True Crime Story aired on "SNAPPED"
Season 1 Episode 12
The story of a bookkeeper who evaded jail despite poisoning her millionaire bossBy most accounts, Debra Baker had the perfect job. She was the bookkeeper and business manager of Jerry Sternadel, a millionaire Texan entrepreneur. She was also a close confidant of Sternadel's wife, Lou Ann. They were so close that many, including Lou Ann's husband, began to suspect that the pair were more than just friends. In 1990, Jerry fell deathly ill. As he lay in his hospital bed, he told anyone who would listen that he thought Debra and Lou Ann had poisoned him. He died shortly afterward. A follow-up autopsy revealed that Jerry had ingested a lethal dose of arsenic. When the poison was found in a storage shed rented to Debra, she was immediately arrested and charged with Jerry's murder. At trial, prosecutors painted a picture not of a love triangle, but of a hate triangle. Jerry hated his wife and wanted to divorce her. Debra hated her boss. And Lou Ann hated the thought of losing her lavish lifestyle. Prosecutors argued that Debra had poisoned Jerry before he could divorce her beloved friend, Lou Ann. Based on the evidence of the arsenic found in Debra's storage shed, the jury found her guilty of murder. But in a surprising legal twist, the same jury that had convicted her sentenced her to only10-years probation and fined her $10,000. If she had stayed out of trouble, she would have stayed out of prison. In 2003, Debra Baker was arrested for parole violations. She is currently in prison in Texas.
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Twenty years after the murder of her millionaire ex-husband, Jeannie Walker penned "Fighting the Devil". The book details Jeannie Walker's odyssey from ex-wife of a murdered man to a real-life Sherlock Holmes. Walker had fought the devil even before her ex-husband was murdered, but was she prepared for the unexplained phenomena of the evil supernatural being from the belly of hell?
