Hey, it's Josh Make with From Date Line with a special preview of my new podc...
of Suspicion." Death comes for us all, eventually.
“We can never know exactly when, where, or how.”
What is known is that the grim reaper is always out there, waiting, checking our names
against a list, like some Bill Collector on Commission. United States Marine Sergeant Todd Summer had every reason to think his appointment with death was still decades away. After all, he was only 23. Except sometimes the years don't matter.
As he got ready for bed that night in February 2002, the reaper was watching. Not had been battling some kind of bug for more than a week, nausea, diarrhea, stomach pains, chills, fever, the full menu of misery. The doctors at the Miramar Marine Base in San Diego thought this might be food poisoning.
“Maybe that gas station egg roll, he had eaten.”
We do not know how much sleep Todd Summer actually got that night. We do know that at about one 30 in the morning, his wife Cindy was awakened by the sound of her husband gasping for breath. He got up and he walked towards the bathroom and turned around and just looked at me and like just couldn't catch his breath.
Years later, the memory of that night is still fresh for Cindy. I went over to him and I was like, "What's the matter?" He just looked at me and he said, "I'm alright, I'm okay, I'm fine," and then he just fell down and he just kind of freaked out. That is Cindy, back in 2002, on the fall to 911.
“Cindy remembered the basics of CPR from her days as a swimmer in middle school and says”
she did what she could.
I'd never done it before, other than on a dummy, so I really wasn't sure the exact sequence
of how things should go. A platoon of paramedics, EMTs and cops were only minutes away, but by then it seemed the grim Reaper had her husband in a death embrace. The place in fire got there and it was just they had taken me out of the room and it was just all a blur from there.
This story is about the why and the how of Todd Summer's death that night. It is about the wife he left behind and the questions that have persisted for more than twenty years. Well, we learned that they had some money issues. It is a story about private behavior and public shame.
She started having a lot of people over and a lot of parties shortly after his funeral. I understand everybody says it's the sex. We understood how it doesn't look good. The experts say that people use some pretty strange things in their opinion. And it is the story about investigators who found reasons to believe Todd Summer's sudden
death was really a cold and calculated case of murder. This was really strange for a twenty-three year old seemingly healthy marine to die, so why don't we run one more test because poison could have been an option here. I'm Josh Maykowitz. Thanks for listening.
Search for trace of suspicion to hear the full episode now. I'm Craig Melve, cheers, cheers.
I've always been a glass half-volt kind of guy and now I'm talking to some people who
look at the world that way too. It's really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their trials, challenges, their stories, their funny, and my candy. So I hope you'll join me each week and who knows. You might just come away with your own glass half-volt.
Search Glass Half-volt with Craig Melve from today. On YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
