My Thoughts: Doug Grant ABC 20/20

Doug Grant and his wife Hilary were featured on ABC’s 20/20 last Friday night (You can watch the show here). Doug was put on trial for the murder of his 2nd wife, Faylene Eves Grant, who supposedly drowned in the couple’s bathtub in 2001. Doug was just convicted of manslaughter this month, and he will be sentenced in a couple of weeks.

Faylene’s daughter, Jenna Stradling, from her first marriage believes Doug killed her mother, and held her head under water. She claims she heard her mom that fateful day calling out for help. Others wonder if Faylene wanted to commit suicide.

In this poll, as I am writing, 15% of people believe Doug’s story that Faylene accidentally drowned in the tub while he was asleep, 65% do not believe Doug, and 19% of people are undecided.

Read moreWhen I watched Doug and Hilary speak on 20/20, both of them raise my eyebrows and cause me concern. Here are some of my thoughts as I watched the show:

1. Why didn’t Doug call 911 when he found Faylene? Instead he called his friend, Chad White, a physicians assistant. Why would he do that? It makes absolutely no sense.
2. Doug said about his call to Chad, “I called Chad. ‘You gotta come. Take the prescriptions. I….(unknown) found her in the tub, you gotta come. I’m scared.'” Does Doug say “They found her in the tub”? The word he says before “found her” is really baffling me, and I can’t quite make it out. He also seems to be struggling with pronouns here which is a red flag. Notice he doesn’t say who should take the prescriptions? Why? Why do the prescriptions even enter into his mind at this point? If Doug was telling Chad to “take the prescriptions”, why would he be saying that? This is very odd. Each of these elements are red flags for me.
3. Chad White in his 911 call to police said that Doug was afraid to call 911. Does that make any sense if this was an “accident”? If it was a premeditated murder, would it make sense?
4. Doug and his ex-wife, Faylene, went on a business trip to settle a company lawsuit for Doug’s company. It was during this trip that Doug and Faylene talked of reconciliation yet Doug tells us how he was only weeks away from asking Hilary to marry him. Does this make any sense? Why would he consider a reconciliation if he is in love with another woman?
5. Jay Schadler says to Hilary, “It must have come as a blow to you” to hear about the talks of reconciliation. Hilary says, “I felt like, you know, Doug told me he had to work out his feelings, but I still felt like Doug and I would be together.” Is this how you would respond if your boyfriend just got back from a business trip with his ex-wife, and he told you they talked of reconciliation? Hilary’s response really raises my eyebrows. It doesn’t make sense. I’m just not buying it.
6. Hilary remembers when Doug told her it was over. It was just after they had spent an intimate night together. “He came out of the bathroom, and I was standing there, and I said, ‘It’s over, isn’t?’ and he said ‘It’s over,'” said Hilary. The entire time she recollects what should be a horrible memory for her, she is smiling. This give me the complete chills!! Why is she smiling?? Wouldn’t this conversation be a bad memory?

   Emotions and memories are intertwined and Hilary doesn’t seem to be feeling the emotions you would expect for a woman who is being rejected. She seems much too positive. Alarm bells are going off in my head. Was she somehow in on some plan with Doug to get rid of Faylene? I can’t help but wonder this, time and time again.

7. When Faylene tells Doug that she had this revelation that she and Doug are supposed to be together, Doug tells us he told Faylene that he was just intimate with Hilary, and according to Doug, Faylene’s simply says, “That’s interesting. All I can tell you is that I’ve been told at the San Diego temple….” Does that even seem plausible? Doug seems to make Faylene out to be a complete idiot, who has no emotions and is completely able to overlook that Doug just slept with another woman. I’m not buying it.
8. When Hilary recounts her story about hearing that Doug and Faylene got remarried, she tries to act surprised, but it doesn’t sit right with me. She is smirking through it all. Why? Why wasn’t she truly surprised? Her emotional memories are not matching her story, which is a huge red flag for me, again.
9. Faylene at one point writes, “I must have faith in Doug’s vision.” I think this is powerful. Whose vision was Faylene following? Her vision or Doug’s vision?
10. In one letter that Faylene wrote, it has the word “I” underlined in multiple places. This is very strange and notable (a reader pointed this out in the comment section). Most people don’t underline “I”, however if someone else wrote it, they might to emphasize it. Have you ever written a letter, and emphasizes “I” with an underscore? This is a huge red flag for me.
11. When Hilary reads that letter, her “cry” jumps out at me. There are no tears. Nothing about Hilary feels genuine.
12. When Faylene believes that she is going to die, and she writes to Hilary that she wants Hilary to be with Doug, she writes”Hilary, only you can know between Heavenly Father and yourself if it is heavenly father’s will for you to be with Doug & to be part of our eternal family.” How do we know that she means marriage by this? How do we know that this is Faylene’s Doug, Doug Grant? Could Hilary have introduced another character with the name Doug to Faylene as a part of a bigger scheme? I’d have to read the diaries and journals to see. Of course, Faylene could have simply been brainwashed. She has the personality and predisposition for someone who succumbs to brainwashing.
13. I find it odd how Faylene wrote “…whoever this guy is that you are dating…” If Hilary and Faylene are close, why wouldn’t Hilary tell Faylene his name?
14. Also nowhere in that letter does Faylene talk about her Doug and Hilary raising her children as a family, nor does she use the term marriage. It’s oddly missing. You would think she would have written this letter to Doug and Hilary, wouldn’t you, if she wanted them to be together? Perhaps she only wanted Hilary to raise her children and be a “mom” for them should something happen to her. Then again, she could have been brainwashed. You can rule that out.
15. I don’t believe Faylene could fall of a 60-foot cliff and still be standing, or would be able to get up and walk away. That’s flat out outrageous to me and a huge red flag.
16. Schadler says, “If she did fall, did you push her?” Notice Doug smiles, and laughs and then very controllingly stops himself and softly says, “No”. All of these behaviors are notably odd and out of place for me and they are blaring red flags for me as well.
17. Doug insists he made a 911 call, but there is no record of it. It’s absolute nonsense. Chad White further supports that Doug didn’t want to call 911 either because he was “afraid”.
18. And how ironic is it that just three weeks after Faylene dies that Doug and Hilary marry? Clearly, Doug wanted to be with Hilary.

I can’t help but wonder if Doug stood a financial gain by eliminating Faylene.
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I suspect Doug confuses a lot of people because the tears stream down his face, but he could have been crying because he was worried about loosing his freedom, as his trial date was looming. At times, Doug’s tears seem genuine, such as when he looks at Hilary, but other times, I wonder if they are manufactured by thinking about how he would cope if he was convicted and lost everything, instead of truly feeling empathy for Faylene.

Faylene was deeply religious and believed in revelations. This tells us she was very open to suggestions, and had the personality which was highly susceptible to brainwashing, and I wouldn’t put it past someone like Hilary or Doug to do it to her for money. Not for an instant. I certainly don’t trust either one of them.