Uncover Introduces: Fatal Beauty from Sony Music Entertainment
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What is Fatal Beauty about?
This is a CBC Podcast.
Who was Alan Rarig and what happened to him?
Alan Rarig was found dead in a parking lot in Oklahoma. He'd been shot twice. Once to the head. You'd think his wife would be devastated. Not exactly.
She was either the black widow or bad luck.
This is the unbelievable story of a femme fatale with a trail of bodies in her wake. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Fatal Beauty, available now on The Binge. Search for Fatal Beauty wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. Oklahoma City was shrouded in a quiet chill that December night. It was a couple of weeks before Christmas in 1985.
How did police discover the crime scene?
The hum of jet engines could be heard in the distance. Two Oklahoma City police officers were patrolling a secluded area not too far from the Will Rogers Airport. His little Bronco was just sitting in the lot for this place, and it didn't fit.
What clues were found in Alan Rarig's vehicle?
Was someone in there? It was hard to see. Frost clung stubbornly to the vehicle's windows, obscuring the inside, as if nature itself sought to shield the horrors within. As the officers approached the Bronco, the cold air felt heavier, almost suffocating. One officer gripped the passenger door handle, pulling hesitantly. It was locked, left with no choice but to pry it open. Inside, the scene was chilling beyond the winter's cold. The partially decomposed body of a man in his prime wedged between the front seats, his head face down on the back floorboard. He was young, 30-something. His lifeless form seemed to have been abandoned in a final, grotesque tableau. Retired homicide detective Kyle Eastridge recalls the scene.
His state of decomposition and his clothes were the first clues. Bermuda shorts and a light sweater. This was winter in Oklahoma City, and tonight, the temperature was below freezing. Oklahoma City was very cold. It starts making you think this guy's probably from somewhere else. And it looked like someone else had last driven the Bronco. He was a tall guy. And the driver's seat was good enough for someone real short to drive it. The officers ran the license plate. The car belonged to Norman Allen Rarig. He was 30 and lived in Dallas, Texas, about 200 miles away.
The police rapidly concluded this guy was probably killed in Dallas.
Then the next clues. There was no weapon at the scene, no wallet. And here's the strangest part, no car keys. From the initial scene, I think it was pretty apparent that he came from somewhere away and that he'd been dumped there and staged to look like that. Was this a robbery gone wrong? Still, something wasn't tracking.
If he'd been robbed in Dallas... Why would the culprit bother... pushing him out of the driver's seat and then driving his dead body all the way to Oklahoma City.
He had two gunshot wounds from a .38 caliber pistol, one to the head, precise and deliberate, and the other to the body, leaving no doubt about the brutality of the crime. The faint odor of death intermingled with the frozen air. The officers exchanged knowing looks. This, they knew, was murder. But how this man was killed was something they wouldn't know for a long time. And the victim himself, wedged between the seats of his car in a parking lot in Oklahoma in the dead of winter, had no idea of the danger he was in moments before he died. Alan Rarig was the kind of tall, broad-shouldered man that made people do a double take. An athlete. A hometown hero. The kind of man who would have aged gracefully. Chiseled even in middle age.
Were he not face down on the back floorboard, his life ended. He hadn't fully appreciated that someone had it out for him. That someone wanted him dead. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Fatal Beauty. Available now on The Binge. Search for Fatal Beauty wherever you get your podcasts to start listening today. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.
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