“Most Bizarre Case I’ve Ever Seen”: Who Drowned a Woman to Death in Her Own Bathtub?

A physician’s assistant called 911 at 7:46 a.m. on Sept. 27, 2001 to report that his friend, Doug Grant, had found his 35-year-old wife, Faylene, unresponsive in their bathtub in their Gilbert, Arizona home.

“No 911 call was ever received from Doug,” James F. Palmer III, ret. officer with the Gilbert Police Department, said on Accident, Suicide or Murder, airing Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen. “I find it highly unusual that Doug Grant would call Chad White rather than just three simple numbers on his cell phone, 911.”

What at first appeared to be a simple accidental drowning turned into much more. Not only was Doug Grant acting strangely after his wife died, evidence was stacking up that the drowning was a murder, not an accident.

“She had actually taken the time to write letters to friends and family telling them goodbye because she knew she was going to die,” Sy Ray, ret. detective with the Gilbert Police Dept. said on Accident, Suicide or Murder.

Faylene Grant. Photo: Oxygen

Police found Chad White performing CPR on Faylene Grant when they arrived at the home. Doug told officers Faylene went to take a bath that morning, and when he woke up, he found her unresponsive in the water, and pulled her onto the bed. But Doug was caught in his first lie when his 12-year-old daughter told police she saw her father in the kitchen making breakfast that morning.

“Faylene’s daughter completely drops a bomb on us,” Palmer III said. “This is around the time that he should be waking up and finding Faylene in the bathtub. And of course, he claimed he never got out of bed.”

Doug also admitted his wife had survived another accident just three days prior, when she fell 60 feet down from Mount Timpanogos in Utah.

“She had an unfortunate fall in Utah. But then to come home and three days later drown in a bathtub? It just didn’t strike me as right,” Palmer III said.

Doug told officers his friend, Chad White, had prescribed medications, including Ambien, for his wife after her fall. Blood tests showed Faylene had a high concentration in her system when she died, enough to render her unconscious.

“Her family told me that she wasn’t a pill taker,” Palmer III said. “That she refused to take pills. And for her to take five Ambien just to go to sleep, just didn’t strike them as being normal for her.”

Faylene and Doug Grant married in 1993 and had a blended family of five children, but they went through a divorce in 2000. Friends told police Doug was having affairs, which were the catalyst behind their divorce. He then began dating his 19-year-old secretary, Hilary Dewitt, who was 16 years his junior.

“I can’t imagine what Faylene was going through, seeing her ex-husband flaunting his young girlfriend around town while she had to raise the five children,” said Sylvia Chimbo, Faylene’s friend, on Accident, Suicide or Murder.

But Faylene and Doug reconciled and remarried on July 27, 2001. Just months into the second marriage, Doug did something strange.

“Little over a week before Faylene’s death, there was a request to change her life insurance from just over $300,000 all the way up to $860,000,” Ray said. “But there was an issue in the filing of the new insurance, so it didn’t happen.”

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Friends said one of the conditions to the second marriage was Doug had to stop seeing Hilary — but he didn’t.

“Doug has a lot of communication with Hilary prior to the remarriage of Faylene. But the communication between Doug and Hilary never stops even though he remarries Faylene,” Ray said. “This was a concern to us. And it really started to get us suspicious.”

The same day his wife died, Doug was seen by a neighbor at a park, embracing Hilary.

“He tells her, allegedly, that she’s going to be his wife soon,” Ray said. “Which was concerning. Because this tells me that Doug was already planning to marry Hilary, before Faylene’s funeral even happens.”

The suspicion only deepened with Doug’s next action.

“Doug gets married to his 21-year-old secretary on Oct. 20. Only three weeks after Faylene’s death. That seems really quick,” Ray said.

In July 2002, police interviewed Doug Grant again about his wife’s death. This time, investigators had a new theory.

“Doug told us that he felt like she did commit suicide,” Palmer III said. “And that there [were] letters with her talking about it with her higher power.”

Doug handed Faylene’s journals over to officers. Handwriting analysis showed they were her private journals. Police found Faylene believed something was going to happen to her, and even wrote she wanted Hilary to be the mother of her children.

“It was a letter that Faylene had written to her children,” said Bianca Buono, local news reporter in Phoenix, on Accident, Suicide or Murder. “And it’s almost like she’s preparing her children for what is going to happen after she dies and Hilary is a huge part of that plan.”

But police believed Faylene was manipulated into believing she had to die.

“The letters that she wrote explain that, ‘I’ve accepted it because my husband has told me he dreams about it every night. And it’s God’s plan,’” Ray said. “One of the most profound writings in Faylene’s journals is that Doug actually made her sit down and cut up her maternity clothes one night, to make her understand and accept that she will never have children again because she’s leaving this Earth. She accepts it after that.”

Three years after Faylene’s death, a friend of Doug’s claimed he’d heard Doug confess to killing his wife.

“Doug actually told him he took the Ambien, he crushed it up, and he put it in a capsule that Faylene normally takes and gave it to her,” Ray said. “Once she fell asleep, he filled the tub full of water and he put her in the bathtub. He even explains that she started to resist, and he had to physically hold her under the water in order to kill her.”

But in November 2008, when Doug Grant was on trial, the jury was hung on first and second-degree murder charges. Ultimately, the jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to five years in prison. He and Hilary are still married today.

Watch all-new episodes of Accident, Suicide or Murder on Saturdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.