesitation marks.
Those are these, like tentative, more superficial cuts that people make to test how it feels, and they're often made next to like a main wound. Next, there's the presence of multiple stab wounds, which is also a hallmark of a homicidal stabbing. So that one could go both ways. But third, studies show that victims of suicide usually don't stab themselves through their clothes.
So, I mean, I'd be curious to know if the wounds were through the robe, but I don't remember seeing anything about that in the reports. And we have, I think, like one or two pictures of the robe itself, and I'm not seeing any holes. But it's also not laid out perfectly to examine it in that way. Oh my God, and speaking of the robe, Britt, I have to show you this picture.
Because what the robe shows is that it is saturated in blood. Can you see that?
Yeah, which makes sense. I mean, you said. One of the wounds pierced her aorta. This is a bloody, bloody piece of evidence.
Which, okay, so I want to take you back to the beginning of this story. Because, if you remember, they find her in the house, they think she's having some kind of drug overdose or episode. They take her to the ambulance. They wait what 20-some minutes while they're sitting there.
And the whole time, no one notices that she's got stab wounds and like, obviously she's bleeding out. The robe looks like this, I guess what Eusebius says police told him, is that, yeah, it's not like the robe didn't look like that, it looked like that.
We all just thought it was sweat.
What? Mm-hmm. I am so overwhelmed by this case, I feel like I'm getting more and more lost.
I know, and specifically with the robe, like, we'll put this picture online as well. Because, like myself, I kind of understand why they would think sweat like, basically the color is like this pink color, the red doesn't show up like blood red.
It's just like this darker color, so I understand.
It could just look wet.
Theoretically.
Well, and it's like one of those things where, like, when you hear hoof beats, don't look for zebras. Like, mm-hmm. You see this woman in this robe that appears to be like, dampened by a substance. Maybe this is a 911 situation, like, let's look for wounds.
Yeah, I mean, they're handcuffing her, they're taking her out of the place, they're putting her in an ambulance. You also had to have touched her.
Wouldn't the blood be on you still wet? I don't know.
I do not know, and so I understand why you say you're getting lost in this case, and I don't know which way is up half the time. But for Eusebius, as he has been taking in this information, as he now sees the photos. As he's getting nowhere with police, he becomes more and more convinced that Elizabeth was murdered. So that's when he starts reaching out to attorneys hoping to launch a wrongful death lawsuit.
They don't want the case, they agree that the situation is unusual, but they can't try to prove or disprove that someone else stabbed Elizabeth. They say that that is a job for police and for prosecutors.
Who have already closed the case and probably aren't going to reopen it.
Exactly so. Then he moves to contact local and national media, but they don't pick up the story, so he thinks, okay, if they're not going to tell Elizabeth's story, I am. He makes a few YouTube videos.
He reaches out to others on the platform who publish their own videos. And actually, a YouTuber named Justin Black, who ran a popular true crime YouTube channel called The Disturbing Truth, covers the case. And he actually goes and gets a hold of Desmond. Desmond talks to him and tells him that shortly before Elizabeth died, she was displaying some pretty concerning behavior. Here is a clip of that interview which Eusebius gave to us.
She had been acting like Manic, like she went out and bought things that she couldn't afford, and was laughing hysterically and was writing down lists of random things and people. She went and rearranged all of my brother and sister's things and moved them out in the hallway and made a huge mess. She was just doing a lot of weird things and she hadn't been able to sleep for days. On the last day that we saw her, she started like running around the street naked.
In fact, Desmond tells Justin Black that he had a bizarre run-in with Elizabeth around 1 or 2 in the morning on the Saturday that she died. She approached me, but naked, as I was coming out of the bathroom, talking about how much she loved me, and I practically ignored her.
I did ignore her. What? Why are we just hearing about this now?
He says he didn't tell Lizette because he didn't know what to make of the whole situation. I couldn't really tell if she was coming on to me sexually, like the state that she was in.
She told me that she loved me, but she didn't touch me or grab me or anything like that.
I don't know, it was weird, the state she was in.
That brings up a question for me Did Elizabeth's autopsy include a sexual assault examination?
Not that I can tell, I know there was a standard vaginal exam and that everything appeared normal. Although they did make note that her uterus was enlarged because of these benign tumors called uterine fibroids. But anyways, it was just a few hours after Desmond says that this encounter took place, that everything went down.
I thought that Elizabeth was fine, actually when she left, I thought the police were being overreactive.
I thought my mom was being overreactive, I never actually thought that she was going to die.
I thought she put a minor cut on her wrist or something for attention.
Now Nina got in touch with Desmond, too, and he seemed to be considering an interview. We also asked him to put us in touch with Lisette because we couldn't find a working number for her. But after an initial response, we just never heard from him again. Dustin didn't want to speak with us either.
But, according to Eusebius, Dustin told him that he doesn't think Elizabeth stabbed herself. He thought it was common sense that she hadn't. Now, in addition to police, we also reached out to the Anchorage Fire Department, the Alaska State Medical Examiner's Office and the recently retired Detective Bell. But the only other people who agreed to interviews were Dustin's sister and a couple of Elizabeth's friends who worked with her. None of whom think the pieces are adding up.
And, of course, we worked with Elizabeth's family. Eusebius gave us all of his reports and all of his audio, everything he has. But the one thing he didn't have was dash cam footage of the initial police response, like when the ambulance was there at the house. Now, Anchorage PD told him that they only had dash cam footage from the second time police went to Lisette's.
So we put in our own records request for it, a request that just specified a period when the cops first arrived until the ambulance left. Now, first we were told that the request was going to be filled, then we were told that it wouldn't be released because of an open civil lawsuit. But we looked, there was no record of anything pending.
And so after we brought that to the department's attention, we were passed over to the deputy chief, who said, Okay, we are going to fill your request. But after that whole back and forth, guess what they gave us.
Uh, gonna go out on a limb here and say nothing.
Close. They sent us the exact same footage from the exact same period that they had already given to Eusebius. So we're like, Okay, hi, this is what we asked for, and they're like, Oh, the footage that you asked for, that doesn't exist.
Cool, So that was fun.
Awesome.
And here we are, more than two and a half years since Elizabeth's death. Her family unequivocally believes that she was murdered, but without a proper investigation. There's no real chance for closure or for answers. Without an expanded blood test, we don't know what exactly was in her system the night she died.
We don't know if there's blood on the knives that were never tested. And at the end of the day, I don't know what happened to Elizabeth. All I know is that a woman is dead and many people think that she was cheated out of a thorough investigation. I'm one of them and no family should ever feel like their loved one doesn't matter.
And speaking of her family, they are still trying to figure out what happened in that house the night that Elizabeth died. So if you want to know how you can continue supporting Elizabeth's case, or if you have any information about her death, you can reach out to justice4elizabeth.hotmail..com. We'll also have that email linked in our show notes. If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health concerns or suicidal thoughts, help is available. We have the numbers for the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline in our show notes and on our blog post.
You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.
Com.
And you can follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkiepodcast.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.
Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production, so what do you think, Chuck, do you approve?
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