local wine and spirits company somewhere close and buying booze. and phil noticed that steve white had written a check to a company called american national for $127. when he didn t recognize the company, rouss decided to call. she said it s life insurance. i said can you tell me more about it? she said, well, it s for $100,000. and the beneficiary and owner of the policy is stephen allen white. but the life insurance policy wasn t on steve white s life, it was on phil rouss . and there was no policy on his policy naming rouss as the beneficiary. her husband did nothing wrong, that they were only trying to protect their investment in the event of phil s death. he wasn t into auto restoring.
business partner, steve white. but prosecutors didn t have enough evidence to show how phil rouss was poisoned. we were never able to prove conclusively how he got the compounds into mr. rouss system. we were able to prove he had ample opportunity. phil rouss recalled a number of incidents with steve white marked by unusual behavior. prior to his illness, phil and steve were having dinner at a local restaurant. not long after placing their order, white complained about the poor service. he got up and went into the kitchen and came back with phil s entree but not his own. there was another incident involving a bottle of whine. when white brought a bottle of wine and insist he drink all of it and insisting he get give the bottle back. he wanted to give him some more.
and white would often visit phil at home to share a cup of coffee and talk about work. but phil says steve would frequently ask phil to get something from another room, leaving steve alone with the coffee. phil and another man recalled a time when he offered to get them hamburgers for lunch. after eating these, they both became very ill. and they actually made a joke about how they re never going to send steve white out to get food again because it s going to make you sick again. when confronted with the evidence, steve white denied any involvement with phil s illness. his lawyer claimed that accusations were circumstantial and there was no proof white was in any way involved. the defense also pointed out that the lab results showed only trace amounts of the various heavy metals in rouss body but
his involvement was still more from a business management standpoint. we kept trying to have business meetings so we could see the checkbook, which we have never seen. every time we go to have a meeting, steve would get up and get angry and storm out of the house. so we were getting a little bit suspicious. the final straw came when steve white closed the company s bank accounts without telling phil who found out through the bank teller. she said mr. white came in two days ago, walked out of the bank with $2,943 and closed the account. and she said the reason i mentioned you, mr. rouss is because they were checks outstanding. he said he didn t care. he just wanted the money. rouss believed that as 50% owner of the business he had the power to halt all such transactions. but he was wrong.