Thread by @TheHubbyDidIt

S4 E14 Debbie Race.
Original episode details.
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#UnsolvedMysteries #Update #TheHusbandDidIt #DebbieRace

On May 12, 1982, the body of 33 year old Debbie Race washed up on a Lake Superior shore. Her life jacket was intact & had kept her afloat so she did not drown, however it seems she had succumbed to hypothermia from the low temperature of the lake.
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Police accused Debbie's husband, Larry Race, of deliberately allowing her to freeze to death in Lake Superior. He was convicted of murder & sentenced to life. Larry claims he is innocent & even has the support of Debbie's parents.
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Larry claims that the jury who convicted him was prejudiced because he had a long history of adulterous relationships. He says her death was an accident & that the only thing he is guilty of is adultery.
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Larry & Debbie lived in Hoyt Lake, Minnesota with their three children. Larry liked to boat & scuba dive, but Debbie was more interested in being involved in her church & with their family. They often spent time apart.
Their marriage suffered under the strain of his affairs.
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Larry says by 1982 he had promised to end his affairs & the two vowed to work on their relationship. May 11, 1982 was their 14th wedding anniversary & to celebrate they decided to take a trip to Lake Superior for dinner & cruising on their boat, the Jenny Lee.
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Larry: "It felt as if things were starting over again. Things had like a renewed spirit. I wanted to stop what I was doing, & I was thinking maybe this is the chance. You know, I have a wonderful woman here, there's nothing wrong with her, & I want to take an about face."
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Around 9pm that night Debbie noticed that the boat was taking in water. Larry said Debbie began to panic & that she had no faith in the Jenny Lee since it had nearly sunk the summer before.
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They pulled the cover off the engine & saw that water was spraying all over the place. They shut down the engine by taking the alternator & loosening up the bolt, & dropping the alternator. As soon as they dropped it, the engine shut down, & the water stopped leaking in.
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After fixing the problem Debbie went to go start the boat, but the engine wouldn't turn over. Larry said he tried to start the engine until the battery was almost dead, but he couldn't get it to turn over.
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They went to the back of the boat & heard a "gushing, wooshing" sound coming from the bottom of the boat & Debbie began to panic, scaring them both. Larry says he panicked with her & made poor decisions by listening to Debbie when she suggested they get off the boat.
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They pulled the first life raft out to blow it up & saw that it had holes in it & was useless so they tossed it aside. They pulled the second life raft out & it was fine & filled up with air. Larry says even though the rafts are for 2 people, they only actually hold 1.
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Larry told Debbie to get into the life raft & that he would drag them to shore like he had done with their daughters last summer when the Jenny Lee took in water. Debbie put her valuables in a gear bag, grabbed a scuba tank, & got into the life raft.
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Larry put on his dry scuba suit & got into the water, "I knew I had to push her to shore & I knew I could. I was strong enough, she said the same thing. She said 'Larry, you're strong enough, you can do it.' I pushed & pushed & I was making it. I was okay, but..."
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"...I started getting cold. She was terrified & at that time I knew I couldn't get in the raft. & I thought that, you know, I would die. & at that time I made a poor judgment. Looked off to the right & there was lights coming. I said I'll go for help. The lights were..."
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"...closer than swimming to shore. Debbie was going that way towards shore, I was hoping the opposite way for help. One of us were going to get help. One of us were going to get to shore--Debbie was going to get to shore for help, or I was going to get to the boat for help."
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It turns out the light Larry had seen was his own boat & this time the engine started when he tried it. He searched for Debbie & fired distress flares. He could not find her, so he returned to shore & notified the Coast Guard. The next afternoon Debbie's body was found.
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After Larry was convicted of Debbie's murder he hired new legal counsel & appealed the conviction saying he had been the victim of incompetent counsel. He said that if he had testified, against his previous team's objections, the jury would not have found him guilty.
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The case was based solely on circumstantial evidence, but the prosecuting attorney, John DeSantoof, says he is 100% without a doubt sure that Larry killed Debbie. He says evidence at trial showed that before her death Larry took out a $108k life insurance policy in her name.
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The defense says that $37k of that policy was for mortgage insurance & that it came along with the mortgage on Larry's house. The rest of the policy was paid out by a local credit union & there had been testimony that it was actually Debbie who had sought the policy.
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At trial, the prosecution said that Larry concocted the entire failed engine story, but after trial the Jenny Lee was sold & examined by an independent mechanic who determined the starter on the boat was worn & could cause intermittent starting failure.
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DeSantoof says that the mechanic who examined the Jenny Lee for a post-conviction hearing did so a full 2 years after the trial & that he could not verify that it had been a problem at the time of Debbie's death. The evidence was ruled irrelevant by trial & appellate courts.
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Larry is adamant that he had 2 life boats on board the night Debbie died, but DeSantoof says every one of Larry's diving companions & friends who testified at trial said that they had never seen him in possession of 2 blue & yellow rafts as he claimed.
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Search & Rescue testified that if the raft existed they would have found it.
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At trial, a Deputy Sheriff testified that Larry had specifically pointed out to him that he had 2 rafts & said, quote, "What about rafts? I have 2." The prosecution said the Deputy's testimony was inconsistent & that when first questioned he denied knowledge of the rafts.
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The prosecution's theory was that Larry had pushed Debbie & the raft well away from the Jenny Lee, returned to the boat, donned his scuba gear, & hopped back into the water where he swam back under Debbie's raft & slashed it with a knife, leaving her to sink & freeze.
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DeSantoof says that at trial there was evidence presented of 5 punctures in the bottom of the raft & that they could only have been placed there while the raft was inflated. Experts testified this had to be true because there were no puncture marks at the top of the raft.
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The cuts were strategically placed so as to cut both air chambers on the raft & was not likely the result of a random accident. The puncture marks did not match the only knife found on the Jenny Lee, however.
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The prosecution asserted that once Debbie was set adrift in the water without a raft, Larry dragged the raft back to the Jenny Lee so that he would have support for his story about attempting to inflate a first raft.
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Jean Aubineau, an "underwater expert," says that the theory presented by the prosecution would mean Larry had super human abilities & could accomplish super feats that were not physically possible.
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Debbie's body was found about 7 miles away from where the Jenny Lee was last spotted by witnesses & Aubineau says that would be impossible for a body to do without a raft. He claims it would have hit shore after about a mile or 2.
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DeSantoof says that they don't actually know the physical coordinates of where the Jenny Lee was when the couple abandoned the boat, so the drift theory set by Aubineau would be impossible to prove or disprove.
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The defense said that Debbie's skin lividity in her body also proved that she came ashore in a life raft because her blood had not sunk to her feet. They claim it would have done so if she'd been kept upright & floating in the water with only her life vest.
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DeSantoof says, "The lividity of Debbie Race's blood following her death was to the back & that is consistent with the fact that she floated in the water with a life jacket, without a raft available to her. Because as the expert testified at trial, this particular..."
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"...life jacket would have kept her basically face up on her back as she floated, following her death. Her body, of course, was found face up, on its back, on the shore of Lake Superior as well, which would continue the lividity to her back."
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Without hearing from Larry himself, the jury found him guilty of murder. Michelle Lee, their daughter, believes her father is innocent. Franklin & Sylvia Selvey, Debbie's parents, also believe Larry is innocent.
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Sylvia: "If you only knew Larry, you wouldn't think that Larry would ever do anything like that." All of his appeals were denied. Larry was paroled after serving 22 years for a murder he maintains he did not commit.
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Updated information on the case & details not included in the original broadcast.
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#UnsolvedMysteriesUpdate

The "underwater expert" was a St. Paul man who owned a scuba diving business & organized diving outings on Lake Superior. He was not qualified to give an expert opinion on how far a dead body could float in a Lake.
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Evidence at trial showed that the Jenny Lee had a perfectly operating bilge pump on board that could have handled a leak six times as serious as the one on the boat, but it was not used during the crisis.
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Witnesses testified that Larry had at least four affairs in the two years prior to Debbie's death & that he often complained to his lovers that Debbie was overweight, bad at managing money, & a messy housekeeper.
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Sylvia, Debbie's mother, testified that Debbie had weight problems, but it didn't affect her marriage negatively & that Debbie was a good Christian who loved the Lord. The paper listed Debbie's height & weight at 5'5" & 180 lbs.
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Larry accused the government of withholding evidence in order to win the case.
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Since 1976 Larry had been an avid boater & scuba diver. In the course he completed the subject of hypothermia was thoroughly covered.
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Court documents say, "In the ensuing years, appellant Race spent substantial amounts of time & money on the sport, diving as much as 40 times per year, almost always in Lake Superior. During this time, not only did Race become an excellent diver, but he also acquired..."
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"...substantial knowledge about immersion hypothermia."
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courtlistener.com/opinion/222726…

"Other expensive equipment was purchased to enable Race to dive for shipwrecks on the bottom of Lake Superior. Included among that equipment was a dry suit, which is significantly better than a wet suit for diving in the cold Lake Superior waters. For a diver to stay..."
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"...in cold water for extended lengths of time, a dry suit is considered a necessity. According to the trial testimony of Dr. Robert Pozos, an expert on hypothermia, a diver in a dry suit could stay in 37° Fahrenheit water almost indefinitely without developing hypothermia."
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"In late summer 1981, while appellant & two of his children were aboard the Jenny Lee several 100 feet off shore, the boat began to take on water. Appellant then donned his dry suit, put the children into an inflated life raft, & pushed the life raft carrying the children..."
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"...to safety on the shore. On that occasion the Jenny Lee eventually sank. After it had been raised from the lake, Race proceeded to make repairs... In the course of the engine overhaul, new gaskets & new steel bolts were installed, but the exhaust manifold was not rebuilt."
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"In installing the rebuilt engine in the boat on May 7, 1982, difficulty was experienced with an exhaust manifold bolt. One of the bolt holes was stripped & had to be rethreaded. On land testing revealed no difficulty other than a very slow drip-type leak that..."
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"...appeared to pose no danger to the occupants of the boat. Upon water testing, the boat seemed to run well, & the leak did not worsen."
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"One of the deputies who questioned appellant in the patrol car testified that appellant told him that as his wife & he were cruising approximately one mile out from the Lakeview Castle, a leak developed in the water jacket of the engine. The cause of the leak was a bolt..."
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"...which had come loose from the water jacket. The bolt was taped back into the water jacket to restrict the flow of water. After the repair, which appellant said was completed between 8 and 9 p.m., he attempted to restart the boat's motor. He was unsuccessful & thought..."
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"...the engine was flooded. Appellant claimed he activated the bilge pump to pump out water which had entered the boat from the leak. When he did so, the pump made a sucking noise on the floor of the boat. He said this caused Deborah, an excitable & strong-willed person..."
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"...with a great fear of water, to become hysterical. She allegedly thought the pump was pulling the bottom of the boat loose. Appellant claims she then insisted on getting into a life raft & leaving the boat. Before doing so, however, she assisted him into his dry suit."
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"He claimed Deborah got into the second raft, but when he attempted to get into the raft with her, it took on some water. This, he asserted, caused Deborah to become frightened, & she refused to let him into the raft. Race said that he started towing the raft to shore by..."
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"...swimming. He said he eventually became cold due to his failure to wear his diving gloves. He stopped towing to warm his hands. As he was rubbing them together, the raft, with Deborah in it, drifted away. After yelling to her to head towards shore, he swam back to the..."
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"...boat, the lights of which were still visible, & signaled for help with flares. An attempt to start the engine was immediately successful & it ran fine. After cruising in the boat for approximately 20 minutes in an unsuccessful search to locate his wife and the raft..."
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"...he decided to go to shore for help. He estimated he was in the water three hours from the time he lost contact with Deborah & the life raft & the time he got back to the boat. When asked if he had a scuba tank aboard, he denied that he did."
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Trial testimony established that Larry owned two diver knives, but neither knife was found in the boat on May 12 or was ever accounted for.
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"During the boat inspection on May 12, officers noted several gallons of water still in the cut rubber life raft. In his original statement to officers, Race had specifically stated that following his unsuccessful attempt to inflate it, the raft had not been in the water."
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"In a later statement, he altered his story & said that he had thrown that raft overboard. On the morning of May 12, both caps to the air chambers of the raft were securely closed, notwithstanding his indication that following the unsuccessful attempt to inflate the raft..."
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"...he had thrown it aside. He maintained two life rafts were on board, that one could not be inflated, that he tossed it aside, and that it was never in the water — a statement later changed."
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"The longest affair lasted from 1976 until the weekend before Deborah's death. Two of these women testified that appellant complained to them about his wife — that she was overweight, that she spent too much money, & that she was a poor housekeeper..."
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"...The state likewise produced testimony indicating that after Deborah's death, Race contacted each of these two women & suggested, explicitly or implicitly, that if questioned by officers, they should state their relationship with him had been no more than friendship."
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There is an unconfirmed report on a message board from a relative in 2005 claiming that Larry has since remarried & is very happy. He was released from prison in 2005.
#DomesticViolence #DomesticViolenceAwareness #TheHusbandDidIt
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