Pod Insights The Binge Cases: Doctor Billions Fatal Beauty | 4. There's Something About Camille About this episode A Christian wife hires a private investigator after her husband takes up with a mysterious brunette.
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Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
0:01 Speaker 01 Witness the beginning of the revolution. Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start. Filmed for IMAX.
0:08 Speaker 02 Make them remember you.
0:11 Speaker 01 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
0:16 Speaker 03 Listen to all episodes of Fatal Beauty ad-free right now by subscribing to The Binge. Visit the Binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. Feed your true crime obsession.
0:32 Speaker 03 The Binge.
0:39 Speaker 03 In an age before the internet could track every move and every deception, Sandra Bridewell moved like a ghost. No social media to expose her lies. Former friends and acquaintances who suspected her of wrongdoing weren't sharing their concern online. So Sandra could just find new people to charm, who were none the wiser about her past. But in May 1987, that veil of protection wore paper thin.
1:05 Speaker 04 Yeah, one husband would die while you're involved with them and three, a lot of smoke there. So we were looking for fire.
1:13 Speaker 03 That's Eric Miller. He co-wrote a nearly 12,000-word story titled, "Sandra Bridewell Is the Black Widow." It didn't mince words. The article laid out how the good people of Dallas had long gossiped that she was guilty of at least one murder. It appeared in D Magazine, which has long been a voice of how Dallas sees itself. And Sandra's face landed on the cover with a headline that read, "Death and Gossip in Highland Park." Picture dawning a bright smile that stretched ear to ear and looked a touch like Katharine Hepburn.
1:46 Speaker 04 This fascination with wealth and crime is what drew people to the story.
1:51 Speaker 03 To this day, it's one of the publication's most popular pieces. Back in 1987, when it hit newsstands in Highland Park, locals devoured every word. By then, Sandra was long gone. She'd left for Marin County, as we told you last episode. But that Black Widow article would complicate things for Sandra. For the rest of her life, as she moved from city to city, the article became a warning to people she tried to lure in. Like a woman in the Bay Area, who struck up a fast and close friendship with Sandra after meeting at a black tie event. Who knows how that might have ended had someone not faxed a copy of the article to her? Here's a broadcast from San Francisco's NewsCenter4 with the scoop.
2:36 Speaker 05 We've learned the FBI took the highly unusual step of issuing a warning to a San Francisco woman who was a close friend of Sandra Bridewell.
2:46 Speaker 03 Investigative reporter Glennon Whitley recounted what happened when the feds reached out.
2:50 Speaker 06 Have you read that article? The article in D Magazine? If you took Betsy Bagwell and put her in California, you are Betsy Bagwell, alluding to Betsy Bagwell's death, her death by, quote unquote, "suicide."
3:08 Speaker 05 The FBI told her to "end all contact with Sandra Bridewell," to "never be alone with her."
3:15 Speaker 06 This woman is terrified.
3:17 Speaker 03 Incredibly, she did manage to break free. Who knows why she was able to step away and survive while Betsy Bagwell died? We may never know. But here's what's truly scary about Sandra. She's the kind of predator who could stay under the radar. She could get people to underestimate her, to not worry even when they had heard multiple allegations against her. Some people in her affluent circle in California were simply unfazed that she'd been called the Black Widow in print.
3:48 Speaker 06 The fact that she had never been charged, you know, she wasn't arrested, she wasn't indicted, you know, that seemed to mean that it was all gossip by vindictive people that didn't like her because she was so beautiful and so, so pretty.
4:08 Speaker 03 In those days, people gave other people like them the benefit of the doubt. There was an unspoken trust, and Sandra capitalized on it. Law enforcement hadn't been able to rein her in. With no one to stop her, she continued to hatch her next plot. Sandra was now on the move. It was going to take an army of self-appointed vigilantes to expose her misdeeds. From Sony Music Entertainment, this is Fatal Beauty. I'm Cooper Mall. Episode four, There's Something About Camille.
5:00 Speaker 03 Tracing the path of Sandra Bridewell is not a task for the faint of heart. I know from experience, it is painstakingly complicated and at times frustrating. But there's nobody who knows this woman like Glenna Whitley. For Eric Miller and his co-author Skip Hollensworth, their 1987 D Magazine article may have been the end of investigating Sandra. But for Whitley, it was only the beginning.
5:23 Speaker 06 I inherited their file on Sandra Bridewell.
5:29 Speaker 03 In 1989, Whitley wrote an explosive story called Whatever Happened at the Black Widow. After that, she became the person strangers called when their paths crossed with this intriguing beauty. They didn't call the cops, they called Whitley.
5:45 Speaker 06 One day, I was in a meeting and the receptionist came in and said, "Glenna, there's a call for you."
5:55 Speaker 03 She didn't ditch meetings for a phone call, but the receptionist practically twisted her arm.
6:01 Speaker 06 She was very insistent.
6:04 Speaker 03 Whitley went to see who was on the phone.
6:07 Speaker 06 It was a man who described himself as an architect from Arizona, and he was visiting someone in Dallas.
6:17 Speaker 03 He had come across a story about the California chapter of Sandra Bridewell, a beautiful, mysterious woman known in Highland Park as the Black Widow.
6:25 Speaker 06 And he said, "Is this story true?" He couldn't believe it. He thought, "Well, you know, these journalists, they just make things up." I said, "No, this is not made up."
6:37 Speaker 03 Glenna assured him that the piece had been meticulously researched, vetted, and fact-checked.
6:42 Speaker 06 And he said, "Well, this woman is in my house in Arizona." And I was just stunned.
6:53 Speaker 03 The man confided in Glenna that he and Sandra were not only dating, but...
6:57 Speaker 06 She had quickly moved into his house and was very pushy about expanding their relationship, extending their relationship to another level.
7:09 Speaker 03 Whitley knew where this could be headed.
7:13 Speaker 06 I had to tell him, I think you should get her out of your house.
7:17 Speaker 03 Whitley couldn't stop thinking about who Sandra might be targeting next. She felt compelled to expose her, to warn others.
7:25 Speaker 06 And I know people thought that I was obsessed with her, that I wrote so many stories about her. And in a way, maybe I was obsessed with it. But I had a good reason to be obsessed with it. I believed that she was responsible for murder.
7:42 Speaker 03 Law enforcement had seemingly given up on stopping Sandra. If not Glenna, then who?
7:52 Speaker 06 Especially as the internet began to become more widespread. People would use Google searches for different names and they would ultimately lead back to the D Magazine story.
8:05 Speaker 03 And then they'd call Whitley with a slew of questions.
8:09 Speaker 03 Sandra had started tweaking her name ever so slightly. Sandra Camille Powers was her name as a child.
8:15 Speaker 06 She changes it to Sandra Camille Stiegel. And then Bridewell. So she uses a variation of those first names and last names.
8:32 Speaker 03 On legal documents, leases, IDs. She played musical chairs with her name, I think to try to outrun her reputation as a black widow. Back in the 90s, Whitley had become a hotline.
8:45 Speaker 06 Even later, after I left D Magazine.
8:47 Speaker 03 She'd go on to write for the Dallas Observer.
8:50 Speaker 06 People would track me down and they would call me and say, uh, do you know this woman? It was a pattern that would repeat itself many times over the next 20 years.
9:03 Speaker 03 Each name change made tracking her harder. So did her frequent moves. Whitley found Sandra's web of deception stretched across the country. She had addresses in Connecticut, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. And she would use P O boxes to keep her address a mystery.
9:20 Speaker 06 For a while, she was using different people's social security numbers.
9:27 Speaker 03 And if you're wondering, yes, it's illegal to use someone else's social security number. She was opening herself up to serious criminal charges, but it was nearly impossible to pin her down anywhere for long. For a moment there in the early 90s, the phone calls came to a halt. Whitley thought she may have lost her for good.
9:45 Speaker 06 She kind of vanishes.
9:47 Speaker 03 The trail had become sparse. Sandra wasn't popping up in public records and databases.
9:53 Speaker 06 That is when she reemerges as Camille Bridewell.
10:02 Speaker 03 It seemed all bets were off getting law enforcement to do a thing about Sandra. But Whitley wasn't the only one keeping tabs on her. Other people had taken up the hunt, too. It was only a matter of time before they'd band together.
10:15 Speaker 06 And in 1994 is when I heard from a private detective.
10:21 Speaker 03 This is when Carrie Huskinson, P.I., reached out to Whitley. Here she is.
10:26 Speaker 07 This is where my career actually began. So I had a friend who had a husband who was having an affair.
10:33 Speaker 03 And you guessed it. The husband had taken up with a certain smoldering seductress with long brown hair and a tight waistline. And the friend wasn't one to rock the boat.
10:42 Speaker 07 This is a woman who we would firmly call a 1950s housewife. Submissive, he has control of everything, you know, this kind of a thing.
10:53 Speaker 03 This is all going down in Northern California. At first, the friend wrestled with the thought that she may just be paranoid, that her husband, a successful businessman, might not be cheating.
11:04 Speaker 07 But I kept pointing out things that, you know, didn't add up. For example, when her husband apparently went to New York for work, I asked, "Where is he staying?" The response I got was, "Well, he doesn't know. He said he'd call me once he gets there and gets a place." A businessman doesn't take a dump without a plan.
11:27 Speaker 03 Huskinson wasn't buying it, but her friend still didn't want to face it. Only solid evidence of her husband's infidelity would convince her. Not long after, Huskinson heard from the wife again, while she and her husband were away at their vacation condo for the weekend.
11:43 Speaker 07 I got a call at about 3:30 in the morning. She was crying, and then she said she had found long, black hairs on her pillow.
11:52 Speaker 03 Oh, hell, no.
11:54 Speaker 07 And I told her to go in there, wake his ass up, and ask him who the hell this belongs to.
12:00 Speaker 03 It's unclear if the housewife approached him that aggressively, but whatever she did, she managed to get him to confess.
12:07 Speaker 07 So he did acknowledge that he was having an affair. And that's when she found out her name was Camille.
12:21 Speaker 00 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
12:23 Speaker 01 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
12:25 Speaker 02 Hey, Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
12:28 Speaker 01 Filmed for IMAX.
12:29 Speaker 02 Make them remember you.
12:32 Speaker 01 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Leaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
12:36 Speaker 05 Priceline Negotiator. It's me, the... Priceline Negotiator. We don't need the jingle twice. What about a third time? Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars. Seems like they just started. Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to 60% off hotels in the Priceline app. Time to read the timeline. Fine. No one deals more deals than... Priceline. Please stop. Priceline. Touche. Priceline. Priceline.
13:08 Speaker 03 Huskinson told me these were devout Christians. Divorce was out of the question. But the wife wanted to know more about this Camille lady.
13:15 Speaker 07 She mentioned hiring a private investigator.
13:18 Speaker 03 But the guy she'd hired couldn't cut the mustard.
13:21 Speaker 07 Ran background checks, but predominantly on her husband trying to find a connection somewhere. Nothing about the woman.
13:28 Speaker 03 Finding something on the other woman was the whole point. Huskinson wasn't impressed.
13:33 Speaker 07 I kept making these recommendations on, well, they should do this, they should do that. And so she just popped up and said, "I'm hiring you."
13:43 Speaker 03 In an instant, Huskinson's career crystallized.
13:47 Speaker 07 I had a built-in nature, I guess you could say, for sniffing things out. And I took it upon myself to go ahead and dive in.
13:55 Speaker 03 If you can't already tell, she doesn't mess around. Huskinson wanted to do this by the book. She took a course in private investigation, learned all the rules and policies, then dove in headfirst into finding out everything there was to know about Camille.
14:11 Speaker 03 The mission to track the mistress down was going to be complicated, but the husband was smarter than that.
14:17 Speaker 07 He moved her from California to Boston. We didn't know where in Boston, but we did have a phone number. I called directory assistants over and over and over, trying to get someone to give me the address that went to the phone number.
14:33 Speaker 03 Operators weren't budging. It was a private listing. They couldn't just give out the address. So Huskinson tried a more unorthodox approach as a means to an end.
14:44 Speaker 07 I pretended to be emotional. And I said, well, here's the thing. I was adopted, and this is my mom. And I just, I just want to see her. And I pretended to be upset. And she immediately blurted out number three Myrtle Street, and then she hung up.
15:02 Speaker 03 The operator didn't give her a name, but this was something.
15:05 Speaker 07 So then, I caught a plane, and I went to Boston.
15:09 Speaker 03 But get a load of this part.
15:11 Speaker 07 I sat dressed as a homeless person for two days up on Beacon Hill, surveying the home.
15:19 Speaker 03 In her two-day stakeout, she didn't observe any comings and goings.
15:24 Speaker 07 But I was able to get into the building and get a view of the mailbox, where I noticed her last name...
15:31 Speaker 03 Bridewell.
15:35 Speaker 03 Now she had something to go off of, a last name.
15:39 Speaker 07 But I needed more because at that time I did not have access to any computer databases.
15:46 Speaker 03 Huskinson thought if she could just get into the apartment, she'd be able to get a much better picture of who this bride well woman really was. Then an opportunity presented itself when no one would be home and someone else would be in town.
16:00 Speaker 07 One of their daughters had graduated from Harvard and was going back there for some type of reunion.
16:08 Speaker 03 This daughter was clued into her father's misdeeds and wasn't happy about how dirty he'd been doing her mom. Huskinson thought perhaps she could use that resentment and angst to the advantage of the investigation.
16:21 Speaker 07 And I asked her, I said, would you be willing to do something kind of sly? And she said, okay, what do you got?
16:28 Speaker 03 The two were officially in cahoots.
16:30 Speaker 07 So I came up with a plan. I knew that the lease was in both names and from being there, I knew that both names were on the mailbox. I knew that the daughter shared the last name.
16:43 Speaker 03 To call Huskinson creative would be an understatement.
16:46 Speaker 07 I instructed her to go to a bar, have a couple of drinks, spill a couple of drinks on herself, and call locksmith at about 2:30, 3 o'clock in the morning and ask him to unlock the doors. It worked.
17:01 Speaker 03 If you're like me, you're probably wondering where Camille and her suitor were when this little break in went down.
17:06 Speaker 07 He had gone to, I think it was South Carolina, maybe North Carolina, for some type of work for his business and he would admit that she was with him.
17:17 Speaker 03 His wife was at her wits end. So Huskinson called around to hotels and verified Camille was in fact with him. The dude was still lying.
17:27 Speaker 07 But it gave the daughter two days alone in her apartment.
17:32 Speaker 07 And she went through everything. Took down a ton of notes. We also got the Robert Bridewell will, last will and testament, as well as documents regarding stock, I believe, in Bridewell Enterprises.
17:48 Speaker 03 Those were Bobby's documents, Sandra's second husband. And all those papers led back to Dallas. Then another clue and another name.
17:59 Speaker 07 And even Marcus' card with the name Sandra Bridewell.
18:03 Speaker 03 But here's the thing.
18:04 Speaker 07 My client and myself didn't realize Sandra and Camille were one and the same.
18:09 Speaker 03 They shared a last name. Could he be sleeping with sisters? Huskinson thought this man now had not one, but two mistresses. How the hell was she gonna break this to her friend? Sometime after that, Huskinson caught wind that Camille and her three timing husband were back in California at the same vacation condo where her friend had found the long black hairs on the pillow. At this point, they brought in some backup.
18:36 Speaker 07 We had used an investigator in California to surveil him and her.
18:42 Speaker 03 They used this guy to let the wife know when they'd left the apartment. She wanted to do some sleuthing of her own.
18:47 Speaker 07 And while they were away, the wife looked through things and waited for them to come back.
18:55 Speaker 03 The wife had grown a backbone. It was time for some answers. She wanted to see her husband's mistress, see this woman for herself, once and for all.
19:04 Speaker 07 They came through the door. She waited till they got pretty far into the condominium and then came out.
19:10 Speaker 03 Needless to say, they weren't expecting a visitor.
19:13 Speaker 07 Both of them looking shocked.
19:15 Speaker 03 The wife locked eyes with the other woman.
19:18 Speaker 07 Hello, Camille. I thought we should meet. Both Camille and the husband tried to make a beeline for the door. She said, no, we're all gonna talk about this.
19:29 Speaker 03 I can only imagine her heart was pounding. But now, Camille was backed into a corner.
19:35 Speaker 07 And during the course of their conversation, my client mentioned the name Sandra Bridewell.
19:41 Speaker 03 Did Camille know about the other other woman?
19:44 Speaker 07 At that moment, the look on her face was shock. She was astonished, you know, where did you hear that name?
19:52 Speaker 03 And that's when the penny dropped for Huskinson and her client.
19:55 Speaker 07 And that was a real, you know, Turner's like, why is she worried about that name? Is she really Sandra instead of Camille?
20:06 Speaker 03 For the wife at that moment, this mistress's real name wasn't the most pressing issue. She wanted her out of their lives.
20:13 Speaker 07 The three of them sat down and discussed, you know, how much she would need to move forward and so forth.
20:19 Speaker 03 When we spoke, Huskinson couldn't remember the precise financials. This was 1994 after all. But during this, what I can only imagine as a painfully awkward meeting, the couple agreed to pay Camille to leave them alone. She'd get to stay in the Boston apartment for a few months while she got on her feet. But the affair would end today.
20:38 Speaker 07 And after the meeting, he took her and dropped her off at a hotel. And then he went back to the condo to be with his wife.
20:45 Speaker 03 This husband and wife may have come to some sort of reconciliation, but Huskinson was still stuck on who Sandra might be. There was more to this woman. She was sure of it.
20:56 Speaker 07 I stayed up all night, calling every bridewell around Dallas area that I could get the listing for. Every one.
21:06 Speaker 07 About 5:00 AM in the morning, my time, a little bit later theirs. I reached a man. He said, well, he goes, you know what time it is? And I said, yes, I'm sorry to bother you, but this is so important. And I started telling him about this woman. He goes, I'm not that bridewell, but I know who you're talking about. Yeah, she was known as the Black Widow. I said, what?
21:30 Speaker 07 Yeah, she apparently murdered her husband.
21:32 Speaker 03 Huskinson might have been up all night, but now she was wide awake. She stayed up a bit longer until the Dallas Morning News opened and got ahold of a woman in their archives, who confirmed that Sandra and Camille were the same woman. Just when she thought her friend had dodged a bullet, Camille resurfaced months later with some news.
21:54 Speaker 07 She's saying that she's pregnant.
21:56 Speaker 03 When Sandra told Alan she was pregnant, she was still at an age where this was believable. Now, though, she was about 50 years old. The odds of this were vanishingly slim. Camille had proof, though.
22:08 Speaker 07 She had provided him with a sonogram.
22:11 Speaker 03 Then she claimed she delivered their child.
22:14 Speaker 07 He immediately caught a plane, went to Boston.
22:17 Speaker 03 In the apartment, he noticed more signs of childbirth.
22:20 Speaker 07 Some type of fluid where she claimed that her water head broke.
22:24 Speaker 03 But no baby. There was an explanation for that, too. She told the guy while he was in California.
22:31 Speaker 07 She had gone and delivered the baby, put it up for adoption, and was home within 24 hours.
22:38 Speaker 03 It just doesn't happen like that. He had no choice to inform his wife he'd been patching things up with.
22:46 Speaker 03 Huskinson caught wind of this perplexing development and remembered something the daughter found in the apartment search.
22:52 Speaker 07 A current bottle of Premarin.
22:55 Speaker 03 Premarin is basically estrogen. People who take it typically are in menopause or have had a hysterectomy, not pregnant people. Huskinson's mind was officially on fire. She decided to take a trip to Dallas.
23:08 Speaker 07 And that is the first time that I met Glenna Whitley. I was staying at a motel. I'll never forget it. She pulled up, and before she'd really even let me get too close, she goes, "I need to see your ID." So I showed her my ID, got in her car, she went through all these stories regarding the hysterectomy and so forth.
23:28 Speaker 03 How she'd played the same game with Alan.
23:31 Speaker 07 I started sniffing around to find out more about this alleged hysterectomy. And I found a friend of hers who basically said, "Yeah, she had a hysterectomy. If she's telling people that she's pregnant, there's no way on earth."
23:44 Speaker 03 This same friend claimed to have driven Sandra to the very appointment. Knowing what I know now about Huskinson's impressive skill set, I had to ask.
23:53 Speaker 00 Were you able to find any record of her hysterectomy?
23:57 Speaker 07 Um, no comment.
24:00 Speaker 03 But she did share what other intel she got on the pregnancy.
24:03 Speaker 07 She went the whole 10 yards on that one.
24:06 Speaker 03 That sonogram?
24:07 Speaker 07 And it turned out she'd actually cut it out of a magazine. We told the husband, there was no baby.
24:15 Speaker 03 But around this time, Sandra showed her true colors.
24:20 Speaker 03 She started demanding money, or else she'd tell anyone who'd listen he'd had an affair with her, that they'd had a bastard child. Here's the thing.
24:30 Speaker 07 Because there was no documented proof of a hysterectomy, there was always this very slight potential, maybe there was a baby.
24:40 Speaker 03 Meaning?
24:41 Speaker 07 Maybe she could get it back and then require him to pay child support for the next 20 years. Or go public, discredit him, ruin his business, his companies. So it was basically blackmail in a sense. You know, either you give me what I need or I'm going to totally destroy your family.
25:02 Speaker 03 Sandra had done it again.
25:04 Speaker 07 He was informed, as well as the wife, that they had all the grounds to go ahead and press charges against her for fraud.
25:13 Speaker 03 Lying about being pregnant isn't illegal, but using that lie for financial gain? You bet it is.
25:20 Speaker 07 And it was like, no, we don't want to do that because that might result in publicity and, you know, so forth. And so they just chose to drop it. She basically just disappeared.
25:34 Speaker 03 And the next time she popped up, Camille was a Christian missionary, a woman of God, who's gone here, there, and everywhere, spreading the good word. She played the part flawlessly, the soft voice, the comforting presence, the unwavering devotion to Christ. She wasn't just a believer. She's a shepherd, guiding the lost towards salvation. Or at least she said she was.
26:06 Speaker 00 Cool fall nights always make me want to entertain more. A few friends around the table, maybe a fire outside when the sun goes down. Before everyone comes over, I stop at Total Wine & More. Right now, there's a cranberry-flavored wine, a crisp apple wine, even a pumpkin spice cream that's perfect in coffee after dinner. And with the lowest prices, I can bring home a few different fall flavors for everyone to try. Find your favorite fall flavors at the lowest prices at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. Must be 21.
26:40 Speaker 01 Observe: The North American Dad. 50s, great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, "Dang, that's a good offer." The highest form of approval. No haggling, no hassle. No one called him "boss." He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply.
27:11 Speaker 03 Jay Benson, a then 46-year-old entrepreneur, was attending a conference at New Birth Ministries Baptist Church when she first noticed a new face in the congregation.
27:21 Speaker 04 She was standing up and waving her arms and in like a worship kind of a stance.
27:28 Speaker 03 None of this was out of the ordinary. New Birth Ministries is a mega-church in Stonecrest, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, with thousands of devotees. It's a Baptist institution with deep roots in the Black community.
27:44 Speaker 04 The person that I was with, that I was getting a ride home with, he kind of pointed her out to me.
27:51 Speaker 03 She stood out not only because she was the only white woman in a crowd of Black parishioners, but because of the way she moved. Exuberant, expressive, almost theatrical.
28:01 Speaker 04 She had this glow and this look about her. And whatever it was, you just almost, you get drawn into her energy.
28:11 Speaker 03 That glow captured Jay's friend she attended the conference with. The magnetic pole extended at the parking lot, where he offered her a ride home with him and Jay. She introduced herself as Camille Bridwell. That's Bridwell, not bridewell. She dropped an E.
28:29 Speaker 04 The guy who gave us a ride home literally was enchanted with her. You just like, he was just hanging on every word.
28:39 Speaker 03 After their initial meeting, their paths continued to cross in their faith-based circle. At a lunch hosted by the same friend who'd given both women a ride, Camille and Jay got to talking more.
28:49 Speaker 04 She was telling us how bad her circle How bad her circumstances were, how horrible her living conditions were.
28:56 Speaker 03 Camille spoke of being forced to sleep in near squalor, of church members who had turned a blind eye to her misfortunes. This was no way for a woman pushing 60 to be living. Jay, moved by a sense of Christian duty, extended an offer.
29:12 Speaker 04 I had a three-bedroom condo on Lenox Road and I thought, you know, well, I'm there by myself. She's a churchgoer, a member. Why would I just let her move in? So I just felt very sorry for her and I just said, oh, well, you can come and stay with me.
29:28 Speaker 03 Jay was new to Atlanta and newly divorced. She had room to spare.
29:33 Speaker 04 I really never even asked her to pay rent because I didn't think it was a permanent thing.
29:38 Speaker 03 But what seemed like an act of goodwill soon turned into something far stranger.
29:43 Speaker 04 It happened really quickly.
29:46 Speaker 03 As weeks passed, Camille proved to be peculiar. When Jay would attempt to get to know her new roommate, Camille kept personal details close to her chest.
29:55 Speaker 04 We didn't ever really get in-depth about what, how she lived before she came to Atlanta.
30:02 Speaker 03 Jay did learn Camille was widowed, that her husband Bobby had died of cancer, and that there was even a foundation in his name. Camille had also told her she was a mother of three, but she wasn't exactly eager to talk about her children. By then, her kids were grownups, in their late 20s and mid 30s.
30:19 Speaker 04 When I would ask her about her kids or something about her past, she would always change the subject.
30:25 Speaker 03 Her demeanor would shift like a shadow against the light. It was odd, but Jay just figured it was none of her business. Speaking of business, Camille was eager to jump into it with Jay.
30:36 Speaker 04 She kept asking me to go into business with her and then kept talking about Keyman Insurance.
30:45 Speaker 03 Keyman Insurance is a type of life insurance policy. A business buys it to protect against financial loss if a key employee dies or becomes disabled. Jay hardly knew this woman. Take out a life insurance policy? No way. Plus, Camille's financial situation wasn't exactly rock solid.
31:05 Speaker 04 She was always talking about how she's owed all this money.
31:09 Speaker 03 She told Jay she was waiting on money from a trust fund. She was always short on cash.
31:15 Speaker 04 I left my money. My money hasn't shown up and I thought it was going to be on my card or just something, always something. She kept asking me for money. I wouldn't give it to her, but she was becoming such a pain.
31:27 Speaker 03 An uneasiness set in. Jay began to lock on to Camille's habits that were just weird. She operated under a different clock, awake at all hours of the night, stepping out onto the veranda to murmur under the moon.
31:42 Speaker 04 It was like she was speaking in tongues or something. I just kept feeling something was off.
31:47 Speaker 03 Small, unshakable doubts formed into something sharper. After about two months of living together, she had a nagging suspicion there was something dishonest about Camille.
31:58 Speaker 04 One day I just had this, this feeling came over me to just look at her room.
32:05 Speaker 03 Camille had just stepped out to go window shop at the mall, so Jay snuck into Camille's bedroom.
32:10 Speaker 04 And that's when I discovered all of the crazy crap under her bed.
32:14 Speaker 03 She carefully turned over the air mattress.
32:17 Speaker 04 She was hoarding food under there, like, like she'd get food out of the kitchen, but she'd put it under her bed. Like, somebody was going to take it from her or something. She had all these little notes. She would have all these little weird sayings, how she's going to get money and how God is bringing her money, just floods of money, windfalls of money, just all kind of money scribbles. They were all little torn pieces of paper. And these were just stacked, like, under her bed. It was just like a little trashy.
32:51 Speaker 03 It was an absolute rat's nest. Jay's gut began to churn. Just as she was trying to process how the hell Camille could live like this, something else caught her eye. A passport.
33:04 Speaker 04 The passport name wasn't her name.
33:06 Speaker 03 Sandra Camille Bridewell.
33:12 Speaker 03 Jay freaked out.
33:14 Speaker 04 I was just pissed. This woman has wormed her way into my house, eating up my food, you know, living under my roof, living under a nice roof, mind you. And, you know, she's a liar.
33:28 Speaker 03 Curiosity turned into urgency. She turned at the early days of search engines, scrolling through Google and Yahoo, typing in the name from the passport. A charity name surfaced, the Bridewell Foundation, something Camille had mentioned in passing. A fax number was listed, and in a moment of reckless need, Jay sent a message asking for any information. The next day, she received a cryptic response.
33:55 Speaker 04 It was literally this fax that came over of Glenna's article. And then it said at the top, "Call me."
34:02 Speaker 03 She dialed immediately. A woman who worked for the foundation picked up the other end of the line.
34:08 Speaker 04 And when I called her, her first words were, "Well, you might want to sit down."
34:13 Speaker 03 Boy, did Jay have no idea what she was in for.
34:16 Speaker 04 She told me about the three husbands, the friend that mysteriously died. She would tell men that she was pregnant, and then she wasn't pregnant, you know, she really wasn't pregnant, and how she used her looks to get what she wanted.
34:32 Speaker 03 Jay's blood ran cold. The woman living under her roof, the woman that she had fed, housed, trusted, was a fraud. She had been accused of killing.
34:43 Speaker 04 It was like, what? Like, this is a church lady. Like, what are you talking about? And, and I told her, you know, she's been at my house, she goes to this church. It's like, oh, she doesn't have a church bone in her body?
34:56 Speaker 03 She certainly didn't. By the sound of it, Sandra was a predator, one who changed her means to an end as easily as shedding skin. Neither Whitley nor Huskinson was the one to warn her. But she'd been warned. She still had a chance to save herself. Jay hung up the phone.
35:14 Speaker 04 And at this time, she was in the shower.
35:17 Speaker 03 Jay had to act quickly. She wanted Sandra out of her home.
35:21 Speaker 04 So I went in to the kitchen and got a butcher knife.
35:25 Speaker 03 Next, she called for backup.
35:27 Speaker 04 I just decided, before I confront her, I need people to come here. Like, I need people at least to be on the way. I went back to my room. I call my brother and his friend, he was with a friend. I said, get over here now. I called the police. And all this was, I shut my door, I was this, I was whispering in my room. Please get here. I don't know if I have a murderer in my, in my house.
35:50 Speaker 03 With help on the way, Jay decided it was time to approach Sandra herself. She knocked on the bedroom door, her heart racing. When Sandra emerged wrapped in a towel, she greeted Jay with her usual syrupy warmth.
36:05 Speaker 04 I just said, who are you? And she said, what do you mean? What do you mean? You know who I am.
36:12 Speaker 03 For a fraction of a second, Sandra's face twisted into something else, something chilling. Her mask had slipped.
36:19 Speaker 04 That is something I'll never forget. She went from this sweet, angelic kind of a face to this demon looking face. Like, it was the weirdest and craziest, scariest thing I've ever seen.
36:31 Speaker 03 Then she stepped toward Jay.
36:33 Speaker 04 I pulled that knife and I said, if you take one more step towards me, I will drop you. Where are you standing?
36:41 Speaker 03 Sandra stopped right there.
36:44 Speaker 04 Once she understood that I knew the whole story, the game was up. I said, you might want to get some clothes on because we have company coming. You're going to be going to jail today.
36:55 Speaker 03 She got dressed under watchful eyes.
36:57 Speaker 04 I wouldn't let her out of my sight.
36:59 Speaker 03 Jay led Sandra to the living room and ordered her to sit on the couch while the police were en route. Her demeanor, chilling.
37:07 Speaker 04 Cool as a cucumber. And that's when I knew I had been scammed. Like, she was not, you could just tell she, she'd been down this road before.
37:17 Speaker 03 As if she knew from experience, the police couldn't touch her. When officers arrived, they ran Sandra's name.
37:25 Speaker 04 She didn't have any outstanding warrants.
37:27 Speaker 03 No immediate cause for arrest. What is it about this woman that keeps her walking away scot-free?
37:35 Speaker 04 The female cop looked at me and says, well, you know, according to Georgia law, she's getting mail here. You're going to have to go through the courts to evict her.
37:43 Speaker 03 But Jay didn't need the law to do what had to be done.
37:46 Speaker 04 I looked at her and I said, oh, well, she can stay if she wants to. And I just. Kept staring her down and she says, no, I think I'll be leaving. I said, good idea, good answer.
37:59 Speaker 03 Sandra left that night. She took her suitcase, her lies and her carefully curated persona with her. By the time Jay went outside to check the parking lot, she was already gone. She had no money, no immediate means of escape.
38:13 Speaker 04 The one story she told over and over again is how you had to believe in manifestation. Because she would say that I just went to the airport and manifested a ticket. And was able to travel where I needed to go and just show up because God would take care of me. And you know, somebody put the right person in my path to give me money to buy my ticket. So I guess that's what she did when she left my place.
38:44 Speaker 03 Later, after Jay had some time to sit with everything that happened, someone pointed out how close she'd come.
38:50 Speaker 04 He said, you need to be grateful that you found this out. Because I have no doubt that had she kept at you to convince you to get insurance, you wouldn't be here.
39:09 Speaker 03 Next time on Fatal Beauty.
39:11 Speaker 04 Sandra started taking over Ms. Sue's finances. Then she started taking over Ms. Sue's mail. She wouldn't let Ms. Sue see any of the statements that were coming in through the bank or any letters.
39:27 Speaker 03 Sandra finally gets caught when she messes with the wrong family. So they take her outside, put her in the police car and she's sitting there like nothing. She had no emotion.
39:42 Speaker 04 What's it take to be a mentor with big brothers, big sisters? It takes 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, a video game, best two out of three. It takes sharing thumbs up emojis, clapping emojis and loaded nachos at halftime. That's how you make an impact on a young kid's life. So go on, share a few hours a month because mentorship may sound huge. But the truth is, it takes little to be big. To learn more, volunteer or donate, go to bbignow.org.
40:25 Speaker 00 Welcome to the 50th Hunger Games.
40:27 Speaker 01 Witness the beginning of the revolution.
40:29 Speaker 02 Hey Mitch, you've been trying to take down these games from the start.
40:32 Speaker 01 Filmed for IMAX.
40:33 Speaker 02 Make them remember you.
40:36 Speaker 01 The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping, November 20th, rated PG-13.
Previous Fatal Beauty | 3. Dead End Next Fatal Beauty | 5. Luck Runs Out Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated