Question: Whatever happened to the woman known in the news media as the "Black Widow?" Apparently she and her brother were involved in the death of their mother for insurance purposes.
Answer: Catherine Suh, known as the Black Widow, was arrested in Hawaii in 1996 and is serving a life sentence at the Dwight Correctional Center in Illinois for plotting the 1993 murder of her fiance, Robert O’Dubaine.
In January 1996, she was sought as one of the FBI’s "most wanted" persons as she was suspected of killing her mother in 1987. She also used the alias Tiffani Escada.
A 1997 movie "Bad to the Bone," whose plot involved a heiress who used her brother as a pawn in a scheme to rid herself of a lover, was based on Suh’s case.
A documentary, "The House of Suh," was released on DVD in July. It tells the story of Andrew and his sister Catherine, first-generation Korean-American siblings who were both convicted of planning and executing the murder of O’Dubaine in Chicago on Sept. 25, 1993. O’Dubaine had provided Suh’s alibi during the investigation of her mother’s murder in 1987.
Suh had persuaded her brother, Andrew, then 21, to fly from college on the East Coast to Chicago to shoot O’Dubaine so she could collect his $250,000 life insurance policy. Andrew Suh is serving a 100-year sentence.
Catherine Suh fled Chicago in September 1995, two days before her murder trial was set to begin. She was tried in absentia and convicted.
In Hawaii under the pseudonym Tiffani Escada, she was a frequent patron of high-class establishments, including Nicholas Nickolas. (According to the Chicago Tribune, before she fled Chicago, Suh drove a Jaguar, lived at a posh lakefront condo and shopped at expensive boutiques.)
FBI spokesman John Pikus had said, "When she walks into a room, you notice her. She’s a high dresser, and she hangs out in only the best places."
She supported herself with the remnants of an $800,000 inheritance she shared with her brother after their mother was killed in 1987. Their mother, Elizabeth, was stabbed 37 times in her Evanston, Ill., dry-cleaning store, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In March 1996, Catherine Suh turned herself in to the FBI and was extradited to Illinois in May 1996 to serve her sentence. In addition to her murder sentence, Suh also received a concurrent 30-year sentence for armed robbery.
After four months in prison, Suh received an additional two years for aggravated battery after lashing out at a prison staff member.
In the July film, "The House of Suh" director Iris Shim focuses on Andrew Suh. Using court documents, family photos, and interviews with friends and acquaintances of the family, the victim’s brother and Andrew himself, Kim tells the story of a dysfunctional family situation that went terribly wrong, Catherine Suh refused to be interviewed for the film.
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This update was written by Gregg K. Kakesako. Suggest a topic for “Whatever Happened To …” by writing Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., Suite 7-210, Honolulu 96813; call 529-4747; or email cityeditors@staradvertiser.com.
