Years after a beloved father is shot in his home, the family matriarch mysteriously vanishes.Season 31, Episode 19Originally aired: Nov 20, 2022 Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Of the children, Eric was more of a sportsman. He had Dad's favor. He was sort of the golden child. Butch comes along, and he is Mama's boy. Everyone knew Paul ran a tight ship. Butch and Eric described their father as being a very strict authoritarian man. Paul seemed to have a pretty traditional view of marriage. So Paul worked for a living. Marie stayed home, took care of the house.
However, the young mother struggled to fill her role.
She did not know how to keep house. You had to walk across the clothes on the floor in the kitchen, and it was a disaster.
In December of 1980, Marie's mother, Marcy O'Donnell, moved in with them.
Marie's mother was widowed, so she spent a lot of time with Marie, and Bush would be with him often. She loved being a grandma. She liked being close to her daughter, and she would help out as needed. They seemed to share a happy-go-lucky type of coexistence.
But this outwardly happy household crumbles on September 1st, 1981, when officers find Paul Witte dead on his living room couch.
Strangely, it was a little serene for what they were walking into. The people in the house were pretty calm. But what police found was a man dead on his couch with a bullet hole in his head.
Even more shocking to police is who fired the gun.
Essentially, Marie had told our investigator that her son Eric had a gun, had a .357 Magnum, and it had tripped. And it had went off and shot her husband in the head.
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Chapter 2: How did Paul Witte's death unfold?
I said, hello, Marie, remember me? I'm back. And she almost fainted. I said, Marie, I'm here about Elaine Puddy. We're trying to find her. And she's on a trip. And she stammered and stuttered. And I said, can we come in and sit down?
Marie sticks to her story.
Her explanation was that Elaine took off for parts out west. Marie's statement is that Elaine took a bus on her travels, didn't take her car.
She just simply said, if I hear from her, I'll let you know. But my concern is Marie didn't have a clue where she was gone to. She's been gone two or three months here, and that's not normal.
When investigators run Elaine's VIN number, they find something else disturbing. Marie had recently sold Elaine's car.
Obviously, that didn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense that she would sell her car if she was planning on coming back.
Investigators try to locate Elaine themselves, but make little headway.
The other thing they looked at at the time were phone records, people who called in, phone numbers, those kind of things. There was no long-distance calls coming in from Elaine that would have substantiated that she was traveling anywhere.
We tried to track her through the bus system, but there was no way to do it because you purchase a ticket, you don't have to register or sign for it or anything else. We were concerned, but you have to have probable cause to believe a crime's been committed. We didn't have that yet.
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Chapter 3: What was Paul and Marie Witte’s life like?
Eric and Butch received a sentence of 20 years of voluntary manslaughter. Nobody likes plea agreements, but it's part of the process. We didn't have a body, so we had to put everybody's story together and align it.
At Marie Witte's murder trials in 1985 and 1986, prosecutors argue money drove Marie's actions.
She complained incessantly about Paul. Nothing made him happy. And he had a horrible temper. This conversation had gravitated to divorce. And 27th of August, Paul said he was going to file for divorce.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
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