Debra Sundstrom ////// 315 | Forensic Files

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you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me this week is my very special
guest Aaron from the Generation Y podcast hey Nick great to be on your show thank you for joining us I thought
since you are our guest this week that it would be appropriate to ask you if you have a beer that you would like to
choose for the beer of the week this week absolutely my favorite beer hands down if someone said you'll get free
beer for a year but you can only drink this beer it would be de shoot obsidian Stout how about a garage grade it would
be five caps out of five easily well de shoot Brewery describes their obsidian Stout like this deep robust and richly
rewarding this this is beer to linger over obsidian has distinct notes of espresso chocolate roasted malt and
black barley with just enough hot bite to cut the sweetness now for me the reason I like it is because it's not too
hoppy it's very dark I mean you can't see through it and it's perfectly balanced between the chocolate and The
Malt uh and the espresso so it's the kind of beer that I can linger over as they say or I can just drink it regular
I can just I can down a couple pretty quick so it seems like a beer that fits pretty much any occasion thank you Aaron
and this week's beer is brought To Us by all of you good listeners out there first up we have Amy from Columbus next
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next week's show go to True Crim garage.com and click on the Donate button and that's enough of the business
everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime Randy and Deborah sandstrom lived
together for about 20 years at their home on South River Road about 2 miles out in the country beyond the Delaware
County Fairgrounds in Walton New York Walton is a small town population of a little over 3,000 people Deborah was
born on January 4th 1965 she and her siblings grew up in Walton and she graduated from high
school there in 1984 Randy was from Rosco he was one of three children of farmers Randy joined the army in
1981 After High School and served 2 years afterward he operated a small engine repair shop the Suns did not have
children together but before they got together back in 1989 Randy had a child with his girlfriend at the time his
daughter's name is Mindy Randy and and his girlfriend the child's mother didn't stay together and unfortunately Randy
left when his daughter was just about 2 years old moving about 30 miles away now
Randy failed to maintain a relationship with his daughter he would send cards money and sometimes a gift for birthdays
or Christmas but he did not see his daughter after he left yeah Mindy has talked about this since saying that she
thought maybe at least from what she heard is that Randy's wife Deborah was jealous and didn't want him to have a
relationship with his daughter because that would take away from their relationship yeah Mel she stated that uh
and now she's in her late 20s but she said that quote he wasn't around U I'm sorry he was only around
until she was about two and that seems to be when he met Deborah and then moved to Walton and she says I didn't see him
again after that adding that she didn't really know him at all so all of this takes place seemingly when Randy and
Deborah meet are fall in love or what have you now we do already know that they went on to be married and have a
long relationship Deborah worked for years with a Delaware County social welfare agency later she began working
as a grocery store cashier Randy worked for many years at the warehouse for Drogan home home furnishings and then
for some time at Scott machine Corporation in engraving firm in Walton now the sunstrom had an
interesting hobby Randy being the son of farmers why not right uh they sometime in the late 90s they started growing
pumpkins and they wanted to learn how to grow the biggest pumpkins that maybe anyone in the great state of New York
has ever ever seen Randy was the founding president of the New York State giant pumpkin growers association and in
1999 Randy and Deborah set a goal to break the state record for the largest pumpkin I guess in 2008 they grew a
pumpkin that weighed almost 1500 PBS yeah there there are these pumpkins and you can't just go buy seeds at a store
from what I understand you have to get the right seeds and the type of pumpkin they're growing are Dills Atlantic giant
they were trying to grow these giant pumpkins now 2008 1500 lb huge right well to give you some perspective
nowadays they're 2600 lb so these pumpkins are no joke and they start uh as a little potl as I would call it in
your kitchen basically and then they end up outside and you have to grow them a certain way it takes a lot of care a lot
of patience and of course later you need a crane basically to move these things um they were even in a documentary from
2007 titled the Lords of the gour also in their Garden they they tended to pumpkins dozens of tomato plants and
other standard vegetables as well as blueberries and grapes they didn't hang out at bars they didn't go to church
they farmed and they grew big fat giant pumpkins simple life Simple Story right nothing out of the ordinary except for
the poor sad decision Randy made to not be a real father to a little girl but we
wouldn't be talking about this story on a show like the garage or on a show like
Generation Y if it were just that simple would we so in 2010 apparently Randy did his whole Houdini trick once
again apparently leaving Deborah high and dry now Deborah told friends and Neighbors that Randy had run off Randy
had met someone else and that new love interest got pregnant Deborah said Randy took off to start a new life and
according to Deborah the stoms had been hiding a secret for years the Family secret is Randy was an abusive man and
Deborah was forced to live in an abusive relationship for years after Randy was gone Deborah told friends and neighbors
that they did not know the real Randy she told a story of a late night fight when Randy came home very late one night
and because Deborah was upset with Randy for being out so late she locked him out
of the house so Randy tried to break into the house and this ultimately led to a physical altercation in which Randy
hit Deborah and then Deborah hit Randy yeah this is a story someone reported that they had heard as best as I can
tell it seems like a deviation from the couple that everyone knew I mean you already talked about how they
didn't go out to bars they didn't go on road trips they were gardeners gardening
was their life I mean it went beyond a hobby it became their life yeah Deborah went on to say that her ticket out of
this abusive relationship was when Randy fell for another woman and then took off
with Randy gone Deborah continued to work and live at the couple's home she continued gardening and walking their
dog she would often walk her dog with the nextd door neighbor it became kind of routine for the two of them to talk
and sometimes Deborah to share stories about Randy now about a year after Randy was gone Deborah got a job as a cashier
at the Big M Supermarket in Walton the owner said that Deborah was a hard worker and and was a customer favorite
she had been working at Big M Supermarket for about 2 years I believe when in February of
2013 she was accused of stealing a pocketbook that a customer had left at the store apparently Deborah kept the
pocketbook and when confronted about the missing pocketbook she lied saying she didn't know where it could be but the
store's video surveillance footage told a much different story The pocketbook was in fact in Deborah's possession the
store decided the best thing to do was to press charges and Deborah was charged with leny yeah it's a it's a theft and
it cost her her job and then she was charged five counts of Larsen in the fourth degree and basically this is
because she took a pocketbook and this is verified on video and the amount uh that she Stole was in excess of $11,000
at least the value of the pocketbook so she's charged with this five counts you said and for unknown reasons Deborah
sunstrom decides to not appear in court she failed to appear in court and what happens when you don't show up to court
well a bench wart is issued they're going to go and deliver the warrant and make you go to court so the warrant was
typed up and now it's time to deliver said warrant law enforcers learned that Deborah was spending a lot of time at a
some some have called it a vacation home or second home that was owned by the Bosco family Deborah was involved in a
relationship with Dominic Bosco so that's where law enforcement is going to go once they don't find Deborah at her
home they don't just send a couple of officers they send the Walton police Chief Brian
louser and Delaware County Sheriff Office senior investigator Carl vs Jr sounds like pretty pretty important law
enforcement Personnel showing up to serve this warrant they're sending the brass so this is it at about 2 p.m. on
February 19th 2013 as you said Aaron we have the Walton police chief we have a ranking
investigator from the Sheriff's Office they're going to served this warrant at 294 John Lockwood
Road Deborah sunstrom answered the door when they knocked the officers informed her she was being
arrested now Deborah answered the door wearing a night shirt she asked if the officers could possibly wait on the
stoop just outside the front door so that she could get dressed before they arrest her now this is a small town as
we mentioned one of the officers knew Deborah and apparently had known her for years so he agrees to allow her request
so they're going to give her a moment to change out of her night clothes now Deborah shuts the door and within a
minute things change drastically I'll say they hear a couple of gunshots which of course since the officers were there
to serve this bench warrant uh for failure to show up in court on these charges now they're going to break in through
the door and investigate and that's uh that's a pretty risky move it it's just hard to imagine they they knew this
woman she had a good reputation and they just never could have imagined that gunshots would have
rang out from the house in this situation yeah one of the officers reported hearing two gunshots within
approximately 1 minute of Deborah closing the door police chief flower is the one who went upstairs and discovered
two bodies one of Deborah sunstrom and the other was her beloved dog an Australian Shepherd named Shadow both
have been shot to death with a weapon that was found very close by a 3030 rifle the other officer noticed that the
house was on fire and yells to the chief to get out now they managed to escape the fire but they watched helplessly as
the house burned apparently leaving only the wraparound deck in a fireplace chimney
near the front door firefighters saved a detached garage now Deborah must have acted very
fast after the door closed later police said Deborah set the house of Blaze then
she shot and killed her dog shadow with one shot from that 3030 rifle and then with a second shot she shot and killed
herself now once the fire was out and the smoke cleared cleed investigators have to go into the house and recover
the woman's body and this is when they get another surprise yeah they you know they really tried to preserve this scene
they had firefighters from both Walton and Deli coming by uh to try and put this fire out and they just weren't able
to put it out in time in fact the call from the officers went out soon after that 2 p.m. time that they reported to
the house so even with quick action you can't always save a scene and uh with everything burned down like that now
they have to see what they can recover but it's it's also been said that she may have set the fire as soon as she
knew that they were there uh even before she opened the door yeah this is a situation where you really feel
like she she had to believe that they would come for her at some point and it it almost seems to me like too much has
to be done and too little of amount of time that some of this had to to been put into action
before they even knocked on the door and we know that neither of the gunshots took place until after they had already
spoke to her so you have to wonder how much was already set into motion before she ends up taking her life and when was
the decision made by her that that was going to be the result should they come for I think we'll be able to answer that
better after we cover more of the story of course it it's somewhat speculation but there may be some Clues as to why
she did what she did so what else in the house did they find when they were in there looking
through the rebel trying to protect this scene they spent more than a couple of days just going through this house
because it was mostly burnt down now they're just sifting through everything essentially but they ended up finding
the unidentified an unidentified man in what was the basement of the home and he was
situated where you could say the stair the stairs had gone down from the Upper Floor so they but they didn't know who
this man was and because Deborah at least from all uh appearances seemed to have committed arson shot her dog and
then shot herself this is really out of character at least as far as anybody knew about her so now they're wondering
who's the man could it be Dominic BOS you know after all it was his family's home or it might also be that of Randy
sunstrom because heck maybe she was lying that whole time yeah and ultimately it turns out to be the body
of Dominic bosow and it's believed that she if she in fact was the one that killed him it's believed that he died
one to three days before Deborah killed herself it's kind of a mystery but on the other hand they're just going by the
last time anyone had heard from him and they so it's it involves some speculation he did die and then of
course his body was in a home that burnt down so it could be very difficult to get the answers that the investigators
require but before they even identify you know whose body it was they found something else interesting because over
the course of several days they were searching this Bosco house but they were also starting to search Deborah's own
home and there was a a state police investigator who used a caver dog to search around her home and the dog
alerted to a sealed 55 gallon drum outside of the house and when the investigator removed the lid
he found the moldering remains of a body so at that point they had two mysterious
bodies and I think all they knew at that point at that time was that they were both men that's it yeah and I think this
is pretty simple here just the search itself you know police are going to be tasked with trying to find Randy
sunstrom being that I mean technically he and Deborah would still be legally married at this time so they're going to
be looking for him I I don't know what kind of hunch that the police were working with but it doesn't take Albert
Einstein to figure out hey we've she killed herself what in the process of us trying to serve a warrant she kills her
dog sets a house on fire we find an unidentified body that turns out to be that of Dominic BOS her her known to be
boyfriend at the time it's not really a leap here for them to go out and get the
proper search warrant for her home and then to bring a cadaver sniffing dog to the house with them and like you said
the dog hits almost immediately leading the Handler to that 55g drum molder which is what moldering comes from is
slowly Decay or disintegrate especially because of neglect going off of their statement his body may have just been
folded up and placed in that Barrel basically just left there it doesn't seem like she has applied anything to
try to speed up the process or or diminish the the odor or anything like that so
he's found in a 55 gallon barrel this is located behind the couple's garage now keep in mind he's been missing for like
over 1,000 days at this time and and then ultimately the body was hiding in plain sight just 25 to 30 Paces from the
back door of the sunstrom home yeah a neighbor reported that he mowed the lawn right next to that
drum many many times and he had no idea but see that's the thing is no one expected anything like this to happen
with Deborah and so I think that's why they wanted to search home because they were thinking why would she shoot her
dog and herself over this bench warrant because sure you have law enforcement visiting your home to arrest you but it
wasn't as if they were going to arrest her for a murder this was for the theft of a pocketbook for a wallet so it just
didn't make sense so that's when their inner sense says there's something else going on here yeah and Deborah sunstrom
is really the only suspect in her husband's death and the thing here too is we have Deborah who she she got away
with murder for like three years and this is basically just because no one reported Randy as missing his parents
had passed away by this point and he was not in contact with his two siblings both of whom lived lived at a state his
few close friends believed Deborah's story about him leaving her and one of his friends is on record saying look I
just thought maybe he was embarrassed about taking off and that he would eventually reach out to me at some point
but he never did and then it's only in hindsight that his friend is saying wow that much time passed and he never
reached out to me I should have I should have thought that something was wrong here yeah I should have but I think we
need to give more credit to the fact that Deborah had won people over and and not for any kind of devious reasons or
anything it's just they were together for 20 years and over that time people got to know her and they really liked
her she was very personable and so why wouldn't she be telling the truth but you know I'll often say when someone
goes missing and the only other person that may have known what happened is saying oh yeah they just ran off but
then that person never contacts anyone else anyone else I find it really really questionable but then again Deborah was
personable and people liked her and we know he'd already left his own daughter behind before so why not his wife yeah I
think that probably would have added a lot of validation to any Skeptics out there that she was that Deborah was in
fact telling the truth that he had done this before and I would imagine the people
closest to him the ones that would be concerned of his whereabouts would be aware of this story so it's not
like it's not like this isn't something that he would not be capable of because he in fact did the very same thing just
at a much younger age now you said that she got away with murder for three years
Dr James Turan the path ologist conducted the autopsies on then the two unidentified bodies he
identified them we already talked about that but for Dominic bosow he said he couldn't figure out his manner or cause
of death so both were listed as undetermined so Dominic bosow he is listed as cause of death
undetermined manner of death be it homicide accident natural causes undetermined
undetermined and then that I guess you could say when we get to Randy sunstrom the manner of death was
homicide but the cause was undetermined now to me this is interesting because he's saying he
believes that Randy was as a result of a homicide I don't know if that's because
of the the drum that he was found in but we don't really have any real Clues as to how he was killed what what I've seen
from several of the cases that we've covered is is this exact situation where the concealment of the body is leading
him to to the determination of a homicide where Dominic Bosco you could make an argument that where he was found
at the what would have been the foot of the stairs to the basement could have possibly he could
have fallen he could have heart attack uh and just fell there the placement of that body is is
such a manner where it could have just he could have just died where he fell where we know in Randy's
situation the the probability of him being in that Barrel when he died of natural causes is so
incredibly mathematically D near impossible that that is where we're getting the
determination of of homicide as well it'd be I would be curious to see what else was in the barrel with him or if
there was even more evidence to push the pathologist to that determination yes and I know that uh before we recorded we
actually had a discussion about would there be any followup and I know that these pathologists are kind of stretched
thin to begin with and if I guess for the sake of argument if Deborah was responsible for these deaths then with
her death who are you going to prosecute I mean why spend the money or the time why do the followup if you really can't
take this case anywhere think about it this way no one called on behalf of Randy the whole time he was missing no
one not one person called any law enforcement uh Department to say Randy sunstrom is
missing and I want to file a report about it no one did that so obviously there's probably not a lot of uh voices
ringing out saying do something about this figure out how he died now as far as Dominic Bosco his parents they didn't
really want to talk about Deborah and I'm not sure why but it could be that they just didn't see this coming and I
think maybe they're lost for words well his family I believe they were out of they were out of Towners and that was
kind of their like second home or Retreat type of home where he was he had been staying apparently he was really
into the outdoors and and enjoyed staying in this I saw one description where they called it a cabin but
um I don't know that I would call it a cabin but that's where we have this difficult situation so we we we have
what we see to be technically unsolved at least one unsolved homicide as far as the ruling
goes but are these in fact closed cases where they believe everything points to Deborah as being the murderer of both
Dominic and Randy she's no longer with us died by her own hand in that manner are these cases no
longer open and closed but technically still [Music] unsolved this show is sponsored by
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visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie [Music] that well it's one thing to know who
committed the murders and I think the police know at least in their own minds that Deborah sunstrom is the one who
killed both Dominic bosow and Randy sunstrom but I'm not sure it's that simple there might actually be reasons
for why these murders were committed and why Deborah took her own life well let's
get into that and what is your speculation as far as cause of death for Domin and or Randy I honestly you know
thinking about it I couldn't come up with anything uh the only thing that I could say is we might have to entertain
many more possibilities given the fact that she was able to take her pretty Burly husband Randy and get him into a
barrel into this drum because that sounds like no easy feet he was kind of a big dude I know people have said she
was very strong but that's that's a determined woman right there to get this big guy into a drum so
I think the guy's the limit obviously they didn't find anything obvious but there could be many things here that
could have been the cause of death and I just can't really think other than to say I think we would have to include
a lot of possibilities well we know it wasn't or at least the pathologist does not believe that gun that a gun was
involved D in either of their deaths because they found no bullets just going off of playing the
numbers I feel like poison poisoning is probably a good consideration in maybe both of these
cases and if that if that is the case then we're talking about something very premeditated especially if it was done
twice but also fast acting because ry's you know they always try to narrow down the time frame of when someone
died uh in ry's case as far as they can tell he died about the time he disappeared and we know from uh
Dominic's death that he appeared to have died one to three days prior so that might also be a clue as to why
he was killed but if it was a poison it would have to be fast acting I would think well and because the house burnt
down the the pathologist playing at a huge disadvantage trying to figure out the cause and manner of death for
Dominic and really that that determination of him being dead one to three days is is as
you said based off of when was he last seen I believe a lot of it to be from his work what they could track through
his work records for that week or for that time period just shortly before his death yeah the other interesting thing
and and we didn't talk about this yet but about close to two weeks before Dominic's death or at least the time we
believe he died she had informed his family that he lost his phone so if they needed to get a hold of him they should
call her but he had a relative I believe his brother after he heard about the house being on fire he started calling
both his brother and Deborah and couldn't get a hold of either one but then he wasn't sure because she had told
him that he didn't have his phone anymore so he could sort of understand why his brother didn't answer the phone
but then Deborah wasn't answering hers either this is a very weird thing to me because then you have to wonder if we
are dealing with a poisoning or any form of premeditated murder from Deborah killing
Dominic was this planned before this phone call is made to her to his relative explaining away the phone
and why you would not be able to reach him by phone right and that's what I wondered was he still going to work what
was going on with him because if she was planning this weeks out which we could understand because that was about the
time she had been served she had been charged with these offenses but to me I think she was already planning his death
if not already had him in an incapacitated state or something because that's some real control there oh yeah
don't call them because you won't get a hold of them his phone's gone so if she did Kill both of them why what are the
the the theories on on why because that's really what we're left with I personally I feel there there are other
answers there are other questions that need to be answered but all all arrows seem to point to Deborah in both of
these cases now somebody else could be involved maybe there are other players here that we are unaware of but what is
the motivator why did she do it why would she kill Randy why would she kill Dominic
and there's there's also thought that it doesn't have to be for the same reason and it seems very
strange that this stealing of a pocketbook cuz that seems to be what what's what started this domino
effect that's the only thing that jumps off the page but that just doesn't it doesn't ring true it doesn't make sense
I think it does in a way because the only thing that's weird about it is why did she take the
pocketbook was it just an opportunity where she didn't think she would be caught did she not know about the
cameras but yes this is what invited law enforcement into her life life we already accept that she likely
killed Randy but no one followed up on that so she got away with that as you said but why kill
Dominic I think there's more of a complicated story here really when they started asking her
friends and neighbors and family what were they like what was this couple like and meaning Randy and Deborah well a lot
of people said they were the perfect couple they did everything together they were in love they spent all their time
together they lived for gardening but while that's true other people started saying well she told me that she had
been abused by Randy and then they would recount these stories like the one you gave about Randy trying to break into
the home and then being mad that she had locked him out and then him hitting her
but in the end a lot of people just said well that's what she told me they didn't
have any firsthand accounts until they talked to their neighbor which was Al Budin and hopefully I'm saying his name
right but Al Budin is the one that was mowing the lawn right next to the drum for all that time and he said that there
were two separate incidents where Deborah ran over to his home having been beaten by Randy and she was trying to
find Refuge she was trying to get away to be safe for a little while until things calmed down and he went on to say
that there was even a report to the police about this after one of those incidents so in his mind the police
should have known about this but see who called the police because when the police were discussing this case
they didn't think domestic violence was a part of this case at all right they they thought it was
unrelated now between you me and our great audience I would say there's a real possibility that domestic violence
was involved how well did anyone know Randy I mean what would be her motive to kill him
after 20 years where it seemed like they were only getting closer now we know he didn't run off and
he didn't have a pregnant girlfriend we know that's not true but why did she murder him there's a real possibility
that she murdered him because he was beating her I mean are we going to Discount uh Al's Story I mean unless he
was in on it I I find his story pretty compelling I do too do I do as well I reading a couple different versions of
that same story I I I wish that I was able to ask Al exactly what he saw and what he was told
because that's really his that's where his story is different than everybody else's if we are to go by that statement
of she appeared to have been beaten when she arrived at his home asking for help
that's much different than all these other stories where it's just it's just Deborah relaying something that she says
happened relaying actions of Randy's that she says he did so yes it's a very different story in that sense I would
love to I would love to see if he could look me in the eye and say yes that's I that's what I saw not that not that she
was running from the house saying and telling him he's he's going to beat me the way that his statement comes off in
that in the one article makes it sounds like the damage had already been done she had already been harmed by Randy
before she went to Al for help yes he used the phrase beaten to hell and so we could have a situation
where and that's what's so weird to me about you know domestic violence violence isn't supposed to make
sense so I don't know why I'm trying to make sense out of it but the the pictures that I saw of Deborah and Randy
and the the lifestyle that they were were living and the way that everybody spoke about them just makes the domestic
violence so weird to me it doesn't seem it's like it doesn't fit but again if it
was there then maybe it was the quote unquote Family secret and that's how it works sometimes I know
I've had uh many people run into Generation Y and say no one knew about the abuse that was happening to me and
in some cases they felt afraid to say anything because they just knew that no one would believe them because the other
person was so well-liked and in this case it worked that way for both of them if it was true
that he was beating his wife then who would have believed it and then he didn't really run away but that's
what Deborah said and everyone bought it it's all about perception I guess and what you think you
know in the killing of Randy do you believe that she acted alone it sounds like you have some suspicions of uh
because of how the body was found um once again we're relying on Al Al believes that she was more than
capable of getting her husband into that drum he said that she she would outwork
any man is the way he described her yeah I don't know what it would take and and but also Randy is not described
as being a small man no both of the men are her life uh both Randy and Dominic or Nick as people
knew him they both known to be pretty Burly guys uh and especially Dominic he was described as a guy who could take
care of himself and so people said he must have been ambushed they just didn't see how she
would have been able to harm him if he saw her coming but I I think uh when it comes down to
it for me um I I lean toward the domestic violence as being a real Factor here um
that's barring any other strange or unexpected change in the relationship of course but to me I could understand that
being a part of this and then why would she kill Dominic well she decided to take that pocketbook for some reason I
that's actually the biggest mystery to me I'm not sure why she did that but I think she started to panic and she'd
already murdered one man and I think for her she was hoping to Ride This Out so she murdered her other
man and with the you know the police chief and this investigator coming to her home well to what was her
boyfriend's home I think she started to feel put into a corner where she couldn't get out and she was I guess
more afraid of what would happen to her than worried about what it would be like
to take her own life I think part of my my theory there rests upon her killing her dog
because apparently she really liked Shadow he was an Australian Shepherd which I don't know a lot about dogs but
from people I've talked with they love this breed and I think it was a situation where she didn't want to leave
her dog behind I could see that and actually the thing here that I I think always kind of threw me off on
developing a good theory was the situation of the house being burnt down and but now I'm I'm almost wondering if
if she was in the process of doing that whether the authorities were going to show up
anyway and did she kill Dominic plan on burning the house to the ground look we know that it we know that
it already concealed his cause of death so if if she was planning to burn the house down to to conceal his cause of
death who's to say she would have got charged with anything in Dominic's murder or
death and where was she going to go you know I wonder I wonder if a lot of that stuff was already in motion at least
planned out in her mind and she happened to be it just happened to be that they knocked on the door before she left that
day before she lit the match and tossed it and and was able to drive off right it's a real question your theory makes
total sense but it's also the kind of theory that could throw into question my theory so I don't like it no I'm just
kidding um no it's a great Theory um and it what but what it would do is you would say maybe she had a different
motive than what I was thinking because if she was just trying to protect herself and she snapped and killed her
husband because she was tired of the abuse and then she ended up killing her boyfriend because she made a mistake
akake and she was scared of what was going to happen well that doesn't quite make as
much sense if what you say is possible and she was already planning to burn the house and then leave and then she could
say oh well I don't know what happened right because as we know the chances of proving that she did anything wrong kind
of get a little sketchy so you could have an arson investigator go in there and prove it was arson but maybe it's a
50-50 chance but if they go into the home and find a dead man at the bottom of the stairs
well at that point she's looking at prison time well and I also like the thought that you put into about her
shooting her dog because I think that that is could be some indicator of her motivation in
some of this and and I this is going down a different road than the theory I already presented but this was one that
struck me when looking into this case just the simple amount of well not the simple
amount the overwhelming amount of of control on her behalf in this whole situ not only is Randy dead but he's
concealed not only is Dominic dead the house was burnt down and she loved her dog she could
have let the dog out the back door or let the dog run free instead of shooting the dog and then shooting herself and
then the amount of of control that you add to it with her shooting herself this is going to end the way I want it to or
the way that at least in a way that I can control the outcome and some people have speculated
that Randy was not involved with his biological daughter because maybe Deborah would not allow him to do
so and I wonder if we could have a situation here where did Randy decide that he was going to leave Deborah for
any reason maybe they were fighting maybe maybe it wasn't just one-sided abuse maybe there was abuse by both
individuals we even have the one story that Deborah recounted saying that he hit me and I hit him
back maybe Randy wanted to see his daughter or maybe create some type of relationship there and de wasn't going
to have it or Deborah was not going to put up with Randy leaving her the Dominic thing I think is more confusing
to me about what the motive is and that's just simply because we don't know for certain what the
motivation would have been to kill Randy but there's there's different things to
look at and examine there there's different thoughts and speculation that you can apply to that murder with
Dominic's situation you're really only left with a couple of things that make sense and that's either
was this in some weird super bizarre way of covering up the whole pocketbook incident would that that just doesn't
seem right but then you could easily make the leap to going well could Dominic somehow have figured out what
happened to Randy and that might be motivation enough for her to act but I keep going back to this whole thing of
if she did in fact kill both those men she killed the dog she set the house on fire she took her own life there's just
so much overwhelming an overwhelming amount of control on on her behalf and that may be
the only truth we know of this case is we know from all of the evidence the one thing that you can tie it all together
with is control it's a case that that that opens itself up to more speculation than then information to provide but
those kinds of cases are interesting because sometimes you know it's like I was talking with someone today about
zombie movies the best ones the zombies are characters in the film but they're not really the drive of the film there
are these other storylines running that really grab your interest and so with cases like this it's not that someone
was killed in a spectacular way heck we don't even know how they were killed but
it's the motive it's the why and so we're trying to figure out why did Deborah who seeming seemingly had a
great life had a great husband why did she start to kill and why did she ultimately decide
to kill herself so to me it makes for a very interesting conversation and for anyone listening now they can start to
talk with their friends who listen and try to figure out what they think happened well and I think what adds a
lot to this mystery too is it does not seem team that I don't want to paint the picture of Deborah and Randy being shuin
they were certainly outgoing people I mean he was the founding president of that pumpkin Society or whatever it was
and they they participated in a lot of county fairs and I imagine state fairs as well
so they were certainly outgoing in at that aspect but they don't seem to have a lot of close knit relationships with
with a lot of people it seemed like their circle of friends was was quite small and we see that that not only
added to Randy's disappearance not being such a mystery or of concern but it also I think leaves a lot
of blanks and a lot of gaps that we're kind of left wondering about of what could have been actually
going on in that relationship because you also have the thought of it it's a two-sided coin point where you say well
the allegations of abuse put forward by Deborah only come out after Randy is no longer around to defend himself but the
flip side of that coin is if she was an abused woman she wouldn't have felt safe
telling people about what was really going on well she did tell her neighbor but as far as we can tell he
was the one out of everyone that seemed to have gotten the closest to them because he was right next door they were
always out gardening he was out gardening they spend a lot of time outside together was Al the the
gentleman that called himself their their pumpkin Mentor or was that a different friend CU they had somebody
that like taught him the the secrets of growing these giant fat P pumpkins no it
was uh bill bober I think his name was he was the one that was their pumpkin Mentor so he was the other one one so
their two closest friends were alodine and Bill bobier well and in one situation that we can talk about of
somebody doing the right thing in in an ironic twist ry's daughter Mindy Lackey says law enforcement told her she was
the legal next of Ken so she had the responsibility to take care of her father Randy's body now initially Mindy
said it really threw her for a loop she didn't know what to do she says quote I could have said he wasn't there for the
23 years of my life so why should I be there for him but ads that's just not who I am I have a bigger heart than that
so she did the right thing Mindy organized a proper sendoff for the stranger who was her father this
included a proper military Burial at solivan County veterans sem Cemetery yeah and I like that because so often in
life we can just say well no one cared about me but you know nothing ever gets better nothing ever gets set right if
someone doesn't sacrifice their own time or set aside their own feelings I mean life's not fair my mom has always told
me that so it's nice to see when someone can say yeah my dad he didn't care about
me he was never there for me but I'm the only one left to try and handle his Affairs to help put him to rest and she
did that so wow I mean all respect to Mindy yeah they often say that the harder thing to do and the right thing
to do are the same and that's this situation here she didn't have to give up her time
or maybe even some of her own money or regardless but her efforts she didn't need to make that effort for a guy that
made little to no effort on her behalf for so many years but like you said it's you do the right thing break the cycle
she knows what it feels like more than anybody else to not be feel not to feel wanted and I think that she
was wise enough and and had a big enough heart to say you know what I'm going to
do what I think is right here and I'm going to take care of this man in death even though he wasn't there for me and
you know Dominic BOS he was laid to rest by his family and they talked about him
and about how they wanted him to be remembered rather than this almost forgotten victim of
Deborah's um you know in their minds he was a hard worker he was an honest guy he was not afraid to tell the truth no
matter what they said he would stand up to anything he would face anything anything and they said they were going
to miss him yeah and he's the only one out of the three that is accused of nothing and like you said hard worker
and he may have just simply crossed paths with the wrong woman at the wrong stage of in her life you know I I I've
been wondering if things were really coming in on her the walls were closing in I wonder if she had said something
maybe they got into an argument but what if she said to him yeah keep talking you'll end up like Randy right and then
he said oh yeah what happened to Randy and then she thought damn mhm he was found at the bottom of the stairs and
like you said it's difficult to figure out what happened to him but given everything that occurred and everything
that we know it's not a stretch to say that the stairway had something to do with his death whether he was poisoned
or pushed or hit in the head or something something happened to him that was probably Foul Play and unfortunately
with all the key players involved all now deceased we may never know what really happened there's also the
possibility that there are things about this case that we haven't thought of well this is one
that's going to keep me up tonight absolutely because to me domestic violence is something that is often
behind closed doors we don't know about it but the people who are suffering they
have to live with it they have to suffer through it and if this was the case with
Deborah we have no idea how domestic violence may have shaped her future yes and real quick before we wrap up here
tonight Aaron I do want to mention so this episode of True Crime garage will come out just before independence day
and shortly after Independence day we will have the our better halves if you if you will or our equal halves I don't
know what we should call them but uh Justin and the captain will be doing an episode on Generation Y on the
Generation Y podcast yeah it's really funny uh when we had paired up before we had talked about switching hosts again
but then in the end it turned out that all we did was we decided to keep the same host together for the swap but then
release the episodes on the other podcast so yeah we're recording together again but this time our recording will
be on True Crime garage and then the captain and Justin their episode will be on Generation Y well and it's a really
fun friendship and relationship that the four of us have developed over the years
and it was great seeing you and Justin at crime con and it was great that somebody was brilliant enough to put our
two tables in close proximity to one another because we do have so many people we share a lot of listeners and
um you guys do a fantastic show and it's it's been been a lot of fun talking these cases over with you oh absolutely
and it's always a pleasure to talk with you well thanks for coming and joining me in the garage tonight Aaron you have
a fantastic evening yeah have a great evening Nick thank you to Aaron from the Generation Y
podcast for joining me via satellite for this week's show and make sure you check
out the Generation Y podcast this weekend because our good friend the captain joins Justin for a fantastic
conversation check that out and thank you to all of you out there for listening and telling a friend until
next time be good be kind and don't [Music] litter [Music] explore today's must have Trends in
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Debra Sundstrom ////// 315

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Brief Summary

Nick and Aaron discuss the tragic deaths of Deborah and Randy Sunstrom, exploring domestic violence and the mysterious death of Dominic Bosco.

Key points

The Sunstroms' Simple Life. Randy and Deborah lived a quiet life, growing giant pumpkins and avoiding the nightlife.
Deborah's Dark Turn. Deborah's life spirals after Randy leaves, leading to a shocking crime.
The Shocking Discovery. Two bodies are found in a tragic turn of events, raising more questions than answers.
Deborah's Deception. For years, Deborah was seen as a likable person, but suspicions arose about her truthfulness.
Unsolved Homicides. Two deaths remain officially unsolved, but evidence points to Deborah as the murderer.
Domestic Violence Allegations. Witnesses recount Deborah's claims of abuse, raising questions about her motives for murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is a story someone reported that they had heard.

Discussion of the couple's hidden struggles.

0:59WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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