The True Crime Author Whose Greatest Mystery Was Her Own Daughter's Death

0:00 When your daughter calls to say she's breaking up with her boyfriend and then never makes it home that night Every parent's worst nightmare becomes reality But when you're best-selling author Lois Duncan and the police decide your daughter was randomly targeted You don't accept that answer. You write a book about it. You hire private investigators You become your daughter's voice when everyone else has moved on This is the story of what happens to 18 year old Caitlin Arquette in 1989 and why it took 32 years to get answers In the summer of 1989 18 year old Caitlin Arquette at her whole life mapped out She graduated from high school at Highland High and Abercurkey as an honor student and one clear goal in mind She was going to become a doctor. She'd already been accepted at the University of New Mexico I was taking summer courses while working as a supervisor at Pier 1 imports Then came a car accident that initially looked like a setback but turned into an opportunity The insurance payout was substantial enough that she could afford to move into her own apartment with her boyfriend

1:30 Dung Winn Caitlin's parents had met Dung several times and found him to be polite, respectful and refreshingly different from typical teenage boys Don Arquette and his wife Lois Duncan the famous author of "I know what you did last summer" appreciated that he wasn't a partier or a drinker Most importantly their daughter seemed genuinely happy with him But happiness can be deceiving Six weeks after moving in together everything changed Caitlin called her mother with news that would have made any parents heart sink She and Dung have been having serious problems The truth was they'd never really gotten along very well and living together had only magnified their incompatibility But Caitlin had a plan she already asked the friend to move in with her and she was going to break up with Dung and ask him to leave She needed some time to get her affairs in order and let things settle down first At this point the story takes sort of an ominous undertone Caitlin specifically asked her mother to lie if Dung called looking for her She didn't want him to know that she'd be spending the evening at a friend's house worried that he might show up and ruin everything She was determined not to spend another night alone in that apartment with him On July 16th 1989 Caitlin followed through with her plan She made arrangements to sleep at her parents house that night and headed to her friend's house for dinner She arrived around 9.30 pm and according to her friend Caitlin was absolutely furious with Dung

3:00 She didn't elaborate on the specifics, but she made it clear She was angry enough to in their relationship for good Caitlin left her friend's house at 10.45 pm heading toward her parents home She stomped at a red light on Lomas Boulevard and another car pulled up beside her What happened next would destroy multiple families and launch a decades-long search for answers? Someone in the other vehicle opened fire the bullets were small caliber and Caitlin was struck twice in the head The injuries weren't immediately fatal But they caused her to lose control of her car which veered into Oncoming traffic before crashing into a light pole Shortly after the shooting Caitlin's parents received a phone call that would change their lives forever They were urged to get to the hospital as quickly as possible When they arrived they discovered their daughter hadn't been in a traffic accident at all She'd been shot and the injuries had put her into a coma the prognosis wasn't good Through their shock and anguish the parents were able to tell investigators about Caitlin's living situation and her recent relationship troubles Despite everything that had been happening between Caitlin and Dung neither Dung nor Lois believed he could be involved in what happened to their daughter Five hours after the shooting police arrived at the apartment to find Dung alone His reaction appeared genuine. He seemed shocked, confused and devastated upon learning Caitlin was in a coma He told officers he'd spent the evening with friends and claimed he had no idea that Caitlin had been planning to break up with him or ask him to move out

4:36 Police tested his hands for gunshot residue which came back negative and Dung was free to go to the hospital to be with Caitlin and her family They all sat together as Caitlin fought for her life and they were all present when she passed away the next day Dung's grief appeared overwhelming Five days later he attempted to take his own life by stabbing himself in the stomach He told people he couldn't see any reason to live without Caitlin and believed everyone blamed him for her death Here's what made his statement strange. No one was actually blaming him He had an alibi his hands tested clean for gunshot residue and there was no evidence pointing in his direction Yet he seemed convinced that people suspected him Six months later the Aberkirkie Police Department announced their conclusion Caitlin had been the victim of a random act of violence Case closed as far as they were concerned Lois Duncan wasn't buying it things weren't adding up starting with boyfriends behavior A couple months before Caitlin's death she and Dung had taken a road trip to California That's where Caitlin had gotten to the car accident that resulted in her insurance windfall But Lois suspected that there was more to that California trip than a simple vacation Lois believed Dung had introduced Caitlin to his friends during that California trip and she was convinced these friends were members of a Vietnamese Criminal organization that specialized in insurance fraud Here's how the scam allegedly worked a member of the organization would rent a car and then intentionally cause an accident with another member's vehicle

6:15 The rental car driver would flee the scene leaving the victims behind Each victim would then claim soft tissue injuries to the neck and lower back Confirmed by a doctor who was also part of the organization The rental car insurance would pay out settlements to everyone involved According to this theory Caitlin and Dung received $1,500 for their participation in such a scheme during their California trip If this theory was accurate it raised an obvious question Why would the organization turn on Caitlin? She'd been a willing participant and had been paid for her involvement The theory goes that when Caitlin threatened to break up with Dung the other members of the organization saw her as a potential liability She knew their names their faces their methods If she decided to expose them they could all face serious legal consequences But were they concerned enough to commit murder and if so what role did Dung play in the decision?

7:13 One of Caitlin's friends later claimed that Dung had called her on the night of the shooting Hours before police supposedly broke the news to him According to this friend Dung screamed into the phone Kate's dead they shot her The timing of this would suggest Dung knew about the shooting before he should have known Lois Duncan had her own suspicions about Dung's level of knowledge After his suicide attempt she visited him in the hospital and confronted him directly She told him she believed he knew more about Caitlin's murder than he was revealing And that if he truly loved her daughter he would tell the police everything Dung's response was telling he went silent for several minutes and when pressed he said quote, "I know I'm deciding" When questioned again later however he maintained that he knew nothing about Caitlin's death Lois continued investigating and uncovered more suspicious details Phone records showed that on the night of Caitlin's death while everyone including Dung was at the hospital Three phone calls were made from Caitlin's apartment The landlord later confirmed that a group of Dung's friends had been in the apartment that evening The number they called belonged to a Vietnamese paralegal in Orange County Who was believed to be involved in organizing car accident scams While Lois Duncan was building her case for Vietnamese gang involvement The police investigation took a different direction They began focusing on a group of young men with 21-year-old juvenile Escabedo

8:45 And 18-year-old Miguel Garcia as the primary suspects One member of their group claimed to have been in the car when Miguel opened fire on Caitlin's vehicle The testimony led to the arrest of the entire group on first-degree murder charges The case against these young men quickly unraveled Secret recordings from their holding cells showed them denying involvement when talking among themselves But claiming Miguel was the shooter when speaking to police Their stories became increasingly inconsistent And witnesses clarified they'd seen them at the scene before Caitlin was shot Not during All charges were eventually dropped For over 30 years Caitlin's case remained unsolved Lois Duncan continued to believe in the Vietnamese gang theory While police maintained their position that her daughter had been the victim of random violence The case was featured on unsolved mysteries and became the subject of Lois Duncan's 1992 book Who Killed My Daughter But answers remained elusive In July 2021, University of New Mexico police spoke with Paul Apodaca 53 years old who told officers he'd committed murders and wanted to talk about them This confession would finally provide answers that had been sought for over three decades Paul Apodaca confessed to three cold case murders UNM student Athea Oakley in 1988 13-year-old Stella Gonzalez that same year And 18-year-old Caitlin Arquette in 1989

10:16 It turned out that Caitlin had indeed been the victim of random violence But not by the gang members who had been charged and released She'd been killed by a serial killer who had terrorized Albuquerque in the late 1980s In January 2024, Judge Cindy Leo's sentenced Paul Apodaca to a minimum of 45 years in prison After he plated guilty to charges of rape and murder The man who had taken Caitlin's life and shattered her family's world Finally, faced consequences for his actions The case that consumed Lois Duncan for decades was finally solved Though not in the way she'd expected It wasn't random violence in the traditional sense But Caitlin had fallen victim to a serial killer who terrorized Albuquerque in the late 1980s Tragically, Lois Duncan passed away in 2016 Five years before Apodaca's confession provided the answers She'd spent decades seeking She never got to see justice served for her daughter But her relentless pursuit of the truth kept Caitlin's case and the public eye A Caitlin Arquette case reminds us both of the limitations of initial investigations And the power of a mother's determination to find answers Even when those answers come too late for closure Thanks for listening to Ten Minute Murder Bingeable True Crime Stories My name is Joe, I'm the host And I appreciate you listening

11:47 If your new listener hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this right now Go to the website TenMinuteMurder.com And also in the show notes of this episode you'll find links To where you can follow along on social media Quick listener email, subject, this might be dumb but Hi Joe, do you think murderers listen to murder podcasts? And if so, do you think they take notes? Kira in Denver And Kira, I tried to, yes the answers yes But I try to not think about that I actively, anytime that thought pops in my head I try to go the other direction with it because I can't I don't want to think about that Yes I think they listen and yes I think they take notes And this isn't directly related to that But I guess it would be a cousin to what you just asked But I have had the family of killers that I talk about on this podcast Reach out to me before and one in particular that comes to mind When I read your email And it was a family that reached out asking specifically where I got certain bits of information I don't know where they thought I got it But I answered them, it's a place on the internet where I found this particular piece of information And they wanted to know where I got it I politely told them where I got it And that was the end of the correspondence It wrecked my whole afternoon They weren't rude or mean, they were very direct With their question and I was very polite back to them And that was the end of it But if I knew they were murderers listening to this taking notes I don't like that at all

13:19 I don't like that one bit Alright Cara, thank you for your weird email And if you've got one you'd like to send me Joe@10minutemurder.com No murderers please And that's gonna do it That's your episode for today Thank you again for listening to 10 Minute Murder See you next time