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[Music] While on a business trip in 1986, Edpo spent the morning jogging near his hotel
in downtown St. Louis. [Music] When he returned to his hotel room, he discovered his wife dead in the bathtub.
The medical examiner ruled the death was by drowning. presumably accidental. But
homicide investigators weren't so sure. [Music] [Music] Ed Post met Julie Thigpan when they were
both students at the University of Southern Mississippi in the 1960s. They married in 1967, had two daughters
and moved to New Orleans. Ed went to work in the real estate business. His outgoing personality and
sophisticated manner made him a successful salesman right from the start. >> I thought Ed was a good fellow. What
you'd expect a real estate salesman to be. Kind of relentlessly cheerful. >> After a few years, Ed Post became part
owner of the Wagner Truax real estate firm. Julie Post also joined the company and was very successful, selling over a
million dollars of real estate every year from 1982 on. In June of 1986, the Posts attended a
real estate convention in St. Louis, Missouri at the Omni Hotel at Union Station.
On the morning of June 3rd, Ed Post decided to go jogging before the meeting started. He said he drew his wife a bath
and woke her before leaving around 700 a.m. [Music] >> Julie. doing. It's time to wake up.
>> On his way out, he thanked the hotel's concierge for a suggestion she made to
the posts the day before. >> Really wonderful. >> I'm so glad. It's a wonderful place. If
there's anything else I can do for you, just let me know. >> Hello, Siri. Having a nice day?
>> Yes, I am. Thank you. Have a nice run. >> Sure. Ed Post jogged past Bush Stadium
around the city's famous arch and returned to the hotel at 7:40. >> How was your run, sir? Was
>> great. That's terrific. Had a great workout this morning. Have a nice day, sir.
[Music] >> When he entered his hotel room, he said he discovered his wife lying face down
and unconscious in the bathtub. After pulling her body from the water, he called for an ambulance at 7:43.
>> Bathroom. Could you send an ambulance, please? >> It looked as if Julie Post lost her
footing and grabbed the towel ring which pulled out of the wall. At the hospital, Julie Post was
pronounced dead. She was 39 years old. The autopsy revealed that death was due to drowning. Ed Post immediately phoned
his brother, who was a lawyer. Together, they photographed the broken towel ring
and wall mount for a lawsuit against the hotel. >> His brother told a policeman here in St.
Louis, I'm going to sue him for $450 million. You watch. Ed Post was convinced that had it not
been for the faulty towel ring, his wife Julie might still be alive. After Julie Post was pronounced dead, an
autopsy was performed in St. Louis before the body was transported to New Orleans for burial. The autopsy found no
sign of alcohol or drugs in her system. There were no skull fractures or bleeding in the brain that would have
been present if the victim had been struck in the head before drowning. In short, the pathologist could find no
evidence of foul play. >> I was certainly not convinced that it was an accident.
On the other hand, I couldn't prove that it was anything else. >> On the death certificate, the manner of
death was undetermined. When the St. Lewis Post Dispatch reported the news of Julie Post's death.
There were some interesting reactions. D. Joyce Hayes was a prosecutor in the district attorney's office. Her husband
Gary was a detective in the St. Louis Police Department. D had just read an article about a woman who was who had
drowned in a bathtub at the Omni Hotel. And uh she said, "Gary, make sure you read this. It doesn't sound right to
me." We both read the article and looked at each other and said, "Nah, no way." >> The hotel management found it hard to
believe that a 120 lb woman like Julie Post could have pulled the towel ring from the wall since the ring had been
designed to withstand more than twice that weight. We went to the two adjoining rooms and I probably weighed
close to 220 lbs at the time with all my weight hung on to both towel rings in both rooms and neither one of
them gave nothing. >> Edpost told police that he and his wife had a very good relationship, but a
background check of the post's finances revealed an interesting coincidence. We went to the insurance company
and lo and behold um I don't know 27 29 days uh prior to Julie post death Ed had it increased her
insurance like $45 $500,000. Now, this is a woman who's making uh in the low to mid $20,000 a year range in salary, and
he's got this $600 $700,000 life insurance policy on his wife. Uh that's when I begin to believe maybe we have something
here. >> Police also discovered that Ed Post was enamored with a married woman who worked
in his office. Her name was Kim Otan. On the day of Julie Post's funeral, Ed made
an unusual request to Kim Otan. >> Kim Otan had a twin sister. And at the time of the funeral of Julie, Ed Post
said to Kim Otan, "Maybe when this is over, you can set me up with your sister." And that seemed u a most
inappropriate thing to be saying and particularly saying at the time that he's alleged to have said it. Police
were also suspicious about the way Ed Post told the story of finding his wife's body. The story never varied,
almost as if it had been rehearsed. St. Louis police tape recorded those conversations.
And uh then when she came over the edge of the tub uh being as wet as she was uh in the
water there was then at that point once I got her partially out of the tub I was
not prepared for what happened next which was she literally slid out at that point.
>> Do you think that she she did hit her head on on on the front portion? I think
that's because >> it's the fact that Ed Post in his golden tongue glib manner uh came off as a
as a non-aring person that had this alibi who had everything down pat. I mean, he didn't change his story one
iota from the first time he told it to the second time he told it. And some of the hotel employees noticed
that Ed Post was acting suspiciously on the morning of the accident. Before leaving the hotel for his morning run,
Edpost made sure that the concierge knew who he was, thanking her for a favor she
did for him the day before. >> I believe you're the one that told us about the botanical gardens. My wife
finally had a chance to visit there yesterday. It was spectacular. Really wonderful.
>> I'm so glad. And the hotel doorman said that Post introduced himself by name before going out for his run.
>> Hello, sir. You enjoying your stay? >> Yes, I am. Thank you. My name is Ed Post. I'm going on a run this morning.
I'll be gone about 30 minutes. Uh, watch out for him, please. >> I sure will. Have a nice run.
>> Sure. >> You made it a point to say good morning to the dorman at the hotel. Say who he
was and what room he was in and that he was going to go out and jog. I mean, like, it was from the book of Who Cares?
The Dorman didn't care. Why would you do that? >> But all of these incidents simply raised
suspicions. Homicide investigators had no hard evidence that Edpost played any role in his wife's death.
Investigators decided to conduct more sophisticated tests on the broken towel ring to see if a woman Julie Post's size
could have pulled it from the wall during a fall. Prosecutors in St. Louis were starting
to wonder whether the death of Julie Post in the hotel bathtub was truly an accident. The autopsy did not find any
evidence of foul play. So prosecutors decided to exume Julie Post's remains for a second autopsy. She had been
buried in a cemetery outside of New Orleans. The water table is so high in New Orleans that most people are buried
in above ground vaults, but Julie Post had been buried in the ground and her body was placed in a wooden casket.
Investigators feared that water damage to the body would be significant. When they opened the grave, it was almost
completely filled with water. Fortunately, the foot of the casket was the part that sunk. Her head was the
only part of her body that was not submerged in water >> and her head was in perfect shape. The
casket had collapsed and pushed down and had pressed flattened her nose from the
pressure, but that was the only disfiguration from the collapsing of the casket. Most of the casket collapse had
been at the foot end. The pathologist who performed the second autopsy found numerous bruises that were not noted
during the first autopsy. That's not unusual because some bruising continues to develop even after death. Ed Post's
attorney said that the additional bruises prove nothing, that they could have been caused by the removing of her
organs and bones for donation shortly after her death. But the pathologist found two new bruises in a critical
area. The only additional finding at the autopsy was an area of bruising that was very
low far down in the back of the head in the upper neck region. Uh where in a normal autopsy I usually don't take the
scalp down quite that far. >> I'm looking at these bruises and as far as I'm concerned, it's from a thumb and
a hand. If you're holding somebody underwater, you got to hold them by the base of the neck if you're if you're
going to drown them. Next, prosecutors turned their attention to the metal towel ring found inside the tub next to
Julie Post's body. The towel ring was attached to metal studs inside the wall with 1 and 1/2 in screws. The ring and
wall mount had been designed and manufactured to withstand hundreds of pounds of force.
Prosecutors hired Bolter Kelsey, an accident reconstructionist, to attempt to recreate the accident.
Kelsey conducted his experiments at the Hotel Omni in a room with an identical towel ring attached to the wall in the
same way as the towel ring in Ed and Julie Post's room. And for the test, Kelsey used a woman who was the same
height and weight as Julie Post. Kelsey asked the model to simulate a fall by grabbing onto the towel ring with all of
her weight. Nothing happened. Then she was asked to wrench the ring back and forth.
>> Again, nothing happened. >> What we found was that uh doing some calculations based on what information
we had on the ultimate strength of the ring that we could not remove it or a person couldn't remove it at that size
unless she fell about 64 ft and grab the towel ring as she went by. And of course, the hotel room has an 8ft
ceiling, so there's no way that that could happen. Finally, as a last resort, Kelsey asked the model to use both hands
to remove the towel ring in any way she could. After considerable effort, the ring came off.
>> Concept that Julie Post somehow grabbed this towel ring during a fall and pulled
it off the wall was impossible. It could not physically have happened that way. Next, prosecutors sent an identical
towel ring and wall mount to Dr. William Wines, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of
Nebraska in Lincoln. Dr. Wines was asked to determine how much force was required
to remove the towel ring from the wall attachment. Those tests revealed that it took between 480 and 500 lb of force to
remove it from the wall. It was also obvious very early on the testing that those types of modes of uh
force application straight pulls pulls down clearly didn't match the evidence that the the deformed toler failed to
ring didn't look anything like the tower ring in question here >> the base plate had damage underneath the
stem and on the left side the towel ring itself also had been damaged Dr. Wines performed 23 different tests
to reproduce the damage found on the base plate and towel ring. All without success.
But on test number 24, Dr. Wines produced something very close. That test indicated that the towel ring was
removed from outside the bathtub. Our conclusion was that it was taken off the wall by by someone with considerable
strength and it was uh you know the type of action where one would grab it and pull outside the tub and it was uh uh
and if you look at the location of it, it would be consistent for instance with someone like putting their foot on the
edge of the tub and grabbing the tow ring and then pulling it off out toward the outside of the tub. Prosecutors now
had scientific proof that Julie Post death was no accident. In 1986, New Orleans was going through its worst
economic downturn since the Great Depression. Many local businesses were affected and real estate was just one
more casualty. Ed Post was 10% owner of the Wagner Truax real estate business and was responsible for 10% of the
losses which in 1985 and 86 were substantial. And the Post's marriage was going through a downturn of its own.
Friends said that Ed and Julie fought frequently fights which were sometimes physical and Kim Otan who worked with
the posts said that Ed Post had made advances towards her in the months before Julie's death.
>> I think that Ed fell in love with Kim Otan. Just him being a free man wouldn't
get Kim. He had to be a free man with lots of money to compete with her husband.
And he hatched this plan. Prosecutors believe that plan was in motion one month before Julie's death when Ed Post
increased his wife's life insurance. On June 3rd, 1986, before going out for his morning run,
prosecutors believe that Post drowned his wife in the hotel bathtub. Afterwards, he pulled the towel ring
from the wall, not only to corroborate his cover story that Julie fell while holding on to the towel ring, but also
for the money, the potential settlement from the hotel in a civil lawsuit. After the murder, Post made sure to
speak with both the hotel concierge and doormand to cement his alibi. Yes, sir. Thank you. My name is Ed Post. I'm going
to be going on a run this morning. Thank you. >> The whole business with the towering,
which is really what killed him, not literally, but figuratively. You know, he had to go pull that off the
wall. He had to go pull that off the wall so that he could set up a lawsuit against
the Omni Hotel and get more money. The greedy sob. >> 3 years after Julie Post's death, Ed
Post went on trial for firstdegree murder. Ed Post pleaded not guilty and took the stand in his own defense.
>> Ed's demeanor on the stand, I think, could best be described as follows. He was very well-dressed. He was very
articulate. Spoke uh at a very uh sophisticated level. Uh including his use of the language. Um spoke I think uh
far differently than the jurors were accustomed to speaking or hearing. Uh he did not speak with a southern accent at
all although he was from New Orleans. Um, and he came across as as Ed often came across as condescending.
And I think that um, those things did not play well. >> And the scientific experts provided
powerful testimony that Julie Post was not capable of removing the towel ring during a fall. It took the jury less
than a day to reach its verdict. Ed Post was found guilty of firstdegree murder and was sentenced to life in prison
without possibility of parole. Ed Post and his attorneys appealed the conviction. And in a plea bargain, Post
agreed to plead guilty to seconddegree murder and confessed to the murder of his wife in exchange for a 30-year
prison sentence that included the possibility of parole. If he doesn't take the tower ring off, he gets away
with it. It's just an accidental drowning. I mean, look at how it happened. Almost
everybody classified it as undetermined or accidental. But for that, Ed Post would be on his
merry way. He probably sued the army, got a couple million dollars, and had 700,000 in life insurance.
We wouldn't even know who he was. In my opinion, the most important thing uh in the trial
was the science. It was the tile ring. When you when you can show that it was red back and forth, back and forth until
it until it broke or until it came loose. Um that convicted him. If he would have left that out of there, he
might be a free man today. [Music] Why? [Music] Heat. [Music]

Episode 13 | Edward Post drew a bath for his wife before going for a run. He returned to find her not breathing. She died before emergency response arrived. Police considered her death accidental until a motive surfaced.

Brief Summary

Ed Post was convicted of murdering his wife Julie after suspicious circumstances surrounding her drowning emerged during the investigation.

Key points

Suspicion Arises. Investigators question the circumstances of Julie Post's death after Ed's actions.
Tragic Discovery. Ed Post finds his wife dead in the bathtub after a morning jog.
Trial and Conviction. Ed Post is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I thought Ed was a good fellow.

A reflection on Ed Post's character.

1:28WatchOct 16, 2025

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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