Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast · Ben Gibson

Sheila Davalloo - Master Manipulator - Part 2

·53 min·3 clips

Paul was blindfolded and handcuffed when Sheila stabbed him in the chest with a paring knife.

1. Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast centers this part of Sheila Davalloo's story on the March 23, 2003 attack on Paul Christos. 2. Ben and Nicole host the episode and recap part one because Sheila Davalloo, Paul Christos, and Nelson Sessler remain central to the case. 3. The episode asks how Sheila maintained two relationships, attacked Paul, and later came under scrutiny for Annalisa Raimondo's death. 4. By early 2003, Paul was questioning Sheila's rule that he leave their Pleasantville condo whenever her mentally ill brother supposedly visited. 5. Sheila treated Paul's concerns as selfish and emotional, while Paul kept noticing secrecy around her phone, late work hours, and distracted behavior. 6. The hosts frame Paul as wanting a visible marriage, and Sheila as choosing between divorce and removing him as an obstacle. 7. Sheila then introduced a 'trust game' with blindfolds, handcuffs, and guessing objects by touch as a way to reconnect. 8. On Sunday, March 23rd, 2003, Paul and Sheila ran errands, had lunch with Paul's mother in White Plains, and returned home to Pleasantville. 9. Sheila set up a spare bedroom with black pantyhose as a blindfold, handcuffs, and a heavy wooden chair with sturdy rungs. 10. While Paul was blindfolded and cuffed, he was stabbed in the chest with a paring knife, then driven past Westchester Medical Center's emergency entrance into a rear parking lot. 11. The hosts note that Sheila offered juice and Night Quill, claimed emergency responders were delayed, and tried to get Paul to say the attack was accidental. 12. Paul finally forced himself out of the car, grabbed the knife, and reached bystanders who called for help while Sheila ran from the scene. 13. Police arrested Sheila near the parking lot, and surgeons later found that the wounds had punctured Paul's heart and damaged major blood vessels. 14. During questioning, Sheila described the attack as a consensual bedroom game gone wrong and gave changing explanations for why she had not driven to the ER entrance. 15. Investigators found no 911 call in her phone history, but they did find repeated calls and voicemail attempts to Nelson Sessler while Paul was bleeding. 16. Paul told detectives the attack sequence in detail, and his account matched the wounds, the recovered knife, the dropped phone, and witness statements. 17. Once Paul survived surgery, Sheila shifted to saying she had blacked out, which let detectives treat the incident as a deliberate attack rather than an accident. 18. The episode uses a conversational true-crime style, with Ben and Nicole interrupting the recap for reactions to the hospital drive, the phone records, and Sheila's explanations. 19. Listeners who follow domestic true crime and relationship-based manipulations will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners who want a light, nonviolent true-crime story should probably skip it.

As heard by us

A stabbing turns into a race for emergency treatment as Sheila's account begins to collide with the physical evidence.

The episode follows the attack on Paul from the fourth stab in the car through his escape, emergency response, and surgery. Bleeding badly, he blocks Sheila's arm, forces his way out, grabs the blade with his bare hands, and throws it away.

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Why you'd press play

You want to follow the fourth stab from the car to emergency surgery while Paul's survival could decide whether Sheila faced attempted murder or murder.

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