Toxic Relationship: The Tracie Andrews Story | Part three

(Maureen Harvey and Tracie Andrews hold hands as Tracie makes an appeal for Lee's killers to come forward. Photo credit: Birmingham Mail)


Continued from part two...


As they drove away in the car and onto the quiet, dark roads, Lee told Tracie that he was going to drop her off at her house. It's not clear what was said during the car journey but the pair were arguing and at one point, Tracie demanded that Lee stop the car and let her out. Tracie got out of the car and refused to get back in. Lee got out of the car and told her to stop being stupid and that he couldn't leave her in the middle of nowhere. The arguing continued, Tracie ignored Lee's attempts to get her to come back to the car and carried on walking. Lee gave up and told her he was leaving and walked away. It's not clear on what was said exactly but Lee had his back turned as he walked towards the car. Tracie ran up to him and began stabbing him in the back and neck. She stabbed him 42 times with a Swiss army knife.

As Lee collapsed to the ground, she panicked and hid the knife in her boot. She got down on the ground and held Lee as he was losing consciousness. Investigators believe that she waited 7 minutes till Lee was deceased before she began to scream for help.

Two witnesses at at nearby house came to her aid and she was taken to hospital. Lee was pronounced dead at the scene. Tracie appeared to have a black eye, bruising on her face and needed some stitches above her right eye.

When the police came to the hospital to interview her, they were surprised at how calm and focused she seemed. She claimed that the pair had been attacked by two men in a road rage incident. At the time there was no reason for anyone to doubt her, she had injuries to her face and looked like she'd been beaten up.

Maureen heard a car pull up in her driveway and assumed it was Lee. She was shocked to find the police on her doorstep informing her of what had happened. Lee's father straight away had suspicions about Tracie, he said ''Why would the killers murder Lee and leave her alive as a witness?''

Maureen told her husband that the police told her that Tracie had injuries and they were pretty sure that she had gone through something. Despite her dislike of Tracie, she tried to put that aside and give her the benefit of the doubt. Michelle, who was three months pregnant when she heard about her brother's death said ''She did it. I know she did''.

When Tracie was in the hospital, the nurse who was with her in the room told police officers later that Tracie kept going into the toilet every twenty minutes. [The police believe that this is where Tracie got rid of the murder weapon that she had hidden in her boot. They believe that she flushed it down the toilet.]

The newspapers, TV and radio stations were reporting about the road rage incident in which a young man had been stabbed to death and his fiance was assaulted and in hospital trying to recover from shock and injuries.

The police wanted to hold a press conference and make an appeal for witnesses. They wanted Tracie to make the appeal. She refused to do it at first but finally agreed as long as Maureen and her husband would sit alongside her and hold her hand for support. On Tuesday the 3rd of December 1996, Tracie made an emotional appeal for the killers and witnesses to come forward (later people described this as an Oscar worthy performance). People noted how talkative she seemed to be for someone who had been through such a horrific ordeal and had just lost the love of her life. The police also noticed that some of what she said didn't match up to her original statement. She appeared to the cameras with no makeup on with bruises to her face. The public felt sorry for her and for Lee and his family.

On Wednesday the 4th of December 1996, the day after the appeal, an investigator was going over to Tracie's house to ask her a few more questions. When he got there her mother had mentioned that she was upstairs in her bedroom. He knocked the door and when there was no response he opened it to find Tracie on the bed unconscious, she had taken an overdose. He called for her mother and an ambulance was called. They found a note in her bag which was addressed to her daughter. She said that she was sorry and wanted to be with Lee.

She was rushed to the hospital where she died twice in the ambulance on the way there. Maureen heard about what happened and went to the hospital with her husband to see her. Once Tracie had come round and was able to see visitors, Maureen and her husband sat at the side of her bed. Tracie grabbed Maureen's hand and said ''I'm really really sorry for what I have done.'' When they left the room, Maureen's husband said to her ''That's as close to a confession as you're ever going to get.''

As Tracie recovered in the hospital, the press went wild and everyone was feeling sorry for the young woman who'd been through hell and tried to take her life to be with her beloved fiance. The police got a surprising phonecall from a couple who said that they had seen Tracie and Lee that night.

The couple claimed that they were sat in their car when they noticed a car driving past with what looked like a couple fiercely arguing. The car then came to an abrupt stop and made a sharp turn. The couple said there was no other car following the vehicle. The car they saw matched the description of Lee Harveys'. The description of Lee and Tracie matched and the time that the couple had saw them had matched.

This new piece of crucial evidence threw Tracie's story out of the window. The police had also been informed of Tracie's past volatile relationships with previous men and the incident in the nightclub with Lee. They soon realised that she wasn't the young, vulnerable victim that she was claiming to be and she became their prime suspect.

The police went to the hospital on the 7th of December 1996 and arrested Tracie Andrews. Maureen's husband and daughter Michelle were not surprised but Maureen didn't want to believe it after she held Tracie's hand and tried to support her. She felt at the time that it's what Lee would have wanted. She didn't want to believe that she had been comforting her son's killer all this time.


Continued in part four... 



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Check out some of the true crime cases I have covered previously:

Deadly Obsession: The Ricardo Lopez Story.

Stalked To Death: The Alissa Blanton Story

Rod Ferrell And The Kentucky Vampire Cult

What Happened To Dominique Dunne?




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2 comments:

  1. I remember this so well, she said it was a road rage attack, on the same week myself and then boyfriend were subjected to a road rage attack nothing violent, we were OK but then we all found out the truth about Tracy it left a bitter taste. great post as always hun X

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    1. Thank you so much Mimi! I'm so sorry to hear that you went through something like that, it must have been really traumatic. I can understand how you and other real victims of these horrible situations felt towards Tracie. I'm glad that you and your boyfriend managed to get away from that situation ok. Thank you for the comment : ) x

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