Chapter 1: What happened to Marine Todd Sommer?
He was a young Marine, handsome in his dress blues. He had a religious aspect to him. She was a free spirit who didn't care about convention. I'm a hippie. I'm a deadhead. They married and made a life together. And then one night, the Marine died. 911, do you have a message? Yeah, my husband just collapsed. What happened? He just collapsed. He walked out and couldn't move. He collapsed.
Drums rolled, guns saluted, and a flag was folded for the widow. All of it by the book. Solemn, dignified, appropriate.
Chapter 2: How did Cindy Sommer's behavior raise suspicions?
And then something happened. The widow went off script. She started having a lot of parties shortly after his funeral. A lot of the neighbors were just like, she got over that pretty quickly. With her husband's insurance money, the widow lived it up. New bling, new lovers, new look. This case started because of the breast implants. Think about it.
If she had a nose job, would we even be talking about it? Eyebrows arched, tongues wagged, and an investigation was born. Chemists found arsenic in the Marine's tissues, and his widow was accused of murder. We need to try to pursue justice for this young Marine and his family. Our latest podcast takes us to San Diego, where an untimely death and some unseemly behavior added up to a murder rap.
What am I being arrested for? Like I told you yesterday, there was some foreign substance that was found in his body. So you tried to move the murderer? Oh my gosh, are you serious? Yes. It's a story about investigators in dogged pursuit of a theory. I told them they might want to get the stuff retested and find out what's going on. It's about prosecutors hell-bent on winning and...
about what happens when the wheels of justice go off the rails. It was over a million. My mom sold her house, cashed in all of their retirements, all their everything. It shouldn't be a game. It shouldn't be a situation where let's see what we can get away with. And that's what happened in this case. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all-new podcast from Dateline.
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