143: A Dark Heart

Patricia Taylor and Tom Allanson came together after each of them left failing marriages behind. At thirty, Tom was younger than Pat by six years. He had been through two short, bad marriages and she had escaped one long one where she said she had felt trapped and smothered by her military husband. Both of them had been looking for the perfect love most of their lives. Despite the odds, they seemed to have found it in each other. From the outside, though, they appeared to have nothing more in common than sex. Tom was tall and as strong as an ox. Pat was tiny boned and fragile, like a bird. She liked to be seen as a delicate southern lady. Scarlett O’Hara from Gone with the Wind was her role model. Tom wouldn’t be the first to be taken in by Pat, a lifelong manipulator, and he wasn’t the last. Pat had ideas about what she wanted in life and nothing would get in her way. Throughout her life, Pat feigned illness, made false police reports, tore apart families, and planned multiple murders. No one was exempt from her devious schemes, even those she claimed to love. In A Dark Heart, we examine the relationships and evil acts of Patricia Taylor Allanson. This is a woman who left behind a string of broken families and lost lives in an effort to obtain the unattainable: perfection.