American Justice/Notorious: Deadly Magnolia

[MegtheEgg86]

Forgive my ignorance, but since getting rid of TV service altogether around 2015, I have no idea if Notorious is even still airing anywhere. Furthermore, this is an older episode, but I'm certain several of you have probably seen it before.

It's the story of a highly manipulative woman named Patricia Allanson, who reportedly goaded her then-husband Tom Allanson into confronting his estranged parents, which culminated into a violent altercation resulting in the shooting deaths of Tom's mother and father. The theory goes that Pat exacerbated tensions by claiming that Tom's father Walter had exposed himself to her while she was home alone one afternoon, in an attempt to benefit financially from an inevitable volatile confrontation in which Tom would be murdered by his father. Tom is sentenced to life in prison. Meanwhile, Pat sidles up to Tom's paternal grandparents, and ultimately makes herself executioner of their estate. Long story short, she is convicted of poisoning both of them with arsenic and goes to prison herself. After her release, she finds work as a sitter for the elderly. She then drugs her employer, a wealthy Atlanta matron, by overdosing her regularly with a benzodiazepine and basically robs her blind. She goes to jail again for a number of offenses relating to this event.

I'm fascinated by this case, about which Ann Rule wrote an excellent book by the title of Everything She Ever Wanted. I'm in the process of reading it again, and recently watched the episode again online. For anyone that's seen the episode, what'd you think of Tom Allanson's story? What do you make of his initial lie to the police that he was never in the home on that day?

I'll be thrilled if someone actually remembers this one, but if not I'll just keep yakking about it to my SO.

[Kane]

I don't know if Notorious is currently shown on television, but based on the info I discovered, the series has not produced any new episodes since December 2007.

[SPD Yellow]

I’ve read Ann Rule’s book about her. Fascinating story...there’s some touch of the Southern Gothic in all this. It’s almost about an entire family in addition to Pat. In the family, Pat is the toxic, malignant sun around which the rest of the family revolves. I keep trying to look up more about her, find out if she’s finally gone to her final reward. I wonder if anyone else in the family got wise to her, like her daughter, Susan.

Though it is a bit annoying how Ann keeps insisting that they are a classy old-school Southern family, given that they have a long tradition of teenage brides and shotgun weddings.

[MegtheEgg86]

Originally Posted by SPD Yellow

I’ve read Ann Rule’s book about her. Fascinating story...there’s some touch of the Southern Gothic in all this. It’s almost about an entire family in addition to Pat. In the family, Pat is the toxic, malignant sun around which the rest of the family revolves. I keep trying to look up more about her, find out if she’s finally gone to her final reward. I wonder if anyone else in the family got wise to her, like her daughter, Susan.

Though it is a bit annoying how Ann keeps insisting that they are a classy old-school Southern family, given that they have a long tradition of teenage brides and shotgun weddings.

I thought it was an infinitely interesting story. Pat is truly a soap opera villain come to life. The destruction she's left in her wake over the past 80 years is head-spinning.

I always felt Ann poked a little fun at Margureitte (Pat's mother) for fully taking on this refined gentlewoman persona when, just as you said, shotgun marriages during their teenaged years were quite common on her side of the family. In fact, there's some question as to who Pat and her brother Kent's father even was, let alone as to whether Margureitte was married to him at the time.

Once she married Clifford Radcliffe, though, I think she fully immersed herself in the role of a military officer's wife. As a military officer myself, I can attest that there's a certain culture civilian female spouses "grow up" in, although it's nowhere nearly as it was in the mid-20th century. Her husband definitely elevated her social standing considerably.