Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Well, hello everyone and welcome back. This is Binged and I'm your host, Peyton Moreland. If you consume a lot of true crime content, you're probably no stranger to the term black widow. It's what we call women who kill one husband after another after another.
Female serial killers whose victims are their spouses. We call them black widows after black widow spiders, the females of which are known to devour their male partners after mating with them. But there are just as many lady killers out there, men who marry and kill their partners, only we don't call them lady killers. The word that's reserved for men who kill their spouses is blue beard. And
And both this week's episode and next week's will be about a couple of 20th century American bluebeards. In today's episode, our killer fits this definition a little more loosely because he killed most of his victims before the marriage documents were filed. Sometimes karma is slow and takes a while to resolve its backlog and bring itself current.
But other times, karma can be quick, brutal, and efficient, like a black widow spider devouring her mate. James Carlin Tolliver had a history of heart trouble. So it wasn't surprising to learn that when the 46-year-old man killed over, it was from a heart attack. But that would be the only unsurprising thing about James Tolliver's death.
The circumstances around which would lead investigators down a dizzying rabbit hole of swindling, extortion, and murder. James Tolliver's body was found on the morning of October 9th, 1980, splayed out alongside a dirt road in the middle of nowhere near the scenic junction of highways 88 and 89, 20 miles south of Lake Tahoe.
The door of his camper pickup truck was only a few feet away from his body. One of the dead man's hands was gloved while the other hand was bare. And a few inches away from the bare hand was the other glove, which he apparently had removed and was carrying when he was stricken. After he collapsed, his limp hand let go of the glove as well as his car keys, which were found right next to the glove.
But here's where things get interesting. Lying on the ground near the dead man's right leg was a blood-stained embroidered pillowcase, inside of which was a blood-soaked paper supermarket bag. And inside that paper bag that was inside the pillowcase was $98,000 in $100 bills.
And when responders searched the dead man's person, they found a .38 caliber pistol in his pants pocket. Extending behind the body, leading away from the wilderness as far as the eye could see, were his footprints, widely spaced as though he'd been running from somewhere. Running from what wasn't clear at first.
Whatever he was running from, James Tolliver dropped dead just before he reached his truck. And surely a man with a history of heart trouble is tempting fate by running at full speed through an area with a 7,200 foot elevation. But as the coroner took away James's body and police investigated this very suspicious scene, woodcutters clearing trees a mile away stumbled upon something even more shocking.
The woodcutters found the body of a middle-aged woman dead in the front seat of her car with luggage in her back seat and two .38 caliber bullets in her head. It looked as though she'd been packed to go on a trip.
Police found among her belongings an embroidered pillowcase that matched the one found with James Tolliver, whose footprints ran away from the dead woman's car all the way to his truck where he dropped dead a mile away.
It didn't take a seasoned detective to figure out that Tolliver had most likely shot the woman dead, stuffed nearly a hundred grand into one of her pillowcases, and then hightailed it from the scene toward his truck to then only die. Ballistics would later prove that the .38 caliber gun in Tolliver's hand had been the gun that shot the middle-aged woman dead.
And an autopsy would later confirm that Tolliver had collapsed and died from heart attack just before reaching his truck and right after murdering someone. That all happening sometime between 9:00 PM and midnight the night before he was found.
Karma, baby. There it is. The murdered woman was soon identified as Florence Evelyn Richina, a 49-year-old special education teacher from Modesto, California. Florence was recently divorced and had apparently met James in a parents without partners meeting where Tolliver had wooed her and convinced her to elope with him.
When police interviewed other members of the Modesto chapter of Parents Without Partners, multiple people confirmed seeing James and Florence dance together, but no one was aware they had any relationship beyond that. They were both good dancers, but their similarities ended there. They seemed like an unlikely pair.
Florence was warm and outgoing and well-liked by other members of the group, while James seemed cold and remote. Group members found James hard to talk to. He often sat off in a corner and kept to himself.
In fact, his presence barely registered, and it was unclear if he even had children, which would have made him ineligible to join Parents Without Partners. But he claimed he had a six-year-old child, and club organizers did contact someone he provided as a personal reference, and the reference confirmed he had a child. But James never really talked about them to anyone.
And after his death, it was learned that James had no children. So he was just lying to get into parents without partners. And maybe the personal reference was a friend or relative doing him a favor. Or maybe it was him pretending to be someone else. What was also curious was the fact that Florence told very few of her friends or family about this apparently secret relationship she was having with James.
And even with her daughter, she revealed very little. Her daughter didn't recall Florence ever even mentioning the man's name. She only indicated he was a casino dealer and she was going to spend a week with him vacationing in South Lake Tahoe. And for Florence, the relationship seemed exciting and even forbidden. I know it's wrong, she said to another family member not long before her murder, but I'm going to do it. I've got to live.
In June of that year, Florence quit her teaching job and sold her 20-acre ranch house, which she'd won in her divorce settlement for $89,000. And shortly before she was murdered, she withdrew $98,000 from her bank account. It was everything she had and exactly the amount that was found inside that bloody pillowcase.
An employee of Tolliver's bank remembered that a day or two before he died, he had mentioned he planned on opening a jumbo savings account with a $100,000 initial deposit. But he wouldn't have the money until October 8th or 9th. The blood on the pillowcase and the paper grocery bag was the same type as Florence's and it did not match Tolliver's blood type. Remember, this is before DNA when the best they had were blood types.
Also, another thing they'd found near Tolliver's body was a roll of clothing, and inside a pair of pants they found what appeared to be a suicide note written by Florence, addressed to her four children and her brother. But the woman's children looked at this typewritten letter and didn't believe for a second that their mother had authored it. It sounded nothing like her.
While it contained personal details about Florence, it was also crudely written, barely coherent, full of grammatical and spelling errors, and, according to one source, "laced with profanity."
And if you're a faithful listener who's been with Binged since day one, this may remind you of John Edward Robinson from our very first episode. He also forged letters from women he'd murdered, and he pumped them full of profanity and crudeness, as though this is the only way his corrupt brain could imagine other people communicating. Also, since Florence had been shot twice in the head instead of just once,
One can only wonder how Tolliver expected anyone to believe her death was a suicide.
Police learned from a woman who had dated Tolliver that he was a heavy gambler, though their investigation did not reveal any outstanding gambling debts. They also learned from this woman that James had a secret hiding place inside his fireplace. When police searched his hiding spot, they found thousands of dollars worth of jewelry that they later traced to Florence Richens, the victim.
They also found legal documents in Florence's name and her Parents Without Partners membership card. James also had a Parents Without Partners membership card in his wallet when they found his body. So this is what helped investigators establish where James and Florence even first met. It was also learned that James would meet women at single dances where he showed up and introduced himself using an alias.
He frequented the Modesto Singles Club and Parents Without Partners. The president of the club later identified Tolliver as the man who frequented club events using the name Jim Joy. When investigators talked to James's brother, William Tolliver, the brother admitted that James had asked him as a favor to drive his truck to the spot where it was later found.
But William claimed he had no clue what his brother's actual intentions were that day. Okay, most beauty brands don't understand fine color treated hair, but Proz does. They have a formula that can address my specific type of hair needs, which makes sense because it's based on me. If you're wondering whether custom hair care is worth the hype, let me tell you it is, and that's why I'm obsessed with Proz.
Since 2017, Proz has transformed traditional hair and skincare with a made-to-order model that reduces waste, celebrates unique beauty over one-size-fit-all beauty standards, and works better than off-the-shelf alternatives. Developed in Paris and bottled fresh in Brooklyn, Proz combines the know-how of its world-class team of in-house cosmetic chemists with an advanced AI algorithm that personalizes your formulas
Based on 80 plus unique factors, you literally go on, take the quiz, it asks you all types of questions, and then they personalize your hair care. Since I switched to pros, I've noticed that my hair is so much shinier, stronger, and my color actually lasts longer. And because you're always changing, so is your pros. Your formulas evolve alongside you, and pros will address any new concerns, adjust your formulas with the seasons, and learn from your feedback with an always custom fit.
You guys, Proz is so confident that they'll bring out your best hair that they're offering an exclusive trial offer of 50% off your first hair care subscription. Order at proz.com slash dark.
Pros.com. Dark. Go on. Take the quiz. See what they come up with. Take your free consultation. Get your one of a kind formula and see the difference custom hair care can make with 50% off at pros.com. Dark. Let's get back into the episode. Okay, you guys, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that doesn't work. You still aren't sleeping. You still hurt and you're still stressed out.
That's how it was for me. So I cleared out my cabinet and reset my health with CBD from CB Distillery. And it has been a real change. Now, CB Distillery's targeted formulations are made from the highest quality clean ingredients. No fluff, no fillers, just pure effective CBD solutions designed to help support your health.
in two non-clinical surveys 81 of customers experienced more calm 80 said cbd helped with pain after physical activity and an impressive 90 said they slept better with cbd and you guys i have taken cbd to help me sleep and i all
I always zonk out so fast and have such a restful night's sleep. Those nights that I'm tossing and turning, I always reach for my CBD. So if you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like I did to CB Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money back guarantee, CB Distillery is the source to trust. I have a 20% discount to get you started.
Visit cbdistillery.com and use code dark for 20% off you guys. If you wanted to give CBD a try, go to cbdistillery.com, code dark. cbdistillery.com, use code dark. All right, let's get back to the episode.
Authorities in Alpine County, where James and Florence's body were found, discovered that Tolliver had recently been under investigation for alleged extortion schemes involving multiple women. Think the Tinder swindler type vibes. Apparently, blackmail and murder were his side hustles. And more worryingly, his wife of nearly three decades had vanished without a trace just two years earlier.
It was August 12th, 1978 when Patsy Tolliver's family last saw her. They had visited the Tollivers and spent the night at their residence and when they returned to their home in Reading, they tried contacting Patsy and were unable to reach their daughter. After several unsuccessful attempts, they got James, her husband, on the phone who told them his wife had gone missing. He
He later made a formal missing persons report and claimed that his wife had run away with all the money from their joint savings account. The last time her family had seen Patsy was in June of that year at a family reunion she attended in South Dakota. Her relatives had mentioned Patsy telling them that James had threatened to kill her and her mother if she attended the reunion.
It's unclear why James was so against his wife attending this family reunion. There are so many gaping blank patches in this story, which hasn't been covered to the same extent as most of the cases we talk about on our podcasts.
So we don't have a lot of information about James and Patsy's marriage, but we know James and Patsy got married when they were still teenagers. And they had been married for 26 years at the time of Patsy's disappearance back in 1978. And when James reported Patsy missing, she had left everything behind.
Her car, her clothes, her last paycheck, which she never even picked up from her job. All she took was a fat chunk of their money from the couple's joint savings account, according to James, at least.
James was given a polygraph test and it indicated he was being deceptive. But that's not admissible in court and obviously doesn't provide probable cause for an arrest. So although police suspected he may have murdered his wife, without a body or any evidence of a crime, their investigation had nowhere to go. And James seemed pretty eager to leave that marriage behind because he wasted absolutely no time in joining that singles group.
suspiciously now calling himself Jim Joy. In fact, investigators soon learned that James was not new to the Modesto single scene. He'd been attending meetups at least as far back as 1975, three years before his wife's disappearance, which then raised a whole new question. How many other victims of James Tolliver were there?
within days investigators had enough information to suspect the number didn't stop with two four years earlier a 27 year old modesto woman named jacqueline cooper disappeared after last being seen in the company of a co-worker from tri-valley growers who was that co-worker it was james tolliver i mean it's so interesting in these cases because how many women can disappear last being seen with a man
Before that man's like, okay, yeah, I'm now a really viable suspect. This is more than just a coincidence. James Tolliver was a longtime employee at Tri-Valley Growers Plant 7 where he worked as a forklift driver. According to Jackie's family, James told Jackie he owned a ranch in Nevada and asked her to run away with him and he threatened to harm her if she didn't.
The last sign of Jackie was a $4,000 withdrawal from her bank account. Employees at the Tri-Valley Growers Plant 7 were interviewed after Tolliver's death, and the consensus was that Tolliver was trouble to begin with. He had a combative personality and a history of problems on the job.
Most recently, he had been suspended from work for refusing to wear safety goggles. And though he had worked at the cannery for nearly 25 years, James had recently been turned down for a promotion to supervisor due to his on-the-job record. But his colleagues were unable to offer any insight into any relationship he may have had with Jackie Cooper. It seems that both of them were discreet about it.
Investigators then began looking at other recent missing persons cases from the Modesto area, paying close attention to the circumstances of each, looking for connections to James.
And another case caught their eye. In May of 1979, a 57-year-old nurse named Mary Louise Watkins surprised her roommate when she began packing all of her stuff into a vehicle one day. She explained she was planning to invest some money, she had nearly $30,000 in cash on her, and was moving to San Jose to live with her daughter.
And that was the last she was ever seen. Two days later, her car was found abandoned in the parking lot of a medical plaza in Modesto. All the belongings she had packed were missing from the vehicle. A few days after that, Mary's daughter got a letter purportedly written by Mary in which she told her daughter she was eloping with a man.
She wrote to her daughter that she was welcome to have the car, the one that was found abandoned, and she'd reach back out after the wedding. But she never did. That was the last Mary was ever heard from. Her daughter had been completely in the dark about all of this. And she also was unaware of any plans her mother had to move in with her. Apparently, Mary had lied to her roommate.
Mary also sold a home that she owned two weeks earlier for $28,000, something she also did not share with her daughter. It was all so strange because she'd just seen her mother a few days before she vanished when the two spent Mother's Day together. She thought it especially unexplainable that Mary didn't mention the cell of the house because that cell had closed 10 days earlier. That was the source of the cash Mary had with her the day the roommate saw her leaving.
The banker who assisted her with the check would later tell police that Mary insisted on cash because, she explained, she and a friend planned to invest it in some property. She did not elaborate, however, on the location of said property or the identity of the friend. The best investigators were able to determine after speaking with multiple friends, family members, and neighbors was that whatever Mary's plans were, she was doing her best to keep them secret by telling everyone a different story.
Mary's son told police that he and a friend of his had helped his mom move all of her household furniture into a rented storage unit with a month's rent paid in advance. When detectives contacted the employees of the storage facility, they learned that the storage unit had been discovered with its door wide open and the unit completely empty just a week after everything was loaded into it. It seemed that someone had come in the middle of the night and cleaned everything out of the storage unit.
Whoever it was had to have been driving a truck, yet no one saw anyone. The last thing of value that detectives learned about Mary was that in the weeks before she went missing, she had been seen around town attending singles meetups sponsored by local dating services. And then, yet another person's case caught the attention of investigators looking into James Tolliver. This one from 1974.
On September 12th of that year, a 60-year-old cannery worker named Hester Lee Chandler disappeared from her house on Glacier Avenue in Modesto, leaving her husband Clyde and 21-year-old daughter Darlene absolutely baffled. Clyde and Hester had been married for 38 years, and he worked as a pipe fitter in Contra Costa County and was only home on weekends.
When he returned home the following evening, he discovered the house dark and locked and Hester's car remained in the driveway, with all of her clothing stuffed into cardboard boxes as though she had been planning to run away. But her credit cards, her ID cards, everything except her driver's license was left behind in the house. Her house keys were found on the floor in the living room, and some of her ID cards, strangely, were partially burned.
The teller at the Crocker Citizens Bank remembered Hester appearing at the branch bright and early that morning, the very first customer of the day. The woman didn't appear nervous or like anything was amiss when she requested to withdraw $8,000 from her and her husband's joint checking account.
specifically asking for this amount in cash. Are things starting to sound familiar here? And Hester's withdrawal left a balance of only $2,000 in the bank. With no evidence of wrongdoing or anyone being victimized, Hester was given her withdrawal money in one $500 bill and the remainder in hundreds and fifties. She then placed the money into her purse and walked out.
Seemingly unaccompanied and declining the bank's offer of an escort, she then walked across the street to Bank of America, where she had another joint checking account and withdrew another $900, leaving behind a balance of $1,100.
So she had virtually cleaned out both of her and her husband's joint checking accounts that morning. The last time anyone saw her was that evening after dark when a neighbor noticed Hester moving about inside her garage. The neighbor called out to her, but Hester waved her away, telling the neighbor she was in a hurry and didn't have time to talk. And that was the last anyone ever saw of Hester. She never collected her last paycheck and her family members, whom she regularly kept in touch with, never heard from her again.
It was as though Hester had just up and left.
It was thought that, against all odds, maybe Hester had run away to Hawaii, a place she had always wanted to visit. Sometimes, after a particularly long day, I love to play games on my phone to get my mind off things, and one game I have been loving is June's Journey. June's Journey is a hidden object mystery mobile game that puts your detective skills to the test. You play as June Parker and investigate beautifully detailed scenes of the 1920s while uncovering the mystery of her sister's
murder. With hundreds of mind-teasing puzzles, the next clue is always within reach. Every new scene and chapter leads to more juicy secrets and clues being revealed about this mysterious murder that brings out the detective in everyone. Plus, you get to chat and play with or against other players by joining a detective club. You'll even get the chance to play in a detective league to put your skills to the test.
I have always loved good scavenger hunts and puzzles, and of course we all know I love a good murder mystery, and this is just the perfect marriage of the two. Right now I'm on chapter two. I've been trying so hard not to use the light bulb feature to help me search for clues. I seriously look forward to playing it every night. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android. Airlines operating out of the nearby airports were monitored for any sign of her, but she never appeared as a passenger.
Taxi companies in the area had their drivers' logs thoroughly reviewed by investigators, but there was no record of any taxicabs picking anyone up near Hester's house on the evening she vanished. So it seemed likely that someone else had picked her up in a vehicle, but if so, there were no witnesses. After four decades of marriage, a union with no known marital issues, it seemed so unlikely that Hester would just vanish and cut contact with her entire family.
Because of this, her family believed she had met with foul play, but investigators at the time didn't necessarily agree. For them, all signs pointed to Hester willingly leaving. After all, there was no body, so it wasn't a murder investigation. And after 100 or so hours, the trail went cold, leaving her husband, Clyde, to retire and make finding out what happened to his wife a full-time job, with the couple's daughter as his co-pilot.
Eventually, not knowing where else to turn, they went to the press and the Modesto Bee ran an article about Hester's strange disappearance. But it generated no further leads and six months later, Hester's mother died. Her already ill health no doubt exacerbated by the agony of losing a daughter to the void of vanishing. And then, Hester's disappearance remained unthought about by anyone outside of her family for years.
That was until the death of James Carlin Tolliver. Now the circumstances of Hester's disappearance were eerily similar to those of Mary Watkins and Jacqueline Cooper. And another commonality she shared with Cooper was she worked at the same cannery company, Tri-Valley Growers, Plant 7, the same one that Tolliver also worked for.
It seemed very likely at this point that Tolliver was a serial killer, targeting lonely women for financial gain, making them disappear, including his own wife. James Tolliver's funeral was held on October 15th at the Salsa's Brother Funeral Chapel in Modesto. I would give almost anything to have been a fly on the wallet that service. To witness the utter confusion his mother and his seven siblings must have felt in the wake of the shocking secret that they'd learned.
I mean, how did family members navigate it? How would you deal with learning that a close relative you'd known all your life had died suddenly in a way that revealed them to potentially be a serial killer, like literally on the way back to his car after murdering someone? The funeral, of course, was not the end of the Tolliver family's troubles. In fact, it was only the beginning because now came the matter of settling James's estate.
And that would get very, very messy. James never had a will drawn up. After Tolliver died, investigators probing his assets had found $82,000 in a savings account and funds he had invested in money market certificates. His mother, Flossie, handled his estate, and in a probate filing, it was established that James left behind $250,000 in assets, which in 1980 was a small fortune.
And the family of Florence Regina, as well as the mother of James's missing wife, Patsy, initiated legal proceedings and filed claims against the James Tolliver estate. In the Regina family's lawsuit, they were seeking $350,000 in wrongful death damages,
This was to cover legal and burial expenses, in addition to $1.5 million in punitive damages, as well as the return of the $98,000 that Florence had withdrawn from her bank account and was found with Tolliver's dead body. And the suit was filed because Tolliver's family had claimed this money, the stolen money in the pillowcase, as their own in probate court.
The Riccina family were also trying to get back all the jewelry and old watches of Florence's that had been found inside Tolliver's house. It was $5,000 worth in total. Authorities closed the case and named Tolliver the killer of Florence Riccina. So why not return the victim's money and valuables to her family? Like why did her family have to go and fight for this in court?
Eventually, an out-of-court settlement was reached, the terms of which were that the $98,000 in stolen funds would be returned to the Riccina family as well as the valuables, while the family also agreed to drop their wrongful death suit against the Tolliver estate. But the Tolliver family's legal woes were far from over because now there was the question of who should rightfully inherit a house that
that was jointly owned by the deceased James Tolliver and his missing, likely murdered, wife, Patsy. This question became a legal battle in 1982 once Flossie Tolliver, James' mother, decided she wanted to sell this house, which at the time was valued at $67,000. Patsy's family claimed that she was never legally declared dead, so she was technically the sole surviving heir to the home.
A judge authorized sell of the property but ordered that the proceeds from the sale remain in a blocked account, only withdrawable by court order until the dispute was resolved. And that was expected to be resolved by the end of 1982, but instead it dragged on for several more years. Patsy Tolliver was finally legally declared dead in 1983, while the dispute over her estate continued through August 12th, 1986.
And just before it was set to go to trial, eight years to the day that Patsy disappeared, the Tolliver family withdrew their claim to the estate and it was divided evenly between both set of heirs. And although justice was served, it wasn't swift enough to spare Florence Regina's life.
And perfect justice was never served in this very messy, messy case. As Hester Lee Chandler, Mary Louise Watkins, Patsy Gay Tolliver, and Jacqueline Lucille Cooper remain missing persons, their exact fates unknown, though we can pretty well assume they were murdered by James Carlin Tolliver.
James Tolliver may not have perfectly fit the definition of a bluebeard since he was only married to one of the women that he murdered, but he was in spirit romancing lonely women whom he convinced to elope with him only to pull a bait and switch by killing them and taking their money. Next week, we'll look at the strange case of another wife killer who employed a method of murder that's as unique as any I've ever heard about.
In fact, he may be the only killer in the history of killers to have ever committed a murder quite like this one, which of course is nothing to be proud of. We don't give points for creativity here. Anyway, that's next week and I'll see you then.