About this episode
Hey Dateline fans! As a bonus, we’re giving you a special preview clip of our new podcast series, Trace of Suspicion.
After seemingly healthy 23-year-old Marine Todd Sommer dies unexpectedly, his widow Cindy’s lavish spending, cosmetic surgery, and wild partying raise investigators’ suspicions. They accuse her of poisoning him with arsenic for his life insurance, setting off a criminal case that takes a stunning turn... Josh Mankiewicz sits down with the woman at the center of it all in Dateline’s newest podcast.
If you like what you hear, just search Trace of Suspicion to listen to the first two episodes now, completely free. Or subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or DatelinePremium.com. Subscribers get early access to new episodes and can listen to all Dateline podcasts ad-free.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Get every episode summarized
Each time Deadly Mirage publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
Transcript ready
54 searchable segments. Every word is indexed and playable.
Full transcript
Deadly Mirage — Dateline Presents: Trace of Suspicion. Machine-transcribed; use the interactive transcript above to jump the player to any line.
Hey, it's Josh McWoods from Dateline with a special preview of my new podcast called Trace 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. Todd 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 1.30 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'm like, what's the matter? He just looked at me and he said, I'm all right, I'm okay, I'm fine. And then he just fell down and I just kind of freaked out. That is Cindy back in 2002, on the phone 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. And police and fire got there and it was just they had taken me out of the room and it was just all blurred from there. This story is about the why and the how of Todd Summers' death that night. It is about the wife he left behind and the questions that have persisted for more than 20 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 do some pretty strange things and everything. And it is the story about investigators who found reasons to believe Todd Summers' sudden death was really a cold and calculated case of murder. This was really strange for a 23-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 Manquets, thanks for listening. Search for trace of suspicion to hear the full episode now. Bringing your business dreams to life takes heart and about a thousand decisions a day. That's why Atlantic Union Bank's knowledgeable bankers are here for you.
With the right guidance and customized solutions to help you reach your business goals, so whether you're planning your next move, upgrading your space, or scaling to meet demand, we make sure your business is ready for what's ahead, because we are big enough to support you, yet small enough to know you. Atlantic Union Bank, anyway, you bank.
More episodes
