Hi, and welcome to Serial Sisters, a podcast where my sister and I tell each other true crime stories. I'm Kristen. And I'm Devon. And this week, Devon has a story for me.
All right, so this week, I had a really hard time picking, but then I found a really good one that I hope you don't know of. What is it? So it's Audrey Marie Fraser. I don't think so.
She also goes by Audrey Marie Hilly. So chime in anytime if it does sound familiar. I don't think so. Okay, so, and it's odd because she's alternately addressed as Audrey and Marie at times during the story.
So I'm going to kind of facilitate between those two names. Okay. One of those weirdos that sometimes goes by her middle name instead. Yeah.
All right, so Audrey Marie Fraser was born on June 4th, 1933 in Blue Mountain, Alabama. Her early life is not very documented, either on Wikipedia or Murderpedia. She married Frank Hilly on May 8th, 1951 when she was 18. Marie stayed behind in Anniston to finish high school where Frank went to Long Beach, California, to finish out his stint.
Where's Anniston again? Marie. It is in Alabama. So, I hope anyway.
So Marie joined him there after her graduation and later accompanied him when he was reassigned to Boston in 1952. At the end of his tour of duty, they discovered Marie was pregnant. And when he was discharged, they moved back home to Anniston where they bought a small home. He got a job in the shipping department of Standard Foundry while Marie worked as a secretary.
Their first child, a boy, Michael, was born on November 11th, 1952. Outwardly, the Hillys seemed happy and settled, but the first signs of trouble had already begun. Marie liked to spend money. When Frank had sent home his paychecks from California, Marie had spent them with astonishing speed.
And when the time came for her to join him out west, she had no money with which to... She was shopping. So she was burning through that money. So, and I mean, this is the fifties here.
Money has less spending power. So her in-laws actually had to pay her way out to meet her husband. That always looks good. And these habits didn't stop.
And though Frank liked to make Marie happy, he found it hard to keep pace with her constant acquisition of newer and nicer clothes and furnishings. There were arguments, but Frank didn't like to fight and found it easier to just go along with her whims as best as he could rather than to bicker over every purchase. And it does seem like he loved his wife. Well, yeah, because that's actually like fairly progressive for what I imagine is the fifties were.
Bitch, get your shit under control and smack her around. I know that that can't possibly have been all of the fifties, but... But it seems to be like the prevailing culture of like keeping your wife on these tight strings. So by the time that their daughter, Carol Hilly, was born in 1960, Frank had been appointed foreman of the shipping department at Standard Foundry.
And Marie has a reputation as an excellent executive secretary. So the family's collective income had increased, but it barely kept pace with her spending. So she was also developing a disturbing work pattern. Though her employers always found her professional and effective at her duties, her coworkers thought otherwise.
Marie judged and put on airs and played power games, but was always careful to remain respectful and subservient. Kiss ass. So she knew how to play the game. Right.
At each job, she eventually became unpopular with those around her and left, telling friends and family that she'd been ganged up on by her fellow employees. Her references were always excellent, though, and she never had trouble getting another job. She worked for some of the most powerful men in Anniston, all of them who spoke glowingly of her. Later, Frank, her husband, would find out one of the reasons why.
She'd bang on her bosses. That's OK, sorry. So Carol and Mike wanted nothing except perhaps their mother's attention. So like her own parents, Marie showered her children with material possessions, but remained emotionally remote.
You see, that never ends well. She administered little. So she's always like the cold mom. And then she didn't really administer any discipline to the children, leaving that task to Frank's mother, Carrie.
That's just... Who cared for the children. That's mean. Grandparents are supposed to be fun.
Right. That's the whole point of being grandparents, is that you're the fun one. Yeah, I don't want kids, but I want the time off. That's...
I've been saying for years that I'm gonna adopt a pregnant 17 year old. That's been my plan for forever. Just get it all in one go. Oh my goodness.
So, so the kids were left in the care of Frank's mother while they worked. And Marie favored Mike and allowed him to grow into a little hellion, brushing off his behavior with a casual boys will be boys attitude. Uh-uh. Boys will be held responsible for their actions.
And it's crazy things haven't changed that much. I know. I know. But it still makes me angry.
Crazy angry. So, as for Carol, she seemed always to be missing the mark. Carol was a tomboy, nothing like the demure proper daughter Marie wanted. They clashed continually, continuously.
So Frank, noticing the effect Marie's treatment was having, took a special, special interest in Carol, taking her for ice cream and to football games. And then their close relationship just pissed Marie off that much more. Well, probably especially because he's taking her to football games. And she's like, no, girly girl, you don't go to football.
So, yeah, take me out shopping. So from the time to time, Frank worried about his wife. Sometimes she would be awake all night and he would hold her while she shook in nameless fear. She was restless and was unable to soothe her.
She taunted him with love letters she said that she'd received from local men. That's weird. So and then, of course, there's her spending, right? So this poor guy just seems like he doesn't have a backbone and can just be like, hey, bitch.
Well, that that's part of the problem with the 50s, too, is that you just married whoever was close by and stuck with it. Whether you were happy or not, that's where you were. Like the girl next door. She's kind of pretty because you don't know what else is out there.
So you're like, it's great. Good enough. Yeah, she's good enough. So but then there was also Marie's spending.
So her tastes kept the bill coming to the Hilly house year after year. Sometimes Frank would reprimand her, but it didn't really do any good. She wanted the best and she wanted it now. She actually ended up renting a post office box and having some bills routed there so Frank wouldn't know what she was spending.
So and then bitch began taking out. Oh, that always ends well. So in Anniston, a town of less than 30,000 people, Frank Kelly was respected and businesses extended credit to him, to his wife, out of courtesy. And Frank always paid his bills on time.
So when his wife's accounts came past due, creditors took notice. And that just wasn't like Frank. So then by the fall of 1974, Frank couldn't ignore the troubles in his home any longer. Word of his wife's credit arrangements leaked back to him through the grapevine.
Worse still, he came home sick from work on one day to find Marie in bed with her. See, I called it. Yep. So she thought about having a little fun time with her bosses and they were giving her money for that as well.
Well, no, that's just flat out prostitution. You don't get paid for it. It's one thing to sleep with your boss and just be a terrible person like that. Don't take money for it.
Exactly. That's a whole nother crime. You're. Yeah.
So then Frank, like, he was devastated and disgusted with his wife's behavior, but he didn't really feel like he could do anything about it. So he told his son, Mark, who was married by now and attending Atlanta Christian College of these latest developments. No. He didn't mention, though.
I'm sorry, but you don't get the kids involved. Right. And like his grown children. It's your marriage.
It's your problems. You don't need to be getting your kids involved. I don't care if they're grown. It's.
But whatever. Well, that's the thing is, like, that's what I'm saying. Like the kids are grown. Like they have their own lives.
Like this kid, the son is attending college. Like you don't really need to be hearing about his mom is in bed with another man. That's not that has nothing to do with him. So although while Frank told his son about that stuff, he didn't mention his increasingly failing health.
Okay, so we're getting to it. So Frank was sick a lot during 1974. At first, he attributed his weariness and periodic bouts of nausea and vomiting to something he'd eaten or to exposure to chemicals at the foundry. He took Alka-Seltzer and bore his symptoms as best he could.
But the illness persisted. And by May of 1975, he was ready to consult a doctor. So the family physician first prescribed fluids, then Kaopectate and Maalox, something like that, which was an antispasmodic medication. And nothing helped.
When Frank's sister, Freida, visited them on May 22nd, he told her that he was sicker than he'd ever been and he feared that he would die. He It's like... Okay, so um, she underwent psychiatric testing at Birmingham's Caraway Methodist Hospital, Hospital, and while she was there, she received two more injections of morphine. If she's at another hospital, why are they still giving her mother injections with stuff?
Quit it! I fuck- well, like, she's doing it secretly because she's telling the doctor, don't tell anyone. So then, a month after she's admitted to the hospital, her physician said that she was suffering from malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies, adding that they suspected heavy metal poisoning was to blame for the symptoms. Quit it!
Figure some shit out. Right, so fucking finally, so at this point, Audrey fucking panics and knows that she's about to get caught up on her shit, and so she has Carol discharged from the hospital that afternoon, but she didn't stay at the hospital for long, and the following day, she was admitted to the University of Alabama hospital. Oh! And then finally, Carol catches a break, and Audrey is arrested for passing bad checks.
Which had, like, all of these checks. That's kind of funny, yeah. It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion.
Right! So, and the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed. Right! So karma's getting this lady.
And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain. It seems like the muscles in your foot, like, drop. Oh, okay. And then, she had also lost most of her deep tendon reflexes.
So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm gonna say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of 4 months.
Good. Figure some shit out. Right, so fucking finally. So at this point, Audrey fucking panics and knows that she's about to get caught up on her shit, and so she has Carol discharged from the hospital that afternoon, but she didn't stay at the hospital for long, and the following day, she was admitted to the University of Alabama hospital.
Oh! And then finally, Carol catches a break, and Audrey is arrested for passing bad checks. Good. That's kind of funny, yeah.
It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Right. And the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed.
Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain. It seems like the muscles in your foot, like, drop.
Oh, okay. And then, she had also lost most of her deep tendon reflexes. So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm gonna say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of four months. Good. Get the fuck out of here.
That's kind of funny, yeah. It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Well, the checks are written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed.
Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain. It seems like the muscles in your foot, like, drop.
Okay. So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm gonna say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft.
So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of four months. Good. Get the fuck out of here. That's kind of funny, yeah.
It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Right. So, and the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed.
Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain. It seems like the muscles in your foot, like, drop.
Okay. And then, she had also lost most of her deep tendon reflexes. So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm gonna say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of four months. Good. Get the fuck out of here.
That's kind of funny, yeah. It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Right.
So, and the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed. Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain.
It seems like the muscles in your foot were numb. Okay. So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm going to say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of four months. Good. Get the fuck out of here.
That's kind of funny, yeah. It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Right.
And the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed. Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts on the possibility of heavy metal poisoning, noting that Carol's hands and feet were numb, she had nerve palsy causing foot drop, which I looked up, and it's like a gait abnormality that's super complicated to explain.
It seems like the muscles in your foot were numb. Okay. So then, like icing on the cake, the doctors noticed those, I'm going to say it wrong, those Aldrich-Meese lines, the white lines of discoloration on Carol's nails that indicate... Um, so finally getting the drift, the doctors conducted tests on samples of Carol's hair on October 3rd, 1979, at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences.
Those tests revealed arsenic levels ranging from over 100 times the normal level, close to the scalp, to zero times the normal level at the end of the hair shaft. So of course, that proved that she'd been giving increasingly larger doses of arsenic over a period of four months. Good. Get the fuck out of here.
That's kind of funny, yeah. It's the bad checks. It's like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion. Right.
So, and the checks were written to the insurance policy that insured Carol's life, so that policy was fixed. Right! So karma's getting this lady. And then, doctors began to focus their efforts She's been in jail for a little bit now.
She escaped after she was given a three-day pass to visit her husband. Why would you get married? I read that. When I read that, I was like, what the fuck?
Like, he finds out his wife isn't who she says in the first place. And then she disappears and fakes her own death, introduces himself as the deceased wife's sister, and it's like, what the fuck? Right. Well, that, technically speaking, they're not even legally married at that point, because he married a woman who never existed.
Exactly. Fuck. So then, and the husband, John, had actually moved to Anniston to be closer to his wife. Right.
So they spent a day at the Anniston Motel, and when John left for a few hours, bitch disappeared. I think John got hit in the head at some point when he was a kid. That dude is not very smart. He's making poor choices.
That's not like, God. So, and then she leaves a note behind, asking John for his number. Oh, I thought he was going to say, kidnapped? Maybe I was kidnapped.
Just kidnapped, question mark? Is that what happened? So then, of course, the people that were connected to the case were livid that a convicted murderer and accomplished escape artist would be given a prison furlough. So I think at this point, they actually, like, went back and, like, re-looked at all their furlough procedures and, like, tried to change things.
And then, so the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Audrey said, I think this is not just insane, it's gross negligence. Which, like, yeah. Well, why are people being let out of prison on day passes anyways? Why is that a thing?
I didn't even know that was a thing. But then, this time, she doesn't fare so well. Thank God. So only four days go by when she vanishes from the hotel, and Anniston police respond to a call about a suspicious person, went to a home, and found her.
So she apparently had been crawling around in the woods, drenched by four days of frequent rain, and numb from overnight temperatures in the low 30s. So she was taken to a local hospital and underwent emergency treatment for hypothermia. But while she was there, she suffered a heart attack and died. So, but then, like, this is the best quote, I think, about, like, how to end this whole case.
Because, like, this is so crazy. But, so the Calhoun County district attorney, Bob Fields, said, it seems to be an anticlimactic way for someone who was the great escape artist to die. This goes against everything she's done in the past. The biggest escape artist in this area in 10 years, and what does she do?
She ended up crawling around in the woods. Yeah. And, like, they still don't have, like, a true motive, other than the money, for why she did everything that she did. Well, yeah, it's just the money.
She's just a greedy asshole. Yeah. But, like, the shit about, like, God, like, why did, after she was in the camper? Yeah.
That's... You know, if she had just stayed robbing cabins, married to that dude, she would have been fine. Again, if you're gonna take off, why come back as the sister? Like, the dude thinks his life is dead.
You're good. Go on to the next life. Absolute no sense to me. It was like, you have to wonder, like, what, also, like, emotionally, like...
Yeah. You know, you never want to, like, label people, but does she, is she just have some type, like, you know, issues? Sociopath or she doesn't identify with other people, or, like, does she still need that, like, human connection, and that's why she went back to the husband? I don't fucking know.
Like, what the fuck? There's just a whole box of screws up there. All over my loose. Yeah.
I know. Fuck, that's a good one. But yeah, that was the one. That was a good one.
That was nuts. This week, I don't think we need a man, murder a woman. So I was like, let's pick a lady poison. A lady nut ball.
God. This is nuts. Some soap opera shit. That was good.
Thank you. Fine. Yeah. Okay, well, if you want to find us online, we are on Instagram and Twitter at Serialsisters.
And our email is serialsisters at outlook.com. Thanks. Thanks.