an ambitious young woman loved by the community everyone was friends with Terry she was hardworking had two jobs by 21 she owned a home has her future ripped away this was a particularly brutal attack they stabbed her multiple times on that road this would have been a horrifying death police discover unwanted admirers prone to violence he was covered in blood and had blood in his hair and always carrying a knife he was jealous and said that it' kill her but the evidence leads nowhere the investi
gation is getting older and older and harder and harder to solve I didn't think we were going to get an answer for this case until a surprise breakthrough I was beyond excited I actually shouted oh my God at my desk points to a killer off the radar right away I'm like who's that guy why why did someone do this people said oh no he wouldn't kill anybody but he had this pretend life he had no criminal record he did not emerge as a likely suspect at [Music] all German Town Wisconsin a sleepy Villag
e celebrated as one of the best place places to live in America I grew up in Germantown it's you know a small community I would ride my bike to the store for my mom it was not some place that you were afraid of German Town is a small town near Milwaukee a lot of Farmland a lot of Open Spaces just a lot of dairy farming some factories and homes but on May 28th 1999 this bedroom community wakes to a horrific crime yeah I have up here Lane there's a green car green party car on the C on the road I
got a phone call that there was a suspected homicide in the industrial park I immediately went to the crime scene I saw a vehicle down the side of the road facing west of a large amount of blood in the roadway I observed what appeared to be Footwear impressions in blood I saw what appeared to be drag marks of blood two large pools of blood and alongside the vehicle was a female lying face down when we rolled her over she had a significant number of what appeared to be stab wounds on her front sh
e had stab B wounds on both sides of her neck she had some blood on her hands and you know we're always hoping that there's a fight so she can either scratch the attacker so the hands were swabbed for DNA we proceeded with the perspective she may have not been expecting it and things went South very very fast I do believe there was rage in this case that usually is indicative of personal that they know each other and it's almost to the point of Overkill who was this woman who had been so savagel
y murdered investigators looked to the victim's car for answers the vehicle itself appeared to be parked in a reasonable manner alongside the road her car keys were by her body so she probably had them when she got out of her car and then dropped them in the fight the keys indicated that she willingly got out of the vehicle and talked to someone and then the homicide occurred the stabbing continued not only in the roadway but on the grass at two different locations and then it looked like it may
have occurred alongside the vehicle there's blood spatter and castoff on her wheel on her hood on her Fender and up on her windshield her purse was in the vehicle there was $200 in her purse this was not a robbery this was something else after finding a driver's license police determine the victim is 22-year-old Teresa walowski out on the road there was Tire acceleration marks leading away from the pool of blood in the roadway as if you put your foot on the accelerator and peeled out confirming
to us that there was another vehicle in front of her where she was more than likely stabbed police comb the crime scene but no murder weapon is found as detectives try to make sense of what happened to Teresa her lifelong best friend Michelle gets a call Terry's brother called and it was early not that it was out of the ordinary because we were all so close and so I answered and he's like Michelle Terry never came home last night well I'm going to start calling police departments and German Tow
n said we have her name on file you'll have to come and speak to a detective Michelle and Teresa's brother rushed to the station they had last seen Teresa the day before when she left for work I'll never forget the officer was in front of me and I said where is she and he said I'm sorry she's gone and I just remember screaming someone just told me my friend is gone what does gone mean born in Germantown Wisconsin Teresa walowski grew up an outgoing girl with a magnetic personality everyone was f
riends with Terry we became best friends in sixth grade and from that moment on we were inseparable we were sisters there were not many people that called her Teresa she was always Terry I think the only time that I remember her being called Teresa was when her mom was mad when we had done something wrong it was always just her and I on the playground I mean we were just always I want to say running the neighborhood you know I can't remember weekend that I wasn't at her house as she got older Te
resa was fiercely independent buying a car at 16 and moving out on her own at 18 she was working at Cousins Subs in mecan and she would go there at 700 a.m. and she would get done by 1 and she would head over to Stone container and she would work till 11:00 at night despite a heavy work schedule Teresa loved to be social Terry was fun you know Terry liked attention and she definitely liked the attention from men men just seemed more attracted to her she was young she was beautiful any guy would
have wanted that how then did someone so driven and well-liked meet such a horrible fate young female you know at the beginning of her life getting getting things together and it's ended back at the station investigators Reach Out out to Teresa's family and friends to piece together the hours leading up to her death her shift ended at 11: and the last that anybody saw of her that we know of was that she got into her vehicle and left that parking lot during the interviews detectives get their fir
st tip that morning the officers received a contact from somebody at the Department of Public Works they had a channel on the same radio system that the police department was on so they would know that the homicide occurred they indicated that somebody driving a truck pulled into the parking lot an individual got out and they said that he was covered in blood and had blood in his hair is this man somehow connected to the crime scene detectives head over to interview the witnesses who tell police
they'd never seen the man before we were told the truck driver asked if there was a hospital nearby and then he indicated now he just clean up in the bathroom which he did and then left it's very common that the person who's doing the attacking gets stabbed too or Cuts himself especially if there's a struggle now we had a suspect a viable suspect and now we needed to find that person to figure out what happened coming up detectives uncover suspects with violent tendencies he said he can cut peo
ple like paper he could be become abusive and violent and untangle a web of deception well he was never married he didn't have any kids he said I don't want to be a snitch leading them to a suspect they never imagined we really felt that we had turned the corner on this case it was almost surreal it got me because it wasn't anyone I [Music] knew our after finding Teresa walowski stabbed to death at the side of the road police search for a man seen covered in blood at a nearby Public Works buildi
ng we had a a very good police artist he did a sketch of the individual based on the statements from the witnesses put the word out there into the community while police wait for leads on the bloody man they shift their attention to Teresa's home to look for Clues I went down to Teresa's house we made a search of the residence I checked the shoes in the residence against the Footwear impression at the crime scene and none of them matched so the Footwear impression at the scene were teresas inves
tigators talked to Teresa's family and friends hoping to learn more about her they learned she was dating someone named Charlie Charlie was a young man who didn't hold down a lot of jobs very well he was staying at his parents' house they had been dating for a few months prior to her homicide we had known Charlie since grade school we grew up with Charlie he was 3 years older than us we had some people that we interviewed that said they fought a lot or she wanted to break up with him I didn't th
ink Charlie was good for anyone in Terry's mind he was temporary a couple of weeks before her homicide we found out that he borrowed her car while she was at work and failed to pick her up she walked to the tavern and then they got in a bit of a argument and she finally said enough is enough friends worried how Charlie might react to Teresa moving on some of the people indicated that Teresa told them this boyfriend was jealous and said that if he caught her going out with somebody else he'd kill
her he said give me two weeks and you won't have your friend anymore be like what do you mean I won't have my friend so that it raises a flag that we have to determine if it got worse after that or was it just a a one evening spat you know stabbing is very personal that usually is indicative that they know each other why did someone do this what did she do that was so bad that someone had to stab her repeatedly in this crime of passion [Music] police immediately bring Charlie in for [Music] que
stioning Charlie was very nervous and seemed to act like he didn't really want to be there when police asked Charlie where he was the night of the murder he says he was home he lived in the basement of his parents house and he was alibied by his mother I remember the mother claiming there's no way he could get out of this house without me hearing it however he slept in the basement which the patio door opens up from the basement outside so he could leave the house without his parents knowing at
times Teresa got off of work at 11: at night and she's found in the morning at 5 or 6:00 so his Alibi has weaknesses it's not airtight could Charlie have snuck out driven to see Teresa and murdered her did Charlie have access to a car he borrowed cars from people all lot so could he have had a car that night yeah he could have the homicides probably less than 5 miles from his house police looked to the tire track evidence the tire tracks at the scene were measured and documented I made contact w
ith the Michigan State Police who have a database of vehicles they came back with a list of vehicles is based on manufacturer specifications that could have created that and it's quite a large list while detectives continue to investigate Charlie they also turn to the Box Factory where Teresa worked whenever you have a homicide like this and it's right down the road from where she worked obviously your biggest pool of suspects has to be the guys she worked with there was a fair number of men tha
t were interested in her and there were some that you know had dated her there were some that wanted to date her it wasn't like she was going out and dating them she just liked hanging out with them so we went to the factory to determine who had contact with Teresa and is there anything that stands out and points to any particular individual as possibly having done this we interviewed one of her co-workers named Mark lecki Mark lecki worked the same shift as Teresa Mark was known as a softspoken
but well-liked guy at the factory he's a very quiet individual very Reserve most people would describe him as very mellow working just a few machines away from each other Mark and Teresa had become close he talked her at work he was a nice likable person and it got to the point where they developed kind of a friendship unlike the men at the factory who wanted to date Teresa Mark preferred sharing stories about his family Mark Lecky told Teresa that he had a couple kids and he kept photos of the
m in his wallet he would show them to Teresa saying these are my kids he talked to her enough to create a relationship that she felt the need to go and talk to him when he needed a friend Mark tells police he is saddened by Teresa's death he also remembers something was off with her the night she died he indicated that he saw her that night of the homicide and commented that it looked like she was having a bad day and she said yeah something was jamming in her machine she just laughed it off and
moved on having no reason to question mark further police turned to co-workers with a less amicable relationship with Teresa there were some statements from individuals that they observed her having an argument with somebody by the vehicle before the night of the homicide the man Teresa was arguing with is identified as her coworker Isaac Alvarez when police dig into his background they find some troubling details Isaac Alvarez was just a little bit weird and he always carried a knife at one po
int he was upset with a coworker and he said I'm going to cut that Cracker or I'm going to knife that [ __ ] he told somebody else that you know he can cut people like paper his comments about cutting up a supervisor those are the comments that we heard and those are the comments that kept our interest in him to find out more police look into Isaac's personal life his ex-wife indicated that he did have a knife he always kept on his belt and she indicated that he could become abusive and violent
after one drink police bring in Isaac to shed light on his relationship with Teresa and why they were arguing at work and in talking to him about Teresa you could see the emotion coming out of him this was very stressful for him that's also the type of stressor that might cause somebody to commit a homicide then Isaac reveals something else he did ask Teresa if she wanted to meet him for a drink and Teresa being who Teresa was she didn't say no way she said well we'll see he shows up and she's n
ot there is that rejection had Teresa's rejection sent Isaac into a murderous rage we asked Isaac to take a polygraph because of Isaac's Strange Behaviors Outburst maybe prone to violence and always carrying a knife and he was seen in the parking lot area that night he was on our main suspect list [Music] while investigating the stabbing death of Teresa walowski police focus on her co-workers she's working in a factory populated by mostly men that sets up a scenario where you're going to have pe
ople trying to ask her out she was outgoing and she was friendly so people could perceive that as being let on where in fact she was probably just being nice she always tried to L on easy she would always be like well I don't want to hurt his feelings she just wanted to make sure that they still wanted to be her friend at the police station investigators interview one of those workers Isaac Alvarez Witnesses saw Isaac argue with Teresa before the night of her death Isaac's Alibi when he was inte
rviewed he was home he lives with 50 plus year old lady his story was he went to bed at 9:00 and he may have had a conversation with her when she came home but he doesn't recall she says she had a conversation with him 115 11:30 at night and she thought it was around 1:00 when he went to bed it's a little different than his story well in his case is that person willing to lie for you we don't know so that's not an airtight Alibi police convinced Isaac to take a polygraph he was somewhat deceptiv
e and not answering the questions in the proper manner and so we believe that he was trying to skew the results of the polygraph you couldn't get a good answer from him so because of that it was ruled inconclusive without any hard evidence police can't charge Isaac for the crime while detectives look for more leads Teresa's autopsy report arrives based on the injury patterns the attack was a surprise attack because we did not see a significant amount of defensive type injuries and then she was p
inned in a prone or face down position I individually identified and labeled 47 separate stab wounds this would have been a horrifying death for any individual as police review evidence they follow up on the lead on the bloody man from the Department of Public Works they had a sketch made of this uh unknown person that stopped at the garage to wash up we put it out there the individual didn't come forward it was out in the press it was in the newspaper I did go back and reinw the witnesses but n
othing came back of evidentiary value police also continue interviewing Teresa's friends I always protected Terry so when she was killed I had no purpose anymore and so I gave my all to whatever they needed it was hours and hours and hours of interviews with the police trying to give them everything that I knew about every person we had ever hung out with for me to help them to hopefully find who did this one of the people detectives learn about is Jerry Kirkpatrick so Jerry Kirkpatrick was a de
livery guy to cousins where Teresa worked friends say Jerry asked Teresa out numerous times I don't think she was looking to have a relationship with him he was definitely interested in her that's the indication that we got that he was pursuing her more than she was pursuing him police learn about one encounter with Jerry that left Teresa unsettled I thought I saw Jerry before she died at the club just watching us and it just it gave me this feeling like why is he here like he shouldn't know we'
re here why is he standing off in the shadows it was a very creepy feeling so the question is is Jerry stalking her but then Teresa's friends point out something else disturbing about Jerry they thought he might be similar to the picture of the person that was at the Department of Public Works the drawing looked like him officers immediately interviewed Jerry at his home Jerry denies he is the man in the sketch he claims he was at a bar with his stepbrother the night of Teresa's murder then went
home before midnight there was Alibi information that was confirming of the statement when he got home he called for a pizza to be delivered and that was confirmed subsequently with phone records he let us look at his vehicle We examined the interior or exterior nothing of evidentiary value was located in that examination then investigators make a startling Discovery there were knives found at Jerry Kirkpatrick's residents a lot of times we' ask people do you have knives and can we see those kn
ives do you mind if we have them tested a lot of times that's done for reaction so he presents four or five knives he did let us look at them when we were at the house we even submitted them to the crime lab to have it analyzed while investigators wait for results Jerry's landlord delivers some alarming news what happens within the next few days is he talks to his landlord about breaking his lease Jer Patrick decided to move out of town and that's in the midst of being interviewed and investigat
ion so right away that raises our suspicion was Jerry trying to give detectives the slip it is clearly a red flag and we have to look at that behavior as being possibly flight Behavior so you want to find out [Music] why while investigating Jerry Kirkpatrick for the brutal stabbing of 22-year-old Teresa walowski detectives learned from Jerry's landlord he's about to skip town the landlord knew the police were talking to Jerry we were actually notified by the Milwaukee Police Department because t
he landlord had thought hey this is odd and called them he says he's going to move to Tennessee one of the aspects you look at in a homicide is there any flight Behavior after the homicide well breaking your release in moving to Tennessee might be described as flight Behavior we did confirm that he put money on a place on that Friday after the homicide but when investigators get the lab results back on Jerry's knives the case takes a frustrating turn nothing came back of evidentiary value somebo
dy having a collection of knives is not that uncommon especially in Wisconsin and the quick move that he made is something strange but you know there's nothing we can do about it if you want wants a move he can move police have one more lead to follow Jerry's resemblance to the bloody man at the Public Works building he fit that description we've actually did an in-person lineup with Jerry and he was not picked out by the individuals that observed this person driving the truck that person was ne
ver identified and never located without any hard evidence linking Jerry to the murder police have to let him go weeks go by and investigators worry the case will grow cold we're doing interviews some people were re-interviewing But as time moves on the investigation is getting older and older and harder and harder to solve as the weeks turn into months investigators doggedly work the case well I technically could have retired about 5 years before I did a lot of it is to bring Justice for the vi
ctim but also so to bring some sort of resolution or closure for the family the police kept telling me that it was someone close to her because of the horrific nature of it I alienated myself from people because I just didn't know who I could or couldn't trust months turn into years but Teresa's loved ones make sure she's not forgotten once a year on the date of the murder the families would come out and hold vigils it was a way for the family to try to say that we're still fighting to resolve t
his case but we use it as a way of seeing who is showing up and maybe more importantly who isn't showing up nothing seems out of the ordinary until 2005 6 years after the murder when Teresa's family notices something unusual her mom had called me and said did you happen to go out and leave flowers for Terry and I said no I didn't these Arrangements showed up and they checked around and didn't know who put them there so that always leaves you to believe is there's somebody out there that's feelin
g guilty about committing a homicide and leaving something on a grave site we had a camera installed to see if maybe we could identify the next time somebody did something like that but we didn't capture any image or anything for detectives it's another dead end but then with the investigation on the brink of going cold a new for technology turns this 6-year-old case red hot in 2005 I got a contact from the Wisconsin crime lab and Patty said hey I want you to submit this list of items for us to
analyze using a technique called yst DNA testing with yst DNA testing it allows us to find a very small amount of Y chromosome some male DNA in a very large amount of DNA from a female source so it's like finding that single grain of salt in a large bag of sugar early on when we had the blood evidence on Teresa's hands tested it all came back as her DNA that's a problem because it's not giving us a lead what happens if we strip away all the EX chromosomes if she's a female and that's all her blo
od there should be nothing left the analyst retest the swabs of Teresa's hands for male DNA the first thing I did was look at the previously run DNA samples to see if there was any Y chromosome DNA present in those all of a sudden all the DNA types I developed on her hands are matching a known standard for male DNA and it was incredible I contacted detective yogurt for samples of of DNA from individuals known to be connected to the case and now we're going to go pick DNA samples from all of our
suspects we took what probably our 25 top suspects nearest and dearest ex-boyfriend boyfriend that type of thing that first group was a zero undeterred investigators submit more samples we went back to the list and got a second group we were testing people that were ANC people we had DNA from officers at the crime scene that we used to eliminate I didn't think we were going to get an answer for this case then after over 40 samples a breakthrough the testing came back and only one person matched
the Y chromosome found mixed into the blood on Teresa's hand detective yogur called me and said you're not going to believe this the last guy that I swap is the guy that has a positive match on that [Music] DNA after 7 years investigating the murder of Teresa weselowski detectives have now matched DNA from the scene to one of their suspects I was beyond excited I actually shouted oh my God at my desk we had a match from the D on Teresa's hands to Mark Lecky right away I'm like who's that guy Mar
k lecki is a coworker of Teresa Mark lecki was one of the individuals that was interviewed by the officers his statement was that he and Teresa were friendly at the factory so the murder occurs and Mark Lecky kept working there and was still working there before they approached Mark detectives need more than just the DNA evidence now the other heavy lifting starts because even the DNA evidence isn't going to stand on its own so we need to bring all these other factors into play in building a cas
e that's sufficient for the da to charge first detectives go back to the factory to dig deeper into Mark's background some people said oh no Mark leiki he wouldn't kill anybody he's just a puppy he would show people pictures of little girls and he said they were they were his daughters what do you think I should get him for Christmas or birthday whatever when detectives look closer they discover Mark isn't all he claims to be well he was never married he didn't have any kids so this is just like
weird he had this like pretend life Mark Lecky was pretty much a loner lived with his parents in a mobile home in a rural area apparently like to watch television play video games I think it was just a big fantasy with him a big game to try to fit in what else had Mark been hiding we had one person that said that Mark had asked her what she thought he could do the better his chances with going out with Teresa so he clearly had a focus on her detectives revisit evidence from the crime scene star
ting with the bloody bootprints the problem with identifying somebody with a common shoe is there's so many of them there could be millions of those shoes made I contact a person in Scottdale Arizona the detective in their forensic unit and he had the foremost outsold databases that existed and he said that is a Texas deer outsole early in the investigation we had information about the employees being supplied shoes or they could purchase shoes from a store when police search Factory records the
y make a crucial Discovery and we determined that Mark leiki had submitted a receipt for a Texas steer sh next investigators turned to the tire tracks left at the scene so we took 56 people out of our investigation and identified the vehicles that were registered to them at the time of the homicide five individuals had vehicles that were able to make that Mark at the scene one of them was Mark leiki with the evidence piling up detectives asked Mark to come down to the police department for an in
terview he was quiet he answered the questions he was confident I would say that confidence doesn't last long when he finds out that his his DNA is on her hands he then starts to try and explain why they are there what started out is I just talked to her at the door is I didn't talk to her then I talked to her at a break and we may have hugged detectives confront Mark with the evidence I told him the car wheel track matches your DNA is found on her hands and a boot that you wear is in the blood
Footwear impression on the road so you know we're looking at you you need to start explaining some of this stuff now it's Mark's turn to drop a bombshell on police he said I don't want to get anyone else in trouble I don't want to be a snitch then he mentioned this guy named Tom Thompson Tom Thompson worked at the factory with Mark and Teresa at the time of the homicide the officers that went up and did the canvas at the factory did speak with Tom Thompson his statement to them was that he knew
Teresa he wasn't necessarily friends with Teresa they never dated anything like that Mark tells them what happened the night of the murder Mark said he stopped on the side of the road to buy some cocaine from Thompson he said that when he got up there there was a vehicle already parked in front where he parked and Tom Thompson walked up to his vehicle so Thompson goes in sits in the back seat Mark said I am doing the cocaine in the front of the seat according to him Teresa gets in the back seat
and gets in argument with Tom and he proceeds to stab her Mark says he only hears thumping and movement in the back seat now it's time to start poking holes in the story she cannot be stabbed 40 some times in the back seat of someone's car and they not know what's going on the whole interior would have been covered in blood so that's out right there Mark says Teresa flops out of there onto the ground Tom Thompson continues to stab her and drags her to that location alongside the vehicle accordin
g to Mark Thompson then turned on him Tom Thompson tell him you keep your mouth shut and then he let him go so he kept his mouth shut he didn't go to the police for years later Tom Thompson dies but Mark keeps silent for another 3 years he's trying to explain how he's involved in this homicide and the easiest thing to do is to blame it on the Dead Guy detectives reinw workers at the factory about Tom Thompson everybody to a person said he was a health nut we found no indication that he was deali
ng cocaine or using cocaine investigators asked Teresa's friends if she used drugs Terry wanted nothing to do with cocaine nothing so she wouldn't have gone there to buy drugs from Tom Thompson what was her reason for being there there's one last piece of evidence to examine the car that Mark drove at the time of the murder we wanted that vehicle we found it by another owner and we ended up buying it from that guy we brought it down to the lab and examined it for blood hair whatever evidence tha
t we could that rear seat was taken apart it was a perforated leather so there were holes in it so the blood went down through the holes in that leather and then they soaked into the foam rubber of that seat does the blood belong to Teresa it's sent to the lab for analysis I was very excited to call Mike yogur and let him know I had found a possible match [Music] 10 years after 22-year-old Teresa weselowski is stabbed to death detectives are waiting to see if blood found in the back of cooworker
Mark lecky's car belongs to her those DNA profiles match the DNA profile from Teresa Wii oh it was significant it was an important moment but what about out marks claim that cooworker Tom Thompson killed Teresa at this stage in 7 years after the murder when Becky is implicating a man who had died 3 years earlier but it was only lecky's DNA that was ever found on Teresa's body they find blood in a cushion of a seat in lecky's car they find that that's Teresa's DNA they have his DNA her DNA and a
t that point the case was made that was the final thing that district attorney needed to issue the charge we really felt that we had turned the corner on this case detective yogur called me and he said I just want to let you know that we are going to make an arrest and I was so excited I was waiting just waiting for the the news detectives go to the box Factory where Mark works we watched for him to come out of the building and Kim and I walked up to and was under arrest I was excited it was a g
ood day Mark denies killing Teresa so investigators are left to piece together what really happened that night I think Mark lecki was a very lonely person that probably imagined a relationship with Teresa and decided she was the one she was just being nice to people and he probably read that for more than it was I think for Terry it was more that this guy was telling him his problems at work and she was a listener she would listen he wore on her heartstrings and her niess as a person then on May
28th 1999 Mark made his move I think that she was coming out of the building and Mark for whatever reason convinced her to meet him they meet at the back of the vehicle I think that he probably did ask her to come back to his place for the night and when she said no he just went on a rampage and just started stabbing her he stabbed her multiple times on that road then he dragged her over to that grass he stabbed her some more there's blood flying up on her car he was a monster that night we can
only guess at it because he's not talking we don't have to prove why he did this we just have to prove that he did after the vicious stabbing Mark returned to his normal routine Mark Lecky continues to work at the factory he doesn't make any erratic move like moving away or changing jobs he just sort of carries on with life as he did before the murder he had no criminal record Mar Le Becky certainly did not emerge as a like suspect at all it was shocking to hear that Mark Lecky had killed Teres
a it was almost sural it got me because it wasn't anyone I knew at trial Mark lecki enters a plea of not guilty and sticks to his story that Tom Thompson killed Teresa clearly his incentive was to try and show somebody else did it back there but that doesn't hold doesn't hold up I don't think the jury bought that at all Mark is convicted of first-degree murder and in November 2010 he is sentenced to 30 years in prison with no chance of parole Mark Lecky did not admit guilt the judge noted that L
ecky never expressed any remorse in his mind he's still not guilty and the judge even said to him I hope that someday you will admit to yourself that you've done this because you have done this the journey was long and tedious it will never replace Teresa for the family she was a good kid she was moving forward with her life she probably would have maybe had Grand [Music] kid all those things are lost because of Mark I have pictures up of us we had always said we would grow old together together
and raise our children together my kids always ask you know Mom why was your friend murdered I don't know is she in heaven yeah I think she [Music] is a trailblazing local businesswoman beloved by her community she was effervescent she just had a glamour about her that was just unique she took pride in who she was savagely murdered in her own home this person was so enraged that they just kept stabbing and kept stabbing and kept stabbing she had been hit in the head to the point that it actuall
y had changed shape we're looking for something that's got an edge on it but they can snap bones detectives uncover a trail of secrets and lies he couldn't explain things and he failed the polygraph miserably what kind of animal is this person and Chase a killer that stays one step ahead of them they fled to a another country until a series of stunning Revelations leaves an entire town in shock everyone was a suspect and everyone was afraid here comes some guy out of the blue telling us that he'
s the one who committed the murder you would think there's just a serial killer or somebody crazy running around I was like how can we have gotten this [Music] wrong 2 hours Southwest of Louisville Kentucky the quiet town of Madisonville Madisonville Kentucky is a small community it's built on coal mines and agriculture it's a close tight-knit Community there's not a lot of crime in our area they call themselves the best town on Earth and for the most part they truly believe that on January 13th
2003 Madisonville Police receive a call from an elderly man for a wellness check on his 85-year-old fiance Anna May Branson her fiance Dr Bob benon was afraid that she may have fallen or that she had had a stroke of some type he knocked on the door and couldn't get her an answer that's been when he became worried and he called anime's brother and the local police department an officer meets an's fiance and brother outside her house finding a backup key under a bush they enter the home to look f
or her the patrol officer went in One Direction Dr Bob fenman was looking around and Earl Winstead her brother went down to the basement when he got to the bottom of the basement steps he said I found her it appeared as first though she could have fallen but then upon seeing all the injuries to her body it was obvious that Miss Branson had been murdered homicide investigators are called to the scene and are shocked when they arrive miss an was a friend of my mothers and it was quite devastating
she was on her stomach her legs were extended she had many many stablon to her back she had been hit in the head to the point that it actually had changed [Music] shape looking at the body detectives start building a theory of what happened she had defensive wounds on her forearms and she was knocked down that's when the perpetrator really want to work her head was facing the small chest type freezer there was actually two types of blood spatter on the freezer next to her head one was like a str
iking motion and one was a golf type swing where the spin-off from the blood SPID actually landed on that I can remember thinking that the perpetrator must have used two different weapons the weapon was not only going through flesh and organs going through bones and was coming out on the floor underneath her it was unlike anything that we'd ever seen or heard of before why was this defenseless woman attacked so viciously detectives continue their search for evidence at the time we didn't see any
thing stolen all of her large carrot jewelry were on her finger and had not been touched the amount of damage she sustain suggests that the attacker was emotionally attached to her you think about someone leaving the area dripping blood from you know their arms and not to find any blood on the door frames handrails it was suris that person had taken the time to clean up the crime scene but other than the evidence on the freezer and the amount of damage that she had sustained there was no other r
eal Clues news of Anne's death spreads quickly in this small town I got the call that Anne had been murdered and not just murdered but unbelievably brutally murdered it's just something that you see on the news but it's not real until it happens in your family I just felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on me having someone who was a second mother to me killed in such a horrible way is just overwhelmingly [Music] devastating Anna May Winstead was born in Madisonville on November 30th 1917 and fr
om the beginning she stood out from the crowd and was ever vescent she just had a confidence about her a glamour about her that was just unique anim was a very flamboyant lady she had a zest for life in 1935 Anne married her high school sweetheart Carol Branson when anime and Carol were first married they were poor during World War II anime was a Rosie the Riveter working on fighter planes but that was just the start for her after that she liked business and she stayed in the business World in 1
950 the hardworking couple Ed their savings to buy a Dairy Queen franchise the center of the town was the Dairy Queen and everyone went there for date night Miss an as a boss was a demanding person but she also made you feel like you were part of the family there they literally became multi-millionaires through the Hiser Queen when an's husband Carol died in 1994 Anne was ready to take on a new business challenge she would get these older houses and then she would make them fabulous and then she
would rent them Anna May was one of the most successful business people that I've ever known even in her older age and was generous with her renters and she was generous with her family and everyone knew that they could could borrow money from an but they would have to pay it back Ana May was so much of a businesswoman that she kept a ledger with information about people that ow her money in her later years family and business weren't the only things in Anne's life several months before her dea
th Anne had met retired eye surgeon Dr Bob fenan Dr Bob lived in Evansville Indiana about 50 mi from Madisonville when she and Dr Bob first started dating she said well I've got a boyfriend the very last thing that anma acted like was an old lady when I found out that she was murdered that just totally totally shocked me at the crime scene detectives examined the rest of the house for Clues there were no signs of four century into her residence nothing was ransacked like somebody was searching f
or something we didn't have any idea who would committed such a violent act on an 85y old woman what kind of animal is this person while forensics continue their work detectives speak to the two men who alerted police her fiance Bob and her brother Earl Earl was asked to establish a timeline for that Sunday and he had provided an alibi where he was with family at the time of the murder and the family did substantiate his whereabouts what about an's fiance could he have had a reason to harm her a
homicide of this magnitude you need to ask who's in a relationship with this victim when we interviewed uh Dr Bob fenman he was emotionally distraught Dr Bob did asked an to marry him she did accept his three karat diamond ring but she had not said a day they had talked about whether they would have some sort of agreement because she did have a lot of money but she was kind of hesitant police want to know had an's hesitancy about Bob caused him to turn against her in a violent rage this person
was so enraged that they just kept stabbing and kept stabbing and kept stabbing to inflict that that many injuries this was a personal crime coming up buried secrets are brought to light we all thought he was a family man thought he was a church guard she explained that her Alibi had been coed while detectives unearth suspects with violent pasts he had several assaults in his past we're starting to think hey you know this could be our guy they had already St another woman we would never have dre
amed who the killer [Music] was detectives are investigating the horrific murder of elderly millionaire Anne Branson forensic suggests it was a crime of passion Dr Bob even with his age we did feel could be a viable suspect Dr Bob was from Evansville and he drove all the time to Madisonville to court an but she had not yet decided whether she was going to get married had an's reluctance turned Bob against her Dr Bob fman was asked to establish a timeline and provide us with an Alibi the day befo
re Miss Branson was murdered she had gone to Evansville Indiana to meet up with Dr fman to go to a dance and after the dance Miss Branson returned to Madisonville Sunday he said he attempted to call her and she didn't answer the phone it was shortly before 10:00 that evening Dr fenman said that he presumed that she had gone out or that she had gone to bed early so the next day he said he became worried and he said that's when they discovered a body at the bottom of a staircase detectives learned
from speaking to her family that Anne had been to an evening church service on Sunday Miss Branson's estimated time of death was on that Sunday evening after she returned home from church Dr Bob said that he was at home in Evansville Indiana taking no chances investigators search his phone records phone calls placed Dr Bob in Evansville Indiana so he would not have been in the area during the time frame of the murder he did not have the opportunity to murder her it just wasn't feasible for him
to have committed the [Music] crime after clearing Bob as a suspect they ask if he can think of anyone who would harm his fiance Dr Bob recall that her handyman Wayne Shelton had borrowed money from Miss an in the past and the amount was more than what a handyman should be borrowing from his employer Mr Shelton also ow child support he was trying to provide the court system a statement that she would guarantee his employment and Miss Branson did not feel that she could guarantee him employment s
o she had concerns over it the fact that the maintenance man had a financial relationship with the victim made him a person of interest that we wanted to talk to detectives contact Wayne Shelton and ask him to meet them at an's House Wayne Shelton came to the crime scene when we were there and I explain to him the circumstances of what had occurred he was extremely shaken he was in disbelief police cut to the Chase and asked Wayne where he was on the night an was murdered he is Alibi was he was
in another County visiting with his daughter during the murder of Anne Branson knowing Wayne's Alibi is weak detectives take him to the station for a polygraph but there's just one one problem Wayne Shelton had a heart condition was so fragile that it kept him from even being able to take a polygraph so the polygraph examiner refused to give Mr Shelton a polygraph frustrated by this setback an's nephew Jack Branson a retired FBI officer pulls some strings Mary and I hired a retired FBI polygraph
er and Wayne Shon said yes I'll be polygraphed Jack's polygrapher takes Wayne Shelton carefully through the test questions Wayne Shelton passed the polygraph with flying colors so at that point we were able to say okay he passed the polygraph he did not do it as investigators search for new suspects news of the Savage murder puts the whole town on edge this had been a little town were literally people didn't lock their doors and all of a sudden everyone was a suspect and everyone was afraid the
community needed to know if they had something to fear so it was pressure all the way around to get this crime solved as word spreads police begin to receive tips from the public we received a tip that there was a black pickup truck at the residence after 12: at night could the black truck belong to the killer investigators ask an's family if they know anyone who drives such a vehicle we kept hearing about a crazy tenant drove a black truck what detectives learn about Anne's tenant concerns them
Robert Prince had characteristics of a mentally unstable person he would actually call her in the middle of the night and say that he had ghosts up in his attic and would she please get rid of the ghost Ann always said she was nervous around him and she didn't like it when he came to the house and he called her at all hours of the day and night Miss Branson had received several complaints from the neighbors asking that she evict Mr Prince from his apartment and she did want to move him from tha
t location the family would say don't become so involved with him had an's attempt to move Robert prompted him to attack her if Robert Prince was mentally unstable and became angry at her could he have caused her [Music] death detectives investigating the slaughter of Anne Branson have disc discovered she had been involved in a dispute with a volatile [Music] tenant Robert Prince would call Mrs Branson at all hours saying crazy things to her wanting her to come over they had warned her not to go
over there by herself due to his mental instability he did pose a great concern for us to investigate searching their database detectives find alarming information about their new suspect Robert Prince was found to have had a violent criminal history he had several assaults in his past and he could express a lot of anger towards someone else police obtain a warrant to search his home what we were looking for is the murder weapon I'm looking for something that's got an edge on it but they can sn
ap bones and go completely through the victim's body and I'm looking for any close there's no way that the perpetrator did this without getting some of the blood on himself but we weren't able to locate any of the items that would be of interest to us in this case despite the lack of physical evidence detectives bring Robert Prince into the station for questioning when he was taken from his residence and interrogated he did not want to answer any questions to do with his prior criminal history a
nd upon initial confrontation with Robert Prince he was extremely agitated as he starts talking we're picking up on his violent tendencies we're starting to think hey you know this could be our guy detectives note that Robert's right arm is injured even though he's a man he could inflict this kind of punishment he can't bend his right arm and we asked him so you right handed or left hand he said I'm right-handed detectives Wonder Could Robert have hurt his arm attacking an he said he was in anot
her state at the estimated time of death for Miss Branson Robert Prince gave the Eli that he was with some family in Tennesse and he had stopped in a convenience store and got some gas and got a sold or something with nothing concrete linking Robert to the homicide police have to let him go and detectives get to work checking his Alibi we contact that convenience store pull surveillance video and well behold there's Robert Prince on camera and in addition to that prior to miss Branson's murder R
obert Prince had surgery to his elbow area and his arm and according to his doctor if he had inflicted those injuries upon Miss Branson then all of his Staples and his stitches in his arm would no longer be intact so The Alibi and surgical area just ruled him out as a suspect back at square one detectives are relying lying on the autopsy to break open new leads the autopsy revealed that Mrs Branson was stabbed about 97 times throughout her body her skull was pulverized she was beaten so badly th
at a lot of the stab wounds were actually inflicted after she had passed away the evidence technician said that we're not talking about just a regular old St knife that's something that's very heavy cuz the blade is going through her bones through her organs it was coming out on the other side while the autopsy fails to identify an actual murder weapon it gives a clear estimate of an's time of death there was a pot on the stove she had baked her supper she had eaten we were able to analyze the f
ood in her stomach and based on the absorption rate principle was how death for her was approximately 30 minutes after she got home from church it was determined that her time of death was between 7 and 7:30 p.m. as police continue their search for the killer an's family struggles with her death Mary and I walked over to Earl's house to see how he was dealing with the grief and his son Russell took us in to see Earl the whole family was in shock and everyone was just questioning who could have p
ossibly done this THL and Russell they were both saying we'll be glad when we found out who did this and we understood that was exactly how we were feeling as the family Grieves Madisonville residents question whether their town really is the best town on Earth when the town found out that Miss Branson had been murdered it scared a lot of people because you would think there's just a serial killer or somebody crazy running around to have done that this is mville Kentucky coin best town on Earth
you cannot have an unsolved murder of one of its most prominent members it just it can't happen as detectives contemplate their next move an unexpected tip sends the case in a new direction we're day four or five into this investigation but we have nothing strong yet and then we get a phone call that was the pivotal Turning Point the caller is a local mind worker named Jeff hibs Jeff hibs has some information about one of anime's nephews Russell winad that phone call basically shocked and rocked
our [Music] investigation 5 days after the bloody murder of 85-year-old Anne Branson police are contacted by a man named Jeff hips who makes a stunning allegation Jeff hibs believed that Russell Winston had some involvement with the murder of his aunt anime Branson Russell Winstead was known as a coal miner a hard worker he had three sons he was married to Terry Winstead it was known that he and his family attended church regularly Jeff claims that Russell has a secret unknown to his family Jef
f hibs told us that Russell Winstead had an extreme gambling addiction he also tells detectives that he'd gone gambling with Russell a few nights before an's murder Russell told Jeff he had gotten alone from his aunt that he had repay by Monday morning and he had $9,700 and he lost every single penny of that money Russell told Jeff that they're all going to know about his gambling addiction because his aunt is going to expose him for borrowing money from her on a regular basis and uh not paying
it back Jeff tells police that on Monday the local headlines grabbed his attention Jeff hibs reads about the old lady that got murdered in [Music] mass and he was like oh my gosh this is the ant that Russell had to repay by the first of the week detectives go back to Anne's house to search for evidence on her second search I found a ledger and the large amount of loans that was written down for one nephew they totaled up almost $100,000 the day before her Murder She had actually written down tha
t he had received $9,700 from her and that he had paid her a check for [Music] $112,000 detectives believe that Russell had given an a check in hopes of winning enough at the casino to cover it but when the check is nowhere to be found detective subpoena his bank records upon the financial investigation it was determined that Russell was basically shifting money around to cover the loans from his aunt and the missing check for the $122,000 never cleared the bank 10 days after the homicide detect
ives interview Russell Winstead even when we told him that Miss Branson had put it in her Ledger Russell still denied any knowledge of that check he denied having any involvement in this whatsoever at the time of death Russell explained that he had gone to church and that upon leaving church he had dropped his children off at his ex-wife's house and then that he was at home in the basement Russell said he got home about 7:25 p.m. with Anne's time of death estimated between 7 and 7:30 p.m detecti
ves interview Russell's wife Terry to verify his Alibi Terry's explanation for Russell was down to the minute she said yeah we went to church we drove separate he dropped a son off at his ex-wife's house and then he got home 7:25 Russell had a solid Alibi his wife told the exact same story he did as to where Russell was on the night of Mrs Branson's death there's just one loose end for detectives to tie up Russell's Casino visits I ask you know Russell gambles right she's like yeah I know he gam
bles I was like on a bad night what do you think he loses and she's like I don't know 2 or 3,000 I was like Tred 38,000 on one night and then she started balling this was just devastating to her because she trusted Russell that same day police get a search warrant for Russell's home we didn't find the murder weapon we didn't find any clothes that uh that were Blood Stained but we did recover a couple burner cell phones that his wife didn't know even existed one of the cell phones was only used t
o contact a waitress at one of the casinos Russell had a girlfriend who worked at the casino so we talked to the waitress and it alarmed us somewhat that even after he's a suspect of interest in a murder case Russell was still continuing to go to the casino still trying to be uh the High [Music] Roller Russell has plenty of Secrets but do money problems and infidelity make him a killer Russell's father Earl told me the police are trying to jam Russell up because they need a suspect and they want
to solve this case when we found out that Russell had been living a literal double life we were shocked but we felt that there was no way Russell had not done this we believed it with all of our hearts but as they dig deeper into Russell's gambling detectives find evidence of a man out of control we come with a total of 236 times that Russell had visit a casino in the last year losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in that time frame when it's rolled up into one you're just like going who is
this guy the scope of Russell's betrayal prompts his wife Terry to kick him out of the house and return to police with a damning admission Terry explained that her Alibi had been csed she said that Russell is the one that told her what to say she explained that Russell actually did not come home around 7:30 p.m. that it was more like 9 so that put him as being a person that could have committed this murder investigators obtain a warrant for Russell's arrest but when they go to bring him in they'
re in for a shock WR instead had fled the country we were very concerned that he would not be brought to Justice when I found out that Russell Winston had fled it was my goal to get him no matter what the cost Manpower What it [Music] Took the prime suspect in the murder of Anne Branson is her nephew Russell Winstead but before investigators can make an arrest Russell Goes On The Run for Russell to have fled the country it was shocking to all of us an innocent man doesn't flee like that this is
the last straw and he has to come back I have never been a person that takes waiting very well and our son came up with this the idea of putting this case on America's Most Wanted if you've seen Russell Winstead please call our hotline tonight at 1800 Crime TV they aired the show February of 05 and then in May of' 05 Russell was spotted at a casino in Costa Rica he was living under a pseudonym he was still bouncing from female to female and he was living the life style that he attempted to live
here we knew where he was we wanted Justice there's just one problem with Russell facing a potential death sentence at home Costa Rican authorities refuse to hand him over Costa Rica will not extradite anyone to the United States where the death sentence is a possibility and also they have of gambling so Russell had done his homework big time while investigators strategize how to get Russell back to Kentucky they make a troubling Discovery we found out that Russell's father Earl had been providi
ng russle with monies for his lifestyle in Costa Rica we had a guy come forward that said that Earl was actually paying him to wire money via Western Union to Russell in Costa Rica we believed Earl was actually uh aiding and embedding uh Russell's flight with Earl sending his son proceeds from the estate of the person he murdered it basically rubbed salt in the wound it turned your stomach investigators set up a sting to catch Earl red-handed so we wired this guy up as a confidential and he met
Earl wired the money and we got Earl doing that two or three times it was verified that Earl was sending money to Russell in Costa Rica while investigators find no evidence that Earl was involved in his sister an's murder they arrest him for helping his son evade Justice it really struck all of us by surprise the thought that Russell Winstead's father Earl winesday was sending money down to live on in Costa Rica just sat like a bar under a saddle with me I remember Earl being led out in handcuff
s because he was arrested for helping a fugitive but what really hurt us deeply was the fact that we knew it was an's money that was paying for her murderers Earl eventually pleads guilty to seven counts of hindering apprehension he was placed on probation for 2 years and if he contacted Russell at any point during those two years then he would have to serve jail time while Earl faces legal trouble at Home Federal authorities move in on Russell in Costa Rica Russell was observed at the gambling
casinos they f that that was probably the safest place for them to take him into custody so as Russell was leaving the gambling casino in Costa Rica he was apprehended he was arrested in May of 2005 in Costa Rica we did not get him back to Kentucky until February of the following year extraditing someone back from another country takes a a lot of time and federal authorities had to to make assurances that we would not seek the death penalty against [Music] Russell it took us seven months to extr
a back to the United States to know that that it was taking this long was very hard in fact every time we'd visit the cemetery where mma's buried I say we're going to get him we're going to get him that's was a long slow long long slow [Music] process finally more than 3 years after an's murder Russell Winstead has returned home to face trial for the murder of his aunt that day I'll never forget I went back to an's grave and said we got him and I felt like a burden had been lifted cuz we knew wh
at Justice was going to be done upon Russell return to Kentucky we were preparing for a trial when we got another humongous bombshell as far as our investigation's concerned someone who was also charged with murder of an elderly lady came forward saying that he was the one who had killed Mrs Branson all of this evidence has been stacking up against Russell Winston and here comes some guy out of the blue telling us that he's the one who committed the murder the confession is contained in a letter
posted from Hopkins County Jail by an accused murderer named Fred roulette Fred roulette basically gives detailed information on the murder of Anne Branson that was never publicly made known he stated that the murder weapon was a ratus hammer it is a mining tool and he advised that he had modified that Fred roulette provided a drawing of mes Branson's home and it was early accurate he gives all these details that only the killer would know I was like how could we have gotten this wrong [Music]
police have arrested Russell Winstead for the brutal murder of his aunt Anne Branson but now accused murderer Fred roulette has confessed to the crime leaving investigators reeling Fred roulette was also charged with murdering an elderly lady so you think oh my gosh did we get get it wrong it was completely devastating so we were determined we were going to find out the circumstances of his confession investigators throw all their resources into checking the validity of Fred's confession Fred wa
s a drug addict and he could not provide the details of the murder and robbery that he himself had committed to the level of detail that he provided about Mrs Branson's case when investigators check the jail records they discover a telling detail Fred did not come forward until after Russell had been extradited back to Kentucky and Fred roulette and Russell Winstead were cellmates already facing 25 years on a separate murder charge Fred roulette insists to detectives that he killed Anne Branson
Fred didn't realize until we told him that if he wanted to confess to this murder it now packed a death penalty after Fred heard those words he was like no game's off gigs up that's when he told investigators that he had all the intimate details of the murder from Russell Winstead Fred roulette was promised that his family would receive compensation since he was going to be in prison for the additional murder so Fred rette agreed to take the false confession with Russell's deception exposed his
trial can proceed in July 2007 4 years after an's murder a jury hears what really happened on that Sunday night in January 2003 Mrs Branson had loaned Russell upwards of $100,000 and Mrs Branson notated in that ledger was that she had received that $112,000 check from Russell on Saturday as partial repayment of the loan Russell had a large sum of money that he lost in the casino and he made mention that he needed to pay back to his aunt on Monday Russell knew he could not make good on that $112,
000 [Music] check I believe that Russell Winstead was so desperate that he went over and he attempted to talk Miss Anne into tearing up the $122,000 check when that didn't work I believe that he lost it and that he snapped and that's when she started receiving all the damage to the 65 plus stab Booms to her back we still do not know to this day how many times anime Branson was hit in the head he cleaned up the crime scene and he felt that he could get away with murder not have been the person th
at ended up being the Killer when they announced the verdict relief washed over me like Niagra Falls a relief that this jury saw through Russell winad and he did not fool them finally Miss Anne got her justice and everybody he loved and knew her got a form of Justice I miss an every day and finally I can think of her without thinking of her murder I can finally think of her for who she was beautiful beautiful part of our family yeah May took pride in who she was I think she'd be happy to be reme
mbered ask someone who enjoyed life and had a good [Music] one a sweet and beloved senior Margaret liked being out she liked being around people she was very friendly very outgoing is viciously murdered in her own home oh my lord it's her and I pretty much lost it I actually thought I was going to get sick to be snuffed out in such a way is just horrific police uncover a trail of suspects how would he know the information unless he was in the crime scene having people know how she was found and
even what she was wearing is very suspicious it just wasn't adding enough he was not being honest and something else was going on before a disturbing Discovery he was just photographing her in her own home points to a deranged killer nobody saw coming I don't think anyone in law enforcement could have had any inkling of the outcome of this case this is sick this is not a normal murder this wasn't a horror movie this was actually [Music] happening Wadsworth oh Ohio a Haven for families just outsi
de akan wodsworth a very quiet town it's very Community oriented it's a great family community it's very common for people not even to lock their doors because there's never a lot of crime that occurs right around in there on a Monday morning April 9th 2018 the piece is interrupted when police receive a call from a worried citizen Roger police yes this is Howard leer my aunt lives on uh Portage Street a friend of our stopped over there yesterday check on her and she was nowhere to be found okay
he says papers were on the PCH for the last 3 days what's her name Margaret Douglas initially the police department was contacted about Margaret being missing from her home we don't know where she's at she's 98 years old she live there by herself she lives there by herself yeah and she never lost your house so our initial response was to look for Margaret to see if she had fallen inside her home and needed help Patrol officers walked through it yelling for her to see if she would answer we conti
nued to Canvas the neighborhood and we did not locate her if her close friends she's not with them something's wrong we contacted area hospitals and looked in any possible place that she could be Margaret was just basically missing [Music] that evening Howard and his wife Cindy had to margret's home to help police with the search they asked if we could come down and meet them at the house how and Cindy started to look for some items common for Margaret to have taken with her when she left there
were specific shoes that she would wear they were looking for a little red wallet that she carried her money and her credit cards in when she left the home so Howard went to look in that front closet the clothes had dropped or slipped down that was piled in the top of the closet he said oh I found her shoe he tried to pull the shoe out and I touched it and it felt cold and [Music] clammy the shoe was still attached to Margaret who was in the [Music] closet and I thought oh my lord it's her and I
pretty much lost it something I'll never forget I'm sorry but the find her like that it was a terrible shock especially for her nephew Howard and I just remember the look on his face I actually thought I was going to get sick I think we were just so appalled and shocked that someone would kill her what motive could there be to kill a 98-year-old woman what could she have done to anybody that would have resulted in that Margaret's home is declared a crime scene and homicide detectives arrive Mar
garet was positioned with her head down in the corner and her backside kind of up in the air her Underpants were torn inside the closet there her night gown was all UNS snapped and her bra was pulled up I immediately thought that there was a sexual element to the crime there was a lot of trauma to Margaret's neck region somebody was able to strangle her and my assumption was manually due to the lack of any literature marks looking at the uh condition of Mario's Body riger had came and gone you c
ould look at the uh different lividity and pulling of the blood inside the body to see it appeared she had been there for a few days as the forensics team gathers DNA and fingerprints detective searched the house for further Evidence her wallet was not located so that gave us an indication that maybe this was a burglary and they had made off with just the wallet Margaret didn't always lock her doors so we weren't surprised when we didn't find forced entry into her home in investigators find thei
r first clue outside the home I observed a plastic food service glove on the backside of the house and collected the glove just in case that it was involved there was not a lot of physical evidence at the crime scene besides the glove the missing wallet was something but nothing that would direct us in a certain way who would attack and kill a 98-year-old woman in her own home as they set out for answers detectives turned to Howard and Cindy to learn more about Margaret the best thing to do is t
o get to know your victim as best you can born in akan Ohio in 1919 Margaret was known as a woman of strong character with a fiercely independent streak she knew what she wanted and she wasn't afraid to go after what she wanted to get Margaret often told us about her days working at the O'Neal's in downtown akan she liked being out she liked being around people she was very friendly very outgoing Margaret had very strong opinions and she was certainly not afraid to tell you what her opinion was
she was a pretty independent woman let's put it that way after World War II Margaret married the love of her life Army veteran Donald Douglas if I saw Margaret I saw Donald her husband they were made for each other they just complimented each other the couple moved into the house that Margaret would live in for the rest of her life I think Margaret might have lived in that neighborhood close to 70 years it was Margaret and Donald's choice not to have any children and they seemed extremely happy
together they like to travel together they went to ball games they enjoyed going to the Indians game when Donald passed away in the year 200000 Margaret chose to remain in her house surrounded by friends and caring Neighbors Margaret was a pretty good friend with the neighbors David and his wife there was another neighbor across the street her name was Jan they just sort of kept an eye on Margaret she knew all the kids in the neighborhood but as she got older she's got more restricted to the hou
se and that's when me and my wife stepped in at that point and started taking her shopping and doing things for her that is needed Margaret loved the fact that she was 98 years old and she wanted to be 100 she truly loved [Music] life for someone to have lived such a wonderful vibrant life only to be snuffed out in such a way is just horrific I have a grandmother that's similar in age it's just very hit close to home the investigators were under a tremendous amount of pressure every one of them
took it very personally and I think every one of them wanted to find in Justice very quickly for the family at the onset we had no clue there was no Direction maybe it's Financial maybe it was a relationship issue maybe it was an argument that went too far and something happened that they didn't expect but at that stage in the investigation you just don't know we need to start somewhere so we start closest to her so that would include uh looking at Howard and Cindy we definitely leave everyone o
n the list until we can exclusively rule them out and have that be a certainty and not just a feeling coming up is Margaret's killer hiding in plain sight he knew details of where Margaret was found and in what state she was found he's coming back to the scene of a crime detectives unearth dark secrets we found a journal about the desire to kill people he was videotaping her while she slept stalking his victim like an animal stalks its PR leading to a killer no one saw coming this is somebody th
at's ultimately going to be a serial killer if he's not [Music] caught police are investigating the murder of 98-year-old Margaret Douglas whose body was discovered stuffed in a closet in her own home I just can't imagine a 98-year-old woman being that Terri terrified and not knowing what to do it's definitely one of the most traumatic things I've ever had to experience in my years with the Wadsworth Police Department detectives Begin by interviewing those closest to Margaret her nephew Howard a
nd his wife Cindy we fingerprint and get DNA from Cindy and Howard to show whether their fingerprints or DNA were on something that it should not have been on we did subpoenas for phone records and also location data GPS data so we could tell their whereabouts during the time in question Cindy and Howard lived approximately 30 or 40 minute drive away but they would come into town couple times a month to do her grocery shopping well she always paid her cash we swung down went to the bank she B $2
00 out to go shopping with police asked Howard about Margaret's finances was there anyone who stood to gain from her death Margaret was really in charge of her own finances we did look into those accounts and check for activity we were never able to locate any activity that was out of the normal does she have a power of attorney or a will or anything that no we've been telling her she needs a will she needs this she would never take time to there was nobody that we could find that would have any
financial gain from her death could Howard or Cindy think of anyone who might wish to harm Margaret any problems with her did she wanted to argue with people or anything like that nothing no we and nobody else she didn't you know have any problems with anybody that not know she Mar that's why they so just sorry detectives ask about others in close contact with Margaret according to Howard and Cindy the closest is Margaret's former neighbor David clinkenbeard Cindy and Howard did keep in contact
with David who was Margaret's main caregiver David would come and check on her a couple of times a week just to see if she was okay and if she needed anything David had the most contact with her he' go every week take her trash out and then he take F can back in the next day after interviewing Howard and Cindy detectives try to contact David but he is not answering their calls there was some concern not being able to reach David and that that was troubling we didn't have any other suspects it m
ade us wonder what was going on as detectives triy to track David down Patrol officers continue to Canvas Margaret's neighbors for information during the canvas we did learn that there had been some vehicles in the neighborhood that had been rifled through and small items were taken out like change and things like that is this somebody that was up by Margaret's house and found a crime of opportunity because it's somebody that they can maybe figure out lives alone as the canvas continues officers
notice someone watching the activity around Margaret's house I noticed a man outside smoking a cigarette so I went out to make contact with him this person ended up being David clinkenbeard he said that he used to live next door to Margaret he kind of wanted to know what was going on he said he was essentially canvasing the neighborhood looking for anything that was suspicious David did strike me as OD at first it was concerning to me that he was standing out there trying to determine what exac
tly we had found as David continues to talk police grow increasingly suspicious he was kind of making comments about information that seem strange that he would know about he knew details of where Margot was found and in what state she was found having people know how she was found and even what she was wearing is very suspicious you don't know where someone has gotten their information were they there were they involved in the murder with a growing list of questions about David officers approac
h Margaret's neighbors for answers one of the neighbors had mentioned how they had seen David driving through the neighborhood but didn't stop just kind of drove through so they thought that was kind of strange maybe he's coming back to the scene of a crime whether he's driving back by because he knows what he did and he's having remorse or maybe trying to get back inside there to get her body out of there and get rid of it or to look to see if he left anything behind David told some of the neig
hbors that his fingerprints would be all over the house and he would have to get his fingerprints taken which is not something that people usually say or think the next day David's appearance in local news coverage of the murder raises further alarm Bells I turned on the news and there he is on TV talking to the reporters putting himself out there was this a guilty man's ploy to hide in plain sight that seemed out of sorts to us generally when people are grieving a loss their instinct is not to
cooperate with the mediate but David seemed very willing to speak with them all of these things added together are possible indicators of someone who is purposely trying to insert themselves in the investigation because they're involved in this investigation could David have possibly been involved in Margaret's murder at that point we had some questions about his actions and his knowledge of how Margaret was found he definitely became a main point of [Music] interest on April 11th 2 days after f
inding Margaret's body in her own home police bring her former neighbor David clinkinbeard in for questioning David told us that he last Saw Margaret when he was helping her with her trash can on Wednesday if you didn't come by on Thursday or Friday not till Sunday no not till Sunday on Sunday he had gone over to the house and he didn't locate her he had some concerns that maybe she was upstairs in a state of undress and he didn't want to go up there himself so he contacted Jan across the street
and that's when you had Jan come over in case she was upstairs and yeah not not decent yeah J when up there she wasn't up there we up there okay your friend's missing that'd be the last thing in your mind whether they're dressed or not you would go and look for them throughout the entire house not go get somebody else as the interview continues David's answers only raise further suspicion she likes to look nice and she was a pretty woman yeah when she was on her she already oh and she was reall
y com back in she was really kind of not then but you know I mean I was TR good she look back some of the comments that he made about Margaret in particular her physical appearance when she was younger she had just been murdered and here he is describing her figure and her body type in an interview the detective asked David about the calls he made when he couldn't find Margaret oh I get myell phone call I got this number on my phone do you have your phone with you yeah you mind if I had my compu
ter guide just go through and write down the date of your call I have he said he must have left it at home and didn't have it on his person it seems strange because you know in this day and age nobody goes anywhere without their cell phone her cell phone is always on them investigators must now subpoena David's cell phone records at the same time they receive a forensics report from the crime scene DNA belonging to Margaret was found on the glove that was discovered outside of Margaret's house w
e believe that the suspect's DNA was on the inside of the glove would you mind if I I was to get a sample of your DNA we know you're supposed to be in the house would that be okay with you yeah detective send David's DNA to compare against that found inside the glove while they wait for the results they check David's cell phone data to verify his Alibi we were able to go through his day-to-day life and see that he likely was not involved but there was no concrete evidence that we were able to br
ing to light unlike the phone records the DNA findings are conclusive David is not Margaret's killer David ended up being in the end of all's thing just a friend of hers uh that was not involved at all sometimes he would say things that didn't really have an explanation it just took the time and the effort to understand his involvement and there was reasonable explanation for all of the things that we had concerns about he just really cared about Margaret and really had concern that he would hav
e an answer as to what happened we had to look at David's prior number one interest because obviously his strange comments in the beginning about his DNA and fingerprints plus he's the one that saw her a regular basis up until that point where you reach a crossroad you really do have to look at every tiny detail every possibility detectives turn their attention to the autopsy report which paints a terrifying picture of Margaret's last moments the medical examiner's report on Margaret showed what
kind of force was used to uh kill her in the end she had contusions to her head to her face she had a fracture to her orbital socket she had a uh a fracture to her C7 vertebrae in her neck it show there was a compression there which broke her neck Margaret was not a frail woman not just anyone would be able to manually strangle her while the autopsy finds no direct evidence of sexual assault officers continue to suspect otherwise why would her underwear be ripped off of they weren't like pulled
off they were torn there were other bodily fluids that were mixed in with the swabs from Margaret's body the fact that someone took Margaret in such a horrific manner was a very difficult thing to handle as homicide detectives regroup to search for new leads Patrol officers alert them to an unusual crime reported in the early morning hours of April 8th the day before Margaret's body is discovered there was a report of a carjacking very near the scene of Margaret Douglas's home in a community li
ke Wadsworth we don't have carjackings that's not a normal call for us they happened in such time close to one another that we had to wonder if they were related the carjacking victim is a local man named Paul shot Paul had reported he was driving along he happened to notice a 19 20year old man limping like having trouble walking up the street Paul had reported to us that he was just being a Good Samaritan and picking somebody up that he thought to be injured so as he went out to help him he sai
d the gentleman just slid into the driver's seat and then locked the doors went let him in and took off with his car officers grow suspicious when they quickly locate Paul's car near the sight of the carjacking the car was found very quickly and it was found right there in the same area it was taken literally like not even a block away from where he had picked this gentleman up supposedly and lost his car this happened at a building that had cameras on the outside so we wanted to kind of investi
gate Paul's story cuz it just didn't seem quite right you could see on the video that Paul had been with what appeared to be a young man the young man was not limping he did not seem to be injured in any way Paul's initial report did not match anything that video said it just wasn't adding up he was not being honest and something else was going on why had Paul lied to police and who was the young man seen in security pretty footage had one of them gone on to do something Unthinkable we had the c
ar jacking and then we have Mark's disappearance it just started making me think a little bit could this be the guy could be [Music] involved police investigating the murder of 98-year-old Margaret Douglas have a potential new lead after learning of an alleged carjacking in her quiet neighborhood somebody that's willing to perpetrate a crime such as a carjacking makes you really wonder is this related to a murder that's just happened a couple blocks away but when security video proves the victim
Paul shot has lied to police detectives demand answers when I interviewed Paul to get the whole story he was very nervous and then he finally started telling us the truth about um how he came to be in that area and what really happened he was on an app trying to meet somebody and he did come across somebody he said he worked for a church and he didn't want them to find out that he's using a a sight to try to meet up with young men he didn't want to admit it right away but they started getting i
nvolved sexually in the car the male subject he picked up I guess started getting upset that things weren't going his way the young man that he met up with just kind of snapped and took the car not what Paul had expected when he met this person on [Music] line with Paul finally being honest detectives changed course and ask if he knows anything about the murder of Margaret Douglas he was aware of what had happened and that she was a victim of a homicide but Paul did not know Margaret at all he h
ad no ties to her and real no ties even in that neighborhood he was just there basically to meet up with somebody that night then I started thinking well now we need to know who who was driving that car who carjacked him Paul was asked for the account information for the app that he used to meet this person on he said he couldn't remember the email he used or the password he used to get in there Paul was embarrassed about what he had let happen and the fact that he was involved with a young man
he had deleted everything from his phone that was relative to that we weren't able to recover any of that information so we had no way of proving or figuring out who it was that he may have met up with at night after hitting another Dead lead frustrated investigators know that public fear is only growing there was definitely some fear there were people that would normally stroll down the street walk their dogs let their kids play outside UNS supervised and things like that weren't happening afte
r Margaret's Discovery And the emotions for everybody were really high and and heightened they're all locking their doors now and they're really watching for everything so it was definitely a shock to all of them with the community on edge Margaret's family continues to struggle with their loss the hardest part going through all this is a time consuming and the worrying and uh waiting for the outcome and not sure what's going to happen that was hard you know none of us are patient and we all wan
t to know what happened here why someone would do this the reason you're doing what you're doing is for the victim you want somebody to be held responsible for what they've done believing that the carjacker May Be A Serial criminal police take a closer look at the petty crimes reported around Margaret's neighborhood the crimes all took place in just a few block area is there somebody in this neighborhood that's committing a whole bunch of crimes for some reason cuz we weren't seeing those crimes
spreading out throughout the city like we typically would you have to wonder if the person who's committing these Petty crimes has escalated to commit something more horrific on the night of April 13th 4 days after the discovery of Margaret's body police received several calls about two young men we had received a lot of different calls where people had seen two male subjects running around traing Mischief doing things at the park doing things at the church and in cars a couple of young males w
ere taking some type of device that had wheels on the bottom and hanging out in one of the parking lots that same night police respond to a call that changes everything it was reported to us that there had been a Breakin to a trailer that was at a construction site when officers investigate they get a huge break someone had left their cell phone behind at the trailer does the phone belong to the person responsible for the neighborhood crime spree including Margaret's murder investigators use for
ensic software to unlock the phone the phone came back to a subject that we had been known in our area for different car breakings and little thefts from cars that uh happened in our city and especially over in that area he was identified by one of our officers as Zack fono Zach was known to us and he did have a trouble past he had been in some more serious trouble and we were all familiar with him at this point we thought that we really needed to bring Zach in and talk to him about what he had
been doing that night Zach was found sleeping in his car at the high school in the parking lot as officers bring Zach into the station for an interview something immediately catches their attention Zach had some scratches on on his legs which made me wonder where those came from are they defensive WS from somebody fighting back against you and scratching you that way could they be from something simple explainable or evidence into what we were looking into with regards to Margaret [Music] Dougla
s police investigating the murder of Margaret Douglas have connected local teen Zack thronson to a SP bait of crimes near her home with the carjacking we know there were supposed to be a young male now we have Zach running around committing these little crimes all within the same area around the same time frame his phone was left behind at the trailer so we knew for sure that he was involved in the crimes that were all seemingly tied together detectives cut to the Chase and ask Zach if he killed
Margaret Douglas Zach you know he owned up for the little things he did but he denied any knowledge of it or being involved at all detectives steer the interview to the identity of the Teen seen with Zach in security footage he said that he was out with his friend Gavin ramsy and that everything that had happened was all Gavin's idea Gavin had been the one that was trying to break into the trailer and that he was just standing by and and watching it happen just a presence during the time that G
avin was committing all the other Petty crimes Zach was definitely in himself so there was some concern that he wasn't being honest about everything that they had done for the moment police decide not to charge Zach until they interview his friend Gavin Ramsey Gavin had been in trouble before and his mom had dealt with that she was going to help hold him accountable for the things he had done we talked about a trailer and I just let him know that we knew he was there cuz Zach had told us that he
was was there property type crimes and less serious crimes is what we talked about at first that's just to see is he going to own up that and then we'd continue from there into something more serious you guys didn't take anything did you run through glove boxes or anything maybe like 50 cents but I that seriously nothing he admitted to all of them he would rifle through cars and take things that weren't of a lot of value just to take things gav for the interview he does for a rush so it wasn't
about money or anything I think the reason that he was so willing to admit to these lesser offenses is to kind of distance himself and clear his name from anything else I might want to talk to him about now detectives turn their questions to more serious crimes we had a carjacking oh my God and suspect is a young white male with a nice complexion and blue eyes is that you Gavin's demeanor changed substantially when I started to ask him about the carjacking upset me so much there something else y
ou need to tell us you've already got youself in trouble so I know I me I don't know what say before answering further questions Gavin asks to speak with a detective alone I don't think you actually for a second what's that you actually so I can con to yeah so when his mom stepped out the car it okay it was me I'm going to be honest about it but the way that he explained it that guy that's not great he openly admitted that he was the one who did the carjacking but he didn't really want to talk a
bout the sexual part of what happened in there you guys didn't talk about what kind of sex you were going to have or no I didn't I don't know it's not something I'm interested in just the act of him getting the payback I guess I don't know that's like it's karma really like if you're going to do that then I'm going to rob you Gavin denies that he was truly interested in meeting up with Paul for any reason other than to catfish him or to teach him a lesson this is a kid that's admitting to going
around breaking into cars and it's not for theft it's for a rush so we know he's after the adrenaline what else could he have possibly done with Gavin admitting to the carjacking the interview turns to questions about Margaret Douglas I specifically asked him if he had murdered Margaret and he denied it and we there's no reason that we would find your DNA inside her house because we swab the hell out of that house I mean if you've never been in there then obviously you wouldn't but I mean you na
me it weed it we took it I'm sure you know we were there all he was hiding something there was more to be said I didn't feel that this Avenue had been exhausted with him this was something that we probably needed to revisit maybe from another direction for now detectives allow Gavin to leave with his mother at this point we have nothing other than the petty crimes which are handled through juvenile court so we wouldn't actually take him into custody to hold him but they have one request for Gavi
n's mother I let her know that we had concerns and that I would like to look at his phone I was expecting to find information about how maybe Gavin was victimized instead what officers find on Gavin's phone changes everything officer Cooper discovered Google type searches murder in Wadsworth Margaret Douglas investigation Wadsworth PD reports on homicide investigation then detectives find something they never would have imagined there were at actually photos and videos of Margaret Douglas timest
amps showed that the images were recorded in the early morning hours of Friday April 6 she obviously didn't know he was there and he was just photographing her from a vantage point in her own home there was clearly a point in time where she realized that someone was in her home and was startled nothing can prepare investigators for what they see next I was absolutely shocked that a child could imagine doing this to another human being this wasn't a horror movie this was actually [Music] happenin
g detectives investigating the murder of 98 y- old Margaret Douglas have found disturbing evidence on a phone belonging to 17-year-old Gavin Ramsey the first thought in my mind was he knows we're going to discover this and I could just imagine him fleeing police moved quickly to take Gavin into custody once we picked him up I briefly told his mom that we had discovered evidence on his phone and that we were going to take him back to the police department [Music] it was definitely not the easiest
interview that I had ever done I came up on the porch and I didn't even know what I was going to do I don't know I felt like going into a house is like the biggest adour rush I could get so then I tried to Door out minute that just happened to be unlocked he was videotaping her why she slept stalking his victim like an animal stalks its prey so how long do you think you were in the house before you woke her up I don't know probably like 10 15 minutes you could see in some of the photos the obvi
ous horror on her face of as to what was happening and then from the time you woke her up to the time you ended up on top of her toen or how long did that full par take that was probably five minutes he had used both hands to squeeze her neck and push her neck back against the floor strangling her he said that once he realized the gravity of what he was doing it was too late that she was already gone for officers the most disturbing questions involve what Gavin did after killing Margaret when I
saw him was just like this is sick this is not a normal murder the sexual nature of his actions was kind of a topic that he was not willing to talk about he degraded her by using her for sexual things and videotaping and taking pictures he'd actually been in there with her for a while and then I checked my phone and it said it was like four something and I knew my mom to get up the 5 so he takes the body finds the closet cuz he has to get home he throws in there to hi cuz I don't want anybody to
find her I don't want anybody to know it's me but was Margaret simply a random victim of Gavin's need for a rush or had he known her better than he'd initially let on Gavin lived very close to Margaret Douglas right around the corner from her house Gavin had actually been to her house before asking her about maybe cutting her grass raking leaves or even you know shoveling snow he out looking for little odd jobs around the neighborhood the thought in the back of my mind was that Gavin had observ
ed Margaret regularly and actually thought about the things that he would like to do and that she would make a good victim police arrest Gavin Ram for the murder of Margaret Douglas and get a search warrant for his bedroom we found gloves matching the same style and type of glove that was found at the scene in one of his drawers I discovered Margaret's red wallet detectives then make an even more disturbing find we also found a journal that had some writings about fantasies about murder he had w
ritten almost like a book report on different serial killers after reading those there was no doubt in my mind that Gavin would kill again if he had the opportunity this is something that he enjoys that he finds pleasure in this is somebody that's ultimately going to be a serial killer if he's not caught because of the heinous nature of the crime the juvenile penal system is not equipped to deal with an individual such as Gavin Ramsey Gavin was ultimately charged as an adult with aggravated murd
er two other counts of murder burglary and abuse of a corpse we requested that Mr Ramsay receive the harshest penalty that the law would allow found guilty on all charges Gavin is sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of Margaret Douglas when I watched Gavin Ramsey uh at the sentencing I still felt in my mind that he doesn't understand the gravity of what he's done there's still no remorse there you would like to think that the world is full of people like you and I and don't
want to think that of such a young person able to act out something that you would only see in a horror movie I was shocked to find out that it was a young person who was still in high school that would do something like this to murder somebody who's 98 years old to think you could shove a body in that closet I I just that part I I just can't even it absolutely made me think of my own Grandma I just could not imagine her living such a wonderful life and having it end in such a horrific way desp
ite the horror of Margaret's death her family honors her memory by thinking of her remarkable life Margaret gave you an inspiration that you can still be 98 years old and be very functional live in your own home take care of yourself she to me was just an inspiration she led a full life and could have been longer Margaret would want to be remembered as the person who took care of herself cared about those around her and was willing to do what she needed to do my aunt was Margaret Douglas and she
was a wonderful woman she was a great [Music] woman a beloved former school teacher and wife of a small town mayor Charlotte was very compassionate about students and very well-liked she was a wonderful mother found murdered in her home it inflamed the community because of how popular she was detectives find evidence of a violent struggle she had been savagely attacked you could see that her wrist was broke who would kill this loving wife and mother there was nobody that you could think of that
would want her dead it's going to be one of those cases of a who done it suspicions run rampant in this small town people are trying to help the police crack this case but it's just all of these rumors and innuendo somebody was at a party bragging about killing Charlotte he was spending money like it was going out of style a lady reported that her boyfriend tried to strangle her we're thinking that's a very good suspect police close in but a public accus ation upends the case he gave a statemen
t on live radio accusing him of the murder they said they finally realized who was kill her he was in shock I never would have expected them to be a suspect that will helpt me for the rest of my [Music] life Lynette Alabama a small family oriented town in the heart of the Deep South Lynette was a Mill Town it sits right on the banks of the chattah huchi river one of Alabama's major waterways I always felt safe when I was there some people would leave their homes unlocked we just never had any cr
ime there lyette is a very tight-knit area everybody knows everybody here August 4th 1998 was a lazy summer day in Lynette until the piece was shattered by a 911 call it was around 5:30 when we got the call of a unresponsive woman police are surprised to learn the call has come from the home of the town's mayor everyone was shocked that it was their house and I was there within 2 or 3 minutes the 911 caller Heather waights leads police inside to her unresponsive mother Heather was very hysterica
l and the first thing she could say was help my mom the first thing I did was go and uh check for a pulse and she was cool to the touch and you could tell that she's been expired for for for a little while police are stunned to find Charlotte weights the wife of the town's mayor dead in her home at first it appears that Charlotte has suffered a tragic accident we noticed she did have a little phone coming out the corner of her mouth so we thought that you know maybe had a seizure or a reaction t
o a medicine as detectives look closer they begin to suspect Foul Play There was red flag that this was more than just an accident her right arm in the wrist area appeared to be broken she had what appeared to be scratch marks on the bottom of her chin and she had some red markings right her neck we made a decision right then that we're going to proceed with a homicide investigation detectives find signs of a violent struggle there was a picture that had been knocked off the wall we could see th
e nail that was holding that picture up was bent down towards the stairway so my theory is that it was a fight coming down the stairs it just look suspicious the fact that her purse was dumped over but her purse was still there you couldn't tell if it was a stage scene or if somebody had come in and she had interrupted a burglary was Charlotte the victim of a robbery gone wrong or did her killer wanted to appear that way we didn't see any signs of forced entry one of the investigators went to th
e utility room and found two bloody towels so we want to find out who had of blood on those towels as forensics collect evidence Charlotte's husband Barry a arrives on the scene Barry had worked at the National Guard Armory at the time Barry was the acting mayor the look on his face he was in shock he was very very upset he started hyperventilating grabbing his chest he began to go into what we thought was a heart attack as Berry is rushed to the hospital news of Charlotte's murder spreads I rem
ember the St of shock that I felt when I got down there to the emergency room the girls were there and of course they were upset their mother was dead and their daddy was under a doctor's care for hard issues investigators turned to Charlotte's daughters for information about their mother Charlotte was a very kind gentle person always smiling and cared about others Charlotte studied education at Auburn University and got married to Barry weights right after graduating in 1971 she was a second gr
ade teacher she was very compassionate about her students and just very well liked later Charlotte became a devoted School administrator she was genuine through and through she just made such a a a nice reputation for herself in the school system and in the community as well Barry was head of the National Guard Armory and he would often let us use the Armory for the science fair social studies fair and Charlotte she was always there helping me with everything Charlotte and Barry had a perfect ma
rriage two great careers and they had two daughters Heather was going to college and Cara was still in high school getting ready to graduate when you was around them you could feel the love they were well respected in this community Charlotte was a wonderful mother I could tell what a deep love she had for her family who would take the life of this kind and caring woman and why detectives question Heather about how she came to find her mother's body Heather had came home for the weekend as a col
lege kid it's time to get your clothes washed and get some good home cooking Heather said she came into to the house and then when she called out for her mom and that's when she noticed her mom at the bottom of the stairs and when she run up to her she realized that she wasn't breathing and when she felt cold she began to um panic and then that's when she called the ambulance next she called her dead police are eager to question the mayor but doctor say they want to keep him overnight for observ
ation we did find out that he didn't have a heart attack that was a anxiety type situation but we were never able to talk to Barry while he was in the hospital he got out the next day on Saturday morning following the murder we were at the office myself the other investigators and then all of a sudden Barry walks in when it's this type of murder it's usually someone very close to them at the same time nobody would ever suspect the mayor of doing anything like this anyone that knew Barry knew tha
t he's like a big teddy bear my knowledge of Barry at that point I'd never seen him upset he was just friendly and well respected Barry didn't fit any kind of profile to do this kind of crime but we did take the opportunity to just look over him while we were talking to him see if we could see any visible injuries and we could not Barry offers to help with the investigation and agrees to be interviewed detectives ask him for his whereabouts the previous day he told us that the morning he had gon
e to the Armory just had a normal day around 11 or so he left the Armory and gone by the barber shop he said it was full so he went back to work the rest of the day until he received a phone call from his daughter telling him that she had found her her mother so he rushed home investigators hope to verify the Alibi but they haven't established a clear timeline for Charlotte's murder the first day of business after the homicide the only thing we had was a a a victim in a neighborhood that these t
hings don't happen it's going to be one of those cases of who done it nobody disliked Miss weights and there was definitely nobody that you could think of that would want her dead as fear grips the town of Lynette suspicion starts to fall on someone close to Charlotte's daughter through talking to family we had learned that car was dating a boy that her parents really didn't like because he was living rough life hand to mouth Bar Charlotte B told her that she was not going to see him and then of
course they learned that she was seeing him behind their back at the time of the murder Cara was still in high school when she was pregnant I believe that Charlotte knew that car every was pregnant investigators wonder if there had been a deadly confrontation between Charlotte and her daughter's lover people have been killed for Less maybe he thought hey I want to see your daughter you're not letting me so you're going to pay for [Music] it coming up the list of suspects grows people start call
ing the tip lines or saying well so and so told me so and so and small town secrets are revealed field he had been to prison for violent crimes people are starting to say you're maybe not the person we thought that you were then new evidence stuns investigators he's got a money issue and that's a flag but the prince did not match I can't put this behind me until it's solved you may think that you know who did the crime but you made me [Music] wrong just 24 hours into the investigation of Charlot
te weight's murder police have their first suspect her 17-year-old daughter's boyfriend we had learned that at the time of the murder Cara was pregnant her boyfriend just wasn't the person that they wanted their daughter to be dating so maybe there had been some type of conflict police bring him into the station for questioning he told us that that he knew that Barry and Charlotte didn't like him but he said that the day of the murder he was working with a grass Cutting Crew somewhere we were ab
le to go to the person that he was working for that day and they verified his whereabouts through the entire day of the murder with Cara's boyfriend looking unlikely as the killer detectives take a closer look at Cara the day of the murder of Cara We determined that she was at work babysitting then we started looking at Heather we were able to show that she was at Auburn University she had actually left 20 30 minutes prior to finding her mother we eliminated her it's been less than 2 days since
Charlotte weights was found dead and the investigation is under intense scrutiny from the public and the media we did have a lot of pressure put on us uh from the beginning because it's the mayor's wife he's a pillar of the community and she's a pillar of the community with this case being such a high profile nature there was a lot of eyes looking at us I was uh the host of The Morning Show on wrld radio we were getting calls uh from people all over the county I knew Charlotte family real well t
here was so much speculation at the time under the close watch of the media police turned their attention back to the mayor's Alibi on any homicide when you're a victim is is married you want to start inside and then you work your way out fre wanted to find out the timeline of his whereabouts to eliminate him as being a suspect Barry claims that on the day of the murder he left work around 11:30 a.m. to run an errand then returned Barry said that once he got back to the Armory that he sent a fac
t to his Commander we traveled to Birmingham to verify who he sent the facts to and it showed us that Barry got back to the at the time that he said he did police confirm Barry's fax receipt has a 12:30 p.m. timestamp but investigators still don't know the exact time of Charlotte's murder while they wait for the autopsy results they hope charlot's co-workers can help provide the answer the people that Charlotte worked with told us that Charlotte had gotten to work that morning and that afternoon
they were having a baby shower for one of her co-workers they told us that she left around 11 or so and she comes home to get fixed up to go out to the little baby shower they told us that they were getting ready to order out lunch and try to get in touch with her to find out what she wanted couldn't get an answer no one saw Charlotte again until Heather discovered her body nearly 6 hours later her office was horrified it we were we just couldn't wrap our minds around the fact that our little r
ay of sunshine was dead Sergeant Richard Carter was asking us a lot of questions like did Charlotte and Barry get along Charlotte and Barry were always teasing with each other and he was always being silly and funny and she would roll her eyes at him and they didn't appear to have any problems we said what a wonderful husband he had been and what a good daddy investigators hope to get more information about Barry and Charlotte's relationship from their daughters we want to find out more about th
e Dynamics of the family but when the daughters realized that we were looking at their father as the suspect they became upset with us so they broke contact and we've lost contact with them when we were speaking to her friends and her family nobody could provide anyone who could have a reason to kill Charlotte hitting dead ends investigators dig deeper and begin to look Beyond Charlotte's immediate family they request an interview with her brother Jean Jean said he loved his sister tremendously
and and her entire family he talked about him and Barry being like brothers then Jean reveals a key piece of information Charlotte had an uncle that had passed away written into the inheritance Charlotte got 50% and we're talking several hundred acres here which is worth a good bit of money at this time they're starting to build auto manufacturing areas here and you can get lots of money from selling land or land rides Jean tells police that the inheritance caused problems in the extended family
there was this cousin who felt like he deserved part of that estate so he was contesting the will I've actually had to try murder cases where people have shot each other over property lines and that's nothing compared to thousands and thousands of dollars worth of property and so you've got height and tension Jean also tells investigators that Charlotte was due to meet her attorney about the inheritance on the day she was killed we don't believe in coincidence that on the day she was supposed t
o have a meeting with an attorney is the day that she was murdered and at that point Charlotte's cousin became suspect number one [Music] detectives investigating the murder of Charlotte weights have discovered she was about to inherit a large tract of land from her uncle leaving another family member angry Charlotte's cousin Wayne Ross felt that he was entitled to part of it and we're talking a substantial good bit of property she did not like conflict and the day day of the murder she was supp
osed to have a meeting with an attorney of course she never made the meeting detectives want to know if Wayne went to Charlotte's home to confront her before the meeting maybe he thought if she was eliminated he would have more opportunity for him to get more money out of it when we contacted Wayne he agreed to meet with us but not without his attorney present police ask Wayne how he feels about being left out of the family inheritance he knew that disputing that will caused broken relationships
but he said that he didn't wish any ill will on Charlotte investigators asked for his whereabouts on the day of the murder way told us that he'd gone to work early that morning he' gotten off work gone home we wanted to find out did he have any opportunity to come to Lynette commit the murder and and leave with nobody seeing him we talked to three of his Co workers and they confirmed that he never left uh didn't even leave for lunch with Wayne ruled out police go back to the drawing board once
we were able to eliminate Wayne we were kind of left um again at at Point a who could commit this crime and leave and nobody see anything out of the ordinary 2 weeks after Charlotte's murder detectives received the autopsy report the pathologist explained that it was a strangulation the report concludes that the murder weapon was a piece of Charlotte's own clothing Miss wees had on a blouse that kind of had the little strings that went across it and those strings actually created the lecture Mar
k around her neck and were pulled from behind the autopsy also confirms that Charlotte suffered other injuries in the attack she was thrown to the floor in such a violent manner that she suffered a dislocated wrist and the head injury that by itself could have killed her and the report suggests that Charlotte was struck in the face the doctor felt like she was punched which could have subdued her the blood on the towels found at the scene is identified as charlott's the bloody towels were kind o
f stuck down in the bottom and and covered up like somebody was trying to hide them I would have to describe the last few minutes of Charlotte's life as as complete Terror she had been savagely attacked police receive the crime scene fingerprint analysis and discover a print that doesn't belong we get the fingerprint report back and then there are some unidentified fingerprints we can't put a Suspect with those fingerprints police run the prints through the Alabama State database but it doesn't
produce a match this is so frustrating because you owe it to the victim's family to go make that arrest and always hoping that we're going to get that Silver Bullet that's going to put it all together and you never get it then just a few days later a local report of a violent assault draws detectives Attention our Patrol guys got a call one night to a residents in regards to a lady that called and reported that her boyfriend Rodney boram tried to strangle her when the officer wrote up the report
he said this looks awfully familiar to the case that you're working on detectives interview the victim and are struck by the similarities in the attack she reported to the police officers that her boyfriend attacked her from behind tried to strangle her but she was able to get away from him we knew Miss weits have been chok from behind so you you have to look at that is this an isolated case or an ongoing pattern of violent attacks we realized that he had actually had a pretty extensive crimina
l history from another state he had been to preson numerous times for violent type crimes so we were extremely interested in Rodney police obtain Rodney's prints from the Georgia state database we sent those off to the crime lab to to compare with the prints that were lifted at the crime scene when we spoke to Rodney it was explained to him that this crime looked a lot like what took place with Charlotte so he knew without a doubt why we were questioning him as police look into Rodney's claim th
at he was working on the day of the murder the lab comes back with fingerprint results we got notified that ring B's Prince did not match and through his Alibi we were able to eliminate him from being in the area that night police can't charge Rodney for the alleged assault on his girlfriend due to lack of evidence so they let him go once again the investigation hits a dead end you have to keep an open mind always be ready for something that's going to take you down a different path a few days l
ater a stunning piece of information comes in on the police tip line we'd gotten a tip that there was a man at a party bragging about killing Charlotte the tipster claims he overheard someone named Kenny Boyd confess to the crime he said that he had been at a party with Kenny Boyd and that Kenny Boyd had told him that he had gone in to Rob Miss weights and that she caught him burglarizing the house we thought this is what we needed this is the tip that we need it's going to get us where we need
to be when police go to locate Kenny they don't have to look very far when we went and found him he was inside our County Jail [Music] it's been almost 2 months since the murder of Charlotte weights and a witness claims he recently overheard Kenny Boyd confess to the crime we were told that Kenny Boyd was at a party bragging about killing Charlotte the witness also tells police that Kenny had an accomplice Kenny told them that they were breaking in uh on in Charlotte's house then Charlotte came
home they jumped her killed her didn't mean to kill her but did the two suspects are well known to police they were always in trouble in and out of jail detectives head to Lynette County Jail where Kenny has been in custody for several days on an unrelated charge we got got inside the jail sat down and began interviewing Kenny boy he said he didn't know her and he said he did not commit the murder he said I don't even know where they live but we want to find out what it was he did that day Kenny
begins to tell us that they are out going to a local store stealing cigarettes and then they're going into a different part of town selling them for crack detectives are skeptical of the account count and want to hear what Kenny's partner in crime has to say we find out that the other suspect in prison in Georgia so we traveled into Georgia and he tells us basically the same story he says yeah we were stealing cigarettes with identical stories from two suspects investigators look to confirm the
ir Alibi to verify his Alibi the only thing we can do is go to the store that he said that they were selling cigar from police searched the store security footage for proof the men were there at the time of the murder it was documented on video that they are inside that store that he said they were in it was very frustrating you may think that you know who did the crime but you made me wrong later on we found out the guy that had called the tip line on Kenny Boyd his basically didn't like Mr Boy
d police are increasingly concerned that the tip line may be doing more harm then good that's the thing about a small town and everybody knows everybody and people start calling the tip lines saying well so and so tow me so and so through this entire case we would continually get tips at times we felt like they were good tips credible other times we knew that they were just trying to mle in the case the hardest thing was all the different rabbit trails that we kept having to go down because ever
y single tip that we got we had a that's slowing the investigation down to a crawl because at a trial you've got to prove Beyond a reasonable doubt that somebody committed this crime and to do that you got to disprove all of these bad tips and the rumors in inuendo with the investigation at a standstill the public is increasingly angry that no arrest has been made in the 6 months since Charlotte's murder the people in this community were frightened any murder in a small town people here know eve
rybody so you got a lot of pressure when you got a case like this the fact that Charlotte was so well known inflamed the community um I think there was a lot of ANS because of how popular she was and how gentle she was our heart still achd it was awful I would go to her grave and wonder if your murder comes here and looks and at at this grave she was my dear friend and I can't put this behind me until it's solved the pressure never lessened on this case the community demanded that somebody gets
brought to Justice on this case as months turn into years without Justice being served Charlotte's loved ones car carry on as best they can Barry weights is no longer mayor but he continues to serve on Lynette city council his daughters Heather and Cara have both moved out of town the girls went on with their lives Heather got married and Barry moved on with his life and he eventually remarried every investigator always has one case that stays with them you go to bed with it you wake up with it
I never considered it a cold case because it always sat on my desk it consumes you especially in a small town when you know the people involved 3 years after Charlotte's murder a bizarre development puts the case back in the spotlight Barry was on our city council and Barry decided to run for re-election well there was a gentleman who lived in the county who decided to run against Barry the person running for city council against Barry weights at that time his name was rod spragins rod was a bel
l bindman uh he was very well known um throughout the community while on the campaign Trail Rod Spraggins makes a stunning statement in the local press Rod was quoted in the paper as saying that he was 100% convinced that very Waits they killed [Music] Charlotte 3 years after the murder of Charlotte weights Rod spragin has publicly declared that he knows who killed her Rod said Charlotte came to me in a dream told me that B's want to killed her [Music] Rod spragin gave a statement on live radio
accusing barrier of the murder and we got a lot of calls on that you know you know you got people openly saying it on the radio why can't y'all make an arrest Rod's comments raise eyebrows but police are suspicious of his motives I think it might not have been taken as seriously knowing it was Rod r fragin was a he's a con man one of those that just stirred up stuff and I don't know what his intent was but in our eyes as investigators Rod had no evidence but then Rod's rash allegation Sparks an
unexpected development in the case as talk about Barry weight spreads new rumors emerge about a hidden and disturbing side of the former mayor I kept hearing these rumors Barry was the caretaker of his mother savings account and it was my understanding that out of $100,000 there was $100 and some change left in the account we found out that his mother was actually losing her house and people are starting to look at him going man you're maybe not the person we thought that you were police decide
to take a closer look at Barry's finances as we're pulling banking records I discovered where Barry had taken $112,000 out of his mother's account put it into his personal account and spent the money and this had been prior to the murder so I think he's stealing from his mother where did the money go you know if you'll steal from your mother you'll steal from [Music] anybody further analysis of Barry's bank records lead police to suspect that Barry is hiding an illicit source of income we need t
o find out where he's stealing money from so started another side investigation into his financial dealings at work investigators interview Barry's Superior at the National Guard Armory the commander was telling me that Barry really doesn't have any any way to steal money but they're allowed to rent out the Armory for weddings and stuff like that the commander he said but he hasn't rented this thing out in quite a while investigators find that Barry had been renting out the Armory without notify
ing his superiors Barry was using his position to rent the Armory out and then he was holding the money on his own and and that actually amounted up to a pretty substantial amount Barry had worked for the National Guard Army for at least 20 years when they realized that he was stealing money from them they were in shock they couldn't leave Barry agrees to talk to police about the alleged embezzlement we went to interview him in regards to the theft he confessed right away about the theft give wa
s full statement we indicted him and he ended up working out a ple bargain agreement and he was sented to 6 months in jail with Barry temporarily Behind Bars investigators shift their focus to one crucial question could his greed and financial desperation have had something to do with Charlotte's murder just because you're a thief doesn't make you a murderer but because you need money real bad that is motive for you to kill somebody Barry's got a money issue and that's a flag police discover a p
attern of behavior that began years prior during his marriage to Charlotte at the time of the murder they were behind on several payments car payments telephone they were behind in their utility bills although we don't know where the money's going couldn't determine if Barry had a girlfriend or anything couldn't find any gambling problems no drug issues police finally uncover the nature of Barry's he hastily hides the bloody towels and dumps Charlotte's purse and then he leaves and he starts put
ting his Alibi together he then goes back to the Armory and he sends a fax and that fact is supposed to be putting him out of out of the time frame of being at at the house the time she's killed the the prosecution shows that Barry had sufficient time to commit the murder there was an hour and a half time frame from when Mr weits had left the Armory and back to the Armory when SS of facts and prosecutors prove that every other suspect had an airtight Alibi every other name every other person tha
t was mentioned we can we can eliminate them but we could not eliminate Barry later an expert rules out the possibility of of an unknown Intruder based on further analysis of the unidentified Prince at the scene the fingerprint expert says these are little kids fingerprints they don't have anything to do with this crime but Barry we's fingerprints were down low close to Charlotte weight's body finally Barry's daughters take the stand you could read it on their faces and you could hear it in thei
r voices they were 100% convinced that their dad killed their mother I after a brief deliberation the jury reaches a verdict when the jury came back guilty it wasn't relief it was just a feeling of of calm I went to her grave that afternoon and I said okay sweet girl you can rest in peace because we know that that your killer is going to pay for what he did Barry weights the former mayor of Lynette is sentenced to 40 years in prison I think at one time Barry was a person that intended to take ca
re of his family but whatever demons he had that made him burn up his family's money his mother's money consumed him overtook him and the need for money was more important than his wife's life or his daughter's love this sweet family was totally devastated by that one senseless criminal act I think Charlotte would want to be remembered as a person who loved life loved her family loved her profession every day of my life I miss her [Music] point for us because prior to the time the girls wouldn't
talk to us because the investigation was pointing to their father as time went on Heather and Cara begin to have doubts about various Innocents when Heather and Cara came forward they began to tell investigators about their dad stealing money from them the women provide a detailed account of how their father had left them Penn because of Barry being a u suspect in his wife's murder the insurance company would never pay her death benefit at some point he was able to convince the insurance compan
y to to leave the money to the daughters at that point Barry made his daughters an offer for Charlotte's Inherited property he said if you'll give me that insurance money I will give you the land so they give their dad the money but when the land dispute settled he signed over the property to his new wife and left his daughters out to drive as police dig deeper they learn how Barry had manipulated his daughters into silence the youngest girl had been being told by her father you're the main susp
ect in this case you can't talk to the police because everybody in this town believes that you killed your mother detectives also find out that Barry tried to throw police off his Trail by providing false tips he's been submitting Cara's name submitting the boyfriend's name throwing red herrings at us you're making us chase down rabbit holes now they've learned what kind of person their dad is and they said they finally realized that their dad killed her mother with the women offering to testify
against their father the district attorney reviews the evidence and decides to prosecute the case the day that we were able to have that warrant served it was a good day Barry is charged with the first-degree murder of his wife of over two decades Charlotte Waits but the case is not a slam dunk you can convict on circumstantial evidence but when you do that you have to rule out every other plausible explanation the trial begins in November of 2006 prosecutors Begin by describing how and why Bar
ry killed his wife they assert that Barry left work around 11:30 a.m. to confront Charlotte at home about her disputed inheritance so Bary left Armory went straight home to talk her out of making that settlement offer and Mary comes home and they start arguing and she says this this is my family and I'm going to do it and this is my decision then Barry turned violent and at that point he gets her it caused her nose to bleed and she wipes up with with towels and that was enough she's just getting
out of there getting away from Barry but Barry doesn't let Charlotte Escape he reaches and grabs her shirt and pulls her shirt back and starts choking her and he pulls it so tight that he absolutely strangles the life out of his weights and then he takes her and just kicks her down the steps he goes down and leans over the body to make sure that she's dead prosecutors say Barry attempted to cover up his crime he hastily hides the bloody towels a young woman with a big heart she was the most com
passionate caring captivating person I've ever met she was in a very good place in her life murdered in a terrifying attack somebody set the body on fire and left her last few minutes alive was pure hail detectives discover a secret affair they had started to develop more of a relationship we told him straight up you're the Killer and we're going to have your DNA then uncover a surprising suspect hunting for prey the night that she was murdered she had answered a call there was a note the direct
ions were to a victitious place he was trying to trick young women women a second tragedy Sparks Terror in the community we may be dealing with a seal killer I lived in fear I was terrified to go out at night before a calculating killer is ultimately revealed this is not real this can't be happening this is [Music] crazy just 90 minutes from the bright lights of Nashville Taha Tennessee is a quaint City full of Southern Charm T is a very small town everybody knows everybody your teachers at the
high school are the same teachers that taught your grandparents the community is very close-knit the people that are genuine it's a safe place to live we don't have a lot of violent violent crime in the early morning of July 2nd 2012 a Grizzly crime is discovered that sets the whole town on edge I got the call that a couple of younger people were driving down a very very rural road and they seen a fire they were going to put the fire out but when they went over there they noticed that it was a b
ody that was on fire and called 911 when I arrived at the same several other investig were there and said uh this is real bad it appeared that Foul Play was involved we wasn't sure that she was murdered at this spot it appeared that somebody may have just pulled over or backed up dumped the body set the body on fire and left there were some tire tracks we couldn't plaster cast them cuz they were in gravel I just kind of surveyed what we had there was no evidentiary value where do we go from here
First Responders extinguish the fire and investigators take a closer look at the scene as we worked our way closer to the body you started to get a sense of you know how horrible this actually was just like something you would see off of a movie this is not real this can't be happening this is crazy the victim was a young white female possibly in her 20s there was star tattoos behind each one of of her ears and there was a magnolia leaf tattoo I remember she had a shirt on it had something to d
o with the nursing technical scope she was undressed from the waist down body was partially burned and covered in so the fire was relegated to her pale thear it it led us to believe that there had been a sexual assault someone had obviously tried to burn the evidence of her body was already in rigor I would believe that she is deceased at the time of the fire what was very glar was blunt force trauma to her head you could actually feel the broken bones in the skull detectives immediately attempt
to identify the young victim there was no purse no cell phone no license no vehicle to help us identify who the victim was investigators speak to the couple who made the 911 call they didn't know who the person was they didn't see or hear anyone it was obvious almost immediately they didn't have anything to do with his homicide it was very traumatic for them they just couldn't believe it at the scene I made this suggestion to put what information we had on social media to help us identify her w
ithin a few short hours local Mother of four Kelly Sharpton sees the missing person's report posted online mom was at work and there was a post about a young girl that had been found when she came across the section that said she had star tattoos I was told that Mom screamed out in the middle of her office and then of course she called a sheriff's office she introduced herself and we started talking and and the description seemed similar the tattoos seem to match Kelly instantly heads down to th
e police station for a formal interview when we interviewed Kelly she was distraught she was crying and she identified the body in Todd's office on pictures the victim was her daughter Megan Sharpton I walked in and I immediately heard my mom sobbing and I can still hear her to this day she just said somebody killed her last night and it took me a second to figure out what she had just said and then it hit me that she was gone 24-year-old Megan Sharpton was a bright young woman with a big heart
she was genuine she was the most compassionate caring captivating person I've ever met she and I were really really really close she had the best laugh she was so fun I could count a Megan to do anything for me I knew she was always there she was absolutely hilarious very bold and but at the same time you could tell she didn't want to be the center of attention regardless of who who you were where you were from she didn't care she really truly cared for every single person Megan had decided to t
urn her caring nature into a career she was working herself you know through nursing school Megan would have been an amazing nurse she had her head on straight and was you know ready to get going with her career along with her calling Megan had also Found Love she lived with her boyfriend Chris they were together 3 to four years they had the same you know group of friends she was in a very good place in her life she had lots of goals to go on to those next levels in school in her career Megan wa
s about 2 months away from graduation she was very excited about it never in a million years did I think that somebody would kill [Music] her investigators start piecing together a timeline of Megan's last known movements I spoke to her that Sunday afternoon it was about 4:00 or 5 we would go to Mom's on Sunday and visit and have dinner and just kind of hang out as a family but that Sunday was different Megan said would be skipping dinner as she had a last minute job interview she said that she
would head to Mom's at some point but Megan never showed up later on that night she wasn't there it wasn't a concern for us we all thought okay well something else must have come up she was on her own time and we'll see her sometime tomorrow tragically it would only be a matter of hours before Megan is discovered dead and on fire I was very much in shock that day it didn't sink in that somebody killed her it was just very very hard to process in the interview Carrie and Megan's mom told us what
kind of car she drives we put a bolo out for that car when investigators asked who could have been responsible for Megan's death her sister doesn't hesitate I said Chris did it Megan's boyfriend and that is the only thing that made any sense to me he asked me why do you think Chris did it I thought Chris and Megan had a up and down relationship they were like oil and water they would be hot headed and tempered at times majority of the time that a a females killed in the United States it's someon
e that knew her as quick as we could we want to talk to him he is a very hot suspect coming up police learn Megan's love life is more complicated than it first appears another person had actually been in a relationship with Megan did a dangerous love triangle lead to Megan's death when someone is murdered like that it's got to be a jilted lover she had intended to leave him that was be a absolute motive for murder just when detectives believe they have an airtight case a new piece of evidence ch
anges everything I saw the video surveillance of that person it caught my attention big time never would I have thought it would wind up like [Music] this detectives investigating the vicious murder of 24-year-old Megan Sharpton in t Tennessee have their first suspect her 25-year-old boyfriend Chris frell Chris and Megan to me had an off andon relationship they were both very hot-headed at times and there were bumps in their relationship once Megan and Chris got together they were inseparable bu
t towards the end of Megan's life the relationship had started growing apart at that point as far as Chris is concerned it was just the only person that was with her on a daily basis that was the only thing that made sense as detectives prepare to bring in Chris for questioning a fresh lead comes in the Bedford County Sheriff's Office had located her car so I had picked up and rushed to where the car was found at the car was sitting on out in a rural area between T and Chevyville Tennessee appro
ximately 15 to 20 mi away away from the crime scene where Megan was found this an odd place odd way to leave a car the car was you know that of any young persons it was cluttery but um there was none of her personal effects investigators do find one item that grabs their attention there was a note in the vehicle in a girl's handwriting with a war Megan was going it was directions on how to get to an address the next thing was to find this address but there was no address that that fit the note t
he directions were to a fictitious place in talking to her mother I learned that she had left to go to this job was this the directions that she was given and someone lure her here with the intention of doing harm to her the way this thing was shaping up is that she was abducted where her car was found she was killed somewhere else and was found on the awalt road we just sealed that car off and sent it on to the crime lab for DNA testing investigators then head to Megan's apartment to talk to he
r boyfriend Chris the boyfriend was the first person we looked at he was distraught on the night of the murder Chris had told us that he had left for work and she had told him before he left she had accepted a job by phone that a girl she had went to school with recommended her for this job and that um she would return in the morning and in fact she didn't return and he became worried and he had reached out to her mother following up on what Megan's sister Carrie had told them detectives asked C
hris if he and Megan had been having any problems Chris described him and Megan's relationship as a good relationship that they had their ups and downs like any any body else but that he would never hurt Megan detectives are suspicious he might be hiding something why else would Megan's sister point the finger at him so readily they asked Chris to come down to the station for further questioning we interviewed Chris and he was visibly shaking when pressed about his relationship with Megan Chris
changes his story he was quite honest he said you know that didn't have the the best relationship that you know he been somewhat strained he felt like that maybe she wanted him to have a better job or maybe be more career orientated Megan was getting ready to graduate college and start her career and I don't think Chris was there at that point in his life he was still you know wanted to be Young Chris swears he had nothing to do with Megan's death Chris's Alibi was that he was at work at a local
Department Department Store where the majority of the night he's going to be on or near some sort of camera Chris tells police he left for work at 5:00 p.m. and was there past midnight but until his Alibi can be confirmed and Megan's time of death is determined he remains on the suspect list from my interview with Chris I learned that there was another person that lived in the house Robbie rosar Robbie was one of Chris's friends he moved in there at the end my first thought was Robbie hurt Mega
n that I'd never met in my life that I know you know nothing about other than what Megan told me he was a little rough around the edges but Megan loved everyone I reached out that day and I asked himim to come in Robbie was a different person Robbie was a little darker a little less happy person investigators ask Robbie Point Blank where he was when Megan was murdered Robbie didn't have an Al Robbie show us he had been texting her all night even even in the morning worried about her he said look
I'm not the killer I want you all to find out who killed Megan and he was very very adamant he wanted to prove his innocence which was a good indication for me that he didn't do this but when detectives ask Robbie about the nature of their relationship his answer leaves them stunned Robbie told me that he had actually been in a relationship with Megan that they were in fact lovers and that she had intended to leave Chris it was a shocker Megan had told me a few weeks before her murder that her
and Robbie had started to develop more of a relationship versus just friends when Chris knew about Robbie that would be a absolute motive for murder and so again that's when we thought did Chris do this you know to things got crazy and tensions got high and emotions ran high this would be a motive for [Music] homicide a day after 24-year-old Megan Sharpton was violently killed detectives suspect jealousy could have motivated her murder Megan was having an affair but did her boyfriend Chris know
when someone is murdered like that you always think it's got to be someone close to her it's got to be like a jilted lover we brought Chris back in the interview room after speaking with Robbie and we kind of dropped that bombshell on him just to see his reaction it turns out Chris did not know about the relationship Chris was upset he was visibly upset when he found out that Megan had had relations with Rob but he maintained that he still loved her and that he never heard her Chris was sincere
and I believe that was true both of them individually took polygraphs the questions asked were very pointed you know did you cause Megan's death they were very straight up they both passed when Chris and Rob's polygraph came in it moved them down on the list of suspects you can't really take them off the list of suspects they're just simply too close to the victim but it did move them down putting Chris and Robbie on the back burner detectives turn to the job offer Megan received the night she w
as killed could that have been connected to her death after the polygraph I started mulling over Chris's interview and the original nuggets that he had give me about the job he had told us that that he thought that it had come in from a girl she had went to school with previously he had said that I only remember her name is Naomi investigators search through school records and discover Megan had a classmate named Naomi Jones finding her to talk to her about the possibility that she recommended t
his job to Megan was going to be very important had this job possibly led to her death I went to Naomi's residence I knocked on the door nobody there I drag out my lawn chair and I sat in the front and I'm going to wait I'm going to get this statement today the neighbor kept looking over there like who is this crazy guy and I was like you know I need to talk to Naomi Jones he knew the Joneses well enough to have called her when talking to Naomi I said hey you know I'm Todd hman I'm with the Fran
klin Kenny Sheriff's Office I'm investigating the death of of Megan Char Naomi stated that you know she knew Megan they wasn't close she had went to school with the year before in nursing school I learned that they um rode to clinicals baby once together and she offered up the fact that her husband had drove them further talking to her I learned that she didn't really like Megan for whatever reason she was very to the point and said you know I would I wouldn't recommend that girl for anything Na
omi says she has no knowledge of Megan's job offer or her death while investigators consider their next move move the autopsy report comes in and it contains a surprising detail K's death was a gunshot wound to the face and blunt force trauma she was burned so the suit had kind of hid the wound Megan was shot with the medical examiner's office believes to be a 22 caliber round her skull was broken in several pieces it's very possible she was hit with a pistol and shot with a pistol doops reveale
d she was deceased at the time of the fire she was purposefully burned in attempt to hide evidence the autopsy indicates the fire was set shortly before Megan's body was discovered at 1:18 a.m. on July 2nd her time of death was likely before midnight her last moments alive were pretty terrifying the report also confirms what police suspected at the scene the doctor that performed the autopsy said that there was a prevence of sexual assault there was DNA present I started feeling like there could
be a resolution more quickly with that piece of evidence the DNA has rushed to the crime lab for analysis then 2 days after Megan's death detectives get another possible lead July the 4th there was a guy in the Creek Fishing who found Megan's purse along with her driver's license social security card we never did find her cell phone Megan cell is still missing but investigators order her phone records hoping they might point to her killer as the days start to pass by Megan's family becomes anxi
ous for answers 10 days after they found her body we decided to raise a reward for any information leading to the killer of Meg's case many in town begin to wonder if Megan's murder is connected to another high-profile investigation it was the same time frame as the Holly Bobo case that was going on that was a who done it just as ours it was in uh Darden Tennessee which wasn't too far from here and you know immediately some citizens would ask me do you think there's any connection as detectives
compare both cases they have a chilling realization Holly Bobo was a nursing student also she was abducted from her home I don't believe her body had been recovered we obviously had to look at the parallels was it a nursing student serial killer it's another lady it's somewhere to go you've got a killer running around who is he going to kill [Music] next two weeks after Megan Sharpton was murdered investigators are searching for a link to the unsolved disappearance of another nursing student in
a nearby town a year earlier the Holly Bobo case became a interest to us and our investigators reached out to theirs there was concern that we may be dealing with a seal killer while detectives from both cases work together to establish a link rumors sweep through the community I was terrified to go out at night I didn't like going places I wasn't familiar with and I lived in fear almost of just everyone with Megan's killer still at large the sense of loss begins to overwhelm her family I was re
ally hoping that it would be solved pretty quickly because it was consuming mom minute by minute I could feel her emptiness when Megan passed away she was never the same again it absolutely became a mission I know if it had been my child I would want somebody to have went that extra mile to work that extra hour to find the resolution to to what had happened finally 3 weeks into the investigation police get the results from the forensic search of Megan's vehicle it came back with no evidence they
didn't find anything that shouldn't have been there there was nothing of value found detectives hope tests on the DNA found inside Megan's body will yield better results her approximate time of death was before midnight so investigators Circle back to her boyfriend's Alibi he said he was working at the time that that happened Chris was working as a cashier on the evening shift we go back and pull the video he was in the store when Megan had been killed this is not our guy Chris contacts police
with a lead that sends the investigation in a New Direction the original phone call about this job opportunity came in to an older phone that Megan had Chris is able to locate the phone and shows it to detectives he was able to go back and find a number that that he believed had called proposing this job when investigators run the phone number they get a surprising result it was what we refer to as a burner phone the burner phone the fake address and the suspicious job opportunity all add up to
what detectives suspected early on she was going to a fake job interview so if we could track that phone down we could get to very possibly who the perpetrator was because burner phones don't require a registered name the number doesn't lead to anyone so I was able to at least track the phone to being sold at the department store here and I called there lost prevention person I was like well can you pull every one of these sales that was done there was like 11 or 12 boner phones purchased and we
pull video we started looking at the m and the questionable ones and uh just you know who looks like the most suspect person in these pictures one of the people paid for their phone that burner phone but they had their cell phone out on the camera and just the demeanor and and and that just really caught Todd's attention it caught my attention big time he already got a cell phone he's buying his burner phone for a reason we were able to use the the video video from the Department Store to follo
w him from the purchase out the door into the parking lot almost off camera we saw him approach a red pickup truck why would you park that far out unless you were trying to avoid detection I take the pictures of this guy and I circulate it at other departments within minutes I had an identification of who this was this guy's name was Timothy gford timy gford is a local drug dealer not the most honest person around I put the word out that I need to find Mr gford I felt like he was our guy or he w
as involved officers soon track Timmy down and bring him to the station we s him down the interview room I show him you know the picture of him buying the phone we told him straight up you're the Killer and we're going to have your DNA and Timmy was you know he was stressed out he was like you know I'll tell you everything I know I didn't do this um it wasn't me Timmy says he doesn't know Megan and denies speaking to her when challenged about the burner phone he tells police he bought it a month
before the murder for someone else he's like uh Donnie Jones I was like you got to be kid Donnie Jones was a police involment Donnie had been a bad boy for a long time he had a very long R sheet thefts and drugs Donnie Jones had served time before and he had been accused of rape before that right there was a real turning investigation at first detectives struggled to see how someone like Donnie could even be connected to Megan we find out that Donnie was married to Naomi Jones that was another
nugget that was very interesting detectives had already talked to Naomi earlier in the investigation she told police she did know Megan but she had never recommended her for a job Naomi was somebody that Megan went to school with they would carpool with each other occasionally and we found out that Naomi's husband Donnie Jones would drive them if the weather was bad Naomi's connected to a male with a criminal history and he knew Megan sharp there was a lot of aha moments in this case but that wa
s we're going somewhere we we've got something [Music] here 3 weeks after the murder of Megan Sharpton detectives are interviewing Timmy gford he tells police he bought the burner phone for Donnie Jones and divulges important details about the red truck seen in the surveillance footage Timmy gford said that the truck was Donnie's and that a few days after the murder he had replaced all that unior and I was like ooo that's probably my murder vehicle right there the carpet has been replaced it's b
een completely detailed that is a clue that you may be on the right track Timmy also tells police Donnie traded the truck to his brother a week after the murder everything is pointing towards Donnie Jones as quick as we could we got in the search for and we took the truck directly to the TBI crime lab investigators have zeroed in on Donnie as a suspect and quickly pay him a visit in his initial statement to me it was something to effect of you know I hardly know that girl I ain't never had no co
ntact with her cuz you knew up yeah I didn't know of I don't know much about her I know I knew of when was the last time you talked to m i don't talk I ain't never talk to now I take it back when my old lady was going to school one day they both needed to ride Donnie is adamant he had nothing to do with Megan's death his Alibi was he was home with the kids I'm with my kids all the time that's all I can do I got a 9mon old and seveny old twin without something concrete showing that he was home hi
s Alibi didn't hold water he could have left with the children he could have left the children with somebody detectives confront Donnie with Timmy's claims this guy said he gave you this phone and this is the number last number to call her when she was alive he said he gave a phone to me yeah he ain't gave me no phone I have nothing to hide my house yall can do it now we searched the house we didn't come up with a lot of evidence there was very little to be found Donnie also consents to provide
a DNA sample while they wait on the results detectives get the forensics back on the red truck the truck had been clean almost sanitized even the interior parts that I gathered off the search for they didn't come back with any evidentiary value Megan's family is briefed on the new developments I saw the video surveillance of that person purchasing the burner cell phone I saw somebody that none of us knew that had no association to Megan whatsoever Todd had a name of the person who that burner ce
ll phone was purchased for and I just kind of shrugged my shoulders like okay who is this guy nothing made any sense to me 4 weeks after Megan's murder the crime lab sends investigators the results of the analysis on the DNA from Megan's autopsy we got a DNA hit and the hit come back and it's Donnie Frank Jones a supervisor of mine called Donnie up and he's like hey you know I need to meet with you Donnie comes down to the station where detectives confront him I said did you and Megan Sharpton e
ver date no did you and Megan Sharpton ever ever just hook up one night stand party or something no were you were Megan Sharpton during this date you know the date of the homicide no and then uh Todd asked you know why would your DNA be inside of her and it was just his place when just couldn't believe [Music] it he got very very very irate mad after he had a moment Donnie said I just had sex with her however his initial statement of he had never been around her other than at one time kind of pu
t him in a in a corner detectives don't buy Donnie's story but they'll need something more concrete to press charges all we can prove right now is he had sex with her that was a concern of the district attorney is that you know a consensual relationship could have left that evidence behind investigators have no choice but to let Donnie go it was really frustrating for me I was in complete disbelief it was infuriating that he said it was consensual and so he was allowed to walk free as they put t
he pieces together hoping to prove who was with Megan when she was murdered detectives run a detailed search on four phones Megan's Donny's Timmy's and the burner we asked for cell phone GPS analysis they can take some technical data and plot it out on a map and show you to some certainty an area where a phone call was made we're in kind of a waiting pattern hoping for phone records for the Silver Bullet to kind of put this thing away the cell phone analysis will take weeks but investigators get
a chance to get Donnie off the streets when they discover a rifle in the trunk of his car Don's a convicted felon a convicted felon cannot possess Farms even though the rifle is determined not to be the murder weapon it's enough to arrest Donnie now detectives must establish if he killed Megan Sharpton we got him into custody we had the DNA but at the same time we needed more we need as much as we possibly could get it's all theoretical until you can prove he murdered her 4 months after Megan's
murder investigators receed the detailed phone data and find a clear link between Megan and her killer and I was just estatic it's hell yeah I met with Kelly and I told her in person I know who killed your [Music] daughter 4 months after the Savage murder of Megan Sharpton detectives have used cell phone GPS data to prove who killed the 24-year-old nursing student that's St out on the night of the murder the burner phone I will refer to it as the murder phone and Donnie's phone they were in or
about the same location Timmy's phone is not involved the murder phone and Megan's phone are talking to one another and the cell phone records will show they were coming in contact with one another and then they both stopped where her car was found and I think at that time is when she was abducted using the the cell phone data we was able to show that at first that Donnie was close to the place where we believ she was abducted at then that he was close to the place I believe that he killed her a
t and then that he was close to where the body was found Donnie's family owned several farms in that area and that's where we felt like that she was murdered they gave us permission to search that area and it's extreme L secluded Place investigators make a telling Discovery there was a burn barrel there that caught my eye I found a purple scarf with black stars on it it was later identified by her sister Carrie as a gift that she had given Megan I went from an absolute who done it to this guy mi
ght have done it to oh this guy definitely done it the overwhelming evidence is what made the da take that step to inditing I was elated I went to the Coffee County Sheriff's department and had him brought up and and I arrested him on November 5th 2012 Donnie Jones is charged with first-degree murder rape and two counts of aggravated kidnapping War an attorney that was it he had no more to say never would I have thought it would wind up like this when Donnie was charged mom um she was still pret
ty overwhelmed but it was a relief to start learning that we were going to get the details of what events led up to that day based on the evidence collected investigators piece together how Donnie lured and then murdered Megan it paints a disturbing picture of a calculating Predator so while looking into the murder phone we started backtracking all the numbers that it had called and there was a pattern everyone that was called with that phone was someone that was sitting with the elderly or doin
g some kind of Nursing inh Home Service the murder phone was used just seeking out a victim Donnie had reached out to Megan he knew well enough to go in his wife's phone and get her number out and that's how all this started she had known Donnie and his wife not close friends but knew them she answered that call from Donnie Megan was on her way to a job that didn't exist the directions she had got were not good she had to call our suspect he met her at which time he abducted her and went back to
one of the family's Farms Megan Sharon's last few minutes of life was pure hell and panic and fear he raped her and shot her Megan was beaten prior to being killed he moved her from there to where he set her body on fire to try to hide his crimes and then he went home and acted like nothing happened Donnie Jones is just a cold blooded killer sexual deviant cold blooded killer 7 months after Megan's murder Donnie Jones pleads guilty and on February 4th 2013 he's sentenced to life without parole
I feel like there will never be enough done to him he's sick he's a monster there is no reasonable explanation why he did it there was a sense of accomplishment that we moved so fast and finding out who killed her had we not have caught him he would have reoffended detectives do determine Megan's murder was not connected to the Holly Bobo case there was four people arrested in the Hol Bobo case it had nothing to do with with my case if Megan hadn't lost her life I feel very confident that Donnie
Jones would still be out trying to trick young women Megan put him behind bars for life she sacrificed her life to keep everybody else in our community safe despite getting Justice for Megan the Sharpton family suffers another tragedy just 9 months later in November 2013 mom took her life 16 months after Megan's death her heart was just incredibly broken and she made the choice she wanted to be with me [Music] yeah he essentially killed them both sure did our family time that's when I missed he
r the most I missed that laugh you just heard Meg's laugh you would be having a much better day I miss those specific moments those Milestones that she's not going to get to be a part of I thought Megan and I would be friends for you know on into adult Hood we were supposed to be together forever as best friends as Sidekicks she was not someone you could forget there was a memorial placed on the side of the road where she was found and it's this beautiful Giant star sculpture it's very cool and
Megan would absolutely love [Music] it for for for for for for
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