The big question was: did Cynthia Douglas hate chiropractor Theo Dryer enough to plot his murder?
Dr. Theo Dryer
The answer seemed to be yes. Here's an interesting little factoid about Cynthia: she loved reading murder mysteries and was obsessed with plotting the perfect murder. Friends acknowledged that Cynthia could hijack dinner party conversations with her latest scheme, always in good fun. But in real life? CD Knowles seemed to think so. He/she described in great detail the events his apparently meticulous research revealed (I'm going to go for the male pronoun for CD even though he could easily be female). Again, I will paraphrase.
Cynthia's unreasonable hatred of Theo grew in her mind like a lethal black mold that completely took over. What began as an idle mental game – How could I kill Theo Dryer? – became serious. She considered various tactics. Hire a hitman? No, she wanted to do this herself. Lure him to her house? Drug him? Shoot, strangle, or suffocate him? Suffocation seemed the best option. But how to dispose of the body? Cynthia stood at 5'6". Theo was about 5'10". Doable. She could drag him from her house into the adjoining garage and into her car. But then what? These were the thoughts that circulated through her brain for months.
Cynthia
Finally she did it. She lured Theo to her house, using the excuse that she wanted to clear up all bad feelings and give him one of Josie's three very expensive guitars as a keepsake. Theo, who couldn't stand anyone thinking ill of him, was only too eager to accept Cynthia's invitation. He drove to her place on a moonless October night, they hugged hello and she gave him a vodka tonic into which she slipped a roofie that caused him to pass out. When he was sprawled on her couch, dead to the world, drool escaping both sides of his mouth, she placed a pillow over his head and suffocated him. Mission accomplished. Did she feel release, exuberance, glee? We'll never know. Because now she had the next set of problems. She had to roll Theo's body into a sheet and drag it to her car. She had to dispose of the body. She had to dispose of Theo's car and erase all evidence that there had been contact between them. These things were impossible to do on her own. She needed an accomplice. And so she called her cousin and boss, Eddie Burak, who owed her a favor.