Bill Mowbray suicide or murder? Susie Mowbray's trials

Our episode Where the Blood Drops deals with mental health issues and suicidality. If you struggle with negative thoughts and find yourself even remotely entertaining suicidal thoughts, please seek help immediately. Whether it's with a family member, a friend, a co-worker, or even a complete stranger, talking about your mental health can often help dark thoughts look a bit brighter. And if you feel you have no one to reach out to, call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: 9-8-8 at any hour, day or night.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

It was stated that Bill Mowbray was in such financial trouble, he threatened to kill himself. Susie's defense attorney Jim Shaw described Bill breaking down with a loan officer at a bank. Shaw claimed that Bill was vocal about his suicidal thoughts when it seemed the bank wasn't going to loan him the $200k he needed to keep his business afloat. Another segment of our episode stated Bill actually attempted suicide ten years prior. While my research was unable to confirm these details, I'm not sure a single instance in the 1970s, before Bill and Susie were married, was a qualified rationalization for Bill's successful suicide in 1987.

There were multiple events and signals that made Bill's death more likely the outcome of murder than suicide. Let's start with Bill's actions. It's rare that anyone would commit suicide with someone else in the room, even if they're asleep. Suicide is normally an act one commits alone. Moreover, either Bill kept a loaded gun near the bed (or under his pillow), or he got up, retrieved the gun, and laid back down with it. Hopefully if Bill was genuinely suicidal, he'd have been discouraged from keeping a loaded gun anywhere, let alone under his own pillow.

But a loaded gun kept under one's pillow is not as rare as you'd think. Consider Russ Stager from Broken Promises (s05e14). Russ kept a loaded pistol under his pillow, supposedly "for protection". His wife Barbara was moving the gun one night when it went off. Police were neither convinced of the gun's "hair trigger" nor by Barbara's reenactment of the event. The questionable shooting death of her previous husband Larry Ford also prompted investigators to look very closely at Barbara's accidental shooting story.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

A look at Susie Mowbray's behavior around the time of Bill's death also led detectives to question suicide as the cause. Just after the gunshot, Susie knew Bill was grievously injured. But instead of calling 911, Susie called one of Bill's coworkers. It seemed her first words to this family friend were, "He did it!" When then asked what she should do, the rational friend told Susie to hang up and dial 9-1-1. Another of Susie's poor decisions occurred just 10 hours after Bill's death. Jim Mowbray, Bill's brother, visited the couple's home. As he made his way upstairs where his brother had just supposedly killed himself, Jim heard music and laughter. He claimed Susie then "popped out" and explained that they were having a "painting party".

Susie's post-shooting phone call and next-day painting party were circumstantially damning, but they didn't prove anything more than Susie's terrible judgement. But additional evidence came to light during the investigation. With a bullet hole through his left hand, Bill must have used his right hand, if he did shoot himself. But miraculously, Bill's right hand was entirely free of blood. A pointblank entrance wound from a gunshot would have soaked Bill's right hand with blowback blood spatter. And where was Bill's clean right hand found? Neatly tucked under the covers – quite an unlikely location if he'd in fact shot himself.

As crucial to the investigation as this information was, it wasn't the only sign that Bill's death had been a murder. I feel the most evident signal of Susie's guilt was the updates to Bill's life insurance policies. These changes that would net the beneficiary $1.8m were due to take effect just days after Bill's death. And instead of paying Susie, the updated policies made Bill's daughter the payee. Susie killing Bill in light of this information makes perfect sense. What's illogical is Bill committing suicide immediately after making these changes. First, if Bill wanted his daughter to receive the life insurance benefits, he wouldn't kill himself before the changes were official. And, Bill would have known about the "suicide rule" in Texas which says no benefit is paid if the death is within two years of the policy's inception and ruled to be a suicide.

Herbert MacDonell and blood spatter analysis

To ensure techniques for gathering and examining evidence are trustworthy, the processes are occasionally reanalyzed. Bloodstain-pattern analysis found value in courtrooms in the 1950s, and the sometimes-conclusive evidence it represents has led to severe convictions over the decades since. Some of the earliest bloodstain evidence refers to the man considered the pioneer in the value of blood spatter analysis: Herbert MacDonell.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

The observations and teaching of bloodstain patterns began with MacDonell and his "students". These then-experts became the teachers in their own right, and the formal discipline became more entrenched in the justice system. But a landmark paper by the National Academy of Sciences in 2009 would call the techniques and capabilities of the "experts" into question. The report offered harsh criticisms of the conclusions reached by the current methods, and the lack of expertise of the standard "analyst".

Blood spatter and bloodstain-pattern analysis has been under fire ever since. Multiple so-called experts were found to be everything from merely underqualified to outright frauds. Consider Duane Deaver. His tenure as a blood spatter analyst with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation came under investigation. The probe revealed that Deaver had falsified or withheld information during at least 30 trials. His training and expertise were consistently overstated, and in 2011, Duane Deaver was fired from the North Carolina SBI. This led to appeals and the retrying of important North Carolina cases, including Michael Peterson's murder of his wife Kathleen at the bottom of their staircase in 2001.

Between the damning 2009 paper and cases such as Duane Deaver's, blood spatter has been labeled everything from "untrustworthy" to "dubious" to downright "junk science". Less-skilled purveyors of bloodstain-pattern analysis might've sullied the track record of the discipline, but the technique still has evidentiary value if treated correctly by genuine experts. I'm not sure if Sergeant Dusty Hesskew, Austin Police's blood spatter expert, was entirely qualified during Susie Mowbray's original trial when he claimed to have measured over 40 spatter stains on Susie's nightgown. Nonetheless, this "expert" testimony led to Susie's original conviction and nine-year stint.

As this is officially an exoneration case, it was the ultimate testimony of Herbert MacDonnel in 1998 that set the record straight. Officially though, no additional examinations were ever performed on the nightgown to determine if Sergeant Hesskew's testimony was legitimate. But many viewers (myself included) still aren't convinced Susie Mowbray didn't shoot her husband in 1987. In fact, the case had additional blood spatter evidence to consider, and our episode didn't go into this.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

For example, what about Herbert MacDonell's opinion of how Bill Mowbray's right hand was found without evidence of blowback spatter? Perhaps something had shielded his hand while firing the weapon? I'm not sure if MacDonell's testimony supported Bill shooting himself, but rather refuted the notion that Susie had shot Bill. The case's forensic pathologist offered my favorite expert opinion. Dr. Lawrence Dahm stated, "I can't be absolutely sure in a mathematical sense that she is the one who did it. But I am sure he did not shoot himself."

The trials of Susie Mowbray

The murder conviction in the 1988 trial of Susie Mowbray was strongly supported by Sergeant Hesskew's blood evidence from Susie's nightgown. The prosecution had also hired Herbert MacDonell, but since his findings didn't support their case, his evidence was suppressed. While Susie was incarcerated, her son from a previous marriage became her biggest supporter. Upon his mother's conviction, Wade Burnett enrolled in law school in hopes to ultimately win an appeal and prove her innocence.

With the help of Susie's lawyer, Brunett filed an appeal regarding the prosecution's suppressed evidence. The Brady Rule requires the prosecution to turn over any material and exculpatory information to the defense. The 1963 ruling in Brady v. Maryland mandates this information sharing to avoid violating the defendants constitutional right to due process. Susie Mowbray was awarded a new trial in 1996, and her retrial got underway in January 1998.

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

During the second trial, Dusty Hesskew conceded that his testimony during the original trial "had no scientific basis". Additionally, the defense team refocused the jury on Bill Mowbray's potentially suicidal tendencies and overwhelming financial situation. Reasonable doubt was all the defense needed to achieve as the made their closing arguments. Then on January 23, 1998, after a four-hour deliberation, the jury returned their verdict, acquitting Susie Mowbray of all charges.

Perhaps it was Susie's outburst during the prosecution's closing arguments that convinced the jurors. The 49-year-old exclaimed, "I didn't do it!" and burst into tears. The emotional scene didn't lead jurors to believe Susie was entirely innocent though – recall in a rare post-trial statement to the press, the jury foreperson said, "...the prosecution was unable to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, the guilt of the defendant," and the jury made no specific conclusions regarding her actual innocence or guilt.

Cringeworthy crime drama

I maintain a section on this site labelled "Cringeworthy Crime Jargon". I use this to capture and correlate the cases that use many of the old time-tested 'true crime' phrases such as "the wrong place at the wrong time" and "crime of passion". Our episode didn't sport any of these all-too-common utterances, but it still had plenty of cringeworthy content.

This begins during Susie Mowbray's first interview segment, around the episode's 2:15 mark. This arrives after a solid minute of reenactment. It starts off badly and ends horribly. Susie delivers the lead-in to her narrative describing her husband's three-year struggle with suicidal thoughts. She does this with a wry smile and poor-me tone. The kicker is her punchline, "And the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone, happened to me." The worst thing Susie? So, the worst thing is not actually being shot in the head? And that smirk as she voices the final "me." #cringe

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

She's given the episode's closing segment to describe what she'd like to seek next in her life (after her exoneration). The cringe continues as her high-pitched, breathy voice relays all the smugness Susie seems to feel. Could she be this smug if she was guilty? Maybe – some sociopaths are good at mimicking normal behavior. This episode originally aired October 8, 2001, and Susie was acquitted January 23, 1998. So during these interviews, Susie had been a free woman for about three-and-a-half years.

Attorney Jim Shaw stated Susie's outburst during the prosecution team's closing arguments was not premeditated. I'm still on the fence about what I believe. With certain jury members, theatrics like this might not sit well – it would have been a risk if choreographed. And like any 'good' defense attorney, Shaw quipped that her outburst would've let his team off the hook if Susie ended up being convicted again. What are your thoughts? Was Susie under genuine duress, or was she hoping to influence jurors in her favor?

The over-ten-year tale

Bill Mowbray was shot in the early morning of September 16, 1987. Susie Mowbray walked out of the court as a free woman on January 23, 1998. It seems much of this might've been avoidable, either in favor of or against Susie. If the prosecution's case in the initial trial had been stronger, or if they hadn't hidden evidence from the defense, Susie's conviction might have stuck. Or if Susie's original defense team had a different strategy, she might have avoided conviction in the first place. Of course, Susie could have helped her defense team by not making awkward and off-putting choices after her husband's death.

I didn't quite follow the information about the "blanket and the t-shirt". As physical evidence, it'd seem these would be crucial. It was twice stated that these items had been "lost" – but had they been in evidence during the first trial in 1988, and then lost? And how come no charges of tampering with evidence were sought given Susie's immediate actions to completely renovate the crime scene mere hours after her husband's death?

A fun segment from the Oxygen series Accident, Suicide, or Murder has additional details regarding the Mowbrays’ sleeping arrangements. It also includes an interview with one of Susie’s co-conspirators during the "painting party". Sarah Bush shares Susie's proclaimed reasoning for remodeling the bedroom stating she, "did not want her kids to see this." Here's another thought: Don't have the kids immediately visit the crime scene. Sarah also shared her rationale for aiding in the renovation, "The bedroom was never sectioned off with crime tape."

Image credit: Episode screen capture from Forensic Files

Interestingly, this episode was more graphic than others, especially for a season-six episode from 2001. Early in the series, many episodes featured gruesome photographs of the crime scenes and victims: From the sun-baked, decomposing body of Sandra Cwik in the California desert from Insect Clues (s01e10), to Steve Christensen's shrapnel-riddled body just outside his office in Postal Mortem (s02e11). This episode shared its first startling image before the opening credits. These continued with (thankfully black-and-white) images of the bed after Bill's body was removed, and images of Bill's various bullet wounds. You've been warned.

Where is Susie Mowbray now in 2024?

Susie Mowbray was acquitted of the murder of her husband Bill in January 1998. The nearly-50-year-old Susie had spent nine-and-a-half years from her June 1988 sentencing. Susie appeared on this episode of Forensic Files in October 2001, and stated she simply wants her children to be proud of her. At the time, she had not received any of the $1.8m from Bill's life insurance, and she had plans to write a book about her ordeal. Susie Mowbray seems to be laying low after essentially losing her appeal against Cameron County (and others) to regain her deceased husband's insurance payout. Susie will turn/turned 76 years old this year.