Page 37 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Twenty-Six

DAPHNE: And then the twins moved out. They did a year of fashion merchandising at college, dropped out, opened a boutique funded by me and then ran it into the ground.

Then they got rich husbands from Florida and started having babies.

And suddenly I was alone, just at the moment I was really aging.

Sure, I was attractive, but not as beautiful as I used to be.

But you don’t care about that, do you? No one wants to hear about how aging can be traumatic for a woman.

Or how you go from being the most important thing in your children’s lives to a bit player.

No. All you want to know was whether there were more murders.

RUTH: Well, were there?

DAPHNE: Yes. Honestly, I’m like a drunk who falls off the wagon. I had the money, I had the freedom, but I just kept doing it.

RUTH: Okay. So, who was it? Let’s get going.

DAPHNE: So impatient! How many murders do you people need?

I guess you and your ghoulish listeners would say the more the merrier.

There was one murder, just one, and then I retired until Warren Ackerman’s death.

His name was Donald St Clair. I was in my mid-fifties, and he was a decade older.

You could learn a little something from Donald, Ruth.

All he cared about was his career and by the time I met him, he’d had three divorces, a heart attack that forced him into retirement, and children who never called because he’d never really been around.

Careers are great and all, but if that’s all that matters to you, you’ll end up alone and afraid of getting stuck on the toilet.

RUTH: Okay, I’ll keep trying to live a happy, fulfilling life with mountains of student debt, rent I can barely afford, and a parent who will need home healthcare before too long. Thanks for the life advice.

DAPHNE: No need to be snippy, I’m just saying life isn’t all about money.

Although it is a really nice distraction!

But Donald St Clair was at the point where all he really wanted was a wife.

We met in Hawaii in 1990, which is a great place to find rich old buzzards.

Soon I was living in his Colorado mansion, which looked like that place in The Shining .

[EDIT: DO NOT INCLUDE IN PODCAST]

RUTH: Where exactly in Colorado were you?

DAPHNE: Near Aspen.

RUTH: Oh, I have family in Colorado. My mom grew up there. They moved to Florida after my grandfather left the family for another woman.

DAPHNE: Jesus, the women in your family sure can’t keep a man.

RUTH: Men or women, we can’t seem to keep anyone. . . so how long did the marriage last?

[END OF REMOVED SECTION]

DAPHNE: The marriage lasted two years. Maybe less.

At first, I thought there’d be enough luxury to keep me occupied.

I’d seen Dynasty ; I knew Colorado was full of rich people.

But eventually I got bored of snowed-out roads and stories about how Donald used to be a big shot.

So, I had to kill him to save myself from another winter in the mountains.

I was back in New York with neon in my eyes before Christmas ’91!

And that’s all I can really say about Donald.

Our marriage was short, but one thing lived on.

His last name. I liked Daphne St Clair so much that I decided to keep it.

RUTH: So that’s it? You talked for ages about some of your other murders, but this poor man barely gets a paragraph? You know how insulting that is for his family?

DAPHNE: Well, how much more offended are they gonna get? I already killed the guy!

RUTH: At first, you seemed to have been murdering guys who mistreated you, but it seems like now no one was good enough for you. That these men didn’t matter to you at all.

DAPHNE: Ooh fascinating insight into the criminal psyche. I don’t know what you’re getting so worked up about, this guy was nothing special.

[Ruth takes a deep breath and doesn’t say anything for a minute.]

RUTH: What about his children? Do you know their names? I’d like to interview one. Their father deserved better.

DAPHNE: God, why waste your time?

RUTH: We’ve discussed this before. You might as well tell me what you remember. Whether you help me or not, I’ll find out.

DAPHNE: Is that a threat?

RUTH: More of a promise. Of course, that’s only if you’re taking me for a ride.

DAPHNE: Christ you’re paranoid! I’ve told you nothing but the truth!

RUTH: The whole truth?

DAPHNE: So help me God.

RUTH: Because you should know, a lot of people are discussing this case online, trying to connect you to famous unsolved murders.

I’ve read the threads: the Tylenol Murders, the Black Dahlia, some small-town murders in New York State, even the Miami New Year’s poisonings.

. . I just want to confirm that you didn’t kill anyone else.

DAPHNE: Ruth, what are you trying to say?

RUTH: I’m wondering if you’ve confessed to all the murders you’ve committed.

DAPHNE: That’s ridiculous. Why would I lie? The only reason people know that I’m a killer, that any of these people were even murdered, is because of me!

RUTH: Well. . . lots of killers lie, even after they’re caught.

Sometimes it’s a control thing, like how a lot of people believe Charles Manson ordered more murders but he liked keeping that secret from the public.

And for others, it’s a bargaining chip. Ted Bundy used to say he’d committed more murders than people knew, and that he would help the police if they delayed his execution.

DAPHNE: Yes, but those killers all didn’t want to be caught. I confessed . So again, why would I lie?

RUTH: That’s a very good question. . . Maybe you’ve killed quite a few more people than you’re letting on.

. . Or maybe you’ve done things that might make people think worse of you.

Or maybe you’re doing this to taunt me. The thing is, no one really gets why you confessed.

People ask me about it all the time. I don’t know what your motivations are with this, so for all I know you could be lying about lots of things.

DAPHNE: Honestly, you’re getting tiresome! I don’t know if you need a stiff drink or a roll in the sheets, but something has to change! Get out!

ShockAndBlah:

Wow Donald got short shrift didn’t he?

PreyAllDay:

I guess when you’ve killed so many times, they all start to blur together.

ShockAndBlah:

It is a good last name though. Daphne St Clair is very Sasha Fierce.

StopDropAndTroll:

Da fuck? It’s a hooker name.

ShockAndBlah:

Wow, so Ruth is reading our comments!! What does Ruth think Daphne’s hiding?

PreyAllDay:

Maybe nothing? But she does seem to be challenging her, as if she knows something specific.

StopDropAndTroll:

That’s a weird way to say thank you for giving her some clout and a payday. Daphne’s her freaking meal ticket!

ShockAndBlah:

I dunno, maybe it’s personal. . .

CapoteParty:

Don’t you feel like we jumped over some years though? One moment it’s 1970 and now it’s 1991? What happened in between? Maybe that’s what Ruth is getting at.

ShockAndBlah:

Probably nothing. Maybe she told Ruth, and it didn’t make for a good podcast.

PreyAllDay:

Yes, all killer, no filler please!

INTERVIEW WITH LEAH SIMMONDS, DONALD ST CLAIR’S DAUGHTER

RUTH: So, now you know. Did you ever meet Daphne?

LEAH: No. . . I hadn’t seen my father for over a decade by that point. Still, I can’t believe he was murdered. I was shocked when the police reached out.

RUTH: How do you feel?

LEAH: My dad deserved better than this. All people do.

I’m the product of marriage number two, which only lasted four years.

But he was still my father. Some part of me always hoped that later, when he retired, we might actually get to know each other, that he might actually take an interest in me, but Daphne took that chance away.

RUTH: I’m sorry for your loss. I know that your mother has passed away, but I don’t suppose you could give me any information about Donald’s third wife. I understand that he had a daughter with her?

LEAH: Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. My dad just really didn’t feature in my life. He worked constantly and seemed to hop from woman to woman, marriage to marriage. Children were just a byproduct to him.

RUTH: I’m sorry you had to grow up like that. Father-daughter relationships can be so complicated.

LEAH: Yeah. Hey, now that we know he was murdered, is there any way to recoup the inheritance? Should I maybe talk to a lawyer?

RUTH: You can certainly try but I have a feeling she spent it all. She’s not much of a saver.

LEAH: That monster.

The rest of my fifties passed in a bitter blur.

I spent money. I went to tropical places.

I started having cocktails at lunch just to make the day go quicker.

Life, which had seemed to shimmer with opportunities when I was in my twenties and working at Bergdorf’s, now seemed so dull.

I had all the money I needed for the rest of my life.

I had an apartment on the Upper West Side and a home in the Hamptons.

I was still attractive and now that my children were adults, I was free to do whatever I felt like.

But somehow that freedom made it impossible to dream.

When I was a teenager, I had wanted so many things: three square meals, new clothes, and for my father to keep his hands to himself.

Now though, I couldn’t think of a single thing I wanted.

At the time, I felt so unbelievably old, which of course is funny now that I’m old as dust. Back then I was living independently, never having to worry if I was one folded rug away from a body bag. And yet, at the time, I really felt like I was waiting to die.

I began to drink more and more. I liked to spend my evenings lying on the couch in my dark living room in front of the flickering TV. I would tip back rum and Cokes, knowing that I’d hit my sweet spot when I’d start talking to the TV characters and laughing at my own jokes.

Why was I drinking? Just to stop the boredom really.

And maybe because I’d been trying to outrun so many things in my life and they were finally catching up.

I had played so many parts over the years that I felt like I had fragments of identities floating around my body like shrapnel.

After all the drama and the glamour, somehow it had ended with me becoming just another middle-aged woman, alone and invisible, lost to her son.

Everything was coming undone. I stopped telling my daughters if I was dating anyone, stopped telling people I dated that I had adult children. Sometimes I’d tell so many stories that I’d get them twisted and contradict myself. I wasn’t living a consistent life anymore, not even a consistent lie.

That was also the decade when I first started learning about serial killers.

In a funny way, I never saw myself as a serial murderer.

It was more like I fell into crazy situations where I had to kill myself back to single.

But when I started to read more about serial killers, I realized that my terrible childhood probably played a part.

But people feel bad for Oliver Twist; they don’t feel bad for Ted Bundy.

Not that I really identified with all those sacks of shit who raped and killed women.

It’s monsters like them who make monsters like me.

And I was never caught. Seventy years of murder and they never caught me.

It makes you wonder how many other people got away with it.

And then, in my late sixties, I left New York for the last time.

It was December 2001, and I didn’t even recognize New York anymore, the heart had gone out of the city.

But I was still sad to leave. New York had been my North Star, always guiding me home from my detours around the country.

Diane had invited me to move into her home in Florida.

She had just gotten divorced and was feeling sentimental.

I agreed, mostly because I assumed I’d die soon anyways and thought it’d be nice to die with a suntan.

If I had known I had over twenty years left in me, I might have given it more thought.

Diane thought we’d get closer and that I’d share my stock of folksy wisdom and stories about good ol’-fashioned decent people with my grandchildren.

Unfortunately, my grandkids were selfish teenagers and Meemaw had spent her life offing rich guys for money.

To make matters worse, Diane and I began to argue.

I was frustrated with my daughter. I did terrible things to give her a good life and she wasted it.

Sure, she was rich, but she had the same life I had: living off men and her looks.

I had given her so many opportunities and she had squandered them all.

After a few years, I moved out. Diane didn’t care by that point because she had a new husband. I was alone in Florida, cut adrift from my life before. And that can be a dangerous way to live.

HauteHistoire: “Okay, we’ve got two very different aesthetics for this TikTok video.

First, we’ve got Colorado millionaire’s wife, an aesthetic for those who like SUVs, roaring fires, and doing cocaine in an outdoor hot tub!

Think suede boots, a pleated wool skirt and a chunky concho belt, think cozy turtlenecks and turquoise jewelry. The perfect look for a mountain murder!

“Now we’re moving on to our Coastal Grandma look, an old favorite of yours, but I’m updating it to be more of a Coastal Killer look.

So, we’ve got our linen shirt, our fisherman’s pants, but we’re adding a net bag for all that wine Daphne’s drinking and a pair of Tory Burch woven slides because no matter how much Daphne’s struggling, I don’t think she’d be caught dead in a pair of Birkenstocks.

Especially as Daphne doesn’t need any reminders of her time in the great state of Vermont.

This is a look for riding your bicycle next to the beach, contemplating your own mortality and all the men you helped on their merry way! ”